by Terry Fallis
“Do you arrive back here in time to make it to our ballgame?” I asked. “Hat and I will still be in Florida, so we’ll need the bodies at the park.”
“Yep, my body will be there, jet-lagged and all.”
“Great. Jesse may need a hand. I hate to miss it, but I’ll probably be judging an Ernest Hemingway lookalike contest in some Key West bar right about then.”
“I’ll talk to Jesse before I go. And I guess I’ll see you at the front entrance of Notre Dame next Saturday at noon.”
“Absolument, mademoiselle,” I said with a bow. But she was looking past me down the block.
“Um, Hem, there’s a cop on the beat coming down the street.”
“See you in Paris,” I said as I hustled back to the car, still sitting on the sidewalk, and jumped in.
Mario managed to avoid hitting anything as he pulled back onto the street, and we were off.
When I got home that night, the car still in one piece, I went directly to my storage locker in the basement and repatriated all of my Hemingway-related books and objects, and spread them around the apartment in prominent places. I stacked his books right next to my laptop on the table. I wanted to get a head start on confronting my spectral nemesis. I then stiffened my resolve further and pulled out A Moveable Feast, Hemingway’s posthumously published memoir of his time in Paris. The book was still very sparely written, but the writing seemed less affected than in his novels. And I confess it was cool to read about all those literary and artistic luminaries hanging out together in the Paris of the 1920s. I was starting to get excited about the trip.
In the days leading up to my departure, I still wasn’t able to coax any meaningful words onto the laptop screen, despite following Professor Moriarty’s direction and immersing myself in Hemingway. Perhaps it was going to take some time to complete the exorcism.
My phone rang the morning I was scheduled to depart for Toronto. My caller ID did its job.
“Hey, Sarah.”
“Hi, Hem. Are you all packed?”
“I’m pretty well set to go,” I replied. “Is everything cool in Chi-Town?”
“Well, Dad’s acting weirder and weirder. He’s keeping his office door closed all the time, now, and Henderson is with him constantly. Something is up. And Dad just looks so sad and worried all the time.”
“Well, have you asked him?”
“I can’t get close to him. I ambushed him in the parking lot the other day but he brushed off my questions and just claimed to have a lot going on right then.”
“Well, that sounds like a reasonable explanation,” I suggested.
“Hem, it’s not the same. Something is happening.”
“Then this is a great time for me to be spending a week or so on the road and away from the phone.”
“Sorry, Hem, I shouldn’t be dumping this on you just as you head to the airport. But it’s freaking me out a bit. Carlos is acting kind of strange, too, and he’s always been my rock.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. He just seems preoccupied and distant. Like he’s not quite there, you know?”
“Sarah, I’ll be back in ten days. I’ll come to Chicago and we’ll corner Dad and get to the bottom of it all. Okay?”
“You’re on,” said Sarah. “In the meantime, try not to think about all of this when you’re gone. I really hope you find what you’re looking for and that the words start pouring out of you when you’re back.”
“Thanks. Me, too.”
An hour later, I looked out the window and saw the cab pull up in front of the building. I grabbed my suitcase, made sure my passport was in my pocket, and headed out the door. My mind was a blank slate as we drove to LaGuardia. I always feel a little out of sorts when travelling and the feeling usually begins as soon as I get out of my own building. We were almost at the terminal when my cellphone chirped.
“E Hemmingway” appeared on the screen. Great. Under normal circumstances I’d just hit the button and send the call to my voice mail. But my conversation with Sarah made me hesitate, sigh, and then answer.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Yes, son,” he opened. “Look, I don’t have time to lollygag on this right now so I need an answer from you.”
“Dad, despite the fact that I now self-identify as a writer, I still am not clear on what the word ‘lollygag’ actually means. Besides, I don’t have much time either. My cab is just pulling up to LaGuardia and – ”
“This won’t take long,” he interrupted. “I know you’re leaving for a couple of weeks and I just feel this can’t wait until your return. So here it is. Is your mind absolutely and terminally made up on not, I repeat, not joining the company? I must have your answer.”
“Dad, what’s going on? What’s happening?”
“Son, it’s not polite to answer a question with one of your own. I’m giving you one final opportunity to fulfill your family destiny and come back to Chicago where you belong. I won’t be asking again.”
Part of me was relieved that this might just be the final time I’d ever have to deal with this. But another part of me was alarmed at the apparent urgency of it all.
“Dad, why the rush? Why the full-court press right now when I have a flight to catch?”
“I just need to know, once and for all, where you stand on this,” he replied in a voice that sounded older, thinner, and fainter than my father’s.
“Well, Dad, I’ve been trying for years to get you to understand and accept where I stand. I’m afraid I’m standing where I’ve always stood. I’m truly sorry but I cannot in good conscience accept a position that I know would make me miserable for as long as I held it. And it’s not just a job I’d be accepting. It’s a life. A life I’m afraid I don’t want. I’m sorry. It’s not a decision that I came to lightly. In fact it’s weighed on me for the last twenty-five years or so. So, I’m very sorry, Dad, but I have to decline. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, or what you’ve ever wanted to hear. But to me, it’s a decision that’s clear and considered.”
There was silence for a time, though I could hear him breathing.
“Okay, I get it. You don’t want it. You never have. Have a good trip.”
“Dad …”
He’d hung up. If I had to sum up his demeanour in one word, I’d go with “defeated.”
“Hey buddy, we’re here and the meter’s still running,” the cabbie said from the front seat while eyeing me in the rear-view mirror. “They won’t let me sit here much longer, you know, so you planning to get out anytime soon?”
CHAPTER 9
As soon as I got into the terminal, I sat down on my suitcase and banged out an email to Sarah to brief her on my strange call with Dad. I hit Send and looked up to see Professor James Moriarty staring down at me. He looked very professorial in a light blue Oxford button-down shirt, a brown, elbow-patched tweed jacket, and brown corduroy pants. A pair of dark brown well-worn brogues completed the ensemble. He looked like he was primed to pose for the centrefold of Cambridge Professor Emeritus Quarterly. He travelled light with only a small shoulder bag to sustain him for the next two days. I wore a pair of Levi’s and a blue golf shirt. It was hot out.
“Greetings, Earnest. You know there are chairs available just adjacent to us.”
“Hello, Professor. Yes, I did see the seats, but I’ve sat in those before and I can assure you, my suitcase is more comfortable,” I replied. “But I’m all set now. Shall we?”
I stood up, grabbed my suitcase, and rolled it toward the check-in counter with James alongside me. I always try to use the automated check-in kiosks to save yet another conversation with an incredulous Delta Airlines employee about my name. But as luck would have it, there was only one kiosk working, and it was besieged by what looked like a Little League baseball team and its harried coach.
The professor and I approached the check-in counter together.
“Passports, please,” came the expected request from the young man staffing the co
unter.
We both slid our passports across the counter. He picked up mine first and opened it. Three, two, one …
“I’ll need to see some additional ID from you, sir, if you please.”
“Of course,” I replied, handing him the birth certificate, driver’s licence, and Visa card that I’d already pulled from my wallet in anticipation of this.
“May I inquire why additional documentation is required of my friend when you already hold his passport?” asked Professor Moriarty.
“It’s just a secondary check we employ when names seem like they might be falsified or fabricated.”
“It’s okay, Professor. I don’t mind. I’m quite used to it, in fact,” I said.
“Thank you, Mr. Hemmingway,” he said as he passed back my ID along with my boarding pass. “Gate A6, boarding at 11:20.”
The Delta check-in staffer then flipped open the second passport, scanned the flight manifest on his computer screen, printed out the boarding pass, and handed everything back to the professor.
“Pardon me, if you don’t mind,” the Professor said. “Why did you not seek additional identification from me? Do you not recognize my name as potentially falsified or fabricated?”
“No, you’re good to go. Gate A6, boarding at about 11:20,” he replied.
“Well, thank you. But I should explain that in some circles, my name is even more famous than my friend’s. Good day to you.”
“Next, please,” the Delta guy said.
Our flight was uneventful and we arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport six minutes ahead of schedule. After we safely navigated Customs with only a minor furor over my name, we piled into an airport limo for the drive into downtown Toronto.
I’d never been to Toronto but I felt like I knew it from all the research I’d done in preparation for the trip. I felt I owed it to Marie, Hat, and James to immerse myself in this odyssey. Eventually, we turned south off Bloor Street onto Sherbourne Steet, pulling up in front of the Clarion Hotel. It was a lovely, somewhat ornate, old, and well-proportioned red brick building. The sign out front had a sort of down-market motel vibe, but a beautiful lobby told a different story.
“Welcome to the Clarion, gentlemen, the home of Ernest Hemingway when he lived in Toronto in the 1920s,” the clerk said in greeting.
“Is that right? Did Hemingway really live here?” I asked.
“He did indeed. Hemingway and his wife Hadley lived here while he was employed by the Toronto Star. It was called the Selby Hotel then. Some say, and who am I to disagree, that he wrote parts of his first great novel, A Farewell to Arms, right here in the Clarion.”
“You don’t say,” I replied. “Well then, this is certainly the hotel for us.”
“Could I have your name please, sir, and we’ll get you checked in.”
He was kind of staring at me, as if trying to place me.
“Certainly. Well, I guess we should get this over with,” I said. “My name is Earnest Hemmingway. No relation.”
He looked startled. I handed him my passport, Visa card, and driver’s licence to try to move things along. He scanned the documents, looked back at me, and then his eyes widened as if he were witnessing a UFO landing. Then they opened even wider as if the alien probing had begun.
“Right! I know you!” he exclaimed. “This is very cool! And I’m glad you finally got your new driver’s licence.”
I just nodded. There is no fame like YouTube fame. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
“What an awesome coincidence that you should be staying with us here at the Clarion, Mr. Hemmingway,” the clerk gushed as he pulled my reservation up on his screen.
“Awesome, perhaps. Coincidence, no,” James observed.
The clerk was still looking at his computer screen.
“Well, then I guess it’s no coincidence that you’ll be staying in the Hemingway Room while you’re with us.”
It made no sense to come all the way to Toronto and then stay in the room down the hall from the Hemingway Room. So I’d splurged when I made the online reservation and had booked the full-meal deal. I was to stay in the very room Ernest Hemingway and his wife occupied. According to a leaflet on the dresser, some of the furnishings, including the beautiful writing table, were actually used by Hemingway during his time there. It was nearly impossible for me to get any closer to the man, his memory, his ghost.
James was in an equally glorious room just across the corridor, though his was not freighted with the same literary significance.
“Okay, what’s first on the itinerary?” I asked when I met James in the lobby a little while later, though I knew exactly what we had planned. We’d worked on the schedule together.
“I think the subway is the easiest way to get to our first destination.”
Twenty minutes later we emerged at the intersection of King and Yonge streets. I checked Google Maps on my cellphone and headed west along the north side of King Street for about seventy-five yards. We stopped and stood in front of 20 King Street West. From the rather pedestrian architecture, I suspect the building was erected in the fifties or early sixties. The words “Royal Bank of Canada” were etched into the stone façade along the front.
“Is this is it?” asked James.
“This is the address, but it’s not the original building,” I explained. “In the 1920s, a brick building stood on this site and served as the headquarters of the Toronto Star, where Hemingway worked as a reporter.”
“Do you feel anything peculiar standing right here nearly a century later?”
“I’m not sure I’m supposed to feel anything.”
“We’d better go inside. The therapeutic impact may be diluted standing out here,” James suggested.
Therapeutic impact? I shrugged, and up the stairs we went into the Royal Bank of Canada building. It was a bustling bank branch with a lineup awaiting the next available teller. I had a DMV flashback, but pushed it aside.
“Are you aware of any unfamiliar sensations, now that we’re inside?”
“Come to think of it, I do feel a little uncomfortable, but I think it’s because we’re blocking the path here and people are glaring,” I replied.
“What about over here?” James asked as he moved over to a quiet corner.
I moved over beside him feeling vaguely uneasy.
“Hem, I suggest you close your eyes, empty your mind, and try to picture Ernest Hemingway coming through the door and what you would say to him.”
“You’re a man of science, Professor. I didn’t think you’d go in for this occult stuff.”
“I don’t really. But as a career academic in the endless search for truth, I make considerable efforts to keep my mind open to new possibilities. There is so much we don’t yet understand about the inner life of the human mind. The lion’s share of our cerebellum and cerebrum remains shrouded in mystery.”
So, feeling a little uncomfortable, I stood there in the one relatively quiet corner of 20 King Street West in downtown Toronto, with dozens of customers milling around, tilted my head back a bit, and closed my eyes. I snatched a quick peek and saw that James was doing the same thing beside me. Presumably, we were both attempting to empty our minds.
“It is quite an interesting feeling, I must confess,” said James in a louder voice than was necessary given my proximity to him. “I don’t really know how to describe the sensation, but it is quite markedly different from ambulating with your eyes open sustaining multiple lines of thought simultaneously. Markedly different.”
A moment or two later, I lifted my lids and stared into the smiling face of a rather large security guard. I knew he was large because my head was still tilted back yet I was making direct eye contact with him. Of course, James was just settling into his meditative trance and carried on a kind of psychoanalytical play-by-play just so he could keep me informed of his evolving mental state.
As compelling as it was, I interrupted his colour commentary.
“Um, Professo
r, I’m quite sure that it’s time for us to leave now,” I said.
The nice security guard said nothing, but nodded his agreement and then swept his hand toward the door, showing us the way out.
“Really, Hem, I’m just starting to feel something. Let’s give it a few more minutes, shall we.”
Of course, his eyes were still closed, and he rocked gently, his hands now raised above him, perhaps to catch more spiritual transmissions, but I really don’t know. My DMV flashback returned with a vengeance, skipping directly to the security guard–assisted climax.
“Um, James, I really do think it’s time we took our leave.”
I hoped Professor Moriarty had not yet emptied his mind to the point where rational thought was compromised. I took his arm and we moved toward the door.
“Thanks so much,” I said to the guard.
“My pleasure, sir,” he replied, bringing to life the cliché of the polite Canadian.
By this time, James, roused from his reverie, had instantly caught up with the more concrete developments outside of his mind.
“Yes, many thanks, indeed, sir,” James said and bowed slightly to the guard.
“Well, were you receiving any Hemingway vibes while you were inside?” James asked when we’d made it safely out to the sidewalk again.
“No, not that I’m aware of, but my hunger pangs may have been impairing my spectral sensors.”
“Perhaps because the original building was demolished to make way for this less than spectacular architectural offering, contact with Mr. Hemingway is no longer possible at this site. You may well have better luck in your own hotel room.”
“I think our work here is done,” I said. “How about we head to our second stop?”
“Capital idea. And I think we can buy a copy of today’s Toronto Star in the subway. You should at least read the newspaper that employed Hemingway.”
Just before we left, I asked a young woman walking along King Street if she would mind taking our photo standing together in front the Royal Bank of Canada building. True to its billing as a friendly city, she gladly agreed. In fact, she invited us out to dinner, though we politely declined, given our tight schedule. As she lined us up for the shot, I noticed the security guard eyeing us through the glass, still smiling.
