Ernesto Read online

  In the letter, Ernest offered apologies for not writing earlier, “but was racing with this book,” not yet making definite plans for future travel, blocking out the world around him, immersed in the Finca and in his fiction. At this time, Mrs. Hemingway also felt her husband’s absence, and perhaps the darkest hours of their marriage: “You try all your life to merge. Falling in love is building the beautiful deception of two in one. But it is a dream. You are always alone. There are thousands of contented [people] who are never bothered by this. Who knows it and…can live with it…is strong…‘Togetherness’ is not a cup of Lipton tea. It is wordless desperation.”100 Like the Mrs. Hemingways before her, Mary found it hard to sustain a loving relationship with a man who put writing first.

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  Before their release, Raúl Castro had taken the hostages to see a three-year-old boy “with a big hole in his head” from a Batista air raid and reiterated the reason he had captured them: to protest the May 18 delivery of three hundred rocket warheads to Batista’s air force when a ban on arms was supposed to be in force. These were corrections to orders made before the ban, explained US officials, because they had mistakenly delivered practice warheads to Batista instead of live ones. In view of the three-year-old boy and the three thousand other Cuban deaths that the rebels estimated the missiles had caused, the distinction was irrelevant.

  Responding to rebel requests that the United States truly suspend the shipment of arms to Batista and maintain a noninterventionist policy as promised, Ambassador Smith assured that “in compliance with the United States policy of nonintervention in Cuban internal affairs, the base has not—and will not—refuel or in other ways service the Cuban military aircraft engaged in combat activity.”101 After being treated like honored guests and shown peasants’ homes destroyed by Batista’s bombs, the last hostages were freed by their “rebel hosts” on July 28, “because of the Lebanese situation” that demanded the deployment of US Marines. “If the admiral wants to send you into battle in Lebanon,” said Raúl Castro, clearly milking the publicity for all it was worth, “we don’t want to hold you back.”102

  Although the kidnappings were a gamble that turned some Americans against the rebel cause, they appeared for the most part to be a success. They enhanced the rebels’ worldwide prowess by demonstrating Batista’s ineffectiveness, highlighted the guerrillas’ cordiality, and significantly reduced Batista’s ability to project airpower and drop napalm on their positions during the Operación Verano, or the Summer Offensive. Visiting not only the hostages but also Fidel and Raúl’s rebel headquarters in Sierra Maestra and Cristal, the Time reporter estimated that the rebels had amassed approximately two thousand men (in all likelihood they had as few as half or a fourth of that number), noted the numerous trucks and jeeps stolen from the Cuban army, ammunition “plentiful enough to be wasted on potshots at coconuts,” and an operating airstrip where arms were delivered from “some mysterious supplier.”103 Although the revolution was gaining ground, decisive moments still lay ahead.

  From June 28 to August 8, Operación Verano finally initiated the full-blown offensive that half the world had been waiting for to crush the rebels and their “big-mouthed” leader, Fidel. Under the joint command of Generals Eulogio Cantillo and Alberto del Río Chaviano, ten to fifteen thousand troops took up positions around the Sierra Maestra mountains. While the rebels were concerned, they were also confident, for they now knew the terrain, had the cooperation of the local population, and had set many mines and booby traps. They reportedly wired loudspeakers throughout the jungle to blast the enemy with music, jingles, and songs—to spook their attackers and to make themselves seem ubiquitous.

  Two-thirds of the men in the attacking force were new recruits, badly paid, and terrified of the fate that awaited them in the mountains. Other than a meager paycheck and fear of the disciplinary consequences if they refused, the soldiers had little reason to fight.104 Though they had far superior numbers and armament, these army regulars proved themselves unresponsive, disloyal to the regime, and too poorly trained to meet the rigors of counterinsurgent combat ahead. In contrast, the rebels were well trained and committed to their cause.

  While the rebels were doing battle with Batista’s army in the Sierra Maestra, the people of Havana and San Francisco de Paula were still anxiously awaiting liberation. Even though the Hemingways, keeping a low profile within the Finca Vigía walls, were by and large insulated from these events, they began to feel that the life they had known in Cuba was in jeopardy. There were public “explosions of human violence and covert brutalities,” old friends disappearing, young men from their village imprisoned and tortured by Batista’s men, or left for dead in a ditch along the road.105

  One afternoon, Ernest, Mary, and Gregorio departed from Cojímar on a “fishing trip.” Mary was surprised when Gregorio began to open hidden compartments and dump an “arsenal of weapons” (heavy rifles, sawed-off shotguns, hand grenades, and canisters and belts of ammunition for automatic rifles) into the sea. What was going on, asked Mary, figuring that he must have plopped two thousand dollars’ worth of weapons into the deep. “Stuff left over from the old days. Nobody’s going to use it now,” her husband responded. Then he added, “My contribution to the revolution. Maybe we’ve saved a few lives.”106

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  The first battle of Batista’s Summer Offensive took place on June 28 as two battalions of Batista’s troops that were camped at Estrada Palma Sugar Mill advanced with armored cars along the road, ran into mines, and were subsequently ambushed by Che Guevara’s men. Attempting to fall back, they found themselves taking heavy fire from rebel sharpshooters advancing on both flanks, cutting them to pieces, and killing eighty-six of them. The rebels lost only three and captured much armament and ammunition.

  The second encounter that summer was the Battle of La Plata, which took place at the intersection of the rivers La Plata and El Jigüe on the downward slope of Turquino Peak. Intending to surround and decapitate Fidel’s command center at the base of peak, General Cantillo ordered Major José Quevedo Pérez to land Battalion Eighteen ten kilometers to the southeast at the mouth of La Plata River (Silver River). As soldiers were advancing up the tunnel formed by the v-shaped narrows of the river rising toward Fidel’s headquarters, they were ambushed by perfectly positioned guerrillas who were expecting them.107 Caught in the death trap by interlocking fields of fire, each time Battalion Eighteen attempted to advance, rebel bullets beat them back. After seventy-two hours, Quevedo’s men were out of food and getting hungry.

  To come to their aid, General Cantillo landed two hundred reinforcements on a beach to the west. Finding 50-caliber machine guns aimed at the beach, the reinforcements were unable to land, so instead landed at the mouth of La Plata River, behind Battalion Eighteen. In another attempt to come to Battalion Eighteen’s aid, General Cantillo sent Battalion Seventeen in through the mountains, but they were met with determined resistance from Che Guevara’s men. In a lastditch effort, Cantillo called in airstrikes, unleashing bombs, strafe, and napalm on Fidel’s position, shaking and scorching the earth while the rebels took cover.108 After the thunder had passed, the rebels emerged like rabbits from their holes and, sighting in on Battalion Eighteen, reassumed control.

  When Fidel heard that his old school chum José Quevedo Pérez was leading the battalion, he released one of his prisoners to deliver a gentlemanly note. It was with “great sorrow” that he came to know that Quevedo was in command of the troops who were surrounded: “We know that you are a learned and honorable military officer of the Academy, with a law degree. You know that the cause for which your soldiers, as well as yourself, sacrifice and die is an unjust cause.”109 The major should know that he would be guaranteed “a dignified and honorable surrender,” and that it would not be to an enemy, but to “a sincere revolutionary fight[ing] for the welfare of all Cubans, including that of the soldiers who fight us. You will surrender to a univers
ity classmate who wants the same things that you want for Cuba.” Ignoring the letters, Quevedo held out for four more days hoping that reinforcements would arrive.

  On the morning of July 20, Fidel again asked Quevédo politely if it would be all right to cease fire. Emerging from their foxholes, the men of Battalion Eighteen were offered food, water, and cigarettes. They accepted the provisions with gratitude. Unexpectedly the two sides were embracing each other and weeping with emotion.110 The battle killed forty-one of Batista’s soldiers, and wounded thirty, while the rebels had lost only three. The victors took two hundred forty prisoners, turned over to the Red Cross, and 249 weapons (including bazookas, mortars, heavy machine guns, 31,000 rounds of ammunition, and a heap of grenades).111 Fidel was able to convince Quevedo to join his rebels and to get others to do the same.

  Having scored a major victory, Fidel imprudently pursued Battalion Seventeen, which seemed to be retreating. Rebel major René Ramos Latour spearheaded the attack and killed approximately thirty regulars. But stealing a page from the guerrilla handbook, General Cantillo drew the rebels in, and they soon found themselves surrounded by more than fifteen hundred of Batista’s men and under heavy fire. Coming forward to reinforce Major Latour’s column, Fidel’s men, too, were drawn into the trap, suffering seventy casualties. When Che brought his unit forward to offer some relief, Fidel Castro ordered his men to retreat and sent a note on August 1 to Cantillo, requesting a ceasefire. Overrun, Fidel was ready to negotiate: “It is necessary to open a dialogue so that we can put an end to the conflict.”112 While Cantillo was consulting with his advisors and Batista about how to proceed, Fidel withdrew his forces. By the time Cantillo realized what was happening, there was no enemy left to fight: the rebels had once again slipped from their grasp.

  Feeling that a moment of opportunity had been lost and the deaths of their comrades had been in vain, the troops were wholly demoralized. At the end of the count, the government had lost 519 troops and a mountain of weapons while the rebels had lost 73. Though the tactical gains were significant, the political and psychological victories expanded one hundredfold. Taking to the airwaves of Radio Rebelde, Fidel used his exceptional oratory skills to exploit the event for all it was worth. Declaring victory, he called for an immediate end to the caudillo pitting Cuban against Cuban, and Batista’s supporters soon flocked to Fidel Castro as liberator for a much-beleaguered nation. Having sent representatives to Caracas to solidify alliances with the revolutionary and abstentionist factions of the junta de liberación, he read the signatures from the Caracas Pact (establishing a unified front composed of all factions against Batista), calling for armed insurrection, requesting the United States to cease all military support for the dictatorship, and demanding a provisional government and a new democracy.113

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  While war was waging in the sierra, Ernest declared war on Esquire—at least that’s how the story appeared. The magazine with first publication rights to his stories published there had expressed their intention to republish his Spanish War stories, and Ernest, objecting, instructed his lawyer, Alfred Rice, to forbid them to do any such thing. Ernest’s request ended up becoming New York Times literary gossip when his attorney blabbed to a reporter. The attention irritated the author. In July, Ernest had turned fifty-nine years old. That year in the isolation of the Finca Vigía, he had thrived by living a more disciplined life, getting himself back into shape, advancing in his work, and he was feeling much better. But as the summer ended and the revolution draggedon, the Hemingways continued to explore the idea of a second residence out west.114

  In August, Ernest asked Lloyd and Tillie Arnold’s assistance in finding them a house near Sun Valley to rent for a season. When they wrote back about the Heiss House in Ketchum for $175 per month, the Hemingways instantly agreed.115 After more than a year of disciplined writing, Ernest was revising and arranging eighteen sketches of a Parisian memoir, and his book was nearly complete. Intermittently, he had also been revising The Garden of Eden and would have twenty-eight chapters by the end of June. In July, he predicted it would be finished the following month, but he did not know how to finish it in mid-September when the word count reached two hundred thousand words, forty-eight chapters.116 An inability to conclude projects was a snowballing problem that haunted his final years and resulted in five unpublished manuscripts: Islands in the Stream, The Dangerous Summer, A Moveable Feast, The Garden of Eden, and True at First Light.

  Seeking refuge from militaries, burglars, tropical storms, revolutionary terrorism, and unwelcomed visitors, Ernest and Mary flew out of Havana bound for Key West on September 30. Catching another flight, Betty Bruce and Mary went to Chicago for an impromptu shopping trip while Toby Bruce and Ernest drove the Bruces’ “big comfortable station wagon” to pick up their wives on October 4, and they continued westward together to Ketchum, Idaho.117 Cocktail hour began at six o’clock in the car, with Toby drinking rum on ice, Ernest fresh lime juice with Pinch whiskey (Haig & Haig), and the ladies dry martinis, the “speedometer ticking off the miles” as they spotted antelope grazing near Casper and stopped to see black and brown bears up on their haunches in Yellowstone.

  On October 7, the film of The Old Man and the Sea opened to mediocre (and even poor) reviews. The New York Times praised the thunder, emotional color, and poignancy of Dimitri Tiomkin’s musical scores, Tracy’s courage in the role, and Felipe Pazos, Jr.’s evocative casting as Manolin, but the reviewer felt the film had not been rendered with enough imagination, and with the exception of rosy dawn in Cojímar, too many scenes had been shot in a studio tank to express the power of the sea. The voiceover, too, was a poor substitute for the poetry and eloquence expressed in the original work118—a hat-tipping compliment to the author’s artistry with which he would have likely agreed.

  Settling in, the foursome established a routine in Ketchum fishing the Big Wood River, hunting Sawtooth Forest and along Snake River Plain, and cavorting in the lodge. As suns set over Boyle Mountain, splashing amber over the ripples of Sun Valley Lake, the weather cooled, and the Hemingways and Bruces warmed their hands and faces by a fire. Ernest was writing four days a week and hunting three, sometimes going out in the afternoons if the writing went well.119 Shooting and drinking at the Silver Creek Rod and Gun Club, they received visits from Gary Cooper and Ed Hotchner.

  While uncertainties of Cuba haunted and Mrs. Hemingway queried softly about future plans, Ernest preferred to concentrate on finding the ending to The Garden of Eden or, alternatively, revising the typed manuscript that his wife had prepared of A Moveable Feast. Nonetheless, four adjoining lots on the slope adjacent from the Arnolds’ home were for sale, so the Hemingways purchased them with Pappy Arnold standing in to keep prices low. Having acquired the land, Mrs. Hemingway set to work designing the house of their dreams. When the decisions of home creation disturbed writing and fun, Ernest sniped and procrastinated.

  At the end of November while living in a cabin near the creek, Papa wrote his second son to tell of his intentions to return to Cuba once he had finished his book in Idaho. Then he would go to Spain for San Isidro, stay the summer there, and go to Africa in the fall: “Cuba is really bad now, Mouse. I am not a big fear danger pussy but living in a country where no one is right—both sides atrocious—knowing what sort of stuff and murder will go on when the new ones come in—seeing the abuses of those in now…We are always treated OK as in all countries and have fine good friends. But things aren’t good and the overhead is murder.” If politics and fishing continued as bad as they had been in Cuba during the last two years, he confided in his son, he might pull out.120

  Deciding it better not to take on a project, the Hemingways looked at houses already built and available in the area. The best belonged to Bob Topping, a wealthy socialite who had moved to the Arizona desert for his health. Its architect combined rough-cut lumber in the traditional log-cabin style and poured concrete molds to create a functional and attractive bunker
-like home with a view of the aspens and cottonwood trees of the Sawtooth Forest and the “tent-shaped mountains” beyond, with unparalleled protection against Idaho weather and time, lush wood-paneled interiors, seventeen acres of land, and access to the Big Wood River and the Sun Valley Lodge.121 At fifty thousand dollars, half its original construction cost, the house was a steal even if it became a vacation home, such that by April they committed to the deal.

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  To get to Las Villas, Che, Camilo, and their 210 guerrillas would have to cross the plains of central Cuba where sugar plantations made the population prosperous and generally unsympathetic to their cause. With few places to hide as they marched six hundred kilometers on foot, they would be pursued by hostile army regulars vowing to punish them for their arrogance in strolling so brazenly across their terrain: “They shall not pass! We shall serve the corpses of their chiefs on a silver platter, because they have had the audacity to think that they can conduct a military parade throughout Camagüey,” declared a commander of the Rural Guard.122