CAMAGÜEY.- Today I invite you to go back in time, to the 1970s, take your hand strongly with mine and let us arrive at a singular day in our native Camagüey.

Let's go back to the minute that Nicolás arrived at the Ignacio Agramonte airport again, he got off the plane happy. He took the handrails of the ladder, to push his legs faster. As I watched him, his white hair looked like a flag fluttering in the wind. He smoothed his hair, in a reflex action and seemed to look for someone he knew with his eyes.

Thanks to the complicity of the guards who knew me, I had come out onto the landing strip and was standing right at the bottom of the steps. As Nicolás looked into the distance, he did not distinguish me so close. He was surprised by my hand taking his, he made an unconscious gesture of surprise, he rejected me, but when he recognized me, he held on to my arm with force, and burst out laughing.

Guillén had arrived in Camagüey unexpectedly, but his wife, Rosa, had called me hours before to tell me the "secret." The poet wished to visit me unannounced in our hometown. She couldn't accompany him and she didn't want him to be alone. So the greeting was a joke:

What are you doing here? Nicolás asks me in my ear and I, without denouncing Rosa, tell him:

I work, and you? Were you planning to meet another person here? “I saw you as you watched from afar.

-Jealous? - he said laughing.

- I'm not, but your unannounced arrival gives me a lot to think about.

- I wanted to surprise you, did I succeed?

- Yes, now we have to use the newspaper car, because I haven't been able to rent a suitable car for you. Also, I have to attend a cultural reception with the Romanian ambassador.

- But can we eat together? - He asks me, not hesitating my positive answer.

- Perhaps,- I replied with smiling seriousness and I added: "You know, sir, that I don't have it on my agenda.”

- Not even a little while together? - He asks and looks at me with complicit mischief.

- Well, I'm going to call the house so they can pick up the children from the kindergarten and tell Jesus, my husband. Let's go to the Grand Hotel, shall we?

We laughed happy to see each other again. I felt his desire to do mischief. And my instinct told me of something greater, in his intentions. After the formalities required at the hotel previously contacted by his secretary Sara, we went to the restaurant, the conversation flowed as usual. He told me about his assignments, his trips and his projects. So, he reached out his hand and handed me a manuscript:

I want you to read it and tell me your opinion.

The children's poetry book, which you told me about recently?

Yes, I think it will be called: A paper boat walks through the Antillean Sea.

I then realized his intention. His surprise was precisely that. We had talked so much on the phone about the work that he wanted to show it to me before publishing it. OMG! What could I tell him? I trembled with excitement. How to thank him for that courtesy? My eyes filled with tears and he smiled. He took my hand across the table and shook it. It was like a kiss, his fingers, though strong, were very soft to the touch. I didn't know what to do, the crying struggled to come out, but since we had finished eating, I made the decision to leave. I argued that I should leave quickly, because I had to work. With broken words, still from the intimate feeling and the sensation of his desire to remain united, I said without much thought:

Do you want to go with me?

No, Margarita, you know I can't do it, because of the protocol, I'm not invited and it would look bad to get there like that, remember that now it's not the same...

It was true, Guillén was, in addition to the National Poet, a member of the Central Committee of the Party and a Deputy to the National Assembly, his attendance at any act had another connotation, especially in an activity like that, with the presence of a foreign ambassador. Protocol issues are like this, what could we do? I parted from him quite embarrassed and the look on his face was also sad.

The opening of the exhibition was very close to the Gran Hotel, in the Ignacio Agramonte Culture’s House. An old house located in what was then Estrada Palma street, and La Soledad square, in front of the well-known by Camagüey’s citizens Pizzería del Gallo. This place is very central, a common step for many towards other arteries of the old town. In this area converge the main streets, exit and entrance to the heart of Camagüey.

People come and go along its sidewalks, exchanging the usual boring greetings. Therefore, it is not strange that a while after my arrival, waiting for the beginning of the act, I saw the unmistakable gray hair approaching the open window of the place. In full view of the others, Nicolás Guillén “accidentally” passed by on the sidewalk. Under the general astonishment the poet said: «Abur!».

Everybody get out on to warmly greet the poet. The organizers of the event and the leaders of the province were amazed by his visit to the city. No one had been alerted to his arrival. Without much preamble they invited him to participate, explaining the details of the activity. At that moment, the ambassador and his retinue got out of the official car with his little Romanian flag in the front. Guillén then "could not refuse to enter." And he had to preside over the party.

Of course I greeted him, adding to the general amazement at his presence. During the toast I made an aside with the cultural attaché and Guillén approached smiling. He didn't want a stranger to take away his supremacy with me, he said something like that to the visitor and I blushed, without answering. The talk lasted for a couple of hours, and then I accompanied him to the hotel so he could rest from the trip with the promise of seeing each other again soon.

The photos of that day remain as witnesses, taken by a photojournalist from the newspaper Adelante, with our faces as “urchins”, where I hold against my chest the manuscript of his book “Por el Mar de las Antillas...” the collection of poems written by Guillén, for children of legal age, which was illustrated by the cartoonist and filmmaker Constante "Rapi" Diego, in its first edition.

Thanks to the readers of Adelante, for accompanying me through the magic of time.

Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez