Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

“It was no trouble for me — one of the boardinghouse slaves looked after you: I was just a little concerned, that’s all. As I said, you could’ve been a dead man until you started to talk for a spell. And much about your father… well, for what’s its worth to you, Henry, I had some plans to head north to join my brother, Orion, but I’ve since decided to go with you to Havana instead, if you’re still intending to.” Then: “Only thing is that I’ve got to convince Mother Clemens that it will be a safe thing. When you are up and about, come downstairs to meet her.”

AT ABOUT ELEVEN THE NEXT MORNING, I was feeling well enough to bathe and clean myself up, the ague spell having largely passed. Shortly I ventured down to the hotel parlor, where Clemens, dressed entirely in white, sat beside his mother, Jane Lampton Clemens, over tea. Mother Clemens was a congenial woman of about sixty and wore mourning dress: A lacy blouse whose collar was a succession of ruffles was the only touch of adornment about her person. When I walked in, Clemens got up and confided to me that, in regard to Cuba, he would do all the talking. Then he introduced me to her as Mr. Henry Stanley, a dear friend. I joined them for a cup of tea. And as Clemens lit a cigar, which made his mother frown, he spoke of the circumstances that brought her to the city. She had come down from St. Louis on holiday for Mardi Gras and had been left stranded in New Orleans awaiting passage back, as so many of the steamboats had been pulled into other service on account of the coming war. By then, Clemens had found her a place on one of the few ships going upriver a few days hence. Which is to say that at the time I made her acquaintance she had passed many a day in that boardinghouse and was anxious to return home.

“Mother, this young man and I have agreed to undertake an excursion to the island of Cuba. My friend has some pressing business there, and I thought to avail myself of the opportunity to see that foreign land. What’s more, as he is in poor health, I thought it best to help him along — he is determined to go anyway. We won’t be gone for long — I’m going plumb crazy hanging around here — but I would never make this journey without your blessing.”

“Cuba?” she said. “What on earth are you thinking, son?” Then: “Samuel, you’re a grown man, and you’ll do what you want to do, so of course you have my blessing; but if it’s true that you’ll be most likely leaving the river trade shortly, I would think you’d be better off joining up with Orion again. And besides, you’ve never traveled to a strange country before.” She sighed. “But I suppose if it won’t be one thing, it would be the other. Yes, you have my blessing — but don’t be a young fool about it.”

“Now, don’t be worried. And remember that a month or so passes quickly; maybe by the time we get back, the war fever in these parts will be over, though I admit it isn’t likely.”

He waited for her summary judgment. Then, with a flick of a hand, she said, “But do be careful, son. Mercy me if something were to happen to you.” Like all good mothers, she had said her piece.

A FEW DAYS LATER, after Mother Clemens had embarked north to St. Louis on The Crescent City , its decks overflowing with anxious passengers and soldier recruits, Clemens and I made our way to the harbor to book tickets to Havana. It took us an hour to reach the sales window of the Hamburg — New Orleans — Cuba line, as there was a glut of southerners, their faces drained of color, waiting in a long queue to secure their own passage, an air of impatience about them, apprehensive as they were over the prospect of Yankee blockades sealing them off from their concerns on the island. It seemed to us as well that some of them simply wanted to get out of New Orleans before the war started. Within a few hours we booked passage out: It cost thirty-two dollars for the round-trip, and, at dawn, a few days later, we boarded the steamer Malta en route to Havana.

We Arrive in Cuba

ON THE MORNING of our seventh day at sea, after sailing some six hundred nautical miles, we steamed into Havana Bay through its narrow entrance, with fortresses, hooking out on elongated shoals, to either side. Though the tideless waters were sparkling blue and the air was clear as glass, the harbor had the smell of the stagnant and offal-ridden drainage from the city. Diamonds of light quivered in the water alongside shreds of timber and flowing clouds of filth that made the fish scatter. Still, the sun shone brightly, and along all the outcroppings of shore stood tall coconut palms and clusters of other tropical fruit trees that made for hedges of pleasing foliage. Church spires and Moorish minarets rose in the distance, as did a great hill on which stood several neoclassical buildings. The air sometimes became sweet, as if we had come to a city of gardens.

The harbor itself was protected by a large castle that stood on a rocky outcropping, its parapets fitted with cannons that, as we came in, were firing off a volley into the air to summon the day. Church bells were ringing from the interior of the city, and all along the shore were a hundred majestic buildings with yellow and red and blue facades, most of them ornately designed, with parapets and twisting balconies, some being private residences and others warehouses and places of commerce. Spanish flags flew everywhere, but then the flags of many other nations, from every clime, were fluttering off the forest of masts before us, as there were frigates, brigs, schooners, and steamers from all over the world jammed along the docks. Altogether the city seemed booming and in decline; beautiful but aging; a gem and a rough stone; florid with scents and repugnant with rot at the same time.

Clemens remained busy with his notebook, scribbling down some impressions, when we dropped anchor at a place called Regla, which was across the bay from the city proper. Because the yellow fever had come to Cuba from New Orleans that past year, our ship was boarded by a health official, who conducted an interminably slow appraisal of all the passengers, whom he looked over for signs of that illness. This took up most of the morning. Then another official, accompanied by several soldiers, set up a table and chair on deck to check our credentials against the names he had from a passenger list. I still had my old English passport, wherein I was still listed as John Rowlands, and it was in that name that I was given a visitor’s permit — what was called a cédula : Clemens had a Missouri passport, a holdover from the days when he had planned a journey to Brazil some years before. Altogether he had seemed very pleased that at long last, after so many travels out East, and up-and downriver, he was finally about to set foot in a foreign land.

During the transfer of documents he noticed the name written in my passport and said to me:

“So your birth name is John?”

“It was.”

“Well, then, how is it that you’ve never mentioned it to me?”

“I thought I had. But the truth is, Samuel, as far as I’m concerned John Rowlands no longer exists.”

“No matter: I prefer Henry, at any rate; but it is strange to think that happenstance has given you a name most special to me.”

Disembarking on a small lighter, we were taken to shore by locals so thin and emaciated that we thought they’d certainly suffered from the fever, for their limbs were shrunken and their feet were shriveled down to the bone. As happens in any port, after we had passed through the customhouse — I had hidden away my Bible, as I’d heard from a passenger aboard ship that Bibles were contraband in that country — we were assailed by persons anxious to sell every service. Were we of a different bent of mind we could have gone off with some very friendly ladies or taken up residence in some private home, for there were several poor-looking persons soliciting passengers to stay with them, cheaply. Availing myself of my few phrases of Spanish — I would learn the language well in Spain years later — we hired a carriage and driver to take us around to the city.