Papa and the Playwright

There used to be a popular literary pastime called "Imaginary Conversations." The idea was to bring together in imagination great men or women who never met in reality, and improvise dialog to fit the situation. The more disparate the pair, the better: What, for instance, would St. Francis of Assisi have said to the Marquis de Sade? And what would a fly on the wall have gleaned from a chat between Noel Coward and Lenin? I often play the game in my mind, and one of the pairings with which I have toyed is that of Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams. How would the great extrovert react to the great introvert, the big-game hunter to the hothouse plant, the virility symbol to the student of deviation? I never got very far with that confrontation, and usually passed on to something simpler (like Casey Stengel and Sappho); but it persistently nagged at my imagination until a spring day some five years ago, when I was offered a chance of translating my abortive fantasy into accomplished fact.

The time was April 1959, and the place Havana. I had come to Cuba to write a travel article and, hopefully, to meet Fidel Castro, who had then been in power for less than four months. The rift with Washington was still far off: younger readers may not believe me, but there really was a period when it was not thought un-American to approve of Castro's regime. (That was before he began to nationalize American business interests in Cuba.) The city was bursting with libertarian fervor; you felt in the midst of a genuine, do-it-yourself revolution. Although the brothels and blue cinemas were closed, I did manage to attend a private showing, arranged by a young American writer I knew, of a genuine, do-it-yourself erotic film. The secrecy was terrific. We had to lie prone on the floor of an abandoned whorehouse while the movie was projected onto the wall from a distance of less than three feet, producing an image about the size of a credit card. It depicted a teenage boy disastrously failing to make love to a burly, maternal tart. The male star, who also directed the film and worked the projector, apologized to us for his inadequacy, explaining that it was his first picture, and he was not used to the hot lights. Would we not wait for the second reel, in which he actually made it with a Chinese sailor? But we had left.

On my second day in Havana, I went to see Hemingway at his estate in the suburb of San Francisco de Paula, where he settled soon after the end of the Spanish Civil War. No admission except by appointment, read a sign on the heavy iron gates; but I had an appointment, and pressed on to the ramshackle mansion, full of books, unopened mail and wildlife (stuffed and skinned), which he shared with Miss Mary, the last of his wives. I had met him first in Madrid, several years before. Expecting a booming titan, I had been amazed to shake hands with a gruff, gigantic boy, shy and reticent in manner despite the heroic head and white, Michelangelesque curls. The lips, thin like a student's, belied the massive physique, and would part, at moments of enthusiasm, in an eager, adolescent grin. The blue eyes were moist and plaintive behind the steel-rimmed glasses, though in transports of fury they could become oppressively baleful. I noted that Hemingway was a (continued on page 138)Papa and the Playwright(continued from page 97) model of courtesy on his own (or with Miss Mary), but an intolerant boss when surrounded by an entourage of sycophants -- unlike the fighting bull, which is dangerous only when isolated from the herd. His voice was a whispering baritone. As I listened to it in Havana, I recalled a phrase from our first Madrid encounter. Describing an Atlantic crossing on the same ship as a notoriously queer English actor, Hemingway had said: "Whenever he walked into the dining room, I raised my glass and smashed it on the table, as every gentleman does in the presence of homosexuals." I had never made up my mind whether he was joking; and if so, how seriously.

Having made a lunch date for the following day, I drove back to central Havana. That evening, I dropped in at the Hotel Nacional for a drink. Leaning against the bar, plumply perched on a stool, his hair darkly coiled with sweat and his bland, fat-cat face smiling out into nowhere, was Tennessee Williams. I flinched; because a few days earlier I had given his latest play, Sweet Bird of Youth, an extremely damaging review that included references to dust bowls and sterility. But Tennessee's scars heal swiftly (in public, at least; God knows what private sores continue to suppurate within), and he sauntered over to join me. "Ken baby," he said, emitting the thick, bemused snicker by which he hopes to convince you that he is a simpleton; in fact he is as sharp as a tack. He said he was awaiting the arrival of "a banana millionairess from Key West"; meanwhile, could we meet for lunch tomorrow? I explained that I had a date with Hemingway. Tennessee said he had never met Mr. Hemingway, and tentatively wondered whether he might make a third. I said I was sure that Hemingway wouldn't mind. "But won't he kick me?" said Tennessee, stricken with unease. "They tell me that Mr. Hemingway usually kicks people like me in the crotch." To silence his qualms, I telephoned Hemingway, who said he would be delighted to meet Mr. Williams. We were to forgather at noon the next day, the chosen arena being the Floridita restaurant, Hemingway's favorite eating place.

This was not the first time I had inflicted a brief encounter on Tennessee. Only a year before, at a Mayfair club, I had mischievously introduced him to the renowned ex-madam, Polly Adler. Their conversation had been conducted on parallel lines that never met; Tennessee wanted to talk about brothels, and Miss Adler about literature. She was taking a course in classical poetry at a California college, and urgently solicited Tennessee's views on the passages in Virgil where "Dido shacks up with Aeneas." Scant contact was made.

I was the first to arrive at the Floridita. The air conditioning was so brutal that it blew out my cigarette lighter. Hemingway breasted his way in a few minutes later, wearing a baseball cap, a white T-shirt and tropical trousers: the day was fiercely hot. He ordered a double frozen daiquiri, locally known as a "Papa-doble," hugged a few waiters and signed a few autographs. A dramatic bronze bust of him stood in a niche beside the bar: "We cover it," he said, "during Lent." A trio of Negro musicians saluted him with a song called Soy Como Soy -- "I am as I am" -- about a Lesbian who cannot, however hard she tries, change her appetites to suit Papa's. They next sang a lament for the death of Antonio Maceo, the mulatto general who was killed in Cuba's struggle against Spain. The lyrics were written in Spanish by Hemingway, who embraced the singers and proudly informed me: "I'm an honorary Negro."

Twelve-fifteen, and still no Tennessee. I listened to Hemingway's comments on some of his contemporaries. On Scott Fitzgerald: "He was soft. He dissolved at the least touch of alcohol." On a popular Southern novelist: "'He's a whiskey writer. He can't write without a quart of rye at his elbow. He's a slave to saucedom." He then made for the men's room, and minutes passed. At twelvethirty I pursued him and coaxed him out; he had been sparring in the john with an ancient Negro attendant.

Meanwhile, Tennessee had arrived, looking chipper though slightly glazed. He was wearing a yachting jacket with silver buttons, as if to persuade Hemingway that although he might be a decadent, he was at least an outdoor decadent. He rather spoiled the effect by flourishing a lengthy cigarette holder. Eleven years separated the contenders: Hemingway aged in at 59, and Williams at 48. I made the introduction, hands were duly shaken, and I ordered more drinks. Silence fell. Hemingway gazed at the bar, Tennessee beamed at the ceiling. Suddenly: "What I've always admired about your work, Mr. Hemingway," said Tennessee bravely, "is that you care about honor among men. And there is no quest more desperate than that."

Hemingway swiveled his leonine head. "What kind of men, Mr. Williams," he said, "did you have in mind?" Tennessee started to shrug, but Hemingway continued: "People who have honor never talk about it. They know it, and they confer immortality on each other." That seemed to take care of that.

By now the bar was filling up, and so were we. I was beginning to feel slightly drunk, and Tennessee's fixed smile and half-closed eyes did not bode too well. He murmured to me that fear of Hemingway's boot had moved him to start tanking up on martinis at ten A.M. The drink that drives out fear had clearly done its work, for within a few moments he was once again making the running. "I was in Spain last year for the bullfights," he said. "I go every year. I get so disturbed I have to leave after the third bull." Hemingway sipped and grunted. "Last summer I met one of the matadors on the beach," Tennessee went on, "a lovely boy, very friendly, very accessible. Named Ordóñez -- Antonio Ordóñez." I realized that Tennessee was walking blindfolded into a mine field. Ordóñez was not only the greatest bullfighter in Spain, but one of Hemingway's closest friends; indeed, in the summer that lay ahead, Hemingway seldom left his side, missing none of his corridas and later extolling his art in Life magazine. Pedro Romero in The Sun Also Rises was modeled on Ordóñez' father. Ignorant of these things, or perhaps forgetful, Tennessee continued: "He was utterly charming to me, a most enchanting boy. He even showed me his cogidas."

"He showed you his what, Mr. Williams?" said Hemingway, furrowing his brow and feigning incomprehension.

"His cogidas," Tennessee rattled on, "his horn wounds. The scars on his thighs. Of course he was wearing a bathing suit."

"Do you think he would talk to us and show us his cogidas?" said Hemingway, all deadpan innocence.

"Oh, I'm certain he would," Tennessee assured him. "As I say, he's a most accessible boy."

At this point a tiresome Commonwealth journalist intervened; and never was bore more welcome. He breezily asked whether I would like to attend an execution that night at Morro Castle across the bay, where one of Batista's bullies was due to be shot. I declined the invitation, explaining that I hated capital punishment and that the idea of death as a spectacle for outsiders disgusted me. Tennessee disagreed: In my place, he said, he would have accepted, since it was a writer's duty to expose himself to any human experience, however loathsome. The bore promptly offered to take him along, and they arranged to meet after dinner. (The plan miscarried: The execution, an open-airevent, was postponed because of bad weather.) I asked Hemingway whether he thought I was right to reject the invitation. He nodded. "There are some refusals," he said enigmatically, "that are still permitted us." He added, however, that he thoroughly approved of Castro. "This is a good revolution," he said, "an honest revolution."

One-fifteen, and still no food; merely a chilling cascade of melting daiquiris. Tennessee, playing it as unsafe as ever, mentioned William Faulkner. "When I met him," he said, "his eyes haunted me. Those terrible, distraught eyes. They moved me to tears."

Hemingway was not noticeably affected. "The trouble with Mr. Faulkner," he said, "is that he can't rematar" -- a Spanish taurine verb meaning to round off a sequence of passes with the cape -- "He can give you eighty-nine naturales, but he doesn't know how to end the series." As often, Hemingway not only closed the subject but sat on the lid.

More drinks (we were all still standing, though swaying), and Tennessee plunged in again. "I used to know your second wife, Mr. Hemingway," he said. "I believe her name was Pauline. I know her in Key West when I was young. She was very kind to me when I was poor -- a lovely lady, a most hospitable lady. I often wondered what happened to her. They tell me she died. Did she die in great pain?"

Hemingway, who was profoundly attached to his second wife, replied with a stoical sentence that deliberately verged on self-parody; he often used this technique as a mask to avoid direct emotional commitment. "She died like everybody else," he said, leaning portentously across the bar, "and after that she was dead."

Solid food was obviously out of the question. I went to the lavatory and found, when I returned, that the meeting of minds for which I had hoped had taken place in my absence. The two writers were brow to brow, urgently debating the relative importance of the kidneys and the liver. "You can survive on one kidney," Hemingway was arguing, "but if your liver gives out, you're through." They were even exchanging the names and addresses of their doctors. I disrupted their communion by announcing that I had a date at two P.M. with Castro, and would have to leave at once. To my slight alarm, Tennessee insisted on accompanying me. He and Hemingway shook hands warmly, linked at last by medicine and mortality.

Just on time, Tennessee and I passed through the gates of the Presidential Palace. Instead of frisking us, the sentry drew our attention to a collection of butterflies owned by one of his colleagues. We admired it, and were escorted to a leather couch outside Castro's anteroom. Here we spent two-and-a-half hours, while soldiers, pregnant women, and men in ice-cream-colored suits strolled in and out of the leader's presence. Tennessee, growing restive, focused his gaze on a teenage boy in olive-green battle dress who was standing guard at the door. "Have you noticed," he mused, "how everybody touches that boy before they go in? Do you suppose it's for luck? I wonder would he like some American cigarettes..."

Before I could answer his questions, someone identified Tennessee as the famous Yankee playwright, and we were whisked through the anteroom into Castro's sanctum, where a vital cabinet meeting was in session. Castro was on the eve of paying his first visit to the United States since coming to power. Because of Tennessee, the meeting was suspended; the affairs of the nation ground to a halt while the president paid tribute to the artist in transit. The members of the cabinet, most of them under 30, rose from their seats around an oval, mahogany table, and Castro strode over to greet us. In clumsy but clearhearted English, he told Tennessee how much he had admired his plays, above all the one about the cat that was upon the burning roof. He hoped that Mr. Williams would come to live in Cuba, and write about the revolution. He said he was also grateful to Mr. Hemingway: "We took For Whom the Bell Tolls to the hills with us, and it taught us about guerrilla warfare." Tennessee smiled noncommittally, and asked me out of the corner of his mouth whether I thought the boy with a mustache on his left would be willing to run across the square and bring him a hot tamale. I replied that I doubted it, because the boy in question was the minister of education.

We took our leave shortly afterward. Tennessee has never met Castro since; and he never saw Hemingway again. I offer this account of two accidental meetings simply because they happened. Artistically, nothing came of them; but they may contribute, to future historians of American literature, a few bizarre and frivolous footnotes.