Ernest Hemingway and Mary Get Back Together – Cuba, 1945

A few days after his lunch with the Doctor Hemingway took his beloved boat, Pilar, as far as the cove at Bacuranao, wearing only a jockstrap. The boat was in good order after its wartime ordeals and Hemingway spent the day anchored in the cove cleaning and painting the craft, and getting a good all over suntan ready for when Mary arrived.

Two days later Mary phoned again to say the Elderlies were keen to meet the man who seemed to make their daughter so happy.

” They sound like a fine brace of folks to me.”

” They are, Sugar, the finest in all the world.”

” When are you starting home, Kitten?”

” In a day or two, Sugar. Thought I might get the train, not too keen on flying.”

” Okay, but phone from along the way.”

” Will do. Oh, Ma sends a big kiss, and Pa a manly handshake.”

” Good. Love you, Kitten.”

” Love you too.”

” Love you three.”

” Love you four.”

After the phone call Hemingway finished thatching the pool shelter, sorted several boxes of books for the new bookcase, swam ten laps, did seventy five lifting exercises, went on a pigeon shoot with his old friend, Alvarito Villamayor, and killed nineteen out of the twenty pigeons, and won $30. He then concluded the day with three sets of tennis and a few more laps in the pool. He told Mary, in a letter he wrote that night, that it was a:

“…necessary programme in order to write good, and love and cherish his new wife, think straight, fight when necessary, and enjoy truly and with all five senses his one and only life while he was still able to live it.”

He also told Mary that once he was back in condition he’d get back into the swing of writing:

“…first with letters, then with simple short stories, then with complex short stories, and at last a novel.”

The only letters Hemingway received were from Lanham, who was now a brigadier general, but Hemingway (although he loved to hear from his old comrade in arms) was trying to push his memories of the war into the back of his damaged brain, as if thinking about them might add to the damage.

Even so, he had little time for anyone he came across who had not been in uniform, and repeated constantly that if you had “…not been with the infantry in France after D-Day you’d not been anywhere.” Maybe his poor old brain was refusing to let him put those memories of the war into the shadows?