I WILL NOW SPEAK of my search for my father. We had, on the first day, visited his office, which, I remembered from his correspondence, was located on a street called O’Reilly. Along that commercial stretch of warehouses and stores, much like Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans, hung many signs in the English language. When we arrived on foot, around ten in the morning, after having partaken (at Clemens’s insistence) of a large and fortifying breakfast at the hotel, I was heartened to see that there was much activity along its street and pavements — all manner of carts being emptied and loaded from a countless succession of doorways; a strong smell of manure, coffee, and raw tobacco permeated the air; and there were the usual contingents of blacks at work and Cuban gentlemen to give them orders, while others were lying low in the shadows, a sight typical to that city. There were also some military constables milling about. Then, as we looked for the building numbered 7A, my heart quickened, for I saw a sight that was gratifyingly familiar, that of a tallish and bearded man sitting in front of one of the warehouses reading a newspaper. Believing that this man was Mr. Stanley, I rushed ahead to greet him, but I was sadly mistaken: “If you are looking for Mr. Stanley,” he told me, “you will find his offices over there.” And he pointed to a darkened doorway across the way: This was apparently the aforementioned 7A, though there would have been no way of telling, for it had no marking. Entering the premises through a long passageway, we found ourselves in the recesses of a warehouse.
Appearing out of the shadows, a Cuban fellow who had seen us come in barked out to us that the oficinas were above. A wide stairway at the back led us up to the second floor, where I was immediately elated by the sight of a doorway, alongside which were several signs, among them one that said: STANLEY BROS. & CO. IMPORTERS. Off an inner hallway were about six offices: In the first sat a corpulent Cuban man, his head glistening with sweat, some ledger books opened on the desk before him. He was drafting a letter or some poetry (a national pastime), a plume in hand. When I ventured in and made my introduction, it became quickly apparent that he knew little of the English language: I then tried to explain in my pidgin Spanish that we were looking for Señor Stanley. Shortly he got up, and with some great effort, made his way into another office, then came back with an English-speaking gentleman.
He was a fellow southerner, an accountant who had his clientele among the American businessmen of the city and to whom had been entrusted the management of such offices. I remember that his name was Mr. Johnson; and this Mr. Johnson, having known Mr. Stanley and his brother in passing, had information that was both helpful and discouraging to me:
“I last saw Captain Stanley here four months ago,” he said. “But he stopped coming by about then. One of his boys told me he’d caught the yellow fever — or typhoid, I cannot say which. I made nothing of his absence, as he only spent a few days a week here and mainly used this address to receive his mail and to conduct some business. He had another office down by the waterfront. I did see his brother, Mr. Henry Stanley, on one occasion after that. He seemed in some kind of rush to gather up their books, which they kept in a safe, along with some money, I guess. When I asked him about Captain Stanley, he told me that he was still laid low, but that was all. He left one afternoon with a portmanteau, and since then he hasn’t been back. But if he’s still in the city, I would imagine that the best way to find him would be to inquire after him with the American shippers down by the harbor, or you could locate the Yankee consul, though I cannot say that you’ve come at the best of times to do so.”
“And Mr. Stanley’s office? Where is it?” I asked.
“Just there, at the end of the hall.”
The Stanley Bros. & Co. office was but a largish room, smelling still of lingering pipe and cigar smoke, its walls stained with threadlike trails of oil-lamp fumes. Piles of newspapers — old copies of the Daily Picayune and a local English-language Havana newspaper — were stacked in a corner. All manner of documents — bills of lading and such — were scattered about on the floor: Indeed there was a safe, its door still open, as were the drawers of a correspondence cabinet; and there was a big oak desk, and on the desk’s blotter were several crumpled letters written in Spanish, apparently (from what I could tell) regarding some transaction. These Mr. Stanley or his brother had apparently thought were of little importance. The general impression was that Mr. Stanley had left the premises in haste. Thinking myself in the midst of some kind of dream, I could barely speak, but Clemens, coolheaded and curious, decided to ask Mr. Johnson several questions:
“When you last saw Mr. Stanley, did he seem ill?”
“I saw him at a distance, and he seemed well.”
“Did he carry the portmanteau out himself?”
“I think he had a hand — some black boy, anxious for a wage, assisting him.”
“We thank you, sir,” Mr. Clemens said, and with that Mr. Johnson accompanied us to the head of the stairs. As we went down, he shouted after us: “Good luck to you both,” and, as an afterthought, “Long live the South!”
WE WERE INTENT ON MAKING our way to the harbor: If this failed to render useful information, we would inquire after him at the hospitals — there were two in the city — and if that bore no result, we would approach the American consul for help. But in any event, we were briefly detained by a sudden downpour, what the Cubans call an aguacero, according to Clemens’s guidebook, which he had brought along from New Orleans. It was a rain so profound that we were forced to take shelter in a bar at the end of the street. Though it was still before noon, we ordered several glasses of the local beer, and there we remained for about half an hour.
The downpour, like the torrents of a cataract, cooled things off for a while, but soon a steamy heat followed: Such was the tropical clime. We found a carriage parked out in the street, its driver, in a broad straw hat and rags, hunched over, with his stick in hand, dozing. My Spanish, though consisting of infantile fragments, was sufficient to communicate that we wished to be taken to “los barcos americanos del puerto.” This he took to mean the sector of wharves along the seafront dominated by the warehouses and docks of various North American shipping companies, toward the southern end of the harbor. Taken down the paseo to the waterside and south along the ship-glutted docks, we came upon a scene reminiscent of bustling New Orleans, except that few of the frigates we saw were taking freight. Most, in from gulf ports, were being unloaded by fiercely worked slave gangs. Bales of processed cotton and crates lay out along the piers; and while the overseers barked out commands, a group of well-dressed Americans was gathered on the pier and engaged in heated discussion with some Cuban customs officials.