The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway - Ernest Hemingway [322]
“Stevie sent you his best,” I said to the houseboy.
He smiled happily, remembering the old days.
“That’s nice of him. How is he?”
“Fine,” I said. “He says everything is fine.”
“The Strange Country” comprises four chapters of an uncompleted novel that Hemingway worked on at intervals in 1946-1947 and 1950-1951. These scenes represent preliminary material for an early version of Islands in the Stream, which was published posthumously in 1970. Hemingway apparently discarded these chapters when he changed the direction of the novel as he worked on it. Readers will note the reuse of names subsequently given to other characters in the final version of Islands in the Stream. None of these rearrangements diminishes the unity and integrity of “The Strange Country.”
The Strange Country
MIAMI WAS HOT AND MUGGY AND THE land wind that blew from the Everglades brought mosquitoes even in the morning.
“We’ll get out as soon as we can,” Roger said. “I’ll have to get some money. Do you know anything about cars?”
“Not very much.”
“You might look and see what there is advertised in the classified in the paper and I’ll get some money here to Western Union.”
“Can you get it just like that?”
“If I get the call through in time so my lawyer can get it off.”
They were up on the thirteenth floor of a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard and the bellboy had just gone down for the papers and some other purchases. There were two rooms and they overlooked the bay, the park and the traffic passing on the Boulevard. They were registered under their own names.
“You take the corner one,” Roger had said. “It will have a little breeze in it maybe. I’ll get on the telephone in the other room.”
“What can I do to help?”
“You run through the classifieds on motorcars for sale in one paper and I’ll take the other.”
“What sort of a car?”
“A convertible with good rubber. The best one we can get.”
“How much money do you think we’ll have?”
“I’m going to try for five thousand.”
“That’s wonderful. Do you think you can get it?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get going on him now,” Roger said and went into the other room. He shut the door and then opened it. “Do you still love me?”
“I though that was all settled,” she said. “Please kiss me now before the boy comes back.”
“Good.”
He held her solidly against him and kissed her hard.
“That’s better,” she said. “Why did we have to have separate rooms?”
“I thought I might have to be identified to get the money.”
“Oh.”
“If we have any luck we won’t have to stay in these.”
“Can we really do it all that fast?”
“If we have any luck.”
“Then can we be Mr. and Mrs. Gilch?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Gilch.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Brat-Gilch.”
“I’d better make the call.”
“Don’t stay away an awfully long time though.”
They had lunch at a seafood restaurant owned by Greeks. It was an air-conditioned oasis against the heavy heat of the town and the food had certainly originally come out of the ocean but it was to Eddy’s cooking of the same things as old re-used grease is to fresh browned butter. But there was a good bottle of really cold, dry, resiny tasting Greek white wine and for dessert they had cherry pie.
“Let’s go to Greece and the islands,” she said.
“Haven’t you ever been there?”
“One summer. I loved it.”
“We’ll go there.”
By two o’clock the money was at the Western Union. It was thirty-five hundred instead of five thousand and by three-thirty they had bought