The Columbus Affair: A Novel

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ALLE KEPT HER COMPOSURE AND SIMPLY STARED BACK AT THE man who called himself Brian.

“Have you and Simon ever discussed religion?” he asked.

Like she was going to answer him. “I want to eat my dinner. I’d appreciate it if you’d leave.”

“He’s a devout Orthodox Jew. You’re not. How do you get along?”

That comment surprised her. In their many discussions of Judaism, Zachariah had always talked reform. Fundamentalism repelled him. Orthodox Jews claimed to be authentic, which was insulting, he’d said, to all of the rest. She agreed. Until the 19th century, the Orthodox dominated. But not anymore. Thanks to heaven, Zachariah had told her.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Do you know much about the Simons,” he asked, “the family history? Zachariah’s father and grandfather were great supporters of Israel. They supplied money and political influence that helped form that state. They were ultra-radicals, linked to things that today you’d be prosecuted for. The Simons have been politically connected to every government elected there, always on the conservative side.”

“That doesn’t make Zachariah a radical,” she said, hating herself for even debating the point.

“I’m sure he’s tried to convince you that he’s some sort of progressive. He probably needs you to believe that in order to get what he’s after.”

The waiter returned and laid a salad before her.

She reached for her fork.

Brian’s hand came across the table and grabbed hers. “What you just did to your father was despicable.”

She flushed with anger. “Let go of my hand.”

“He’s your father. No matter what may have happened between you. To lie to him like you did is unforgivable.”

She yanked her hand free and stood from the table. Bad enough she had some regrets, she wasn’t going to listen to a stranger berate her.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Leave. But know this. You’re in way over your head and you’re going to end up dead.”

No one had ever before used the word dead while referring to her. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“You know nothing of who you’re dealing with. Simon found you for a specific purpose. He’s after something.”

He motioned to the Minerva pages still on the table.

“And it has something to do with that article.”

———

Of all the great explorers, Christopher Columbus is the most enigmatic. His birth, his character, his career, his achievements are all mysteries. No authentic portrait exists. The ones that now grace galleries around the world were painted decades after his death and conflict in the most obvious of ways. It is known that he married in 1478 and a son, Diego, was born in 1480. Either his first wife died or Columbus took Diego and abandoned her. No one seems to know her true fate. He then had a tryst with a Castilian woman who bore him an illegitimate son, Fernando, in 1488. He was close with both of his sons all of his life. Of course, Fernando favored a Spanish origin for his father, while Diego supported an Italian ancestry. Unfortunately, nothing has survived that attests to Columbus’ birthplace. The man himself spoke little of his past and wrote nothing about it while alive. Though the time of his death is certain—May 20, 1506—the year of his birth is a matter of great debate. Columbus himself said 1447 one time, 1453 another. The best guess is somewhere between August 25 and October 31, 1451. Fernando actually searched for Columbus’ relations in Genoa, Italy, but found none. Of course, Fernando’s bias toward his Spanish homeland may have colored those investigations. History, though, owes Fernando a great debt of gratitude. At his home on the banks of the Guadalquivir River, in Seville, he amassed one of Europe’s largest libraries. He also inherited his father’s personal papers. Fernando made provisions in his will to ensure that the library and papers would survive but, despite this precaution, ownership was contested for decades until eventually the books and papers passed into the hands of the cathedral in Seville. Sadly, many thousands of originals were lost before that transfer happened. What remains, about 7,000 items, is named the Biblioteca Colombina and still exists in Spain

.

History notes that Columbus maintained a daily account of his first voyage, the

Diario de a bordo

,

the

Onboard Log

.

This journal was presented to Queen Isabella on his return, and the queen herself commanded a scribe to prepare an exact copy. But by 1554, both the original and the copy were gone. Fortunately, before they vanished, the copy passed through the hands of Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas who used it to produce

El libro de la primera navegación, The Book of the First Navigation

—or, as it’s generally known today

,

The Journal of Columbus

.

But again, there is no way to know if de las Casas’ creation is either complete or accurate. In short, no authentic, firsthand account of Columbus’ first voyage exists. Even worse, the chart Columbus used to guide his path has also been lost, that map not seen since the early 16th century

.

His youth is also entirely unaccounted for. An Italian lineage does not concur with reality since he always wrote in Castilian, not Italian. He possessed no discernible educational

background, yet he was clearly schooled. Fernando wrote a biography stating that his father attended the University of Pavia, but Columbus himself never mentioned that fact. This omission is curious given that he spent the better part of his adult life trying to convince the monarchs of Europe that he was qualified to spend their money on a voyage west, across the unknown sea. The fact that he possessed a university degree would have been an excellent way to raise his prestige with scholars the various crowns appointed to assess his proposal

.

Ironically, his entire ocean venture was based on an error—that the western shores of Europe lead to the eastern islands of Asia. The modern belief that people of that time thought the earth was flat is fiction. Since the Greeks all mariners knew the earth was a sphere. The unknown was what lay beyond the western horizon, out of sight of land, where nothing but water abounded. In reality, Columbus did not discover America since millions of people already lived there. He was not the first European to set foot on its soil since the Vikings accomplished that feat centuries earlier. He was, instead, the first European to place the New World on the map, though to his way of thinking he actually placed it in Asia

.

From an early age I listened to tales of Columbus. Both my grandfather and great-grandfather were fascinated by him. Many myths are associated with the man, but none more romantic than the notion that he came to the New World for a purpose other than profit. His

La Empresa de las Indias, The Enterprise of the Indies

,

was openly geared toward gain. The idea had been to discover, then to exploit what was found. But some say Columbus possessed other motives. What those might have been vary. Much has been made of the fact that not a single priest accompanied him on the historic first voyage. Yet he did bring along a Hebrew translator named Luis de Torres. History has never been able to supply an adequate explanation for that, but conspiratorialists have not been as hampered

.

Another tale that has gained momentum through the centuries is one I heard as a child concerning Columbus’ lost gold mine. By 1600 Spain had tripled the amount of European gold that had been in circulation prior to Columbus’ first voyage. A story developed of how Columbus found a mine on Jamaica but concealed its location from everyone, including the Spanish Crown. My grandfather was fascinated with the story and told me about it, along with introducing me to Columbus’s signature

.

It is unusual, to say the least—a cipher that has never been decoded. Why did he not simply sign his name? Why a triangular-shaped series of letters that could mean almost anything? And why the hooked X’s that appear in two locations? My grandfather always alluded to this but never explained the significance. As with so much else, we simply do not know the real story. But it is hard not to become enthralled. I know I did. So much that the subject of Christopher Columbus has formed the basis of my academic life

.

Zachariah stopped reading Alle Becket’s article. He’d fished it from his satchel to refresh his memory.

Thankfully, he maintained a worldwide watch for any mention of Christopher Columbus. Google Alerts and similar referral services kept him abreast of anything pertaining to that subject.

One day an article in Minerva had flagged.

Most of it was nothing new, but two words grabbed his attention.

Hooked X’s.

Only a few people in the world knew to use that phrase in conjunction with Christopher Columbus.

So he’d located Alle Becket.

Now he’d found Tom Sagan.

Clearly, he was in the right place.

And tomorrow he’d be inside the Levite’s grave.