|
Hemingway and his fishing mate were as brothers, David Sharrock writes from Cojimar, Cuba. Gregorio Fuentes is 104 years old and laments that he can no longer stroll down the hill from his little bungalow to the restaurant where he and Ernest Hemingway used to eat a little fish and drink a lot of whisky.
The Herald, London
Mr Fuentes is the last living link between the heroic, hard-drinking age of Hemingway and the down-at-heel fishing village of Cojimar, a few kilometres east of the Cuban capital Havana.
But the old man is tired and seems no longer willing to play his role of fishing foreign currency from visitors' travel belts.
Between 1935 and 1960, when Hemingway was at the height of his literary powers, he and Mr Fuentes were like brothers. The Nobel prize-winning author of The Old Man and the Sea even took his Cuban drinking and fishing pal with him when he went hunting big game in Africa.
Neither of them could have known that, after Hemingway committed suicide in 1961, Mr Fuentes would become the living embodiment of the noble fisherman, the protagonist of The Old Man and the Sea. As Hemingway wrote: "The old man was thin and gaunt with deep wrinkles in the back of his neck. The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks."
Mr Fuentes also seems a little sad. It was only earlier this year that he had to give up his daily trip to the harbour for lunch at La Terrazza, where he would hold court for the tourists.
On the restaurant's walls are photographs of Hemingway with Fidel Castro at a marlin fishing competition and an iconic image of Mr Fuentes in his threadbare fishing garb on the pier, which was destroyed recently by Hurricane Michelle.
There was less than a year's difference in age between Hemingway and Mr Fuentes and they used to celebrate their birthdays together with a bottle of their beloved whisky.
After the author's death, Mr Fuentes maintained the tradition: he would drink a glass and pour another for Hemingway over his brass bust. When whisky became a rare commodity in Cuba, he had to give up.
Hemingway left his boat, the Pilar, and his fishing tackle to Mr Fuentes, but the old man has not fished since. He finally gave the boat to the state and it is part of the Hemingway museum.
Mariel, Hemingway's actress granddaughter, said after meeting Mr Fuentes: "This man literally lives each day mourning a man who died decades ago and whom he cannot replace."
Asked what he remembers most about Hemingway, Mr Fuentes says: "He was a panther. He could have a crazy temper." Then, thinking he ought to say something a little more respectful, he adds: "He was a good writer."
For the old man of the sea, it is yet another reason to mourn.
The Telegraph, London
|
|