The Foreign Service Journal, December 2007

he sun sparkled off the flat surface of the Florida Straits as Cuba fell from view. It was a situation I thought I had grown accustomed to in 30 years as a diplomat — sitting in an airplane as my latest home receded into the distance. Each time, I left a small part of me behind, unwit- tingly exchanged for some aspect of the local culture or a friendship destined to wane through time and distance. Perhaps this time I had left behind too much, because my heart ached and I fought back tears. I turned my gaze from the window and let my memories overwhelm me. Like the frames on an old movie reel, the images of my time on the forlorn island clattered through my mind in sepia tones and blurred lines. But then some images of a day spent in the mountains of south-central Cuba several months earlier came into focus in vivid techni- color splendor, and I let myself get lost in the memory and the revelation that the day had held for me. The morning sun had not yet crested the surrounding mountains, but already its light and the promise of a clear day reflected off the straggling remnants of rain clouds that scuttled low across the land in their retreat. I had awakened early, as usual, and took my coffee in the hotel dining room by the big picture window that looked out over the lake. Drops from the night’s rain still dotted the glass and dripped from the overhanging branches of the flame trees that framed the view; the grounds were littered with the last of the crimson blossoms knocked free during the passing storm. Ignacio, my guide, found me there, and we walked down to the boat together in silence. We rarely spoke before we were settled out on the water, and this day was no exception. Once on board, we sat hunched with our heads bowed into the cool morning wind as we moved across the water, pro- pelled by the small but efficient outboard on Ignacio’s alu- minum skiff. Ignacio knew where to take me without asking. It was the same place he took me every morning that I fished on this lake. We always started at the submerged cemetery of the long-forgotten town of Guannacanoa. As Ignacio told it, the town had been a thriving seat of local color on the shores of the Río Negro long before the river was damned to cre- ate the lake. The old town had a rich history, even boasting a casino. I pictured it as Cuba’s version of a Wild West Sodom. After the flooding, little was left of the town except the cemetery. During the long, dry summers, when the A GREAT OLD CEIBA TREE IN THE MOUNTAINS OF SOUTH - CENTRAL C UBA HOLDS A REVELATION INTO THE ISLAND ’ S HISTORY , HUMOR AND PEOPLE . T B Y M ICHAEL K ELLY This story was a finalist in the Journal ’s 2007 Foreign Service fiction contest. Michael E. Kelly is married to an FSO and lives with his family in Nuevo Laredo. In nearly a decade-and-a- half as an FS spouse, he has happily accepted any odd job that was offered him or that he could dream up. Those experiences have culminated in his current position as a school administrator, but he still aspires to be a writer when he grows up. FS F I CT I ON BURIED 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 7