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“Jesus!” Relax, she tells herself, he can’t actually see you. But it’s u
He clears his throat. Swallows. “It’s time, Nurse Consuela, that I told you about how I got my ships. It wasn’t easy, you know. I want to tell you the one true and only, emphatically accurate, and undeniably authentic story of how Christopher Columbus”-he smiles a little boy’s smile, i
She has no idea about the true identity of this man. But what if we are what we believe ourselves to be? Consuela has no doubt about his belief that he is, in fact, Christopher Columbus. That’s the easy part.
Everybody knows Columbus had three ships. A couple of days after Columbus a
“I had a dream,” Columbus says. His back is to her. He’s picking at a scab of lifted paint on the windowsill-flicking at the jagged, pale-green edge. Thick woolen socks on his feet and a housecoat that is never done up constitute his only clothing. Consuela glances at this patient who is so uninterested in wearing anything but socks and a robe. She has adjusted to his oddly timed erections, which she gets to see quite often. She has become used to his body-the parts that, as a psychiatric nurse, she would not normally see. Columbus ’s erections have become common in her work world. She was fascinated, in the begi
“I had a dream,” Columbus says again, a little louder this time.
“Really! A dream! Fascinating!” Consuela is changing his sheets. She had no idea he was at the edge of a story.
Columbus smiles. “Your humor, this sarcasm of yours, becomes more and more appealing to me. I love it. In fact, your smart-assery is so witty I’m stu
She stops with a pillowcase halfway snuggled onto his pillow, looks at him with clean eyes. She quickly finishes his bed, tucking and folding back the angles with the same care she gives her own bed. He does not turn around. Remains propped sideways in the window, seated on the sill. She does not want to appear eager. It’s raining. A drizzle at best, but steady since 5 A.M. Consuela knows this because she starts work at 4:45 A.M. “Okay. Okay,” she says. “Tell me about your dream.”
The gray invades the room. The rain light seems almost a physical presence as he begins to speak, his words cutting through the gloom-his word pictures carving space.
“Perhaps,” he says, “it begins with fourteen ships embedded in a dream of a dream, tucked away inside yet another dream… And at the bottom of this illusory fu
Columbus thinks he remembers it. Thousands of cheering people, brushed clean by unreality. Everyone smelled good. There was no reeking, fetid human stench. No rotting meat. No toilet water in the streets. No boatloads of expulsed Jews in the harbor. No inquisitors lurking in the backstreets. No disease. No. This was a brilliant parting. The air was filled with flower petals. Colorful ba
At some point near the begi
They smelled it first. At dusk a warm breeze arched over them from the west. The cool underbelly scent of plants and trees wafted out to greet them, to draw them closer. Fragrances most of the men had never experienced. The scent is green and luxuriant. And there were birds. Multicolored birds circling their ships and landing in the masts. Birds with secrets, he remembers thinking.
Some of the men argued as to which one of them spotted land first. There was a substantial financial reward for being the one who first brought the news of land. In the end, the captain of the lead ship takes credit, takes the reward because he believed he was the first to see the hazy outline of land. Yes, yes, yes, the boy, Alphonso, called out that land was there, but nobody could see! They all looked and there was nothing-just the gray cloud, swirling mist, nothing! It was the captain who said “There” and pointed at it. The boy saw nothing!