Hemingway's Cats

CHAPTER 17 

Mary Welsh and the Cats' Tower 

                                 Dogs is trumps but cats is the 
                                 longest suit we hold.

                                                              How It Was

When Mary Welsh arrived at the Finca, Thruster (aka Thrusty) tried to make friends with the new visitor, desperately lonesome for female companionship after her mistress, Martha Gellhorn, had left the Finca for the last time. But Mary, after being told by Ernest that Thruster had been Martha�s favorite cat, wanted no part of the lonely feline. Mary wrote in How It Was that Thruster was clawing her sheet, asking for affection and she had written in her diary: "Thrusty mistakes me, I am not hers, nor she mine."

The cat family had the run of the house, sleeping in the guest bedroom on two double beds. The room was situated in the center of the home, off the spacious living room, with a door opening to the back terrace, where the cats were fed. The Finca�s houseboy, Rene Villarreal, lovingly cared for the cats and served the ever-growing menagerie bowls of ground meat, canned salmon, and fresh milk from the farm�s cows, as well as treats of homegrown catnip when available. Boise preferred people food to the cat food, dining on whatever Ernest ate.

Ernest�s breakfast was usually served in his bedroom while he worked. Rene would also include several bowls of food for the cats in attendance. The cats were Ernest�s constant companions and Hemingway said they helped him in his work. Boise received preferential treatment, sitting by Ernest�s side while he wrote.

Mary Welsh was enchanted by Finca Vigia on her arrival on May 2, 1945. But by August she was having second thoughts about the large cat family that had taken up residence in the guest bedroom of the house.

Even though Mary was fond of Hemingway�s feline friends, she felt the cats needed to have their own room, possibly separate from the main house�particularly Ernest�s stud cats that had a terrible habit of spraying. During a visit to Hemingway�s home in Cuba, Ernest�s sister, Madelaine Hemingway Miller, wrote in Ernest Hemingway�s Sister "Sunny" Remembers: "The bedroom between the living room and the veranda was the cat room. A couple of single beds and cushions were strewn about, as well as eating and drinking dishes to accommodate the scores of cats that kept accumulating. The room had a door that would swing in and out so the cats could come in and go at their pleasure, day or night. Cases of salmon were fed to them."

Mary thought the guest bedroom could better serve Hemingway if it was made into additional library space for his expanding book collection. The guest bedroom could still be used for guests, if needed, but the two-story guest house (known as the Casita) next door was big enough to accommodate family and friends.

Hemingway had read in Care and Handling CATS: A Manual For Modern Cat Owners by Doris Bryant, published in 1944, a book he kept on the table next to his side of the bed in Mary�s bedroom, that "A mature male should have his own quarters�a large and sunny room where he can spray and howl and be entirely natural and normal. In a bare room, it is easy to wipe up after a cat that has sprayed. . . . And no male should be scolded or punished for spraying or howling, it would just be as reasonable to punish him for eating or sleeping." Mary�s idea of a separate house for the cats began to make sense to Hemingway, and he agreed that they needed more space for the cats. He told Mary that he would build a house for the cats close to their house, but he was worried that the cats might feel rejected and hurt if they were moved too far from the main building. Mary was visiting family and friends in late September when Ernest wrote her about his thoughts on a new home for the cats.

Hemingway enjoyed the closeness of his cats underfoot, but Mary was pleased with the plans for a new cat house for their expanding cat family, allowing the principal cats to remain in the house if they wished, particularly Boise, who was Ernest�s day and night companion.

Ernest and Mary were married March 14, 1946, but it would be almost a year before plans were drawn up and construction began on the structure. Edwardo Rivero, the principal building contractor from the village of San Francisco de Paula, was hired to do the work. Ernest and Mary decided on a four-story building which Hemingway referred to as "the tower." The building would be four meters eighty centimeters square and twelve meters (forty feet) high above the ground level, with a patio on the roof where Mary could sunbathe nude. The staircase would run outside the building, offering a spectacular view of the countryside.

The cats� room would be on the second floor of the tower on the level with the terrace. It was important to Hemingway that he would be able to see the cats� room from a window in his bedroom and also from a window in his bathroom, where he stood every morning while he shaved. The cats� room would also be in close proximity to the doors of the dining room, kitchen, and the back terrace, where the cats were fed. Hemingway envisioned the cats� new room as having large windows, providing good light and cross ventilation. He wanted tile on the floor, making the room easier to wash down and clean. The first ground-floor room, below the cats� room, would house a much-needed carpentry shop for their Spanish carpenter Pancho. The third-floor room would serve for extra storage for Hemingway�s fishing and hunting gear, their winter clothes, and their luggage, and could be used as an additional guest bedroom. A workroom on the fourth floor would offer Hemingway the privacy in which to write.

Times had changed a lot for Hemingway since his poverty years in Paris when he said he was too poor to own a cat. Not only was he a successful writer, but he could afford to take care of as many cats as he could possibly desire. By 1954 he and Mary would own thirty-four cats and the colony would continue to grow. Hemingway would surprise friends by identifying and naming each and every cat.

Hemingway loved Cuba and its people and could not imagine living or working anywhere else. A revolutionary war would change all that.