Hemingway

and The Old Man and The Sea

Ilustración: Edwin Salinas

Ernest Hemingway presence in La Havana, Cuba, is
irrefutable for any wanderer. In La Bodeguita del Medio you
can drink mojitos (rum with mint and sugar) that
Hemingway would drink. In El Floridita the tourist should
drink a "Daiquiri", the drink Hemingway liked. Moreover,
I’m aware nowadays there is a special Hemingway drink: a
big measure of rum, a finger of Toronja juice, a half green
lemon squeezed, stirred and served very cold. While you
drink the special you can watch on the wall some
photographs of the writer with the actors Errol Flynn and
Spencer Tracy.
The places where Hemingway drank, ate or slept are a tourist
station. For example Hemingway stayed from 1932 to 1939
in the room 511 in La Havana Vieja in the Ambos Mundos
Hotel. That room is a museum.
The cultural visitor, looking for something else than a spot
on the beach where to put his towel, will also go to the
Hemingway museum in the Vigia Ranch 15 kilometers away
from La Havana, in the neighbourhood of San Francisco de
Paula. Hemingway bought the estate in 1940 and shared it
with her 4th wife, Mary Welsh, his 4 dogs and with his 57
cats. Hemingway’s museum is in the same condition he left
in 1960. Includes, apart from the descendants from the cats,
9000 books, 500 vinyl records, personal belongings, hunting
trophies and his famous yacht "El Pilar".
In 1932 a hurricane left the Hemingway’s yacht isolated.
Gregorio Fuentes, a fisher born in The Canary Islands,
rescued him. In 1936, he asked him to get in charge of his
yacht and become his fishing guide.
During 2nd world war German submarines operated in the
Cuba keys with the mission to torpedo down American
merchant ships, which carried raw material to make
armament in the United States. Hemingway and Gregorio
Fuentes painted the yacht in black, then armed it with a
machine gun and sailed away to hunt submarines. In the
yacht, among others, was a radio operator from the North
American embassy. From the El Pilar, they warned the
American air force when they spotted a submarine.
Finally, the visitor will take a short trip to Cojimar, sailors’
village, 15 kilometres away from La Havana, the pier where
they left El Pilar.
Here the writer met fishers that used to fish with bottles of
water, sugar and cookies, they would venture to the sea to
fish with lines, and bare handed, some fish bigger than their
boats. Gregorio Fuentes and Ernest Hemingway would sit in
the bar La Terraza to observe the sea and drink mojitos.
The legend says that Gregorio Fuentes is the alter ego of the
old Santiago, from the novel "The Old Man and The Sea", he
himself has delivered version-myths: once they were
navigating through Pinar del Río and they saw an old boat
with an elder and a boy. The elder was fighting with a
swordfish bigger than his boat. They approached to help
him. As they approached the old man started yelling:
"American, son of a bitch, get out here". Hemingway told
him:" don’t mind him". When they were away, he said: "I
am going to write a book about this story".
Everything could be doubted. But, what we cannot doubt in
is that there in Cojimar, between fishers, was spawned "The
Old Man and The Sea". We must also believe in the legend,
that he wrote it, as usual, standing up and in his portable
Royal typewriter.
Gregorio Fuentes has said too that he named the novel.
Hemingway would have asked him: "What title should I give
it, Gregorio?" And he answered: "haven’t we met an elder?
And wasn’t he in the middle of the sea? So, there you have
the name".
Everything could be doubted, but I don’t have any doubt that
the old Gregorio knew Hemingway better than his 4 wives.
50’s. Hemingway was a star. But his works were suffering
the sourness of the critic. His editor returned him some
manuscript because it was not publishable. But he liked the
story about an old Cuban man and his dramatic story, 84
days in the sea obsessed with catching a swordfish.
In 1952 in Life magazine, The Old Man and The Sea was
published. It was a success. Critics were talking about a
classic then. The Old Man and The Sea won Pulitzer Prize.
In 1954, Hemingway won Nobel Prize. That distinction was
dedicated to the fishers and he deposited the medal before
the Virgin of Charity of The Copper, Catholic Patron of
Cuba.
The last time Gregorio saw Hemingway in 1960 he told him:
"take care of Pilar as you have been doing."
Then he came back to his country and the next year he
committed suicide.
Of this suicide, for respect to the dead, we cannot doubt.
Neither I hesitate to believe that the writer left the yacht El
Pilar to Gregorio in his will. I think it was an act of
brotherhood
But Gregorio could not guarantee the yacht security. He says
that he talked to Fidel Castro when he went to visit it. The
truth is that shortly the Comandante sent a crane and a van,
took it away. The ship where he caught needlefish and
"hunted" German submarines along with Gregorio Fuentes
sits now at the Vigia Ranch, in its yard, between ferns,
mango trees, and the sons of his cats.
That is the truth.

(Translated by: Fernanda Manzano and Claudia Pérez)