Ernesto Page 20
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The americano told the children of San Francisco de Paula that they could play baseball on the Finca’s grounds, and he let them pick mangoes from his trees. Soon, he put bats, balls, and gloves in their hands and fitted their scrawny bodies for new uniforms. “Las Estrellas de Gigi”—Gigi’s All-Stars—had been inscribed across the backs, for the team of his design would be made up of the children of San Francisco de Paula and his sons, Jack, Patrick, and Gregory. Among the Cuban children were René Villarreal, his brother Popito, and his friend Fico. Nine-year-old Gregory had taken special liking to Popito (Rodolfo Villarreal) and Fico (Alberto Ramos). Ernest invented errands for the children, like running a letter to the mailbox or taking care of the dogs and cats, so that he could compensate them with money for their families who were noticeably hungry and in need.
As a favor to the previous owner, Ernest had promised D’Orn that he would retain the staff who had worked at the Finca for many years: a Jamaican majordomo named Luis, a heavyset Spanish woman, Maria, and an old Catalan gardener named Don Pedro. For years the children had been chased off the grounds by Don Pedro, who tried to kill them with a machete as he shouted, “Filthy bastards! I am going to cut off your ugly little heads!”—so they were shocked when “Papa” invited them inside the Finca gates.38 Ernest forbade Don Pedro to chase the children away or to keep any birds on the property in a cage, and the old Catalan left work one day and never returned. When the former gardener’s distraught wife came looking for him, nobody knew what to say. Some days later the children smelled a foul odor and were frightened when they discovered Don Pedro’s bloated body, swarming with flies, at the bottom of the Finca Vigía’s well. The memory of Don Pedro’s body disturbed young René for some time afterward, filling him with fear whenever he walked the Finca’s grounds until Papa had a talk with him, teaching him that it was natural for him to feel afraid of death; he should not feel ashamed, but only try to confront his fears.
Putting distance between herself and her marriage with Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Pauline moved to San Francisco, where she rented an apartment for herself and her two boys when they returned from their summer in Cuba. With Jack, Patrick, and Gregory, Ernest found a separate peace, fishing in June with Gregorio Fuentes, his new first mate, aboard the Pilar, while Martha, stir crazy at the Finca, went to New York for a breath of urban air.
In Havana at the Cerro Hunting Club, the adults drank, talked, and blasted shotguns with gusto while the children chased fly balls on the field opposite the range. Now sixteen, on the threshold of manhood, Jack, still often called Bumby, had been the first to call Papa Papá, just as any child brought up in Paris would, with his younger brothers always following his lead. Hemingway was a long and difficult name for the Cuban children to say, so they imitated their teammates, Bumby, Mouse, and Gigi, and called him “Papa,” too. While imbibing whiskey and testosterone at the hunting club, Winston Guest heard a dozen children shrieking “Papa! Papa!” and was greatly amused, and soon he joined the chorus to tease his friend. The nickname always carried a dark shade, given Ernest’s overbearing tendencies, his paternal personality struggling to reassert control in a life it could not entirely control.
Acknowledging that he did not enjoy babies, “Papa” struggled to play the role of father until the boys were old enough to hunt and fish. After his father’s suicide, Ernest asserted his new role as “Papa” not only with his mother and the siblings that remained, but also with women, acquaintances, and friends, causing estrangement and ruptures in numerous relationships. To reinforce this role, “Papa” played expert on matters from sports, to travel, to combat.39 Having known him since childhood, Katy Smith attested to Papa’s rapidly expanding ego at this time. He was “irascible and truculent…had a tendency to be an Oracle, I thought, and needs some best pal and severe critic to tear off those long white whiskers which he is wearing.”40
At the Cerro Hunting Club, “Papa” encouraged the Cuban children to have as many Coca-Colas as they wanted, but when they drank so many that they were spending more time in the bathroom than on the field, he amended, stimulating heroic play by offering a Coke for each home run.41 To demonstrate how to swing the bat, Ernest would take pitches and let the children run around the bases. Ernest stepped to the plate with René’s brother Oscar beside him. The crack of the bat sent the pelota high into the air, dropping it in deep against the wall between right and center field.42 As Oscar rounded third base, coach Papa called for him to come home. Trying to slide into home, Oscar collided with the ground as the catcher, a much bigger boy than him, pushed him out of the way. Oscar screamed out as he broke his arm. Scooping up the kid and rushing him to the car seconds later was Coach Hemingway, already much sobered as they drove to the center of Havana where he delivered him to the nurses at Calixto García General.
Returning the boy to his parents afterward with his arm in a cast, Ernest apologized to his mother, who told him not to worry: it was just part of growing up. The day they had seen their boys come home with their pockets stuffed full of mangoes and their shirt fronts overflowing, they had understood the kind person Ernest was. When the summer ended and Ernest’s sons returned to their mothers and to their private schools, Papa told the children of San Francisco de Paula that they were still welcome to play on the open spaces of the Finca Vigía, but just to please be sure to put the baseball bats and boxing gloves away after they had finished using them for the day. Ernesto treated the neighborhood children with cariño and nostalgia while missing his own sons.43
One day a laborer was passing along the road in his oxcart. Everyone in the village called him Seboruco (or “large rock”), for his dense disposition. When the children asked him for a ride, he grunted dismally at first, but they were all piling on already so the old farmer gave in. Without enough room in the cart, René’s brother Popito sat on the crossbar and the wobbly cart, pulled by two large oxen, made for an exciting ride. Then the cart hit a bump in the road, and eight-year-old Popito fell to the ground with the wagon wheel rolling over top of him before anybody realized or intervened. Though he was clearly in pain, little Popito insisted on walking home by himself like a man. When his mother saw him, she told the boys to hurry to fetch the americano and to ask to take her boy to the clinic in his automobile. When the clinic could do nothing for them, they took Popito to a hospital, but the injuries were too serious, and he soon died of irreparable damage to his internal organs. The writer insisted on paying for Popito’s funeral expenses.
While the family was mourning, the boys did not return to the Finca, so Ernesto went to check on them and tell them how empty his house felt without the sounds of baseball outside. Like his own boys, he missed them, and attempting to help the distraught family, he suggested that their eldest come to help him around the house to keep him company and to earn some much-needed money for his family. It was a way for Hemingway to share their sorrow and offer them a small comfort during a dark moment. The mother nodded, sending René up the hill with the American. René was a responsible and intelligent boy, but he was only eleven at the time.44
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Of course, Ernest could also attract the devotion of people his own age—particularly affluent Cuban sportsmen. The jai alai matches, fishing tournaments, and cockfights introduced Hemingway to several new acquaintances and friends. Offering an insider’s view of Cuban politics, Mario García Menocal Seva was the son of Mario García Menocal Deop. Educated at prestigious schools in the United States, the Menocals owned sugar plantations, rice mills, and dairy farms in Camagüey Province. Having met Hemingway in Bimini in 1935, “Mayito” became one of the writer’s closest male friends in Cuba, and a part of the group of wealthy, cultivated, English-speaking Cuban sportsmen, man-sized children who shared Hemingway’s passion for yachting, fishing, hunting, boxing, cockfighting, jai alai, partying, and pranks.45 Mayito was a trusted friend, a father to Hemingway’s children, a member of his inner cir
cle, one of the Cubans who would over the years become like family.46 Mayito Menocal’s cousin, Elicio Argüelles Pozo, owned the Frontón in Havana, where the three of them went to watch Basque friends play jai alai. A lawyer, ranch and sugar farm owner, shop proprietor, tourism promoter, and sports nut, Elicio also became Hemingway’s close friend.47
Another of Hemingway’s best friends in Cuba was the boxer from Holguín, Evelio Mustelier, more commonly known as “Kid Tunero.” Kid Tunero was a Holguín native, a bricklayer, who came to Havana as a boxer in the 1930s. Hemingway and many of his friends were his fans. Following his fights religiously in Arena Cristal, Hemingway sponsored Kid Tunero, sent him to Saragossa to train, and saw him box in Paris where he had a couple of fights. In Paris, Tunero had met Yolette Yolle, a well-to-do tennis player, whom Kid would marry and with whom he had two children. When the Hemingways left the Finca for Europe and Africa in 1953, Kid Tunero and his wife would stay in the Finca as their honored guests.48
When interviewed by the Prensa Libre (the Free Press), Hemingway indicated that his respect for Tunero was inspired as much by his boxing skills as his character. In the article titled “The Gentleman of the Ring,” he said, “It shouldn’t shock you to discover that one of the men I love most is Kid Tunero…the most complete athlete in Cuba…if there are still any gentlemen left on Earth, Tunero is one of them…he speaks little, but it isn’t necessary for him to speak more because his spirit can be seen on his face. It’s simple and pure like bread, or like gold.”49 Coming from a white man, this public declaration of admiration and respect was ahead of its time.
Also in his milieu were the Spanish Loyalists like José Luis and Roberto Herrera Sotolongo. Born in Spain, José Luis and Roberto fought against Franco during the Civil War. When fascists took over their homeland, they had fled, immigrating to Cuba just before Ernest established his residence there, later becoming Cuban citizens. Dr. José Luis and Roberto’s friendship with Ernesto blossomed when the author became a resident and ended only with the author’s death. Estranged on the Cuban island, they shared a language from Spain, culture, history, cause, and a sense of humor. The Herrera Sotolongos were a regular fixture at the Finca for twenty years. They were “bosom friends, not just one of the many individuals who attached themselves to his entourage,” and they became trusted and beloved members of his immediate family.50
A student of revolutions and regular contributor to the Cuban Communist Party, Hemingway also maintained political relationships on the island. Trade union leader and member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, Roman Nicolau was introduced to Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn at the Majestic Hotel in Barcelona by Cuban poet and fellow activist in Spain Nicolás Guillén. Years later, Nicolau visited Hemingway regularly at the Finca Vigía to request contributions for the Cuban Communist Party: “I never asked Hemingway for much money. But he was very generous and used to give me more than I requested. He gave us a total of twenty thousand dollars. It gave him pleasure that we were doing something against the government.”51 However, Nicolau did recall that he addressed Hemingway as a compañero (friend, companion), but Hemingway responded with camarada (comrade), a habit developed during his experiences in civil-war Spain. Of all the foreigners living in Cuba, Nicolau was certain that Ernest Hemingway contributed the most to the Communist Party, and during a separate interview with Cuban biographer Norberto Fuentes, Guillén confirmed this detail to be true.52
CHAPTER 7
Don Quixote vs. the Wolf Pack (1940–1944)1
In September 1940, Martha rejoined Ernest and his sons for a hunting trip in Idaho. Rubbing elbows among them at Sun Valley Lodge was writer Dorothy Parker and movie star Gary Cooper. On October 21, Scribner’s published For Whom the Bell Tolls. With his divorce obtained from Pauline on the fourth of November, Martha and Ernest were married by a justice of the peace on the twenty-first at a modest ceremony in the Union Pacific dining room in Cheyenne. Pouring the entirety of its resources into the promotion of their star author’s novel, which had been much anticipated and years in the making, Scribner’s sold over a million copies of For Whom the Bell Tolls in the first six months.
In Life magazine on January 6, 1941, appeared “The Hemingways in Sun Valley: The Novelist Takes a Wife,” an article punch-drunk with purple prose declaring his “prime physical vigor” and virtues as a writer, boxer, and a hunter before announcing that Paramount Pictures would pay $150,000 for the movie rights, the highest amount ever paid to a novelist by Hollywood. “At 41 Ernest Hemingway has reconfirmed his place in American literature among its greatest living writers.”2 The ten-page spread followed, containing several photographs by his comrade Robert Capa: writing, shooting fowl at the ranch, and celebrating a new literary triumph and a new marriage. Martha Gellhorn also bloomed as she reclined along the logs that bordered their lodge suite’s veranda and dangled her hair between the camera and the rough country ever in the background. Wincing as her new husband squeezed her lithe figure tightly against his barrel chest, Martha danced with him cheek to cheek at a rough local watering hole, visibly very inebriated.
Though he had first been against living at the Finca Vigía, now, as a famous writer with a hundred-thousand-dollar movie deal from Hollywood, he had more than enough dough. To keep his own name out of the papers and acquire the mansion with views of Havana, tennis courts, and a pool for the lowest possible price, Ernest asked Toby Bruce to negotiate with D’Orn about buying it outright. They settled on 18,500 pesos in January 1941, which Ernest paid as a belated wedding present to his bride.3
Ordering Bruce to bring more of Ernest’s books in crates from Key West and to carry out more renovations on their new property in their absence, the Hemingways departed on a working honeymoon with a brief stopover in Hawaii, then onward to the Pacific theater where they would cover the second Sino-Japanese War. As a journalist attuned to world events and her career, Martha had been preparing a trip with Collier’s magazine to cover Japan’s expansionism, ongoing and every day more disconcerting. Not wishing his new wife to go it alone, Ernest arranged to go also as a journalist for PM magazine. With involvement from the United States, the Soviet Union, and Germany, China and other Asian nations had resisted Japanese expansionism in China, on the Korean peninsula, and in the Pacific islands.
Travelling from Los Angeles to San Francisco on the way to Hawaii, the happy couple was entertained by movie stars Gary Cooper (and his wife Rocky) and Ingrid Bergman, courting him for the hot roles of Robert Jordan and Maria that they would soon play in the movie version of For Whom the Bell Tolls. The new couple’s fame was growing to colossal proportions; they were followed by press and pretenders along every single beach stroll, mountain trek, and tiki bar that they would visit on the islands.4 When their greeters put eighteen leis on his neck and photographers and drunken fans accosted him at the airport, Ernest protested that it was too much: “I had never had no filthy Christed flowers around my neck before and the next son of a bitch who touches me I am going to cool him and what a dung heap we came to and by Christ if anybody else says aloha to me I am going to spit back in his mouth.”5 After touring Oahu and the Big Island, the Hemingways caught the island-hopping Pan Am plane China Clipper to Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Manila, and Hong Kong.
For three months Martha plunged herself into the mad pursuit of the news on the front lines while Ernest conducted his own kind of “research,” cavorting and carousing with other journalists, diplomats, officers, and businessmen at the hotel bar. The bedlam and debaucheries of these days reappeared in semi-autobiographical form in the novel Islands in the Stream when protagonist Thomas Hudson boasts to the Cuban courtesan Honest Lil of his days in China mingling with Chinese millionaires, yet he was feeling very frustrado, “mean and disgusted” with the gross inequities and destructive path of war, until one of the millionaires took pity on him and sent him a present: three tall, smooth, and beautiful Chinese prostitutes whom he enjoyed one evening in a foursome in his hotel room in Ho
ng Kong.6
Following the war across China and as far west as Lashio, Burma, Martha and Ernest endured grueling conditions while meeting with generals, officials, diplomats, and dignitaries in between, including legendary general Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Madame Chiang. Meanwhile in April, Hitler’s forces invaded Yugoslavia and Greece, reinforcing those of Mussolini, who had been beaten back by the Greeks. Returning the way they came in mid-May by plane, train, and motorcar, Ernest and Martha crossed the Pacific and the United States, laying over in San Francisco, New York, and Washington, and stopping in Key West to collect the Pilar, Patrick, and Gregory, whom Martha would escort to Havana via Miami by plane while Ernest met Joe Russell to make the crossing by sea to Cuba at the end of the first week of June.
As the Hemingways descended from New York to Havana, they stopped in at the Office of Naval Intelligence for debriefing and advised Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau that among other things the United States had to keep an eye on the tensions between Communists and Nationalists in Beijing. The Washington visit led some to speculate that the Hemingways had been gathering intelligence for America in a more official capacity.7 In articles appearing subsequently in Collier’s, Martha wrote beautifully about the anger and helplessness she had felt in China: “I felt it was pure doom to be Chinese. I longed to escape from what I escaped into: the age of old misery, filth, hopelessness, and my own claustrophobia inside that enormous country,” and to a friend, she confessed her indignation for the British Empire’s actions in China.8