The Great Divide

by Cristina Henríquez

1913 SIX YEARS LATER, THE SPINE OF THE MOUNTAINS WAS SEVERED AT LAST. AT THE base of the Culebra Cut, steam shovel 222 and steam shovel 230, digging toward each other from opposite directions, met in the depths. The path had been cleared.

He was surrounded by thousands of onlookers, all of whom had come to witness the first vessel ever to pass through any set of the locks.

When the final gates opened and released the small boat, the crowd broke out in cheers. John did not. It was a tremendous achievement. Miraculous to see it operate exactly as the engineers intended it should, but even on the sunniest days, John existed in a cloud of gloom, and the most he could summon was a smile, which no one saw.

Every night the two of them ate together while Omar told Francisco the things he had learned—that the earth was 2.2 billion years old, that butterflies used their feet to taste, that the earliest poems were carved into clay—all the things he hoped to pass along to his students and in the meantime passed along to Francisco. They talked and debated and disagreed and laughed. It was always Francisco’s favorite part of the day, with the world at his back, to paddle across the bay toward the shore and go home.