Ron Base - Tree Callister 03 - Another Sanibel Sunset Detective by Ron Base Page A

white-bearded man wearing a baseball cap who could have been Hemingway’s brother stood at the main entrance doors. “There’s a guided tour in fifteen minutes,” he said.
    “I’m looking for Hank Dearlove,” Tree said.
    “Hank’s conducting the tour,” the white-bearded man said,
    Inside the entry hall, more old guys with white beards wearing baseball caps nodded at Tree and directed him into a sitting room where a group of about twenty was already gathered. Tree inspected a salmon-colored settee, trying to imagine Hemingway sitting on it.
    A voice behind him said, “Everyone, listen up, please. I am Hank, and this afternoon I will be your guide into the life and times of one Ernest Hemingway, author, and Key West resident.”
    Tree turned to see a tall, aristocratic man in his sixties, pale, with blondish-white hair thrown carelessly back from a high forehead. He wore khaki trousers, sandals, and a flowered shirt that did not hang loosely enough to hide an unexpectedly generous belly.
    Hank Dearlove raised his arms as though addressing the heavens. “Hemingway!” He paused for effect. “That name stirs passions and contradictions. For some, and I include myself in this group, the name conjures visions of masculinity, romance, and courage of a sort we don’t much recognize any more. Maybe that’s what keeps bringing many of us back to him. Maybe we want the big game hunter, the deep-sea fisherman, the passionate writer in the Paris of the 1920s, the warrior, the journalist. We want this guy. But who is it we want? How do we put flesh and blood onto the mythology of our greatest American writer?”
    Hank lowered his arms and smiled. “Well, I’m not so sure how much flesh and blood we can provide Mr. Hemingway today or whether it’s even possible. No other American writer has been as inspected and speculated about, related and deflated as old Ernie. Yet I’m not so sure we know any more about him today than we did when he died in 1961. But at least in this house this afternoon, good friends, I can show you where he lived and worked. You are within the walls where he existed. Perhaps you will be able to feel his presence. He was here. In many ways, perhaps, he is still here. He haunts these walls. He haunts us all.”
    Abruptly Hank wheeled out of the room. “Follow me,” he called.
    Everyone obediently filed across the hall into the dining room where Hank briefly sketched Hemingway’s early life, including his childhood in Oak Park, Illinois; the mother who dressed him in little girl’s clothes (although not much was made of that); the father who committed suicide; the young man wounded in the Spanish civil war; the journalist sent by the Toronto Star to Paris in the twenties; his first wife, Hadley; her best friend, Pauline Pfeiffer.
    “Lust in Paris,” Hank declared. “Youthful Mr. Hemingway appeared incapable of simply sleeping with a woman; he had to marry her. So he dumped Hadley and married Pauline, who fulfilled the other requirement Mr. Hemingway had of his women: money. Ernest didn’t have any; his wives did.
    “It was Pauline’s uncle who bought this house for them,” Hank continued. “A generous uncle, no? Even in 1931, this was an expensive home—the finest in Key West. Pauline brought the chandeliers you see here, and the decorative taste, which may or may not be to your liking. Not to mine, but then I would not have so easily dumped Hadley, the most attractive of Mr. Hemingway’s women, not counting Miss Ava Gardner, of course. He was infatuated with Miss Ava, but I have my doubts whether he ever slept with her.”
    As he talked, Hank moved to a portrait of a dark-haired, mustached Hemingway, surprisingly handsome. “Now, of course, the prevailing image of Mr. Hemingway is that of the white-bearded old hunter. ‘Papa’ Hemingway. The famous Karsh portrait; the prototype for all aging writers, including many of the guides you will see wandering around here today.
    “But that