Hemingway’s Old Man
by Hugo Perez
On a hot summer day, I make my way from Havana to the small fishing village of Cojimar outside of Havana to pay a visit to Gregorio Fuentes, age 100. Gregorio was Hemingway’s boat captain from 1938 until shortly before Papa’s death, and is regarded by some as the template for the tough personality of Santiago, the old fisherman in Hemingway’s Nobel prize-winning The Old Man and the Sea.
The first thing I notice about Gregorio is his eyes. “Everything about him was old except his eyes...” was the way that Hemingway described Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea. Out of a face that is as worn as the side of a mountain, Gregorio’s eyes shine brightly. I shake his hand, a strong fisherman’s hand, heavy with calluses and rocksteady. Something about the way he holds himself reminds me of my grandfather. A large truck roars by the house as I sit down. In a corner, I notice a print of a Robert Capa Hemingway portrait, an original that was presented as a gift to Gregorio by Hemingway.
Gregorio describes how he and Hemingway first met. in a small harbor in Tortuga during a big storm. “When I arrived the time was bad, and I saw that someone was waving to me from another boat, a launch that had run out of gas and they were asking for help. When I pulled up alongside, Papa started to talk to me, in perfect Spanish, and I tossed him a line and he came onboard with me.”
“He said ‘I thought that this was populated.’ And I said, ‘No, it’s not populated.’
“‘And now, what are we going to do?’ he asked. And I said ‘Don’t worry about it. You are on my boat and while you are on my boat, we’ll have lunch, we’ll have dinner, we’ll drink, and we’ll wait for the American launch that comes by every eight hours,’ and a while later the American launch came into the harbor, and I said ‘That’s the boat.’ The boat pulled up alongside and as he went on board, he said to me, ‘Adios. When you finish your trip, in Cuba we will see each other because that’s where I’m headed.’ And that’s how we met.”
“Later, we got together in Havana. He was staying at the Hotel Ambos Mundos and he came by to see me and he told me what he wanted. He said if you want to be my Captain, I’m having a boat built, and it’s going to be ready to be picked up soon. I said yes, and he said, you do what you want with the boat, and because I lived here, this is where we kept the boat, anchored and tied to a mooring. And from here we went out to sea and came back, and he would get into his car and drive home and I would come back here. That’s how it was with Hemingway.”
I ask what it was like when he went out fishing with Hemingway. “While he was in Cuba, we would go out fishing every day during the summer months, starting in June...July, August, September, October. He liked to fish, to take a drink every so often, in tranquility... He would fish from the boat’s lower deck and I would be up above piloting, and when I saw a swordfish I would stamp my feet, and he would look over and see the swordfish. People have this idea that we would spend all of our time talking, blah, blah, blah... no, we were tending the fish. He kept watch and I kept watch. When he didn’t see it, I would see it, and when I didn’t see it, he would see it... the swordfish coming for our bait."
It is easy to sit back in the cozy living room and let Gregorio tell what it was like with Hemingway. “He was a man whose like I haven’t seen in this world, a man worthy of admiration, a humane man, with a humane heart towards everyone. That was Hemingway.” To listen to stories of how, during World War II, they would patrol for German submarines off the Northern coast of Cuba. To listen to Gregorio tell how he weathered hurricanes on the Pilar. “We had a hurricane, a terrible hurricane in Havana. The boat was in Havana harbor when I took charge of it. All the sailors in Havana were saying what the hell is the old man doing. They were sailors but they had no idea how I would tie down the boat, how I would prepare the boat... so that the wind would carry away whatever but everything on the boat would stay in its place.” It is hot outside, but in Gregorio’s living room it is cool, and it is easy to be swept away by Gregorio’s tales delivered in a gravelly voice that sounds like waves breaking on a shore.
* * * *
If
Gregorio was not exactly the old man when he knew
Hemingway, he is the old man now, and with those old
fisherman’s hands of his he could still pull in a big
fish. I ask Gregorio about the last time he saw Hemingway,
“The last time... I don’t remember what year it
was. We were sitting here and he said to me ‘Take
care of the boat how you have known how to take care of it,
and take care of yourself the same way.’ And I was
thinking what was he trying to say... take care of the
boat. What was he trying to say. Because we had already
been told by the doctor that he had it in his head that he
was going to kill himself. I thought about it, and wondered
if he had those intentions and that’s why he was
telling me to take care of his boat. And then I found out
that it was what I thought... that he was thinking about
killing himself. His wife came to see me with his last will
and testament and I found out that he had left me the boat.
I said it’s better to take the boat to his house
because otherwise someone is going to bomb it or it will
get eaten up by the sea.”
When was the last time you went out fishing? I ask.
“Since his death I haven’t gone out fishing
with anybody, not on his boat or another. They’ve
wanted me to but you see that I’m too old and too
tired... (Go fishing) for what? I don’t need to fish
anymore.”
Gregorio snorts when I ask him if the fisherman’s
life is a good life. “Has the fisherman’s life
ever been a good life? The fisherman has never had a good
life. The ones that have been able to conquer the sea...
have been able to make a better life for themselves.
I’ve led a good life because they can take me to any
part of the sea... if I weren’t able to do that, no
one would call me. And by virtue of having done what
you’ve done, people call you to navigate... and if
you want to go, you go... and if not, you tell them no.
There are things in the sea that you have to know to be a
true sailor.” As we get up to leave, I once more
place my hand in Gregorio’s viselike grip.
“Gregorio, if I had a fishing boat, I would be lucky
to have a captain like you.” His reply makes me feel
like I’ve been made a knight of the realm. “One
day you’ll have a boat and you’ll have a good
captain. You are young. You cannot see what life has in
store for you.”
copyright 2005 Hugo Perez
all rights reserved