by Terry Fallis
Five subway stops north left us at the major Toronto intersection of Bloor and Yonge streets. We walked a couple more blocks north and then a few to the west and found ourselves in the middle of Yorkville, a very tony shopping district. Eventually we made our way to, yes, Hemingway’s Restaurant and Bar, on Cumberland Street. When James and I were planning the trip, we’d decided we couldn’t pass up visiting this establishment. Perhaps we should have done a bit more investigation.
Don’t misunderstand me. Housed in a modern building with a lovely outdoor patio, it was a very nice place with friendly staff, great food, and a seemingly endless selection of alcoholic beverages, many of which we tried. But to call the restaurant’s link with Hemingway tenuous was to endow the word with far more substance than it really deserved. In fact, the positioning statement for the restaurant, emblazoned on coasters, napkins, and the sign out front, was “Little New Zealand in Yorkville.” I’m not sure Ernest Hemingway ever made it to New Zealand. It seemed that the restaurant’s only tie to Hemingway was that the writer once roamed the streets of Yorkville in the twenties. We stayed anyway.
“I have concluded that you and I have had different experiences living with famous names,” said James. “I concede that the burden you have borne has been greater than mine. I’m convinced of it.”
“What makes you say that?” I asked, the vodka and orange juice starting to close the fuzzy curtains in my brain.
James raised his single malt scotch, Balvenie it was, and looked through the amber liquid.
“You see, young Hem, your famous name is universally famous. Very few sentient beings, at least in the Western world, are unfamiliar with Ernest Hemingway. He is recognized perhaps as much as any other human being in history, with the possible exception of the Pope, the Queen of England, Adolf Hitler, and Elvis Presley. While a considerably smaller number will have actually read any of Hemingway’s words, virtually everyone can identify him as one of the great writers of this, or any other, century. Are you with me thus far?”
“Yes, very few fair-minded observers could disagree,” I replied. “Carry on.”
“My own name is famous, too. In fact, as I observed to our friendly Delta check-in chap, among a very select and much smaller population, its fame would rival that of Hemingway’s. But the point is, the share of the world’s population that has ever heard of Professor James Moriarty, let alone knows who he is and his particular place in the history of letters, is minuscule compared with those who instantly place Hemingway in the pantheon of literature. Our respective levels of namefame, as our friend Jesse Owens might put it, are on completely different planes.”
“I’m not certain how planes suddenly came into the discussion, but through what singular series of events did you come by your name, anyway?” I asked. “I’ve been seriously curious about that ever since you showed up at the Y that night.”
I tend to pronounce the phonetic sound s as sh when I’ve had a few drinks, or when I’m doing my very bad Sean Connery impression. “Certain” becomes “shertain.” “Suddenly” become “shuddenly.” In this instance, I was not doing Sean Connery. James didn’t seem to notice.
“My parents were not well educated. My father was a miner in the north of England and my mother did what women of that era did. She kept the house, raised the children, and left the light on so my father didn’t break his neck on the stairs after returning from the pub, almost every night. Neither were avid readers. In fact, I’m not clear on whether my father actually could read. I know my mother could, but it didn’t occupy much of her spare time. Frankly, she had very little time to herself.”
James paused for a moment to take a draw on his single malt.
“Moriarty is not that uncommon a name in the part of England from which I hail. Neither is James uncommon. In fact, had Conan Doyle never created Sherlock Holmes, the name James Moriarty would strike the mind and the ear as wholly natural, commonplace, and ordinary.
“My poor parents simply had no knowledge of literature’s most infamous and diabolical villain. It was well beyond their ken. It was eventually brought to their attention when I was about four years old. They were amused, and not at all concerned. By then, it was too late anyway.”
“So who is the fictional Professor Moriarty? I really haven’t read many of the Sherlock stories.”
“Shame on you, Hem,” he chided. “It is some of the very best writing you’ll ever read. As for Professor James Moriarty, well, simply put, he is evil incarnate. There are many famous villains in literature, but none as bereft of mercy yet blessed with intelligence as he. The sophistication, reach, and complexity of his demonic vision have no equal in life or literature. Mercifully, he exists only in Conan Doyle’s writing, and not nearly as often as his malevolent presence might suggest. Moriarty and his criminal hegemony appear in only two of the sixty Holmes stories and are fleetingly referenced in only five others. Yet he casts a pall over the entire Holmes canon.”
“He sounds like a lovely guy,” I said. “But there is also a similarity in our plights. We have some common ground that most of the others in our little group don’t share, except perhaps Marie Antoinette.”
“I await enlightenment,” James replied.
“Well, I carry the name of a famous writer, yet I want nothing else than to be a writer myself, as masochistic as that sounds. You bear the name of a notorious character from the pages of the most famous detective stories in history. Yet you have immersed yourself in the world of Sherlock Holmes and dream of being invited to join the ranks of … what are they called again?”
“The Baker Street Irregulars.”
“Right, the most respected organization dedicated to understanding and honouring the world of Sherlock Holmes. So, whereas many people living with famous names run from the world of their namesake to escape their burden, you and I, on the other hand, have run directly into the big bright light.”
The silence that greeted my comment eventually caused me to look over at James. He was staring at me, faintly nodding his head. I couldn’t see any smoke issuing from his ears, but he was clearly deep in thought. The silence endured a little longer.
“That, dear boy, is an utterly fascinating insight sprung from a very thoughtful and fertile mind.”
“Ah, but it’s a fine line that separates a fertile from a febrile mind, don’t you think?” I asked rhetorically.
I downed the last of my screwdrivers in one chug. I knew it was my last, because I no longer had feeling in my lips. What I didn’t know was how many had come before it. It was time to go.
“One final question,” I said. “Do you think James Bond could defeat Professor Moriarty?” I asked.
“I’m afraid, dear boy, that you have just crossed over to the febrile side of the line.”
Yes, it was definitely time to go.
Despite the previous night, I was awake at 6:45 the following morning. I’d forgotten to close the curtains so the morning light was doing what morning light does in such circumstances. My head was a little heavy, but not nearly as foggy as I expected it would be. It was very quiet. The room was wonderful. I had just passed an entire night in the very room Ernest Hemingway occupied so many years ago. He not only occupied this room, he wrote here, made love to Hadley here, read here, ached for Paris here. He lived here. And now I had lived here, for one night. And I’d done it in the fashion Hemingway was said to have spent far too many of his nights. I drank too much, stumbled home, and flopped. And now, the morning after, as it was so often for him, it was time to write.
I grabbed my laptop and placed it very gently on the writing table, as if the famous furniture might be offended supporting anything other than a Moleskine notebook and a sharpened pencil, or perhaps an ancient Underwood. A freestanding, framed photo of Hemingway eyed me from the corner of the table. I sat down in the chair, as he had nearly a century before, and slid myself into position, as he surely had. I turned on the vintage reading lamp, as he had. I placed my fingers on the keyboa
rd, as he had on his typewriter. Then, awash in the history of the moment, I sat there for forty-five minutes straight, my best intentions and desires falling away, and wrote not a single word. Not one. It was not that the exorcism was failing, I told myself. It was just too soon. It was not yet time.
I surrendered and signed onto the Clarion’s Wi-Fi network, not something Hemingway ever would have done. I grazed the Internet and researched a revised schedule for the day ahead before I was to cab it back out to the airport for my overnighter to Charles de Gaulle Airport.
“I have a plan for today that departs somewhat from what we originally mapped out,” I said as we finished breakfast.
“What have you got in mind?” said James. “I want to make sure we get to the Connable house, where the man initially lived when he arrived in Toronto.”
“Professor, let’s be logical about this. I’ve just spent an entire night and early morning in Hemingway’s room. I sat at the very table at which he wrote. I’ve been closer to him here than I could be almost anywhere. I really think there’s little to be gained by standing on the sidewalk staring at a house that Hemingway lived in for a very short time and didn’t even like. I spent the night in Hemingway’s room. Everything else pales.”
I told him my idea, and after a gentle debate, James acquiesced. I made a couple of quick calls while James went to check out. Then we were off. As luck would have it, the walk from the Clarion to the Toronto Reference Library consumed all of eleven minutes. A member of the library’s staff met us at the front counter and gave us directions to a gallery in another part of the building.
It was obvious to anyone who might have been looking our way that Professor James Moriarty was excited. His arms were snapping as he walked. We turned a corner and down the hall could see a sign on the wall proclaiming “Adventures with Sherlock Holmes.” As soon as he saw it, he quickened his pace and left me in his dust. He was already poring over the showcases when I entered the room. Apparently, the Toronto Reference Library held one of the most extensive collections of Arthur Conan Doyle artifacts anywhere in the world. Only a small portion of the collection was on display, yet James was spellbound. There were some original manuscript pages in Conan Doyle’s own hand, along with letters he’d written. There were also first editions of the Holmes collections and several copies of The Strand magazine in which the Holmes stories initially appeared in the late 1800s. It would take several pages to enumerate all the Conan Doyle treasures offered in what seemed to me to be an all-you-can eat Sherlockian buffet. It took an hour and a half before James was sated. I suspected that if I hadn’t been with him, he would have stayed all day.
“What a magnificent collection,” he bubbled. “I was hoping to get a chance to visit. Very kind of you to propose this in the middle of a trip that was to be all about you and Hemingway.”
“James, I slept in Hemingway’s room. Short of meeting him, I think we’ve achieved our goals for the Toronto stop.”
James swept his arm to take in the whole room.
“I imagine all of this does not have the same hold over you as it does over me.”
“On the contrary, I think it’s all quite fascinating. In fact, you’ve inspired me to read the Holmes stories.”
“Excellent. We’re always looking for new and younger recruits!” he replied. “You know, you can download all the stories and the four novels on your newfangled tablet device for free, as they are now all in the public domain.”
“Good to know,” I said. “James, if you think you’re nearly done exploring this Holmesian cornucopia, there’s one more stop we should make, and there’ll be food.”
“Splendid. I’m ready to venture forth,” he said. “What’s on our itinerary now?”
“Lunch at the Duke of Kent. It’s a handful of subway stops north of here.”
“Lead on.”
We thanked the librarian on the way out and were back on the subway a few minutes later. The Duke of Kent is on the southeast corner, one block north of Yonge and Eglinton. As you might infer, it’s a pub, serving, yes, pub fare. I didn’t really know if it was well known for its food. The man I’d spoken to on the phone this morning had proposed it. He was waiting at a table for two wearing the paisley cardigan he’d warned me about.
“Mr. Hemmingway?” he said as he rose. I reached out my hand and we shook. “I’m Barclay Grant.”
“You’re Barclay Grant? The Bootmakers of Toronto?” James piped up.
“None other.”
“You wrote that brilliant piece about The Five Orange Pips in the BSJ, what, two years ago now?”
“Very impressive, Professor. You’re right,” Barclay replied. “And though I never thought I’d ever say this, you must be Professor James Moriarty?”
James’s jaw dropped as they shook hands. He kept looking from Barclay to me and then back to Barclay. It was nice to watch his dawning understanding.
I’d discovered a reference to The Bootmakers of Toronto when I’d been surfing the Internet that morning in search of the Sherlock Holmes exhibition at the library. Barclay Grant led what was, apparently, one of the leading societies devoted to literature’s great detective. I had no idea that James would also know of the organization, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
After a demolishing a plate of what the Duke of Kent pub claims is its “famous bangers and mash,” I left James and Barclay deep in debate while I walked back down the street to the Starbucks we’d passed earlier. When two deeply steeped Sherlock Holmes experts get together, it’s probably best just to leave them to it. So I did.
I ordered a double tall latte and sat down in the leather armchair that had just been vacated. It was still warm. I pulled out my iPad mini and confirmed that my flight to Paris that evening was still scheduled to leave on time at 8:15. I also checked my Gmail account and amid the spam was a response to my airport email to Sarah. It was short.
Thanks for the update. I’m not surprised he called. Have a great trip, but don’t dawdle coming home. Dad is acting mega-weird right now and is still holed up in his office with a few suits coming and going. Not sure what’s happening. Do not, under any circumstances, change your travel plans. This will keep for a week, but head for Chi-Town when you’re back. Sarah
I called her but only got her voice mail.
I wanted to give James and Barclay some more time, so I called up Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast on my iPad mini and turned my thoughts to Paris.
On the way to the airport, the cab driver stopped for a moment on Bathurst Street, south of Eglinton Avenue, so I could see the apartment house Hemingway and Hadley had lived in for most of their time in Toronto. Gold script on a green awning out front now announced the building as The Hemingway. I got out of the taxi and pressed my hands against the brick wall just adjacent to the entrance. Hemingway would have touched these same bricks in 1923, perhaps after a night of drinking, bracing himself as he pulled open the front door. I felt nothing. I slipped back into the cab and we were off again.
At the airport, Professor James Moriarty and I shook hands. Our respective gates were at different ends of the terminal.
“Hem, I must say I’m overwhelmed with the day. Taking it upon yourself to track down Barclay Grant and arranging lunch for us was an act of kindness and generosity I’ll not soon forget,” said James as he gripped my hand for much longer than your garden-variety shake.
“It was nothing. We did the Hemingway thing, and it was great, but we had extra time. Don’t give it a thought.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out a paper stapled in one corner.
“I gave Barclay a copy of this new paper I’ve just written about “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” one of my favourite stories in the canon. I’ve just submitted it to The Baker Street Journal and am hanging on tenterhooks awaiting their response. I’d like you to read it, if you feel so inclined.”
“Thanks, James. I have a long flight ahead of me so I’m glad to have it,” I answered. �
�And I’m glad your lunch with Barclay was enjoyable.”
“Enjoyable? It was dazzling. He has a fine mind for Sherlock. I’m thrilled to have met him. And it is you I have to thank.”
Then James put both his hands on my shoulders as if he might be about to bestow upon me a heartfelt head butt. He smiled and fixed me with a rather intense gaze.
“Sincerely, I thank you for a wonderful visit to a lovely city,” he said.
I felt a rush of warmth for this thoughtful, kind man.
“James, I’m supposed to be thanking you,” I replied. “It meant a lot to me that you came up with this idea in the first place, and that you wanted to come along for the ride. It’s been a great couple of days, and I won’t forget it.”
“Now steel yourself for what lies ahead,” James said with considerable gravity. “Hemingway was never more formidable than he was in the Paris years. He hated Toronto. But he loved Paris. Confronting him on his home turf, in the City of Lights, may not be so easy. Godspeed.”
A final squeeze of my shoulder and he was off.
CHAPTER 10
I realize I’m not the first to make this observation, but, um, there really is something about Paris. For many visitors, certainly for me, there’s a vibe in the city that transcends the history, the architecture, the people, the pure and unalloyed significance of this special place. I can’t describe it, but if you were in Paris with me, I think you’d know exactly what I mean. You would.
I took a cab from Charles de Gaulle airport directly to Hôtel de Buci, located, appropriately, on rue de Buci in the heart of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. What a lovely little hotel. I’ve stayed there before and have never had call to try anywhere else. The location is perfect. The staff is wonderful. The rooms are charming. And the price is at least reasonable and, I think, worth every euro. You see, I’ve been to Paris several times over the years. It took a few exploratory visits before I knew that Saint-Germain was my favourite part of the city and where I would always choose to stay. It’s also where Hemingway spent much of his time, living, loving, writing, fighting, and drinking, in the Paris of the 1920s. I’m sure it was just a coincidence that we both preferred Saint-Germain. Yeah, that’s it, a coincidence.
