Papa Hemingway

by A. E. Hotchner

  "But you never got a chance to try it out?"

  "No, but we were able to send in good information on U-boat locations and were credited by Naval Intelligence with locating several Nazi subs which were later bombed out by Navy depth charges and presumed sunk. Got decorated for that."

  "Was Gregorio along?"

  "Sure. I explained to the crew the dangers involved, since Pilar was no match for any U-boat that wanted to blast it, but Gregorio was very happy to go out because we were insured ten thousand dollars a man and Gregorio had never figured he was worth that much. Quarters very cramped but crew got along fine. No fights. One tour we stayed out fifty-seven days."

  "Feesh! Feesh, Papa, Feesh!" Gregorio was calling from the stern. We looked quickly starboard; I saw brown flashing that turned to dark purple, pectoral fins that showed lavender, the symmetry of a submarine. "Marlin," Ernest said, "let's go." He took hold of the topside rail and swung himself down. Gregorio handed him the rod with the meat bait. "Ever boat one of these?" Ernest asked.

  "Never been deep-sea fishing."

  "Then cut your teeth on this," he said, handing me the rod. I felt a touch of panic. Here was one of the world's great fishermen, a lightning-fast marlin whose size I couldn't believe, a big, complicated rod and reel—and here was I, who had never caught anything larger than a ten-pound bass out of my friend Sam Epstein's rowboat off Southold, Long Island.

  But I had not reckoned with a quality of Ernest's I was to observe and enjoy many times over the ensuing years: his superb skill at instruction and his infinite patience with his pupil. In a quiet, even voice Ernest guided me every step of the way, from when to pull up to set the big hook in his mouth to when to bring him in close to be taken. A half hour later we were looking down at the beauty of that boated marlin; "We just might have a new syndicat des pecheurs—Hotchner and Hemingway, Marlin Purveyors," Ernest said. I realized that he had tentatively knighted me as a potential co-adventurer; for thirteen years it was to be an invigorating, entertaining, educational, exasperating, uplifting, exhausting, surprising partnership.

  As we returned from the boat to the Nacional, Ernest made his first and only reference to the note I had sent him on The Future of Literature. I was going back to New York the following morning, and we were shaking hands on the sidewalk in front of the hotel. "The fact is I do not know a damn about the future of anything," he said.

  I was startled by the abrupt reference. "Oh, sure, just forget . . ."

  "What are they paying?"

  "Fifteen thousand."

  "Well, that's enough to perk up The Future of Literature in itself. Tell you what—send me tear sheets or manuscripts of what any of your other master minds have written so I get the pitch. Also a contract. If it still legally checks out that pieces contracted for by a bona-fide nonresident and written outside the States are tax-free so long as the nonresident stays out of country twelve consecutive months, then will write a good straight piece about what I think and will try to straighten up and think as good as I can."

  Over the years, with the exception of 1956 and 1957, when I was living in Rome, I visited Ernest in Cuba at least once a year, often more, and daiquiris at the Floridita, pigeon shoots, excursions on the Pilar, and days at the finca became familiar. There was often a "business" reason behind these Havana trips and other trips to meet Ernest elsewhere in the world, but his approach to dealing with business matters was widely circuitous. He invariably allotted a minimum of two days to "cooling out"—I from the trip, he from working or if not working, then from some mysterious pressure he never clearly identified. We would cool out by indulging in the local distractions—if in Cuba, fishing, shooting pigeons, attending jai-alai matches and betting on them, matching Ernest's stable of fighting cocks and so on; if in Ketchum, Idaho, the cool-out was hunting the wild duck, goose, pheasant, elk, deer, dove, chukker, Hungarian partridge, and cooking and eating same; the Spanish cool-out was all aspects of bullfighting, the Prado, touring, eating, drinking and joining the ambiance. I said the minimum was two days.

  The maximum? I went to Spain in June, 1959, to discuss a series of Hemingway-based special dramas that I was destined to write and produce for the Columbia Broadcasting System. I met Ernest in Alicante on June 28th, and on August 17th, as we were riding back from the bull ring, he said, "Been thinking about those television plays. Let's talk about them."

  Six months after my first visit I returned to Havana. The fifteen thousand dollars had been advanced but the article on The Future of Literature had not been written. Instead, Ernest had an alternate idea that he wanted me to come down to discuss. The little town of San Francisco de Paula, where Ernest's Finca Vigla (Lookout Farm) was located, was itself a poverty-stricken shambles. But the Hemingway property was fence-enclosed and consisted of thirteen acres of flower and vegetable gardens, a cow pasture with a half-dozen cows, fruit trees, a defunct tennis court, a large swimming pool, and a low, once-white limestone villa which was a bit crumbled but dignified. Eighteen kinds of mangoes grew on the long slope from the main gate up to the house that Ernest called his "charming ruin." Immediately in front of the house was a giant ceiba tree, sacred in voodoo rites, orchids growing from its grizzled trunk, its massive roots upheaving the tiled terrace and splitting the interior of the house itself. But Ernest's fondness for the tree was such that despite its havoc, he would not permit the roots to be touched. A short distance from the main house was a white frame guest house. Behind the main house, to one side, was a new white gleaming three-storied square tower with an outside winding staircase.

  The walls of the dining room and the nearly fifty-foot living room of the main house were populated with splendidly horned animal heads, and there were several well-trod animal skins on the tiled floors. The furniture was old, comfortable and undistinguished. Inside the front door was an enormous magazine rack that held an unceasing deluge of American and foreign-Ian-guage periodicals. A large library off the living room was crammed with books that lined the walls from the floor to the high ceiling. Ernest's bedroom, where he worked, was also walled with books; there were over five thousand volumes on the premises. On the wall over his bed was one of his favorite paintings, Juan Gris' "Guitar Player." Another Gris, Miro's "Farm," several Massons, a Klee, a Braque, and Waldo Peirce's portrait of Ernest as a young man were among the paintings in the living room and Mary's room.

  In Ernest's room there was a large desk covered with stacks of letters, newspapers and magazine clippings, a small sack of carnivores' teeth, two unwound clocks, shoehorns, an unfilled pen in an onyx holder, a wood-carved zebra, wart hog, rhino and lion in single file, and a wide assortment of souvenirs, mementos and good-luck charms. He never worked at the desk. Instead, he used a stand-up work place he had fashioned out of the top of a bookcase near his bed. His portable typewriter was snugged in there and papers were spread along the top of the bookcase on either side of it. He used a reading board for longhand writing. There were some animal heads on the bedroom walls, too, and a worn, cracked skin of a lesser kudu decorated the tiled floor.

  His bathroom was large and cluttered with medicines and medical paraphernalia which bulged out of the cabinet and onto all surfaces; the room was badly in need of paint but painting was impossible because the walls were covered with inked records, written in Ernest's careful hand, of dated blood-pressure counts, and weights, prescription numbers and other medical and pharmaceutical intelligence.

  The staff for the finca normally consisted of the houseboy Rene, the chauffeur Juan, a Chinese cook, three gardeners, a carpenter, two maids and the keeper of the fighting cocks. The white tower had been built by Mary in an effort to get the complement of thirty cats out of the house, and to provide Ernest with a place more becoming to work in than his makeshift quarters in his bedroom. It worked with the cats but not with Ernest. The ground floor of the tower was the cats' quarters, with special sleeping, eating and maternity accommodations, and they all lived there with the exception of a few favorites l
ike Crazy Christian, Friendless' Brother and Ecstasy, who were allowed house privileges. The top floor of the tower, which had a sweeping view of palm tops and green hillocks clear to the sea, had been furnished with an imposing desk befitting an Author of High Status, bookcases, and comfortable reading chairs, but Ernest rarely wrote a line there—except when he occasionally corrected a set of galleys.

  On this first visit to the finca my wife and I were to be quartered in the guest house, but Mary Hemingway, a golden vivacious woman, greeted us with apologies that it was not quite ready. "Jean-Paul Sartre showed up unexpectedly yesterday with a lady friend," she said, "and the sheets haven't been changed yet."

  On our way up to the main house Ernest confided: "You know what Sartre told me at dinner last night? That a newspaperman made up the word 'existentialism' and that he, Sartre, had nothing to do with it."

  We went into the living room and Ernest looked up at the ceiling a moment. "The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were here last week but they only seemed fascinated by the falling plaster."

  I noticed that Ernest had three long, deep scratches on his forearm and I asked about them. "Cotsies," he said. "They had a circus pitched near here with two good five-year-old cats. Brothers. It was wonderful to hear them roar in the morning. Made friends with the trainer. He let me work them and I worked them good with a rolled-up newspaper, but you have to be careful not to turn your back.

  "Have a wonderful number to do in public figured out. The trainer is going to announce me as an illustrious domador del norte, now retired from the profession, but who, through his aficion, dedicates this rather special number to the Cuban public. The climax is when I lie down and both cotsies put their front feet on my chest. I started to practice this but got raked on the arm a couple of times gentling them."

  I said I thought lion-baiting was a rather dangerous pursuit for a writer who wanted to continue practicing his trade.

  "Miss Mary agrees with you," Ernest said. "Promised her I wouldn't work cotsies any more until the big book is finished. She left when I started gentling them and got raked. I am her security and it is wicked, I guess, to lay it on the line just for fun. But know no other place as good to lay it as on the line."

  That evening after dinner, Ernest showed me around the house. From a shelf in the library he took down first editions inscribed to him by James Joyce, Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, John Dos Passos, Robert Benchley, Ford Maddox Ford, Ezra Pound and many others. He went through a trunk of old photos and scrapbooks. In one vintage photograph album there was a picture of Ernest, age five or six. Written on the back, in his mother's hand, was the notation: "Ernest was taught to shoot by Pa when 2½ and when 4 could handle a pistol."

  We also came across a photograph of a very young-looking Marlene Dietrich, inscribed To Ernest With Love. "You know how we met, the Kraut and me?" Ernest asked. "Back in my broke days I was crossing cabin on the lie, but a pal of mine who was traveling first loaned me his reserve tux and smuggled me in for meals. One night we're having dinner in the salon, my pal and I, when there appears at the top of the staircase this unbelievable spectacle in white. The Kraut, of course. A long, tight white-beaded gown over that body; in the area of what is known as the Dramatic Pause, she can give lessons to anybody. So she gives it that Dramatic Pause on the staircase, then slowly slithers down the stairs and across the floor to where Jock Whitney, I think it was, was having a fawncy dinner party. Of course, nobody in that dining room has touched food to lips since her entrance. The Kraut gets to the table and all the men hop up and her chair is held at the ready, but she's counting. Twelve. Of course, she apologizes and backs off and says she's sorry but she is very superstitious about being thirteen at anything and with that she turns to go, but I have naturally risen to the occasion and grandly offer to save the party by being the fourteenth. That was how we met. Pretty romantic, eh? Maybe I ought to sell it to Darryl F. Panic."

  On our way back to the living room, we passed a large inscribed photograph of Ingrid Bergman. I stopped to look at it. "Can post photo of any lady Miss Mary's not jealous of," Ernest said. "So far she's batting a thousand in the no-cause-for-jeal-ousy league."

  We settled down in the living room, Ernest sitting in Papa's Chair, a big overstuffed lopsided easy chair with a faded, well-worn slip cover; Black Dog curled up at his feet. Black Dog, who was mostly a springer spaniel, had wandered into Ernest's Sun Valley ski cabin one afternoon, cold, starved, fear-ridden and sub-dog in complex—a hunting dog who was scared stiff of gunfire. Ernest had brought him back to Cuba and patiently and lovingly built up his weight, confidence and affection to the point, Ernest said, that Black Dog believed he was an accomplished author himself. "He needs ten hours' sleep but is always exhausted because he faithfully follows my schedule. When I'm between books he is happy, but when I'm working he takes it very hard. Although he's a boy who loves his sleep, he thinks he has to get up and stick with me from first light on. He keeps his eyes open loyally. But he doesn't like it."

  The talk went from Black Dog, to the animal heads on the walls, to Africa. "Had an English friend," Ernest related, "who wanted to shoot a lion with bow and arrow. One White Hunter after another turned him down until finally a Swede White Hunter agreed to take him. Englishman was the kind of Englishman who took a portable bar on safari. Swede, who was a very good hunter, warned against the bow and arrow as effectives, but his Lordship insisted so Swede briefed him on the lion— can run one hundred yards in four seconds, see only in silhouette, should be hit at fifty yards, all that. They finally stalk the lion, set it up, lion charges, Englishman pulls back bow, hits lion in the chest at fifty yards, lion bites off the arrow, keeps coming, eats the ass right off one of the native guides in one gulping tear before Swede can drop him. Englishman is shook up. Comes over to look at the bloody mess of native guide and lion lying side by side. Swede says, 'Well, your Lordship, you may now put the bow and arrow away.' Englishman says, 'I think we might.'

  "This was the same Englishman I had met in Nairobi with his wife. She was a young Irish beauty who had come unannounced to my room. The following evening the Englishman asked me to have a drink with him at the hotel bar. 'Ernest,' he said, 'you are a gentleman so you did nothing wrong, but my wife should not make a fool out of me.'"

  Mary steered the conversation back to animals. Ernest told about a very big, cocky black bear out West, who had made life miserable for everyone by standing in the middle of the road and refusing to budge when cars came along. It got so that no one could use the road. But Ernest heard about him and drove along the road to seek him out; suddenly, sure enough— there was the bear. A really big bear. He was on his hind legs and his upper lip was pulled back in a sneer. Ernest got out of the car and went over to him. "Do you realize that you're nothing but a miserable, common black bear?" Ernest said to him in a loud, firm voice. "Why, you sad son-of-a-bitch, how can you be so cocky and stand there and block cars when you're nothing but a miserable bear and a black bear at that—not even a polar or a grizzly or anything worth-while."

  Ernest said he really laid it on him and the poor black bear began to hang his head, then he lowered himself to all fours and pretty soon he walked off the road. Ernest had destroyed him. From that time on he used to run behind a tree and hide whenever he saw a car coming and shake with fear that Ernest might be inside, ready to dress him down.

  Rene soon appeared with the movie projector and we settled down to a twin bill that was Ernest's favorite: a Tony Zale versus Rocky Graziano slugfest, plus The Killers with Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner. The curtain raiser was the fight, which Ernest followed avidly and commented upon, but five minutes into The Killers he was sound asleep. "Never saw him last past the first reel," Mary said.

  We had been at the finca for three days when Ernest got around to his substitute idea for The Future of Literature article: he would write two short stories instead. Some of his stories, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," for one, had been publi
shed in Cosmo, he said, and it would be better for him and the magazine if he did fiction, which was his forte, instead of a think piece, which was not. He pointed out, however, that one article did not equal two short stories in value; subsequently the editor increased the payment to twenty-five thousand dollars.

  The dinner regulars during those days at the finca were Roberto Herrera, a bald, deaf, powerful, unprepossessing, gentle, devoted Spaniard, in his late thirties, who, according to Ernest, had had five years of medicine in Spain and who had come to Cuba after having been imprisoned for fighting on the republican side in the Civil War; Sinsky Dunabeitia, a salty, roaring, boozing, fun-loving Basque sea captain who manned a freighter run from the States to Cuba and was a constant at the finca whenever his ship was in port; Father Don Andres, called Black Priest, a Basque who had been in the Bilbao Cathedral when the Civil War broke out. Don Andres had climbed into the pulpit and exhorted all the parishioners to go get their guns and fill the streets and shoot what they could and the hell with spending their time in church. After that, he enrolled as a machine-gunner in the republican army. Of course, when the war ended he was kicked out of Spain. He sought refuge in Cuba, but the Church there took a dim view of his past behavior and assigned him the poorest parish in the worst section. Thus, the name Black Priest. Ernest had befriended him, as he befriended scores of Franco refugees, and Black Priest, wearing a brightly colored sport shirt, would come to the Hemingway finca on his days away from his parish and devote himself to eating, drinking, swimming in the pool, and exchanging reminiscences with Ernest and Roberto. There were other guests, too: a Spanish grandee Ernest had known in the Civil War, a gambler from the old days in Key West, an anti-Batista (sub-rosa) Cuban politician and his wife, and a semiretired pelota player, once of great prominence. "Mondays to Thursdays I try to maintain quiet," Mary said. "But the week ends are always on the verge of uproar, and sometimes over the verge. Papa doesn't like to go to other people's houses because he says he can't trust the food and drink. The last time he accepted a dinner invitation was about a year ago. They served sweet champagne which he had to drink to be polite, and it took ten days for him to get it out of his system."