Chapter 37

Cyclone

Every now and then we would discuss the trip - already planned in every detail - and although I was delighted to be able to see a piece of America, in a beautiful Buick while driving with Ernest Hemingway in addition, as time passed more and more I was sad at the idea of leaving the Finca. La Finca, Cuba and Juan. But the Finca, now for me like a second home, I would go back, of that I was sure.

One evening, returning to the Casita to change for lunch, I found my mother lying on the bed, with a letter in her hand. While I was choosing a dress in the wardrobe: "They wrote to me from Venice." She said.

Uncertain about what dress to wear, it left me indifferent. Also because it was normal to be written to from Venice, after all it was our city. "And what do they say, in Venice?" I asked closing the wardrobe.

"It is said that the Renata of Across the River is you..." 

"This is not new." I looked at a stain on the dress and hoped it wasn't too visible between the folds. "We already know that you are looking for a real Renata, that you are undecided between me and Afdera, more Afdera than me because..."

"Look..." my mother said handing me a newspaper clipping. It was a French newspaper. Above a photograph of me, the title, "Renata? Hemingway's great love?"

I put my dress and the newspaper on a chair.