Ernesto Page 15
In March, the beautiful and wealthy Masons motored into the Key West yacht basin aboard their cruiser, Pelican II, to mingle with the artist, beleaguered at work, and his “Poor Old Momma,” who after eight years of marriage had just turned forty years old.
Seemingly recovered from her dive from her bedroom window in 1933, Jane was nevertheless still married to “old stone-face,” who sat irritably beside her as they conversed with the Hemingways. Jane had recently become enamored with Richard Cooper, a “white hunter,” and had visited his farm at Lake Manyara in Tanzania the year before without Grant, writing the Hemingways to declare that it was “one of the world’s most lovely places.”55 The beautiful and damned matrimonio of Mr. and Mrs. Mason was swirling in the pot of Hemingway’s black temperament, such that it soon engendered acidic portrayals in print.56
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As Pauline left Key West in April to see her sister in Piggott, her husband, weary of putting fiction on hold for features, sent Gingrich another story instead: “The Horns of the Bull,” later published by Scribner’s as “The Capital of the World.”57 Published in Esquire in June, it told the tale of a waiter, Paco, who fantasizes about becoming a matador but is accidentally killed by coworker Enrique, who pretends with two knives strapped to a chair to be a passing bull.58 In April, Ernest wrote Perkins with elated news—from the depths of his dolor, he had drudged up five marvels: “Here’s the story situation: I have five now.” These would later be titled “One Trip Across,” “The Tradesman’s Return,” “The Capital of the World,” “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”59 Emerging from hell, Ernest also mailed Gingrich “On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter,” an important article for its captivation with the sea and with the Cojímar fishermen whom he would investigate closely for years to come.
“On the Blue Water” holds the “nonfiction seed” of the masterpiece Ernest would pursue during the next fifteen years and later call his “Land, Sea, and Air Trilogy.” Growing it first to over one thousand pages, he eventually distilled it into a novella one-tenth that size. At its heart, it was a prosaic poem, an epic about an old man fishing alone at sea, who hooked a great marlin and, after two days’ struggle, lost it to sharks.
The core of the stories that Carlos and other fisherman shared with Ernest had happened to an actual fisherman, Anselmo, who was part of the coastal community of Cojímar.60 Subsequently, Ernest took an active interest in the lives of the fishermen of Cojímar. Reflecting during an interview on his writing process for The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest explained that he had at first tried but failed to write the story, so he waited, gathering knowledge as a fisherman, studying the village of Cojímar, and attempting to understand every person in that community before he could begin writing it thirteen years later.61
In interviews, many Cojímar fishermen recall drinking with the writer at La Terraza beside the docks and his numerous questions about fishing conditions, the weather, and their experiences in smaller boats.62 Osvaldo Cernero Piña, “Ova,” was a native who had met Hemingway one day in the late 1940s while rowing back to Cojímar after a long day’s fishing. From the Pilar, Ernest offered him a tow back to his village, and when they got there, the author treated him to a whiskey at the bar. All confirm it was Anselmo, the eldest among them, who had lost his marlin to the sharks, though Ernest’s son Patrick pointed out after his father’s death that he had so many experiences to draw from: marlin and tuna eaten by sharks, such as the one that, even half-eaten, weighed 468 pounds. Drawing upon the complex brew of reading, relationships, experiences, and conversations overheard, Hemingway showed a unique talent for selection, condensation, and narration.
“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” were arguably two of the best examples of this technique and the most disparaging to the people he loved. While hunting lions in Africa with a guide and his wife Margot, Francis Macomber acts in cowardly fashion, shirks his duty, and “bolted like a rabbit…running wildly,” rather than face his lion or conquer the fear within, causing his wife to slip out of their tent in the middle of the night and betray him with their white hunter, Wilson.63 The three main characters of “Francis Macomber” are almost indistinguishable from Jane Mason, her frequently cuckolded husband, Grant, and the African guide whom both the Hemingways and Masons had used, Philip Percival.64 One telling description fit the real-life Masons perfectly: “They had a sound basis of union. Margot was too beautiful for Macomber to divorce her and Macomber had too much money for Margot ever to leave him.”65 Like Macomber, Ernest seemed also “on the verge” of a break-up with an aging bride, longing for autonomy but not yet possessing the means to free himself.
Unbreakable dependence in a yellowing marriage reappears as a dominant theme in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” In that story, Harry is on safari in Africa with his wealthy wife, Helen. Near the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro a leopard’s frozen carcass was found, and no one could explain what the animal was seeking at that altitude as it climbed toward the “House of God” (“Kilimanjaro,” translated from “Ngàje Naài,” the Masai name for the mountain).66 The metaphor of the summit-seeking leopard symbolizes humankind’s aspirations, specifically those belonging to this writer-protagonist Harry, who seeks divinity through his art. Unfortunately, Harry realizes that he will never reach the top because he is held back by his dependence on his wife’s wealth.
While trying to photograph a waterbuck, Harry scratches his knee and neglects to apply iodine.67 The wound becomes infected. Harry slips in and out of hallucinations while reflecting on his fate and mistakes. Due to the remoteness of their camp, they are stuck waiting for transport that will never come, fearing the hyenas and vultures congregating outside the tent, and watching as Harry’s infection festers, becoming stinking gangrene. In a stupor, Harry’s consciousness free-associates the memories of his expiring life, regretting “all stories he would never write,” and blames the “rich bitch,” a “kindly caretaker and a destroyer of his talent,” ending his ambition with the comforts of “her bloody money,” which deadened his sensibilities and destroyed his art.
In addition to his wife, Harry also attacks his friend Scott for worshipping the rich: “The very rich are different from you and me,” he wrote, and somebody responded, “Yes, they have more money.”68 To Scott they were a “special glamorous race,” but Harry saw clearly how they “wrecked” other people’s lives and remained protected always.69 According to Harry, he was different from Scott in that he could remain detached and thus beat the rich as he beat everyone and everything. Though both writers showed a certain degree of fascination with the rich, Ernest characterized them more often as callous and emasculated, and thus suggested his understanding and solidarity with working people.70
When Scott Fitzgerald read the overt attacks in “Kilimanjaro” that summer, he wrote his friend Ernest and asked him to “lay off [of him] in print.” He requested that he remove his name from the story when it went to book form, then complimented and corrected: “It’s a fine story—one of your best—even though the ‘Poor Scott Fitzgerald etc.’ rather spoiled it for me. Ever your friend Scott. Riches have never fascinated me, unless combined with the greatest charm or distinction.”71
The desire to distance himself from the Prince of the Jazz Age was understandable, for he had been associated with Scott and labeled as a spokesperson for the Lost Generation since his Paris days.72 In later printings, Ernest agreed to change Scott’s name to Julian, but he left the rest unchanged. In “Kilimanjaro,” Harry confesses his sensation of captivity, feeling like some sort of exotic pet for the rich. As warden of the Pfeiffer family, Hemingway travelled from la rive gauche to la rive droite, toured first-class through the Côte d’Azur, the Alps, Key West, Spain, and Africa throughout the 1930s, in the company of the Fitzgeralds, Murphys, von Blixens, Straters, and Masons, complicating his alignment with the struggles of the common man. Like his protagonists,
Ernest became a man who had betrayed his own principles, seeking extradition, yet trapped and unable to find an escape. “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” would appear in August and September in Cosmopolitan and Esquire.
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Departing for Havana in the middle of April, Ernest stood at the helm of his fishing boat with Mrs. Mason and Joe Russell beside him as first mates, while Pauline departed in the other direction with Gregory to spend more time with family in Piggott.73 Pauline, a Catholic who did not believe in birth control, had nearly died while delivering Gregory, and the Hemingways’ sex life had suffered subsequently.74 Careful planning of conjugal encounters was a constraint that Ernest could only tolerate as long as other women offered relief. For a time, the absences and betrayals might have helped to sustain a marriage that was itself founded on an infidelity, and soon the Havana Post was announcing the arrival of the famous author and the ever-enchanting Mrs. Jane Mason.75 In a letter that month to John Dos Passos, Ernest remarked, “Mrs. Mason is almost as apt at going places without her husband as Mr. Josie is without his wife.”76 Since his last visit, American tourists had proliferated in Havana along with more bars, casinos, clubs, horseraces, jai alai matches, soldiers, and brothels. Batista used military power to lock up dissidents, deter bombings, disband opposition, all of which reassured investors and set travellers’ minds at ease.77
When marlins were scarce and resisted capture, Ernest’s reproaches of himself missed their mark and found Carlos Gutierrez, who seemed to him to be “¾ blind and quite deaf” and thereby causing him to lose too many fish.78 Loyal and hardworking, Carlos was dedicated to his captain, but he had endured one verbal laceration too many from this patrón who had accused him and stripped him of his pride by humiliating him in front of guests and his crew. His former employer Jane Mason arbitrated the disagreement, scolding Ernest lightly so that Carlos could save face, then comforted the distressed Cuban captain in private. When they returned to Havana, she offered Carlos his old job, and he took it, leaving his uniform washed and neatly folded on a bench of the Pilar the following day.
Pauline joined Ernest for ten days in Havana, before returning via seaplane to Key West. Intending to follow on the Pilar that same day, Ernest waited for storms to pass for five days. Wagering that they had cleared, he chanced a crossing and found himself in rough seas and rapidly in grave danger. It was perhaps the most frightening night of his life, alone, fighting gale-force winds, flying over mountainous waves, veering off course to keep the enormous waves from fatally colliding with his boat, and struggling to stay afloat. After cracking the Pilar’s primary engine block on a nerve-wracking fourteen-hour journey, he spotted Sand Key in front of him and contacted the port authority by radio with his voice caught somewhere between his “ankles and [his] balls.” At that moment, said Hemingway, his “balls felt very small,” but unlike the protagonist of the story he had just written, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” he was not destined to die at an early age.79
As Ernest departed Cuba, the island democratically elected former mayor of Havana and National Labor Party leader Miguel Mariano Gómez to the office of president during the first election in which women were permitted to vote.80 Weary of blood, Cubans were hoping the civil government would bring reforms and an end to violence, but there was also widespread fear that a civil government would revert to a police state.81 Calling for the release of prisoners and the reopening of the University of Havana, groups from the left boycotted the election; however, Batista and his sergeants reassumed their posts at Camp Colombia, now known as “Military City,” and renounced power, publicly recognizing President Gómez’s quasi-constitutional government.82 Nonetheless, many perceived powerlessness in Gómez’s presidency and expressed concerns about the emergence of a military dictatorship, which would operate behind the scenes. At the center of it, said Russell Porter of the New York Times, was Colonel Batista, “the great enigma.” If the hopes of the Cuban people went with President Gómez, their fears came from Colonel Batista. Though Batista was an authoritarian, he was also a skillful politician who read his adversaries, maneuvered to survive, and kept the peace in a chaotic democracy struggling to exist.
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As soon as he returned to Cuba, Ernest sought out Carlos Gutierrez at Mr. and Mrs. Mason’s residence. The sun was rising over the docks of Jaimanitas as the Masons were sleeping in silken sheets, and while Carlos was swabbing the deck of the Pelican II. Nearly finished cleaning the boat, Carlos heard someone call his name in a slow and unmistakable baritone. In a practiced motion, Carlos rung the dirty water from his towel into the bucket, flipped his mop, and set it against the dock as he stepped off and extended his gaunt hand to greet his former captain.
Getting to the point, Ernest apologized, telling Carlos he had behaved terribly, he was sorry, and he could really use him aboard. There was no excuse for his behavior, but he said Carlos should understand that he valued his work and that he respected him. If he did not forgive him, he would understand, but Ernest wanted him to know that he was going to take the Pilar to Bimini that summer and that he would be very happy if he and Bollo the cook agreed to accompany him. Though the incident nearly destroyed their friendship, so great was Ernest’s influence that Carlos nodded his head in agreement. There were knots in their throats, the two men could not speak, but they could break a slight smile. Later, Carlos explained to Mrs. Mason the reason he would forgive the lout: “Don Ernesto understands me as does no one else.”83 During that trip, while friends and family bedded down in the luxurious mansion of Ernest’s millionaire-sportsman companion Michael Lerner, in Cat Cay, Ernest and Carlos bunked on the Pilar.
Intrigued by Ernest’s invitation, Arnold Gingrich came down to visit the party in Alice Town, North Bimini, at the end of June, and one evening in the bar of the Compleat Angler Hotel, Pauline introduced Gingrich to Jane Mason. Although their friendship began there, Jane and Arnold would not marry “until two wives and two husbands later,” in November 1955.84 When Ernest later found out about their sneaking relationship, he blew a fuse, shouting, “That shit! I can’t get over it,” and he later wrote that he no longer contributed to Esquire because of a disagreement with his editor about a blonde.85
After two weeks of fishing in Bimini, Ernest was sailing home with his son Jack aboard the Pilar when the clashes of the Spanish Civil War began. Departing from exile in the Canary Islands, Spanish Nationalists orchestrated uprisings in Morocco and Andalusia as General Franco established an outpost on the island of Las Palmas and declared martial law. The fascist coup d’état caused a bloodstained three-year war between the Nationalist right and the Loyalist left. From its outset in July, the war was filled with atrocities from random acts of violence, systematic executions, and limpieza, or the cleansing of the nation from the contagious elements of the other side. Between July 1936 and December 1951, some two hundred thousand people were executed by the “white terror” of fascist barbarity and approximately thirty-eight thousand by the “red terror” of the radical left. Imprisonment and murder would often include women, children, and renowned artists like Federico García Lorca. International forces mobilized to stop these assassinations and set captives free.
In August, Dos Passos published The Big Money, and Berlin hosted the Olympic Games, where African American athlete Jesse Owens annoyed members of the Aryan “master race” by winning several track and field medals. While the Hemingways were visiting family in Piggott and hunting in Wyoming at the Nordquist ranch in September, dynamiters in Havana set off a bomb in the El País newspaper offices, killing four and causing a million dollars in damage. The police foiled a similar attempt at Diario de la Marina.86 Journalists questioned whether the newspaper was sympathetic to the rebels in Spain while Batista’s police arrested thirty suspects from a group calling itself the Spanish Socialist Circle.
After working mornings in the corner room overlooking Havana har
bor, or the Key West house built like a ship, or the barn behind the Pfeiffer house, or in the backcountry at the ranch, Hemingway amassed a manuscript of 352 pages by October. Based on material from his stories “One Trip Across” and “The Tradesman’s Return,” it was a story about haves and have-nots, and revolutions “gone badly.” In September 1936, Hemingway wrote Max Perkins: “When I finish this book hope to go to Spain if all not over there. Will leave the completed Ms. in a vault so you will be covered on it. I can go over it again when I come back. In case anything should happen to me you would always be covered financially even without this novel by the book of stories.”87
In October in Europe, Italy and Germany signed the pact known as the Rome-Berlin Axis, and when Franco declared himself head of Spain, the Axis recognized their fellow fascist as the official government of the Iberian Peninsula.
Roosevelt was chosen for a second term during the first week in November while Franco’s forces were conducting a lethal siege against the Loyalists in a battle for Madrid that would continue for three years. While the Japanese and Germans spread further angst and fear by signing the Anti-Comintern Pact that solidified the alliances of the Axis powers, the Loyalists’ (also called the Republican) government soon had to fall back to Valencia as its base of operations. The strength of the Fifth Regiment, combined with the morale and influx of forty thousand foreign volunteers from the International Brigades, sustained the republic. Cuban volunteers composed approximately one thousand of these troops. American volunteers formed the infamous Lincoln Brigade that would become instrumental to winning the war.