The Blue Bottle (Part 7)
Rosie was rescued off the dark street, making her way home, fearful that she was being watched by something or someone. Frank, just in the nick of time, drove up and called her into the safety of an antique car.
“Insufficient facts always invite danger.”–Spock
After driving all over Havana with Mark Knopfler’s The Long Road playing at the top of its volume, Rosie wonders how the music is playing in an antique car. There’s no radio, no cassette, no way to play music.
“Ah, Rosie, I know your important question, you’re wondering how you can hear Knopfler playing The Long Road?”
“No, Frank, it’s about Mark…”
But Frank isn’t listening. the Duesenberg had come to a stop outside the La Bodeguita del Medio, its yellow sign lit above the entrance. Street boys rushed over to the car, touching it like it was a spaceship. Outside the bar, four men were huddled in a heated argument over the maker of the splendid machine.
Only one man in Havana could afford such a lavish mechanical marvel.
“Frank?” Rosie says, “you didn’t answer me.”
But Frank is already leaping from the car. “Okay, Rosie…” he says, as the sound of Knopfler’s guitar rises soulfully above the Cuban sunset, above the round foreheads of women feeding their babies, and the plentiful cradles as teenagers crowd around, waving their hands to the music.
Climbing the hotel steps, Rosie on his arm, Frank offers a nod to the receptionist, her hair wrapped in a colorful bandana. With Rosie attached, he climbs a stone staircase and pushes open a door with his foot. “You’ll be safe here, Rosie.”
The room is simple, unfurnished, green slatted shutters cover the windows, and hold back the heat.
“You’re not going to leave me alone, Frank?”
“Yes, Rosie. Remember, you haven’t had any sleep. I will need you alert. I’ll be back. Do not open the door or go out.”
“Frank? Do you know about my bro....”
“Rosie, I have to go. I’m meeting someone important at the train station, please, get some sleep.”
At Matanzas Hershey station, Hemingway finds a seat on an empty train, going to Havana, which only serves to confuse him as to why he never used it more. He sits down and stares out the window and feels the bump of the train leaving the platform. Why on earth he should wonder about Heaven right then, is beyond him. Is this the train that will take me to the pearly gates? He ponders. If so, there aren’t many people on the train. It must be a good week to stay alive. Then, the writer feels a sudden shiver, as if maybe this really is the train going to Hell.
Stop the train, he thinks to yell. But the train does not stop. Hemingway, while remaining sleepless on the journey, imagines a story. The train is taking him to war. He must call Scott as soon as the train stops, but what will he say? ‘Hi Scott, let’s make the most of what we’ve got because this war will eat away our insides and it doesn’t look good. I’m going to die. I want to write one last exquisite thing, you know, something that will last.’
Of course, Hemingway knows he isn’t going to say that. He will continue to love Hadley with all his rioting body, heart, mind, and soul, having written her life down, and breaking the bank of his emotions.
The train rolls on, steaming like a wild stallion through the Cuban countryside, over hillsides, passing villages, churchyards, billowing smoke into the air, clouds of mechanical strength hurtling toward mayhem.
He remembers being the boy on the mountain, wearing blue overalls, hunting with his father. Where had he traveled since, after he had discovered words? As the train whistle blows, Earnest realizes that time is always shooting forward. He stops thinking, writing in his notebook: A Farewell To Arms.
Frank enters the bar inside Havana’s railway station, the air full of blue smoke. He considers for a moment what Hemingway’s back might look like, sitting at the bar drinking a Mojito. But Earnest is first to spot Frank.
“There you are, Frank,” Hemingway says, smiling, sitting behind a Royal Quiet de Luxe typewriter.
“Hello Earnest,” Frank replies. “I’ve come to ask for your help.”
Hemingway invites Frank to sit at the table.
“What can I do for you, Frank? You are still Frank?”
“Yes, Earnest. I’m looking to purchase a Cohiba Robusto cigar.”
Hemingway smiles, a smile that would rid the chill out of fear.
“Ah, ha,” Hemingway utters, “but Frank, you cannot buy such a cigar. Did Lorenzo not explain that?”
Frank shrugs, “Perhaps, Earnest, many a lifetime ago. I was not sure what he meant.”
Hemingway invites Frank to sit with him. Together they begin a story set in history.
Rosie wakes. But this is not her bed. Outside the window, strange sounds, not birds in branches, not the sound of the paperboy delivering newspapers on his bike. Where is she? She sits bolt upright. The room is not like any she has known. She leaps from the bed, looking out the window. People are gathered around an antique car. Yes, she recalls, the old barn, the whisperings, the breath, strange breezes, and walking home from the pub, the evil in the air, the car, oh, yes, the one at the curb below the window. Frank. Where is Frank? She wonders, feeling a sense of panic. She pulls on her dress, not remembering removing it, bringing its yellowness over her head.
Outside the hotel, Rosie stands and looks up. Hotel Cohiba. It all starts to come back, Cuba, Havana, the Hotel Cohiba, Hemingway’s writings. Then, out from the midst of the men gathered around the Duesenberg, steps Frank. Rosie’s panic flees, and her sigh of relief is like a summer breeze.
“Frank, I was scared. Where are we? Is this hotel where I think it is?”
“Havana, Rosie. Yes, we are in Cuba,” he answers matter of fact.
“Why Cuba?” She asks.
It is hot, humid, uncomfortable, still so early in the day.
“Well, it’s not for the ice cream, Rosie. Cuba isn’t filled with choices, varieties, fragrances, or modern transport, nothing exciting except the music, and yet this is how Cuban people live. With no desires or expectations. It is the perfect hiding place for a man like Lorenzo. Come, let’s walk, I need to find a cigar,” he says, taking Rosie’s arm. They walk between Spanish-style buildings with iron-clad balconies lining the streets.
“You think Lorenzo is here, Frank?”
“Oh, he’s here, Rosie. You can trust that.”
Together they find Fabrica De Tabacos Partagas. Inside, the choice of cigars looks endless. Frank knows a cigar must be perfect, not a fake, not poor quality.
Lorenzo will come. I smelled it at the old farmhouse, his favorite cigar, like red earth.
The Cuban man behind the counter asks to be of help.
Frank steps forward, “I have to find a certain cigar. I don’t know anything about cigars. Do you have any ideas?” He asks. “It must be the most superb cigar, Señor. The man I am meeting smokes only the very best.”
The man raises his finger, signaling one moment.
Rosie leans into Frank’s ear.
“Why must it be the very best cigar?”
“Good grief, Rosie, don’t you know anything about Havana? Mojitos, and Cuban cigars? Naturally, Lorenzo wants only the best of everything, smoking only those from here, Fabrica de Tabacos Partagás, one of Cuba’s oldest cigar factories. The smell of his favorite cigar will disguise your fragrance. It will allow us to get close.”
Frank had another thing on his mind. Had she guessed? He wondered. If she had, he was done for. Never once, not in two thousand years, had a friendship been improved once they knew about him. Rosie was the last one he’d wanted to find out. Not that it was the kind of relationship likely to go anywhere, how could it? Down the centuries, he’d never made friendships work.
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