If Hemingway Only Knew

This strange tale is not about a simple notebook. It is not even really about Ernest Hemingway, a burly, hard-drinking Pulitzer and Nobel prize-winning journalist and writer of the twentieth century who was also an adventurer, revolutionary sympathiser and profligate womanizer. Anyway, much has already been written about Ernest, his books and his "iceberg style" of writing that helped shape men for generations. Most people know he blew his ruggedly handsome face off with a shotgun in 1961. Many may even know that the night before his suicide, his last words were "Goodnight my kitten." to Mary, his fourth wife. Some may know he was injured some years before in a terrible plane crash. A few still seek out his books to imagine a better, harder life than they have today.

But back to that plane crash in 1954, the same year he later won the Nobel Prize.

In his biography of Hemingway, Jeffrey Meyer lists the various injuries to the writer after his second plane crash in two days while on safari in Africa. "His skull was fractured, two discs of his spine were cracked, his right arm and shoulder were dislocated, his liver, right kidney and spleen were ruptured, his sphincter muscle was paralyzed by compressed vertebrae on the iliac nerve, his arms, face and head were burned by the flames of the plane, his vision and hearing were impaired..." Hemingway escaped death only because that burning, broken, aging hulk literally used his head to bash open a door before flames likely took everything, including Hemmingway's famed ever-present notebooks.

For years, Hemmingway's publisher Simon and Schuster had quietly offered a substantial reward for any of his lost notebooks. There were likely one or two, at least. Literary scholars knew this from obvious gaps in the timelines of the surviving notebooks and Hemmingway's well-known tendency to write down all he could of life, which had always seemed somehow to swirl more mightily around him. From those humble notebooks, he later built his many great works. But the effort to recover his lost notebooks was certainly not a flashy thing. (Publishers are not known for giving away money.) The effort was not backed by a modern social media campaign. No celebrity writers called on us during talk shows or podcasts to rekindle our interest in their more famed, deserving brethren. No conferences invited Hemmingway scholars to wax on about the literary importance of every jot and tittle from notebooks compiled by the old man of "The Old Man of the Sea."

Still, if you looked hard enough and did some digging, you might have discovered the award. You could learn of the quest to find any of Hemmingway's lost notebooks in exchange for twenty thousand dollars. Now, perhaps that is not a lot of money to some, but to a great many it certainly is. Money gives choices. It gives space to time. Room to breathe. Time to learn. More opportunity to write, if so inclined...

Angie certainly knew nothing of the "Hemingway's Notebooks" reward. You see, Angie M'butu was the American grandchild of African immigrants Susanna and Nagoke M'butu. Hemingway was a distant dim figure in her mind, conjured up by her high school English teacher. Her interest was in the sciences, anyway. She barely paid attention in English class yet still got a B+. As far as she was concerned, Hemingway was just another long dead old white guy. But her grandfather had been assigned to a clean up crew of the site after the crash investigation ended.

A hard day of slogging in the bush picking up the aeronautical equivalent of flotsam and jetsam had led Nagoke some way from where the plane had finally skidded to a halt. Just as he was about to turn back to his mates, something caught his eye. An unnatural shape by a tree. There, laying in the cradle of roots from a scrubby little tree was a little black notebook. It had come to rest closed and undamaged after likely being violently launched and flying through a broken window during the plane crash. He was not used to seeing books in the Africa he knew. Like most of his friends, he had little formal schooling and was effectively illiterate, although he earned a decent living as a safari guide for rich Europeans and Americans like Ernest Hemingway and his wife. Carefully, Nagoke picked up that smoky but otherwise unharmed notebook, put it in his pack and literally forgot about it until he was packing to come to America a few months later. Perhaps he would read it one day, out by the pool after he became rich like Hemingway. So, he brought it with him, as if a prized treasure from a fevered dream. He never knew what he had, given his rudimentary reading skills.

Nagoke died after a couple decades in the promised land, never to become materially rich. But he did have a son, whom he considered priceless. Now, on a sunny Saturday morning in Brooklyn, his son Thomas was sitting across from the table at breakfast one day listening to his daughter go on excitedly about her upcoming semester at NYU where she planned to study biochemistry and then medicine later. Thomas was proud. While he worked hard, as hard as his father, he had never become rich either. And he never made it to post-secondary studies. But he had read a great deal when he was not driving cab or cleaning office buildings. Thankfully, New York had a great deal of each, so they did well enough. Well enough for Thomas and his wife to save up for at least the first year of university for his only child, Angie.

One of the things he read was a great deal about Ernest Hemingway. About his legendary exploits in Africa, Cuba, both World Wars and more. He read his books. His stories. Articles about him. It was just one more way to connect with the land of Africa, the land of his father, the land that almost killed Ernest Hemingway. And, along the way during his own journey, Thomas had read about the obscure $20K reward still on offer for return of any of the lost notebooks...

"Angie, you know we are not rich. Your Mom and I wanted so much to give you more than we had, but…” Thomas started to say, as he finished his bacon and eggs. His daughter stopped him.

“Dad, you and Mom gave me everything I ever needed and most of what I wanted. Except that little castle in Europe that I had my heart set on in grade nine…” as a fake pout sprouted from her lips followed by an exaggerated sigh.

Thomas could not help himself and laughed. His girl could always make him laugh, even after a long night of driving cab before he spent Sunday cleaning offices after his one day off.

She carried on. “And how many other girls do you know about to learn how things actually work at the cellular level and then likely go on to cure cancer while earning enough to at least go see the castles of Europe every year? I have everything I need!” As she drank her coffee, a smile replaced the faux pout, but she was also wondering how she was going to afford all the textbooks and fees and tuition after her first year. Paying for years of university was no laughing matter. ‘Welcome to a hard student life as a waitress.’ she thought, despite her smiling eyes.

As Angie silently pondered life’s terrible little mysteries, her father went over to the counter and opened the kitchen junk drawer. Thomas returned to the table and placed a package wrapped carefully in brown paper along with a folded piece of paper on top. The paper looked like it had been ripped out of one her Dad’s old magazines. Angie looked at him then picked up the paper and began to read the notice about Simon and Schuster’s reward, with her forearm resting on the strange rectangle. Her eyes went wide as she read. ‘She always was such a smart girl.’ Thomas thought, thankfully.

His girl’s life was about to get a jump start for a better future. What was better than that? "Remember your grandfather Nagoke?" Thomas began...

Perhaps nothing worth having is ever really lost, after all.