Papa’s story changes at Finca La Vigía

It may seem odd, but one of the best ways to see how Cuba is changing is by visiting Finca La Vigía, the former residence of Ernest Hemingway. The first time I came here, in 2007, the English-speaking tour guide, while being very earnest (no pun intended) was misguided, to say the least, in some of her biographical information.

 

Finca La Vigia photos by David Lansing

Finca La Vigia photos by David Lansing

For instance, she insisted that Hemingway had died of cancer. When I suggested to her that, in fact, Hem had climbed down the stairs to the basement room in his Sun Valley, Idaho, house early on the morning of July 2, 1961 and taken his favorite short-barreled shotgun, a Boss double-barrel purchased for his safari trips from Abercrombie & Fitch, from his gun case and dropped the butt of the gun on the floor and then leaned over, putting the twin muzzles to his forehead just above the eyes, tripping both triggers and blowing the top of his head off—when I told her all this, she acted as if I were completely crazy.

“No, no,” she said dismissively. “Cancer.”

No mention, that first year, of depression, paranoia, electroshock therapy, or alcoholism. And most certainly no mention of the “s” word—suicide.

 I got the impression that my guide had heard the stories of alcoholism and suicide before. But obviously she’d been instructed to deliver a different version. Why? Was it just a cultural thing? Suicide is often denied in Latin America, where it is considered shameful to the family; and to Catholics, of course, killing oneself is a mortal sin. Hemingway was allowed to be buried in a Catholic cemetery in Ketchum, Idaho, only after the church judged him mentally ill and not responsible for his death.

 

Hem's living room with his favorite chair, on the left

Hem's living room with his favorite chair, on the left

More likely, I’m thinking, is that Cuba did not want any negatives associated with Hemingway since he is such a tourist draw (at least half a dozen restaurants, from El Floridita to La Terraza have lined their walls with photos of Papa, and then there are the hotels, like Ambos Mundos, and the Hemingway Marina, a few miles outside of Havana, where a hotel is named El Viejo y El Mar, and one restaurant is called Papa’s and the other Fiesta –the original name for The Sun Also Rises).

 

In the afternoon he liked to have three Scotch on the rocks

In the afternoon he liked to have three Scotch on the rocks

 

There’s a strange secular trinity in Cuba: Fidel is the Holy Father, Che is the martyred son, and Hemingway is the mysterious but powerful Holy Ghost. None of the three can have any flaws. Thus, Hem was not a deeply disturbed drunk, convinced the FBI was shadowing his every move in Sun Valley, but a genius who spoke in tongues and had such solidarity with the people of Cuba that when his greatness was affirmed with the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, he had the medal placed at the foot of the black Virgin Mary, Virgen del Cobre, saying, “This prize belongs to Cuba, since my works were created and conceived in Cuba, with the inhabitants of Cojimar, of which I am a citizen.”

The perfect ending for Cuba’s Holy Ghost.

Anyway, this has all changed. This year the same guide I’d had two years ago readily admitted that Papa drank like a fish, had “many, many problems with his head,” and killed himself.

“Really?” I teased her. “He committed suicide?”

She shrugged. “Si, claro.”

Claro indeed. 

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