Waiting For Columbus by Thomas Trofimuk Read Free Book Online Page B

not wish to have sex with him. Then my face accidentally ran into his fist, twice, and then … well, you know the rest. Thank you, by the way, for what you did. I’m in your debt.”
    “It’s nothing. You’re probably not even a Jew, are you?”
    She touches the gash on her right cheekbone. It’s stopped bleeding. She winces. “It was never about being a Jew or not being a Jew. He was only rejected and stupid.” Selena wears a long, maroon-colored skirt gathered above her waist, a blouse with tight sleeves, and no corset binds her bosom. This woman, Columbus finds out later, is a chambermaid. She’s gorgeous—apart from her injury, her skin is smooth, flawless, and her hair is an exotic tawny mane—yet she seems to have no awareness of her beauty, which only makes her more beautiful in his eyes. This is a woman with whom he would dearly love to dance—because life is also too short to dance with ugly women.
    Selena and Juan move toward Columbus’s table and Selena trips, lurches forward—falls hard. Both men can hear the dull thud of her body hitting the floor.
    “Fuck,” she grunts. “These goddamned shoes.” She pulls herself up before Columbus can even start to think about moving to help her. Hertop is covered with sawdust. Sprays of undone, sandy hair cover half her face, which is bleeding again. Still, Columbus finds himself completely enchanted by her—he feels a little light-headed.
    Salvos appears with a jug of wine and places it in the middle of the table.
    “The good stuff,” he says, smiling. He turns to leave and adds: “You drink on the house tonight.”
    They sit down and Juan pours wine all around. “The big one,” he says, “was a soldier. Not a particularly well-trained soldier but the marking on his hand is indicative of a regiment from near here.”
    “You’re very good with your sword, sir,” Selena says.
    “Please, call me Columbus. And I’m no swordsman. I’m a navigator, a sailor. I have no idea how to fight. I barely know how to hold a sword.”
    “But—”
    “Sometimes,” Columbus says, “one only needs to be quick.”

    “Surely you don’t think all women need saving? That we’re basically helpless, frail little creatures, and—” She stops, shocked at the intensity of her reaction. Her questioning mind flits to her ex-husband. Was that who Rolf was? Did Rolf save her? Or try to save her?
    Columbus smiles. It’s a warm gesture—even-tempered and innocent. Not condescending. “But Selena did need saving. It was not a nice bar. Sometimes it takes the threat of violence to stop a greater violence.”
    Consuela is immediately embarrassed. This is her patient. It’s just a story. She’s overreacting.
    “I do not think you need saving, Consuela,” he says. “But I would not hesitate if you were in trouble.”
    “I … Listen, I’m sorry. I … Of course, Selena needed some help. It was a good story. I’m curious, though. Exactly how many women does Columbus … do you, get to bed in this tale?”
    “Some other time,” he says. “We shall have to talk about passion and love, love and passion. With some women, I shared passion; others, I loved. One mustn’t confuse the two.”

    Later, at home, Consuela picks up her phone book and looks under
S
for Salvos, or any such derivation. But it wouldn’t be in the phone book anyway. Not a bar like this. Besides, he never actually named the bar. He just named the owner, or the manager. And the bar was in Valdepeñas, she reminds herself. She pulls a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, slips the point of the corkscrew into the soft cork, and starts to twist it in. She hesitates. That was five hundred years ago anyway, she thinks, before she catches herself. Jesus, Consuela, it’s a story. It’s just a goddamned story.

CHAPTER
F OUR
    It’s around this time that Columbus finds the swimming pool and
starts to swim. It’s mid-July. The temperature in Sevilla has been rising to forty-three degrees Celsius and