Contributed by Wolfgang, 15 April 2019 https://hemingwayswelt.de/la-consula-das-andalusische-idyll-des-ernest-hemingway/
In early May 1959, Mary and Ernest Hemingway, coming from New York, arrived in southern Spain with the Constitution Algeciras. From there it takes two hours by car to Costa del Sol to La Cónsula in the hills above Málaga. The spectacular finca is owned by Nathan Davis, whom the world calls Bill and iscalled by the Hemingway Negro . He and Negro met Mexico a long time ago and made friends quickly.
Bill and his wife Anne, stone-fringed Americans, live with their children Nena and Timothy Teo as hospitable expatriates in the imposing estate southwest of the city, just miles from the sea at Churriana. Even the author Noel Coward and the actress Vivien Leigh were already among the prominent guests on the twelve-acre Andalusian hacienda, which is fenced by a tropical landscape and on the numerous staff for the welfare of the guests endeavor.
The secluded La Cónsula - a bit smaller than the Escorial , according to Ernest Hemingway - is a wonderful place to stop and come to. Today a district of Málaga, La Cónsula is located in Churriana, on the Carretera to Alhaurin de la Torre. Since 1993, the Andalusian regional government has housed the Escuela de Hostelería de Málaga administration, the hotel and cooking school, in a newly built building. The apprentices of the first and second year of training swing their cooking spoons.
The finca, built at the beginning of the 19th century in colonial style with lots of iron, wood and columns of white marble, consists of the long rectangular main building of two floors, an outdoor veranda running around the upper floor, from a swimming pool at the foot of today Stone and shell mosaic emblazoned with an image of Ernest Hemingway. The lying behind the mansion Jardin is huge as a monastery garden, with pines, palms, banana trees, cypresses.
La Cónsula comes across as an idyllic picture book : the extensive botanical garden invites you to take a stroll, the pool is refreshing with the overheated summer climate of the Mediterranean, and the main building has great art, including some paintings by Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. and - especially Ernest Hemingway does not appreciate such an advantage - there was no telephone in the whole area at the time.
In Spain, Ernest Hemingway wants to refresh the memory of beautiful days and meet old friends. The once-young faces were now as old as mine, but no one had forgotten how we once were. The eyes had not changed and no one had gotten fat. No mouth was bitter, no matter what the eyes had seen. In Spain, as always, the author finds his perfect world, his elsewhere relaxing paradise.Above all, he likes the sensual way of life of the southern Spaniards, the bullfighting, the good food and a Moscatel or a Pedro Ximenez, the sweet Málaga wine flows in Andalusia as in the land of milk and honey.
After the joyful stay in 1959, Ernest Hemingway returns in the summer months of 1960, this time alone. But everything is different. The friends in Andalusia are upset when they see the writer. His once glittering face is ashen, the hair is pure white, his facial features seem like sunken and the once curious eyes only look expressionless into the world. His strong arms have become as dry as young tree branches, even the legs seem to consist only of skin and bones.
The Nobel laureate can only laboriously move around in the spacious farmhouse near Málaga, his footsteps more like a sedate tongue-in-cheek.Within a few months, the writer has aged years. The author lives in his small room, without bath, his summer job reminds himthe Finca Vigía . Otherwise, he swims extensively, walks in the olive grove and he relaxes as well as possible.Ernest Hemingway needs strength, because in this midsummer, the aging writer again turns on a grueling tour of the Spanish bullfighting arenas.
The small corner room of Ernest Hemingway on the second floor of 'La Cónsula'. Photo by W. Stock, 2019
On La Cónsula, the writer is working on the final subtleties of his work The Dangerous Summer , which he began in Andalusia last year and which will soon be published in the magazine LIFE . But he has a hard time with this tale about bullfighting, he does not think of the right words, many sentences lack rhythm and melody, he is not sure what he wants to say. Even with the old friends he speaks little, Ernest Hemingway consistently responds with denial and refusal when the friends try to cheer him up.
Since his last visit a year ago, his Spain has not changed this time, but it is his person who has suffered a bad change. In the summer of 1959, Ernest Hemingway had enjoyed dozens of bullfights; he did not mind going from city to city for weeks, he might have his clique around him, he was bothering with women forty years his junior. He loved the sumptuous Spanish food and the good wine. Spain was, as always, the land of his heart.
In Málaga on Sol , the writer now realizes that even bullfighting is no fun for him, he has completely lost his enthusiasm and ecstasy over this passion within a year. The writer feels in the summer of 1960 that he is physically and mentally in a miserable condition. Ernest writes to Mary in New York that he fears a total physical and nervous collapse.
The writer falls into a manic listlessness. The friends try several times to move him home. But Ernest, stubborn as a donkey, refuses to leave Spain. He has been living in the country for two months now and is becoming increasingly apathetic and neglected more and more. The writer does not let anyone approach him. Because he feels, if he has to say Spain Adiós , then probably also the life.
With tears in his eyes, he finally entrusts himself to Antonio Ordóñez. He is afraid to die, he complains to his friend. The torero stops. "Ernesto, in 1961, you'll be back in Pamplona because you've got the eggs in the right place!" The writer scrambles to his feet and promises him that he will come back next year.But in reality Ernest Hemingway knows that with this trip in the late summer of 1960 he finally takes leave of his beloved Spain. Of the land he loves more than any other.
Only in October does the friends manage to put the writer on a plane to America. On October 8, 1960, Ernest and Hotch , who came to the rescue, flyback to the US together. From New York it goes immediately to Ketchum in the Rocky Mountains. Ernest Hemingway, drawn by the exertions, drags himself to the end of his journey. At the end of his trip to Spain the writer is a distraught man, empty in the head and terribly lost in the heart.