Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

“Once back in the main house and laid out on a settee, Mr. Stanley was in considerable pain, although nowhere near the brink of death. But his infirmity inspired our young Henry to attend to him as if he were an angel sent from heaven, for once he had been carried into his bedchamber to recover, Stanley, for the next few days, never left his side, much to the man’s discomfort. If the truth be told, Mr. Stanley already had two comely female slaves to look after him — women with whom, I noticed, he retired to his bedchamber each evening. A few times I had seen them gently washing his hair and beard as he bent over a tub of water in his inner courtyard: I had seen one fanning him as he rested in a hammock on his front lawn, the other standing by, smiling, with a whisk broom to swat away the flies. I remember them just standing alongside him while he, as Stanley dutifully recorded, seemed to be working on a memoir of some kind. In other words, Dolly, Mr. Stanley was no sainted man: He had his concubines and all the rum he would ever want to drink. Yet as he lay in his bed, there he was confronted with Stanley, sitting beside him, with a Bible in hand, reading from it aloud.”

He sipped more whiskey.

“To extricate his namesake from his side became Mr. Stanley’s greatest preoccupation. A few mornings later, we awoke to find Mr. Davis waiting for us in the parlor. He was affable, friendly. And then, calling us ‘young lads,’ he announced that it was Mr. Stanley’s wish that we vacate the house — no good reason was given. We were then shown a hut near the stables, with a palm-thatched roof and no outhouse, which we were to stay in before we would leave. ‘It is Mr. Stanley’s wish,’ he said. And that was when I told Stanley that it was time for us to go, but he insisted that we stay until certain matters were settled. He was so intent upon getting his way that Stanley took the liberty of drafting a letter stating the elder Mr. Stanley’s intention to adopt him, a bit of madness given the man’s obvious indifference to the subject. That night, he visited Mr. Stanley in his room. I was out in the main hall playing cards with Mr. Davis, who, being a good sort, was caught in the middle of the whole affair. I’d gotten to know him well enough to learn that he had barely any awareness of a special relationship between Stanley and his so-called adoptive father; he only knew that they had once worked together, but that was all. In the meantime, Stanley, pressing his point, had it out with the older man, who had been drinking heavily. Distinctly we could hear Stanley saying, ‘But you are my father!’ and just as distinctly we could hear the elder Mr. Stanley’s answer: ‘I’m not, nor ever will be! Now, get out of my sight!’

“Later Stanley came out with the letter — unsigned, of course; and even when his father could not have made it more clear that he wasn’t wanted, he still held out hope. His thickheadedness was mind-boggling to me. ‘Cut your losses,’ I told him. ‘Let’s get out of here.’ At his insistence, we remained a few more days, but by that point, we were not even allowed back in to the plantation house. Even when I made good use of my time, getting to know the Cuban slaves and the run of the plantation somewhat, after a while, it was more than I could take. And so I told Stanley that I would be heading back to Havana with or without him. One morning, without so much as a proper good-bye, we gathered up our gear and rode dejectedly through the woods to Limonar, solemn as any souls could be, neither Stanley nor I saying much to one another, the whole business having been a great waste of our time.

“Back in Havana, we learned about the bombing of Fort Sumter, and by and by we sailed to New Orleans, where we parted ways.”

“So his father’s death was a fabrication?”

“Yes, it was. For whatever his reasons, Stanley wanted to kill him off. And if you recall, Dolly, in this account Stanley had him buried under a banyan tree — do you know whose heart was buried under such a tree in Africa? Livingstone’s. I remember that from Stanley’s accounts.”

“But why would he have even bothered to write it?”

“Who can say? Maybe he had convinced himself that it was true, or he wanted to convince others that it was true; maybe it was the way malaria played with his memory. But Dolly, your husband surely knew better. In fact, not only did Mr. Stanley not die in Cuba, he also returned some years later to New Orleans — I suppose after having had his fill of that life. I know this because I ran into him one afternoon along Royal Street. It was about 1877 or so, when I was in New Orleans on a lecture tour. By then he was still a looming but slightly hobbled old man. I approached him and said, ‘Mr. Stanley, do you remember me? — Samuel Clemens; I once visited you with your namesake in Cuba.’ In the midst of apparent senility he claimed that while he had indeed spent a few years in Cuba during the war, he had no recollection of me and Stanley going there. ‘But surely you must be aware of your namesake’s great fame as an African explorer?’ I asked. To that he professed ignorance as well; but as I read a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, I am sure that he did.”

“And you are certain it was he?”

“Yes, he admitted that he was Mr. Henry Hope Stanley, as I addressed him, but otherwise he claimed to have never seen me before. In fact — and get this, Dolly — he went on to say that he had been living for many years on a small plantation outside New Orleans with his wife, the one who supposedly died of yellow fever in Stanley’s account. In other words, Dolly, your late husband killed them both off, when they in fact lived on for some years afterward.”

“Dear me,” Dolly said. “But why would Stanley do that?”

Clemens tugged upon the bristles of his mustache.

“That’s a chin-scratcher, Dolly, but my guess is that he just wanted the story of his life told in a certain way. But who can blame him? Why would an orphan whose future was to be as glorious as Stanley’s wish to do otherwise? And whom does it hurt? Certainly not the elder Mr. Stanley, who lived to see his name associated with your husband’s great explorations.

“That your husband chose to take that name for himself struck me as a greater mystery, considering the way he was treated in the end. What an honor to a man who disowned him! Why he did so I cannot imagine. Once, when Stanley and I were sitting up late drinking, I asked him, ‘Why did you take that name?’ And he — frankly, in his cups — looked at me and said: ‘Which one of us is not the product of circumstance? When I first heard that name it rang to me of accomplishment and gravitas; it signified progress and a commitment to betterment. And of all the names I considered for myself, it sounded like a name I would like.’ Then he elaborated: ‘My original name, John Rowlands, never rang true, nor did the provincialism of my Welsh roots. I wanted to be a man of the world,’ he told me.”

Dolly looked over her canvas and asked, “But Samuel, do you think his autobiography is a lie? What should I say about Cuba and your travels there?”

“Henry never wanted it mentioned. Especially after we’d become well-known writers.”

Another sip of whiskey; Dolly behind the easel, laying brush to canvas.

“Knowing your husband as I did, Dolly, I would say he just could not stand the failure of it. After writing so admiringly of Mr. Stanley in his autobiography, why wouldn’t he reduce that miserable affront so long ago to just a few lines—‘He later died in Cuba,’ as you told me? I don’t blame him — writers blur the facts all the time.”

“But shouldn’t I mention that he knew you back then?”

“It’s up to you, Dolly: Naturally, I would be flattered. If you care to, you could write a note to the effect that he and I once met in New Orleans in those days; but what it would add to the story of his life I cannot say. For my part, I once promised him to never write of that episode, and I haven’t. Perhaps it is best to leave it alone. Who knows? Maybe one day some enterprising fellow will come across the details of our lives and try to make something of them; but as for me, I will keep my promise to Stanley.”