Fragrant memories of La Colombiana

Continued from last week

Hemingway never resisted the temptation to pull his yacht into the cave at El Guincho. On the pier, one could observe the great wooden wharfs, the electric companies and the one made of old timber that belonged to the Carreras brothers.

On the same bank, on one side of the Carreras brothers’ pier was Agustins tavern: and on the other side, leeward, a kind of inn and canteen, with corridors, terraces and balconies run by woman that everyone knew as La Colombiana. The stone streets and the colonial buildings constructed with limestone and coral were covered with a tile roof.

Ernest Hemingway began to visit this place of experienced fishermen, turtle hunters and sailors in a port where as soon as the world war began, it was common to see numerous cargo ships, navy ships, tall sail boats, gunboats, schooners, and brigs. It was the war years and it was customary in taverns or in the hotel of the Filgueras family, or in the splendid El Cato Negro restaurant, to find the captains of merchant ships, sailors from navy gamblers, merchants, businessmen and officials of international companies, FBI agents, Mahosos and scoundrels, custom agents, bank representatives, Germans from Berlin city, adventurers, sailors and professional swindlers.

Hotel Ambos Mundos

Officials from Insurance Companies, local businessmen, estate owners, landowners and tenant families, illustrious people of Camaguey, old sailors from every corner of the world and a lot of travellers: Europeans and Americans from the cities that they had founded in the valley of Cubilas, landowners, ranchers and sugar producers who had arrived on the train at sun rise, and would go ahead to the city of Camaguey on the evening express. As Hemingway would say years later, in one of his famous chronicles, in reference to favourite places in Havana, “Here one could meet by chance some enigmatic character whose destiny it was to die the next day or a year later,” Of all the testimonies that Ernest Hemingway offered at the pier of San Fernando de Nuevitas, the one with the greatest sense of admiration was the one always told by Augustin et Tuerto (one -eyed Augustin). His favourite, as mentioned, was windward of that enormous wooden pier, site of former splendours. On the other side, leeward was the inn of La Colombiana.

And that was all.

La Colombianas inn was the greatest splendour and was always the most interesting. That silent hermetic woman ruled the building constructed with oak cedar and mahogany, with a great salon and bar, and eight or ten tables with chairs, nets and another attached to the wall among other spoils of the sea. There were 30 spacious rooms, with highly polished doors and windows which opened to the forces of the breeze, the salt and the rain. The place had great charm. It also had a touch of mystery because of these celebrated parties that La Colombiana used to hold in the years of the World War and because the establishment was visited on various occasions by the writer Hemingway.

As La Colombiana remembers “Hemingway always gave the impression of being a solitary sailor dressed like a sailor like on that first occasion when he came into the port to get drunk in Agustins tavern. Some years later he made a very special visit.

He approached the counter of the inn and requested the best room, with wide windows, facing the sea breeze.

La Colombiana remembered how that night, in the days of World War II, Hemingway waited endlessly, and it was not until the next day that the movie star Hemingway waiting for appeared. She came very early. She arrived in a rented car from the Camaguey airport.

The description (both that of La Colombiana, as well as, that of some fishermen later) was of “a tall woman, blonde, splendid, with a very pretty face and a large breasts”.

The American would stay inside his room for two days. He requested rum and ice, and on several occasions he also requested clean sheets and pillowcases. He ordered plenty of food, in the morning and in the evening, and more rum and bottles of wine, always with windows of the room opened to the sea breeze, after the first day he had gone by.

It was the following night that they went out on terrace. They left the inn and walked toward the restaurant El Gato Negro, the most exquisite place of the region. To go into spacious salon with its wooden floors, opened to all the sounds of the sea, beautiful bar, nor the large windows, nor the grace and elegance of that great restaurant that captivated Hemingway. The most fascinating thing about it, what most attracted and excited him about El Gato Negro, according to Augustin, was the irresistible aroma that always emanated from kitchen. The splendour of El Gato Negro was in its famous kitchen, attended by a man from Grand Canary Island. Every time he entered the big door of El Gato Negro, Hemingway raised his voice and demanded the chef appeared before him immediately, the chef who officiated over all these miracles in the place.” Prepare lobster buccaneer-style or pirate-style or however it suits you,” said Hemingway. Perhaps because of this Hemingway returned time and again. They knew him from 1930s, and he came on many other occasions during his stays in Camaguey.

Yatch

And the fishermen and turtle hunters always remembered him from the time when that girl left the room and went out on terrace. They saw her defiant.

They watched her walk along the high covered porch. It is said that the girl stayed there, leaning against the railing, on the side where schooners pulled up, observing the schools of fish that used to appear in the cove in the morning. Later Hemingway approached her and gave the impression that they were exchanging wards, may be arguing, until the chauffeur appeared who two days earlier had brought her from the airport.

Then she left the terrace quickly and got in the car without saying goodbye, while Hemingway went to the bar, paid the bill leaving a good tip, headed toward the pier to untie his yacht and disappeared quickly.

Augustin used to say that he had known “that American” since 1930. He remembered him because two years later a great hurricane whipped the coast.

He also affirmed that he was a man, who was almost always upset, at times in a very bad mood, often with a strong will to drink. As soon as he had docked, he went to the tavern. He approached the counter, barefoot, shirtless, with an old cap, and asked for a bottle of Matusalen. The clientele of Agustins tavern were avid sailors. They came anxious to mail a letter, get a shave and haircut, buy something, or find a woman. That was the case of Spaniards who came to Cayo Sabinal. They were very strange.

Augustin at times remembered the heated arguments and serious wards that the Gallelan, Jose, sometimes exchanged with Americans from the yacht.

With his sun visor, his stories, and an old coloured shirt, Hemingway would walk all over town, from the pier of El Guincho to the area El Pauente. Right at that spot, between the activity of the port and the red light district, the barber shop of Felo Centellas was built years later, not far from Sloppy Joes of Perecito (where El Dongo used to sing with his hoarse voice on nights of endless revelry) and close to where the Prada Hotel and noisy Green Light were located. Hemingway learned everything to be known about that town.

He arrived unknown, silent, like any other foreigner, one of the many who passed through the port. He came like many of European immigrants fleeing the war.

Like many of the Americans in search of lodging, for a room in one of the hotels. Like many of the Germans who appeared on the evening train, before they began to be persecuted. Like the English, Italians and French and other crew members from the furthest corners of the earth.

On one or two occasions Hemingway also stayed in the Miramar Hotel. It was located at the very edge.