The entrance to the Hemingway Fica
The shaded veranda.
- Chapte 7 -
On The Trail of Ernest Hemingway
“Hemingway had an estate near Havana, didn’t he?” "Hemingway had an estate near Havana, didn't he?" I ask Victor as I return to the car after a half hour of daydreaming around the marina.
Indeed, it is located in the village of San Francisco de Paula. It's now a museum. You want to see it?”
“Can we?”
“It should be open.”
Victor drives us back through and out of Havana, a sprawling city larger than Boston. It was the commercial center of the Caribbean until the Revolution. After that, Miami took over. We pass residential areas with neat homes, but no one owns a lawn mower. There is an industrial section south of the harbor with smokestacks belching. Decay and faded glory—Fort Lauderdale after the wealthy leave.
On the drive, Victor asks:
"What is your fascination with Hemingway?”
“He’s an interesting character. One of my heroes. A large part of his creative life was here in Cuba. I’ve read all his books. I’ve lived a Hemingway life.
“You’ve hunted big game in Africa.
"No, I've covered a war, run with the bulls in France, worked on deep-sea fishing boats, and climbed mountains, but I have yet to kill myself."
“He also fancies himself a writer,” Anne comments from the back seat. We end up in the small village of San Francisco de Paula. Hemingway’s Finca, or estate, is a sprawling compound atop a wooded hill, 10 miles southeast of Havana, now a state-run museum with an entry fee.
We meet the museum director and discuss the possibility of conducting a series of Hemingway short story writing workshops there.
“This would be ideal,” he enthusiastically replies. Hemingway will celebrate his 100th birthday this fall. I tell him there is a possibility I might bring Lorain Hemingway down, Ernst’s granddaughter. She is responsible for the destruction of the Hemingway Short Story Festival in Key West, a topic I will delve into later. After our meeting, I asked the director if it was possible to photograph inside the Hemingway house. He says yes, but this is something that is only allowed for a select few.
A wide cascade of steps leads to a terrace in front of the single-story, ranch-style house. Inside, there is a large formal dining room with a kitchen behind. An elegant living room with couches, easy chairs, and a coffee table occupies the remaining space. The coffee table displays magazines from the 1950s. Alfred Eisenstaed's portrait of Ernest stares up at me from the cover of the LIFE 1952 edition, the one in which his short story, The Old Man and The Sea, was published in its entirety.
The magazines look like they've been there since Hemingway and his wife, Mary, left for the last time in 1960. The living room has a spare bedroom and a library room, with Ernest's bedroom located at the far end. Ernest's bed is located there, and his manual typewriter rests atop a thick dictionary on a bureau. This is where the master stood to write The Old Man and The Sea. Yes, he stood to type!
Adjacent to the bedroom, there is a wardrobe and a large bathroom. When I entered the bathroom, against the wall by the door was a medical scale, the kind you find in the doctor’s office with the weights you slide back and forth. Directly above the scales, in Ernest's handwritten notes, is a recorded weight and the date—a request from a doctor striving to keep the old man alive.
Museum visitors wander outside, looking in through the open windows. Docents are nearby, which keeps people honest. Ernest’s leather shoes are by his bed, mildewed. The humid air in Cuba is slowly dissolving the Hemingway legacy.
Next to the house is a four-story tower. His then-wife Mary had set up the top floor as a writing studio, which he seldom used. But the view is great—you can see Havana and the sea to the north.
There’s a pool nearby that's now empty. I hear that Ernst used to swim here every morning. I walk along the pathway. Two small headstones mark the resting spots for his favorite dogs. Further down the hill, on what was once a tennis court, sits the 32-foot Pilar, Ernest’s black-hulled sports fishing boat, now high and dry under a ridged roof, providing protection from rain and sun. Bolted to Pilar’s aft deck is the fighting chair; the compass and the wheel are in place on the flying bridge. A platform surrounds the boat, giving a close-up view, but there is no access to the small, classic wood sports-fishing yacht.
I am vibrating as I explore Hemingway’s environment. My head is full of ideas and possibilities for what we could do here: an annual series of workshops, symposiums, and a residency, all exploring the Hemingway storytelling tradition. My tour is complete; I join Anna and Victor at the car. We stop to thank the director, and we are on our way to the next Hemingway landmark.
Hemingway’s Harbor
The harbor village of Cojimar is a twenty-minute drive away. This is where Hemingway moored the Pilar and brought his “catch” to the dock. There’s a dockside restaurant there, La Terraza, where we have lunch. Over the bar and on the walls are trophy swordfish and photographs of Hemingway and his pals on the boat and on the dock, their catch strung up by their tails. The dining room boasts a dozen tables, adorned with blue-check tablecloths and framed photos of Hemingway, while other fishermen line the wall. The fish stew is excellent, and the fish cakes are spicy.
The harbor looks out to the sea, with no breakwater. This is no place for my sailboat, I realize. It’s also too shallow. Wandering around this seaside village, there’s a small fort and a park with a bust of Hemingway on a pedestal. He’s looking out to sea.
A few enlargements from the contact sheet from the film I shot at Ernsts’ Fica that day. The negatives are lost, in all the moving around we’ve done, since.
