November of 1922. Hemingway was still trying to assert himself on the world. He was in Switzerland, covering the peace conference in Lausanne as a foreign correspondent for the Toronto Star and his first wife, Hadley, had decided to join him. After first sending word to Hemingway, she set about packing.
They were living in Paris, in a third-floor apartment, in the highly unfashionable area of rue du Cardinal Lemoine. The apartment was little more than a rectangular room with a small kitchen. The bathroom was even smaller and did not have the kind of flushing toilet that Hemingway and Hadley were used to in America. Instead, outside on the landing, they had a squat toilet, the contents of which were routinely pumped into a horse-drawn cart and hauled away over the narrow cobbled street.
Hadley packed her own suitcase and then took a valise out from under the bed. She laid the valise on the bed and opened it. Thinking that her husband may want to write, she placed his manuscripts inside. Among the documents was much hand-written work, portions of stories that he had already started or notes for stories he would soon make a start on, typescripts including the draft of a novel, eleven short stories he’d already completed, and a handful of poems. Hadley wasn’t certain which of these things he would want most, so she packed them all, even the carbon copies of all his work. All that Hemingway had written fitted inside a single valise. Hadley closed the lid and took the valise and her own suitcase with her in a taxi to the Gare de Lyon. There she purchased a ticket to Lausanne and stood alone waiting for the train. The platform was already crowded when the Stationmaster came out of his office and announced that the train was running an hour late already and that there was the chance of further delays. The waiting passengers let out a collective sigh and began to fidget and murmur. Women drew out long thin cigarettes and men lit fat cigars and the gathering smoke caught up under the awning that overhung the station platform and Hadley’s eyes began to water. It was mid-afternoon, hours since she’d eaten and she was hungry and listless with thirst. A porter came along the edge of the platform. He was a slight and effeminate youth with slick black hair that hung loosely from beneath his cap. Hadley stepped forward, and asked if he could keep an eye on her suitcases while she fetched an Evian. The porter nodded quickly at Hadley and disappeared into the Stationmaster’s office.
Hadley went in search of an Evian and a newspaper and soon found both at the far end of the platform. She looked back once as she stepped out from beneath the awning and rounded the building to queue for the water and the newspaper. The delay meant that many people were now hungry or thirsty or bored enough to now be interested in the news so the queue was long and Hadley began to worry. Had the porter heard her correctly? Was his nod really an acknowledgment of his intent? Hadley felt the urge to go back then to the suitcases but she was nearing the beginning of the queue and so she waited until it was her turn.
When she did step back under the awning her eyes took a moment to adjust to the shade. Stepping around clusters of people as she made her way along the platform, she was relieved to see that the porter was standing in the place where she’d left her suitcase and the valise. But when she reached him and glanced down at his feet she saw, as though in a dream – a nightmare, surely – that her luggage was gone.
The newspaper slipped from her hands, the thin sheets of paper opening out and the newspaper disassembling itself as it fell about her feet. “No!” she cried. People turned to look at her. The porter just shrugged. “My husband….” She began to speak of Hemingway but could not bring herself to utter another word.
Her first thought was that Hemingway would leave her. She was a sure of it. “Unforgivable,” she imagined him saying. Perhaps it would be better if she did not go to meet him in Lausanne. If she instead feigned illness, sent him a telegram to say that she was no longer coming, then she would have until the end of her husband’s time at the conference to work out how she would tell him. Or perhaps she would not have to tell him anything. Perhaps the valise would be found, or she could find someplace else to live. But, no, surely she would have to tell him what she had done, that it was her mistake. It was a mistake, not something she did knowingly, and perhaps he could accept that.
Then she thought that, instead, she could just leave him before he even had a chance to tell her to go. Yes, she would make it easier for him and just go. But she knew he would come after her. He was in Lausanne now expecting her and if she didn’t come he would want to know why and she would not be able to keep it from him. It was decided then. She would face him directly, just walk straight up to him and tell him of her mistake. And then she would leave it to Hemingway to say whether it was something that he could or could not forgive.
With the Evian and her ticket she waited for the train and when it finally arrived she got on and made her way to her seat. Opposite her a young couple sat with their fingers interlocking, the man running the tips of his fingers over the woman’s bare wrist. They saw that Hadley was looking at them and they smiled at her and she did her best to smile back.
Hemingway waited for her at the station in the shade of the building that housed the Stationmaster’s office and the booth where passengers came and went clutching their newly-bought tickets. An announcement was made that the train was delayed. Hemingway crossed the street and followed a young woman into a bar overlooking the point where two separate tracks came into the station.
It was late in the afternoon. There were few people in the bar. The young woman was already sitting at a table by the window. She had just taken off her hat and put it on the table. She was alone and Hemingway went over to her. The woman looked up at him and, seeing that he was not inclined to move on, gestured for him to sit in the vacant chair opposite. “What should we drink?” the woman asked.
“Let’s just drink beer now.”
“For now?”
“All the best things in life begin with beer.”
The girl laughed disingenuously.
Hemingway leaned back in his chair, calling for the barman to bring beer.
The barman came with two glasses and two felt pads. He put the felt pads and the glasses on the table. Hemingway flashed a smile at the barman and the young woman looked off at theglistening rails in the sun.
“They look like black mamba,” the woman said.
Hemingway drank his beer and licked the foam from his lip. “I have seen one.”
“No you haven’t.”
“I might have,” Hemingway muttered. “Just because you say I haven’t doesn’t prove anything.”
“You started it,” the young woman said. “I was being amused. I was having a fine time.”
“Let’s not argue,” Hemingway said and then, raising his eyebrows at the young woman, added, “That’s what a wife is for.”
The young woman looked away toward the station.
“The beer is nice and cool,” Hemingway said.
“It’s lovely,” the young woman said. She looked down at the floor. “What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I am here just like you. To report on the conference.”
“No,” the young woman said. “What are you doing here with me now in this bar drinking this beer with those black snakes laying out there in the sun.
“I’m just drinking beer,” Hemingway said.
“No, you have come from the station across the street. I saw you come across from the platform. You followed me here.”
Hemingway nodded.
“Why would you do such a thing?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why would you though?”
“Because,” Hemingway said, grinning immodestly. “You look like the kind of woman who should be followed by a man like me.”
“What sort of man is that?”
“The kind that a woman like you should wish to be followed by.”
The girl stood up and moved closer to the window. Across the other side of the street, a train came in along the rails and stopped at the station. “There’s someone on that train expecting to find you waiting, isn’t there?”
“There is a woman.” Hemingway ran his thumb and forefinger down the smeared surface of his glass. “My wife.”
“And tell me,” the young woman said. “Do you love her?”
Hemingway nodded. “There is much to love about her. She has shining red hair. She is intelligent. A talented musician, too.”
“But,” the young woman asked again, sliding her glass across the table until there came a faint sound of her glass resting against his. “Do you love your wife?”
“She is my wife,” Hemingway said as though he may have been reading the words from a page. “So, yes. I do.”
Hadley’s conviction faded during her journey. When she eventually met Hemingway in Laussane, moving slowly forward along the busy platform toward him, she was so distraught that Hemingway struggled to discover what the matter was.
“I can’t tell you,” Hadley sobbed as she fell against him. “But I must. I must tell you something”
Hemingway stepped back. He held her arms, just below the shoulder. “Are you having an affair?”
Hadley shook her head. “Worse.”
“You have fallen in love with someone else?”
“Worse,” she said again.
“You slept with a negro?”
Hadley looked up at Hemingway in disbelief. “No,” she said. She turned the ring on her finger around and around, and then stopped. She let her hands fall to her sides. “Your manuscripts are gone.”
Hemingway was without even the simplest of words. His eyes quizzed her.
She nodded. “All of them.”
Hemingway stood silent. Beneath his feet he felt the earth turn on its axis. The lost writing was irreplaceable. There were countless hours of work in those pages and unless he could find the valise he would have nothing to show for his efforts.
Muscling his way along the platform, he bought two tickets on the next train to Paris. The tickets were in separate carriages: Hemingway sat in the first carriage; Hadley sat toward the rear of the train.
They arrived at the Gare de Lyon in the early hours of the morning. Hemingway searched the platform and found nothing. He opened the door of the Stationmaster’s office and went around behind the desk to the small kitchen where the station staff sat to take meals and drink coffee and, Hemingway discovered, to sleep between trains. He thumped his fist on the Stationmaster’s desk and the man asleep at the table woke abruptly. Hemingway demanded to see the young porter with whom his wife had left her suitcases. The man said that the porter was not expected to return to the station for several hours yet. “The boy does not begin until eight and works through to the afternoon.”
“Then tell me now, where does he live?”
“I cannot tell you that, Sir.”
Hemingway stepped into the kitchen. “Tell me!”
“Sir,” the Stationmaster was up out of his chair, backing away from the table. “I cannot tell you were this boy lives because I do not know. I can tell you, though, that he eats breakfast in the same café at the same time each day.”
“So, where and when will I find this boy?”
He told Hemingway the name of the café. It was one that Hemingway himself frequented, one where he’d written some of the work that was now missing. He glanced at the clock on the wall behind the Stationmaster’s desk and took Hadley’s hand and dragged her from the platform. He hurried toward the café and finally let Hadley go when he saw that she slowed his progress. He would go on alone to find the boy. “Go home,” he said to Hadley. He looked up and down the street. “Take the next taxi and wait for me at home.” Before Hadley could say anything Hemingway had turned and was already running along the street, each stride punctuated by the sharp crack of his heel as it struck the stones.
The café was empty. It had only just opened and it was cold inside but Hemingway decided to just sit and wait. He looked out to where the goat-herd began his round of the streets, blowing his pipes. A woman came out onto the street across from the café and she placed a pot on the ground. The goat-herd chose a black milk-goat and Hemingway watched the goat-herd milk the goat until the woman stepped forward to indicate that there was enough milk in the pot. The dog herded the goats on ahead, their horns bobbed and the goat-herd put his pipes to his lips. Hemingway became hungry. He looked at his watch and then up at the clock behind the counter. “Is that right?” he asked the cook who moved about behind the counter, making preparations for the day.
“No, it’s twenty minutes early. Always has been,” the cook said, as though such was evidently beyond control.
“Tell me then, do you know the boy who works as a porter at the Gare de Lyon?”
“Yes,” the cook said. “I know that boy. He comes in every morning. He will be here in about half an hour.”
“Are you sure?”
“If he’s alive, he’ll be here.”
“And if he comes in here this morning,” Hemingway said quietly, and then added, quieter still. “He’ll be dead.”
“I have to go out into the yard behind the kitchen to cut some wood for the fire,” the cook said. “Are you going to order?”
“Yes,” Hemingway said. “I would like to eat. What can you do this early?”
“I can give you any kind of sandwiches,” the cook said. “You can have ham and eggs, bacon and eggs, liver and bacon…”
“Or a steak?” Hemingway asked. “I’d kill for a steak. That’s all I want right now.” He went back to waiting, looking from his watch to the clock on the wall behind the counter. He stared at himself in the mirror that ran along back of the counter and he wondered what he would do when the boy came for breakfast.
The boy did not come for breakfast. Hemingway went back to the station and spoke again with the man he’d woken and he was told that the boy was dead. “He was stabbed,” the man said as though he was recounting a dream. “Must have had himself mixed up in something. Double-crossed somebody, maybe. Funny kid, that one,” the man added.
“How so?” Hemingway asked.
“Things he’d say at times. About the places he went and the people he kept company with. People you and I wouldn’t even give the time of day.”
Hemingway made to leave.
“Say,” the man said suddenly. “Do you want coffee? I could sure do with some coffee.”
Hemingway nodded and sat and waited while the man moved about the small kitchen with mechanical efficiency.
“I tried to warn him off some of the people,” the man said. “But he was always quick to say that he was alright and that he knew when enough was enough. I’m sure he was quite sure that he would never die.”
Hemingway nodded. “Aren’t we all…”
It was mid-morning before Hemingway finally left the station. He began to make his way back to his apartment where Hadley would be waiting for him but, given that he was near the rue de Fleurus, he took the opportunity to go sulking to Gertrude Stein.
Alice Tolkas opened the door to Hemingway and led him to where Stein sat reading in a deep chair. He stood before her and without preamble recounted the story of the lost manuscripts.
“Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise,” Stein said. And it really was, she thought, for she hadn’t much admired his early work anyway.
Hemingway moaned liked a wounded bull. He lumbered around the room. “I will never write again!”
Stein went back to her book.
Hemingway composed himself. “After writing a story,” he began. “I am always emptied as though I have made love, but now,” he moaned again. “I have been rendered impotent by my very own wife.”
“Oh, Ernest,” Stein sighed, raising herself up from the chair. “You wear your balls on your sleeve.”
Hemingway watched Stein walk into the adjacent studio room. He paused a moment, then followed her into the studio. He stood and looked around at the paintings hanging on the whitewashed walls: Renoirs, Gauguins, Picassos, rows of Matisses, and Cezannes – little Cezannes, watercolour Cezannes, a large portrait of a woman by Cezanne. It was too much for Hemingway. He wanted to write like Cezanne painted. “What should I do?” he asked.
“Start again.”
“Leave Hadley?” Even Hemingway had not considered such a thing.
Stein shook her head. “No. Just start again. Concentrate!” she insisted.
Hemingway stood quietly, considering Stein’s advice. He then gave his thanks and left quickly, vowing, as he strode along between the towering apartment blocks flanking both sides of the rue de Fleurus, that he would indeed start again and never stop. He would be matador to his muse. He would stand before it. He would taunt it until he had driven home the estoque de verdad. And then, only after it has been exhausted by his efforts, would his muse be dragged from the arena.
Nevertheless, back at his and Hadley’s apartment, Hemingway still tried to recall who may have copies of the stories he had already completed. Hadley shadowed him as he strode around the apartment. She prompted him, naming anyone he had every mentioned as belonging to the literary circle of which he himself was a member: Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Beach, Ezra Pound, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos, Ford Madox Ford.
Two stories were eventually recovered: ‘Up in Michigan,’ which Stein had hidden in a drawer, and ‘My Old Man,’ which was then being considered by Ray Long, the editor at Cosmopolitan. To these surviving stories Hemingway added ‘Out of Season’ and ten poems to make his first book, the pragmatically titled Three Stories and Ten Poems.
When the proofs arrived in early August 1923, Hemingway wrote to his publisher that he was impressed by how “good and clean” they looked but he added that he was concerned that the book was “too goddamn thin.” He thumbed through books he had in the house and checked how many blank pages they carried. “Find in Three Soldiers, Dos Passos,” he wrote. “Eight blank pages without a goddamn thing on them immediately after cover. Find in Seven Men, Max Beerbohm, four blank pages but evidence of two having been torn out by owner for can paper. Find in that cheap edition of Madame Bovary by Gus Flaubert four blank pages. Surely you can thicken my own book with a few blank pages.” Hemingway’s publisher obliged, adding eight blank pages in front of the text and five behind and Three Stories and Ten Poems was published in Paris in 1923.
Hadley admired the book but, long after she and Hemingway divorced in 1927, she still wondered what could have been.
About Patrick Cullen’s short story ‘Hemingway’s Unfaithful Wife’
This story was first published in Review of Australian Fiction, 027 Volume 4, Issue 6 (2012).
Read more short stories by Patrick Cullen