Four Days with Hemingway's Ghost Read Online Free PDF

piling mirrored off her freshly-painted, black hull, and the wooden cabin shone as if the varnish had not yet dried.  The Pilar looked brand new—like she must have looked in 1934 when her maiden voyage took her from Brooklyn’s Wheeler Shipyard to a waiting Ernest in Miami.
    By the time I reached the boat, Ernest was already on the wide, green deck near the stern.  He was checking out the ladder-back fighting chair—swiveling and sliding it—as if preparing once again to do battle with the finned Goliaths of the South Seas. 
    “Oh,” he finally said. “Sorry . . . here, give me the cooler.”
    I swung it over the transom to him; then I climbed aboard.  She was like something out of a museum and in all reality was.  For the fifty years since Ernest’s death, Pilar had been dry- docked alongside his Cuban home.  Recently it had been restored along with the house which was now open to the public.
    As Ernest kicked over the seventy-five horsepower Chrysler engine, I heard him say in a gentle tone, “That a girl.  Papa’s taking you home.”
    She purred in the darkness like a reliable friend.  With her gurgling prop and the low rumble of the exhaust, it was as if Pilar were telling us she was raring to go.  Feeling the engine’s powerful vibration beneath my feet, I poked around the deck until the skipper, without looking over his shoulder, said, “Come on, Jack, untie the lines.  We’re going to Cuba.”
    It wasn’t long before the first pale gray light of a new day appeared on the port side.  Standing alongside Ernest at the helm, I opened the Thermos and poured a steamy cup of coffee.  I offered it to Hem , but he waved me off.  Looking around as I took a sip, I thought how nothing on earth offers as much hope as daybreak on the ocean.  Then I turned to watch the boat’s wake spreading behind us.  The lights of Key West were quickly drowning in the ocean behind us. 
    “Cuba’s about ninety miles, right Ernest?”
    “That’s a positive.  We should reach Cojimar in about six hours.  Once we get there, it’s only a ten minute taxi ride to Havana.”
    “So we’re going to Havana?”
    “We’ll be spending the night at my old place, the Finca Vigia , but we’re going to Havana first.”        
    “What are we going to do in Havana?” I asked, taking another sip of the strong coffee.
    “That’s going to be another surprise, Jack.  But I’ll tell you this much, we’re going to the Floridita Bar.  We have to meet somebody there.”
    “Somebody I know?”
    “You know of him, but that’s it.  I’m not going to tell you anymore.  But don’t worry, I guarantee we’ll have a good time.”
    “Sounds good to me.”
    “Hey,” Ernest then blurted, pointing through the now open windshield, “look there . . . just to the left.”
    We were well in the Gulf Stream by now, and a sailfish was quickly closing on a hapless ballyhoo.  The rising sun had colored the water pink, and the sailfish cut through the surreal surface like a heat-seeking torpedo.  Spending more time out of the water than in it, the frantic skittering baitfish changed directions twice, but it didn’t have a chance.  The sail closed in; its beak rose from the water as it opened its mouth.  Then smash!  The water erupted with a showery explosion, and pink, sunlit droplets splayed in every direction.  It was the kind of vision that remains stamped in a fisherman’s mind till the day of his very last cast.
    “How about some of that coffee?” Ernest asked , his eyes still fixed on the rippling water.
    “Sure.  Sorry.  I didn’t know if . . . .”
    “That’s fine.  There’s another cup in that cabinet—beneath the counter in front of you.”
    As I handed Ernest the coffee in an old metal cup, his eyes were squinting in the new sunshine.  “You know, Jack,” he said, “Mother Nature is a chameleon.  Sometimes, when she shows her beautiful side, her kindness and generosity can be limitless.