For my sea was the sea eternal, sea of childhood, unforgettable, suspended from our dream like a dove in the air ...
XII.
It was the sea of our first love in those autumnal eyes ...
One day I wished to see that sea -that sea of childhood-I was too late.15 It was a poem by a boy profoundly aware not only that he has lost his childhood but also that he has lost his other homeland, the Caribbean coast, the land of sea and sun.
Something like Kafka was what Garcia Marquez was looking for in that ghostly highland city and Kafka is what he eventually found. One afternoon a costeno costeno friend lent him a copy of friend lent him a copy of The Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis, translated by an Argentine writer called Jorge Luis Borges.16 Garcia Marquez went back to the boarding house, up to his room, took off his shoes and lay on his bed. He read the first line: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." Mesmerized, Garcia Marquez recalls saying to himself: "s.h.i.t, that"s just the way my grandmother talked!" Garcia Marquez went back to the boarding house, up to his room, took off his shoes and lay on his bed. He read the first line: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." Mesmerized, Garcia Marquez recalls saying to himself: "s.h.i.t, that"s just the way my grandmother talked!"17 Kafka undoubtedly opened wide his imagination (including his ability to imagine himself as a writer) and showed him for the long term that even the most fantastic episodes can be narrated in a matter-of-fact way. But what Garcia Marquez first took from Kafka seems to have been something rather different from what he has said in retrospect. First, evidently, Kafka addressed the alienation of urban existence; but beneath the surface, suffusing everything he wrote, was his terror of another authority, his father: his simultaneous loathing and veneration of his tyrannical progenitor.
Garcia Marquez had read Dostoyevsky"s The Double The Double, set in an even more repressive St. Petersburg, four years before, on his arrival in Bogota. Kafka"s vision is a direct descendant of that novel and its impact on the young writer is not in doubt. Garcia Marquez had discovered European modernism; more, he had discovered that far from being merely complex and pretentious, the innovations of modernism had emerged from the spirit of the age, from the structure of reality as currently perceived, and could be directly relevant to him-even in his remote capital city in Latin America.
The protagonists of both The Double The Double and and The Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis are victims of a split personality, characters who are hypersensitive and terrified of authority, and who, by internalizing the distortions of the outside world, conclude that it is they themselves, finally, who are sick, deformed, perverted and out of place. Many young people are beset by conflicting impulses and defensiveaggressive perceptions of their abilities and their relations with others; but the gap between Garcia Marquez"s self-confidence, bordering on unusual and sometimes startling arrogance (he was the Colonel"s grandson and clever with it), and his simultaneous sense of insecurity and inferiority (he was the quack doctor"s son and had been abandoned by him but maybe took after him), is undoubtedly unusual and it created a dynamic that allowed him to develop a hidden ambition which would burn within him like a fierce, sustained flame. are victims of a split personality, characters who are hypersensitive and terrified of authority, and who, by internalizing the distortions of the outside world, conclude that it is they themselves, finally, who are sick, deformed, perverted and out of place. Many young people are beset by conflicting impulses and defensiveaggressive perceptions of their abilities and their relations with others; but the gap between Garcia Marquez"s self-confidence, bordering on unusual and sometimes startling arrogance (he was the Colonel"s grandson and clever with it), and his simultaneous sense of insecurity and inferiority (he was the quack doctor"s son and had been abandoned by him but maybe took after him), is undoubtedly unusual and it created a dynamic that allowed him to develop a hidden ambition which would burn within him like a fierce, sustained flame.
The very next day after reading The Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis Garcia Marquez sat down to write a story, which he would ent.i.tle "The Third Resignation." It was his first work as a person prepared to think of himself as an author with something serious to offer. It already sounds something like "Garcia Marquez" and is strikingly ambitious, profoundly subjective, suffused with absurdity, solitude and death. It initiates what will be a constant in Garcia Marquez: building a story around the initial motif of an unburied corpse. Garcia Marquez sat down to write a story, which he would ent.i.tle "The Third Resignation." It was his first work as a person prepared to think of himself as an author with something serious to offer. It already sounds something like "Garcia Marquez" and is strikingly ambitious, profoundly subjective, suffused with absurdity, solitude and death. It initiates what will be a constant in Garcia Marquez: building a story around the initial motif of an unburied corpse.18 Eventually his readers would discover that Garcia Marquez has lived with three interconnected but also impossibly contradictory primordial terrors: the terror of dying and being buried oneself (or, worse, being buried alive); the terror of having to bury others; and the terror of any person remaining unburied. "A dead person can live happily with his irremediable situation," declares the narrator of this first story, a person who is unsure whether he is living, or dead, or both at the same time or successively. "But a living person cannot resign himself to being buried alive. Yet his limbs would not respond to his call. He could not express himself, and that was what terrified him; it was the greatest terror of his life and of his death. That they would bury him alive." Eventually his readers would discover that Garcia Marquez has lived with three interconnected but also impossibly contradictory primordial terrors: the terror of dying and being buried oneself (or, worse, being buried alive); the terror of having to bury others; and the terror of any person remaining unburied. "A dead person can live happily with his irremediable situation," declares the narrator of this first story, a person who is unsure whether he is living, or dead, or both at the same time or successively. "But a living person cannot resign himself to being buried alive. Yet his limbs would not respond to his call. He could not express himself, and that was what terrified him; it was the greatest terror of his life and of his death. That they would bury him alive."19 By way of compensation Garcia Marquez"s story appears to propose some new American telluric-historical genealogy founded on the conception of a family tree: He had been felled like some twenty-five-year-old tree ... Perhaps later he would feel a slight nostalgia; the nostalgia of not being a formal, anatomical corpse, but an imaginary, abstract corpse, living only in the hazy memory of his relatives ... Then he would know that he would rise up through the blood vessels of an apple and find himself being eaten by the hunger of a child some autumn morning. He would know then-and this thought really did make him sad-that he had lost his unity.20 Evidently the horror of being trapped in a house, between life and death, as in a coffin (as in memory, perhaps), is here mitigated by the idea of one"s lost individuality fusing into a tree as symbol both of nature and history (the generational family tree). The poignancy of such a genealogical impulse in a young man separated soon after birth from his natural mother and father and the brothers and sisters who would follow him requires no elaboration. And there is no need to have a qualification in psychoa.n.a.lysis to question whether this young writer did not unconsciously feel, as he looked back on his early life, that his parents had buried him alive in the house at Aracataca; and that his real self was buried inside a second self, the new ident.i.ty that he had had to build, Hamlet-like, to protect himself from his true feelings about his mother and his perhaps murderous feelings about the usurper, Gabriel Eligio, who belatedly claimed to be his father-when he, Gabito, knew perfectly well that his real father was Colonel Nicolas Marquez, the man who, admired and respected by all who knew him, had presided benignly over his early years. And then disappeared. There follows what may either be a piece of literary bl.u.s.ter (a form of wish-fulfilment) or a genuine sense that the writer has achieved wisdom (and "resignation"?): "All that terrible reality did not give him any anxiety. Quite the opposite, he was happy there, alone in his solitude."
Clumsy though the story is, it has a curiously hypnotic effect and is narrated with an unmistakable confidence that is more than just literary, and a resolution surprising in a novice writer. The ending is pure Garcia Marquez: Resigned, he will hear the last prayers, the last phrases mumbled in Latin and clumsily responded by the altar boys. The cold of the cemetery"s earth and bones will penetrate to his own bones and may dissipate somewhat that "smell." Perhaps-who knows!-the imminence of that moment will force him out of that lethargy. When he feels himself swimming in his own sweat, in a thick, viscous liquid, as he swam before he was born in his mother"s womb. Perhaps at that moment he will be alive.But by then he will be so resigned to dying that he may die of resignation.21 Readers of One Hundred Years of Solitude One Hundred Years of Solitude, The Autumn of the Patriarch and The General in His Labyrinth The General in His Labyrinth, written twenty, twenty-five and forty years later, will recognize the tone, the themes and the literary devices. It is, palpably, and contradictorily (given the morbid nature of the narrative voice), a bid for authority.
On 22 August, a week or two after he had written this story, he read in Eduardo Zalamea Borda"s daily column, "The City and the World," in El Espectador El Espectador, that Zalamea Borda was "anxious to hear from new poets and storytellers, who are unknown or ignored due to the lack of an adequate and just publication of their works."22 Zalamea Borda, a leftist sympathizer, was one of the most respected of newspaper columnists. Garcia Marquez sent his story in. Two weeks later, to his joy and stupefaction, he was sitting in the Molino cafe when he saw the t.i.tle of his piece covering a whole page of the "Weekend" supplement. Flushed with excitement, he rushed out to buy a copy-to discover as usual that he was "short of the last five centavos." So he went back to the boarding house, appealed to a friend, and out they went to buy the paper- Zalamea Borda, a leftist sympathizer, was one of the most respected of newspaper columnists. Garcia Marquez sent his story in. Two weeks later, to his joy and stupefaction, he was sitting in the Molino cafe when he saw the t.i.tle of his piece covering a whole page of the "Weekend" supplement. Flushed with excitement, he rushed out to buy a copy-to discover as usual that he was "short of the last five centavos." So he went back to the boarding house, appealed to a friend, and out they went to buy the paper-El Espectador, Sat.u.r.day 13 September 1947. There on page twelve was "The Third Resignation" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, with an ill.u.s.tration by the artist Hernan Merino.
He was euphoric, inspired. Six weeks later, on 25 October, El Espectador El Espectador published another of his stories, "Eva Is Inside Her Cat" ("Eva esta dentro de su gato"), again on the theme of death and subsequent reincarnations, about a woman, Eva, who, obsessed with the desire to eat not an apple but an orange, decides to transmigrate through the body of her pet cat, only to find herself, three thousand years later, trapped-buried-in a new and confusing world. She is a beautiful woman, desperate to escape the attentions of men, a woman whose physical allure has begun to pain her like a cancer tumour. She has become aware that her arteries are teeming with tiny insects: published another of his stories, "Eva Is Inside Her Cat" ("Eva esta dentro de su gato"), again on the theme of death and subsequent reincarnations, about a woman, Eva, who, obsessed with the desire to eat not an apple but an orange, decides to transmigrate through the body of her pet cat, only to find herself, three thousand years later, trapped-buried-in a new and confusing world. She is a beautiful woman, desperate to escape the attentions of men, a woman whose physical allure has begun to pain her like a cancer tumour. She has become aware that her arteries are teeming with tiny insects: She knew that they came from back there, that all who bore her surname had to bear them, had to suffer them as she did when insomnia held unconquerable sway until dawn. It was those very insects who painted that bitter expression, that unconsolable sadness on the faces of her forebears. She had seen them looking out of their extinguished existence, out of their ancient portraits, victims of that same anguish ...23 Both the genealogically obsessive One Hundred Years of Solitude One Hundred Years of Solitude and its primitive version, "The House" ("La casa"), soon to be conceived (perhaps already conceived), can be divined in this remarkable pa.s.sage. and its primitive version, "The House" ("La casa"), soon to be conceived (perhaps already conceived), can be divined in this remarkable pa.s.sage.
Only three days after the publication of this second story his unexpected literary patron announced in his daily column the arrival of a new literary talent upon the national scene, one who was in his first year as a student and not yet twenty-one. Zalamea declared unequivocally: "In Gabriel Garcia Marquez we are seeing the birth of a remarkable writer."24 One side effect of the confidence being placed in him was that Garcia Marquez felt ever more justified in the neglect of his studies and in his obsessive love of reading and writing. More than half a century later the world-famous writer would comment that his first stories were "inconsequential and abstract, some absurd, and none based on real feelings." One side effect of the confidence being placed in him was that Garcia Marquez felt ever more justified in the neglect of his studies and in his obsessive love of reading and writing. More than half a century later the world-famous writer would comment that his first stories were "inconsequential and abstract, some absurd, and none based on real feelings."25 Once again a reverse interpretation suggests itself: that he hated his poems and early stories precisely because they were "based on real feelings" and that later he learned to cover up-but not entirely suppress-the callow romanticism and emotionalism which left him exposed in all his vulnerability and might later give him away. It may also be the case that he is unwilling to give Bogota the credit for his having become a writer. Once again a reverse interpretation suggests itself: that he hated his poems and early stories precisely because they were "based on real feelings" and that later he learned to cover up-but not entirely suppress-the callow romanticism and emotionalism which left him exposed in all his vulnerability and might later give him away. It may also be the case that he is unwilling to give Bogota the credit for his having become a writer.26 Garcia Marquez stayed in Bogota for the Christmas 1947 vacation. It was expensive to remain in the pension pension but it was more expensive to find the fare to return to Sucre. Mercedes remained oblivious to his overtures. Besides, his grandmother was dead and his mother was just about to have yet another baby. Above all, though, despite having sc.r.a.ped through the examinations, failing only statistics and demography, he knew by now that he was not going to dedicate himself to the law and he was reluctant to confront Gabriel Eligio on this matter. The success of his first two stories suggested that there might be another path through life for him and he preferred to make the most of his perhaps temporary independence. but it was more expensive to find the fare to return to Sucre. Mercedes remained oblivious to his overtures. Besides, his grandmother was dead and his mother was just about to have yet another baby. Above all, though, despite having sc.r.a.ped through the examinations, failing only statistics and demography, he knew by now that he was not going to dedicate himself to the law and he was reluctant to confront Gabriel Eligio on this matter. The success of his first two stories suggested that there might be another path through life for him and he preferred to make the most of his perhaps temporary independence.
It was probably during this vacation that he began his next story, "The Other Side of Death" ("La otra costilla de la muerte"). If the first story was a meditation on one"s own death, this was more a reflection on the death of others (or perhaps on the death of one"s own other, one"s double, in this case a brother). Appropriately, therefore, the narrative voice alternates modernist-style between a "he" and an "I." Again we are implicitly in a city but now the themes of the twin, the double, ident.i.ty, the mirror (including that internal mirror, the consciousness) predominate. This brother, who had died of cancer, and of whom the narrator has a mortal terror, is now metamorphosed into another body that was coming from beyond his, that had been sunken with him in the liquid night of the maternal womb and was climbing up with him through the branches of an ancient genealogy; that was with him in the blood of his four pairs of great-grandparents and that came from way back, from the beginning of the world, sustaining with its weight, with its mysterious presence, the whole universal balance ... his other brother who had been born and shackled to his heel and who came tumbling along generation after generation, night after night, from kiss to kiss, from love to love, descending through arteries and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es until he arrived, as on a night voyage, at the womb of his recent mother.27 This genealogical, dynastic obsession and the parallel exploration of the entire universe (time, s.p.a.ce, matter, spirit, idea; life, death, burial, corruption, metamorphosis) is a structure of thought and feeling which, once explicitly explored and elaborated, will apparently disappear from Garcia Marquez"s work but will in fact become implicit and its manifestations used sparingly, strategically, for maximum effect. This first Garcia Marquez, qua literary persona, is anguished, hypersensitive, hypochondriac-Kafkaesque: far from his later, carefully constructed narrative ident.i.ty, which will be closer to that of, say, Cervantes. Apparently with very little help from Colombian or other Latin American writers-the best-known of whom he appears hardly to have read-the early Garcia Marquez attacks the essential Latin American questions of genealogy (estar, existence, history) and ident.i.ty (ser, essence, myth). They make up, without doubt, the essential Latin American problematic of that era: genealogy is inevitably a crucial matter in a continent that has no satisfactory myth of origin, where everything is up for grabs. This Garcia Marquez has not yet got on to the question of legitimacy (which is what is really really tormenting him and is certainly implicit here). Nevertheless, this narrator is also, clearly, a problem tormenting him and is certainly implicit here). Nevertheless, this narrator is also, clearly, a problem unto himself. unto himself.
The long vacation eventually came to an end and things finally looked up. At the start of the new university year in 1948 Luis Enrique arrived in Bogota, in theory to continue his secondary education; in practice he took up a job with Colgate-Palmolive that Gabito had secured for him and then devoted himself to the usual h.e.l.l-raising in his spare time. By now their Uncle Juanito (Juan de Dios), following the death of his mother, Tranquilina, had moved to Bogota to work for the national bureaucracy. Luis Enrique brought with him a secret present which he was supposed to have saved for Gabito"s twenty-first birthday on 6 March, but when his brother and his friends told him at the airport that they had no money with which to celebrate, Luis Enrique slyly revealed that the surprise inside his package was a new typewriter: "The next step was a visit to the p.a.w.nshop in the centre of Bogota, and the guy opening the case, turning the handle and pulling out a piece of paper. I remember he looked at it and said, "This must be for one of you." One of our friends took it and read it out loud: "Congratulations. We"re proud of you. The future is yours. Gabriel and Luisa, Sucre, 6 March 1948." Then the p.a.w.nshop a.s.sistant asked, "How much do you need?" and the owner of the typewriter replied, "As much as you can give me.""28 With Luis Enrique"s new income and some additional money that Gabito himself was earning by providing newspaper ill.u.s.trations through a friend, the standard of living improved markedly in the following weeks-adventures involving wine, women and song ensued-and Luis Enrique renewed his vagabonds" alliance with the madcap Jose Palencia. Meanwhile, Gabito, by now the most prestigious of the university"s many students with pretensions to literary status, was missing even more cla.s.ses as he devoted himself ever more zealously to reading and writing literature, including reading another modernist masterwork, James Joyce"s Ulysses. Ulysses.
At that very moment political storm clouds were gathering rapidly over Colombia and heading directly for Bogota. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, an outstanding lawyer who had imbibed a potent political c.o.c.ktail offered by the Mexican Revolution, Marxism and Mussolini, was the most charismatic politician in twentieth-century Colombian history and one of the most successful political leaders in Latin America in an era of populist politics. He was the hero of the rising proletarian cla.s.ses and of many lower-middle-cla.s.s inhabitants of the rapidly growing cities. Garcia Marquez knew that he had first come to national attention in 1929 when he took up the case of the banana workers ma.s.sacred in Cienaga in December 1928. Garcia Marquez did not know that among his key informants was Father Francisco Angarita, the man who had baptized him in Aracataca, and possibly also Colonel Nicolas Marquez. Gaitan had grown ever stronger despite the electoral setback caused by his own division of the Liberal Party, had soon captured the leadership and began to conduct a style of politics never before seen in one of the most conservative republics in Latin America. Some called him "The Tongue," others "The Throat," such was the power of his oratory and of the voice that delivered it. Garcia Marquez has almost never spoken of Gaitan in public interviews until very recently, most likely because his own politics have always been well to the left of any Latin American populism since the early 1950s and also in part, no doubt, because in April 1948, although instinctively attached to the Liberals, his political consciousness was still largely undeveloped.
In April 1948 the ninth Pan-American Conference was taking place in the centre of Bogota and the Organization of American States was in the process of being set up at the behest of the United States. On Friday the 9th, just after 1 p.m., Gabriel Garcia Marquez was sitting down to lunch in his boarding house in Florian Street with Luis Enrique and some of his costeno costeno friends. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was at that moment leaving his law office to walk down Seventh Avenue to lunch with his Liberal Party colleague Plinio Mendoza Neira and other a.s.sociates. As he reached number 1455, between Avenida Jimenez and 14th Street, an unemployed worker called Juan Roa Sierra walked across from the Black Cat cafe and fired at him three or four times from point-blank range. Gaitan fell to the pavement, just a few yards from "the best street corner in the world." It was five past one. Before they lifted him from the ground, sixteen-year-old Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, who had come to meet his father, bent over and gazed with horror into the dying leader"s face. Gaitan was rushed to the Central Clinic in a private car and p.r.o.nounced dead soon after arrival, to the inconsolable dismay of the large crowd that gathered outside the clinic. friends. Jorge Eliecer Gaitan was at that moment leaving his law office to walk down Seventh Avenue to lunch with his Liberal Party colleague Plinio Mendoza Neira and other a.s.sociates. As he reached number 1455, between Avenida Jimenez and 14th Street, an unemployed worker called Juan Roa Sierra walked across from the Black Cat cafe and fired at him three or four times from point-blank range. Gaitan fell to the pavement, just a few yards from "the best street corner in the world." It was five past one. Before they lifted him from the ground, sixteen-year-old Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, who had come to meet his father, bent over and gazed with horror into the dying leader"s face. Gaitan was rushed to the Central Clinic in a private car and p.r.o.nounced dead soon after arrival, to the inconsolable dismay of the large crowd that gathered outside the clinic.
That was the murder. Now came the Bogotazo. Bogotazo.29 A wave of fury and hysteria swept through the city immediately. Bogota was in uproar. An afternoon of riots, lootings and killings ensued. The Liberal mob took it for granted that the Conservatives were behind the a.s.sa.s.sination: within minutes Roa had been murdered and his battered body was dragged naked through the streets towards the government palace. The centre of Bogota, all of it the very symbol of Colombia"s reactionary political system, began to burn. A wave of fury and hysteria swept through the city immediately. Bogota was in uproar. An afternoon of riots, lootings and killings ensued. The Liberal mob took it for granted that the Conservatives were behind the a.s.sa.s.sination: within minutes Roa had been murdered and his battered body was dragged naked through the streets towards the government palace. The centre of Bogota, all of it the very symbol of Colombia"s reactionary political system, began to burn.30 Garcia Marquez ran out immediately to the site of the murder but Gaitan"s dying body had already been rushed to the hospital-weeping men and women were soaking their handkerchiefs in the fallen leader"s blood-and Roa"s corpse had already been dragged away. Luis Villar Borda remembers meeting Garcia Marquez between two and three o"clock in the afternoon just a few steps from where Gaitan had fallen: "I was very surprised to see him. "You"ve never been a fan of Gaitan," I said. "No," he said, "but they"ve burned down my pension pension and I"ve lost all my stories."" and I"ve lost all my stories.""31 (This much-exaggerated tale would gain mythical status down the years.) During this same excursion Garcia Marquez encountered an uncle, the law professor Carlos H. Pareja, in 12th Street as he hastened back to finish his lunch in the-still intact- (This much-exaggerated tale would gain mythical status down the years.) During this same excursion Garcia Marquez encountered an uncle, the law professor Carlos H. Pareja, in 12th Street as he hastened back to finish his lunch in the-still intact-pension. Pareja stopped his young nephew in the street and urged him to hurry to the university and organize the students on behalf of the Liberal uprising. Garcia Marquez reluctantly set off but changed his mind as soon as Pareja was out of sight and made his way back through the chaos-Bogota was now a mortally dangerous place-to the Pareja stopped his young nephew in the street and urged him to hurry to the university and organize the students on behalf of the Liberal uprising. Garcia Marquez reluctantly set off but changed his mind as soon as Pareja was out of sight and made his way back through the chaos-Bogota was now a mortally dangerous place-to the pension pension on Florian. on Florian.
Luis Enrique and the other costenos costenos were having a kind of apocalyptic celebration. Behind their din, on the radio, Uncle Carlos could already be heard, together with the writer Jorge Zalamea (destined to become, like his first cousin Eduardo Zalamea Borda, another significant figure in Garcia Marquez"s life), both urging the Colombian people to rise against the dastardly Conservatives who had a.s.sa.s.sinated the country"s greatest political leader and only hope for its future. Pareja, whose own radical bookstore was a victim of the flames, thundered that "the Conservatives will pay for Gaitan"s life with many other lives." were having a kind of apocalyptic celebration. Behind their din, on the radio, Uncle Carlos could already be heard, together with the writer Jorge Zalamea (destined to become, like his first cousin Eduardo Zalamea Borda, another significant figure in Garcia Marquez"s life), both urging the Colombian people to rise against the dastardly Conservatives who had a.s.sa.s.sinated the country"s greatest political leader and only hope for its future. Pareja, whose own radical bookstore was a victim of the flames, thundered that "the Conservatives will pay for Gaitan"s life with many other lives."32 Gabito, Luis Enrique and their friends heard his call to arms on the Gabito, Luis Enrique and their friends heard his call to arms on the pension pension radio but they did not answer the appeal. radio but they did not answer the appeal.
Not far away another young Latin American aged twenty-one was also beside himself, but with joy and excitement. Fidel Castro was a Cuban student leader who had travelled to Bogota as part of a delegation taking part in a student congress set up in opposition to the Pan-American Conference. Castro forgot all about the Congress of Latin American Students and took to the streets, attempting to impose some sort of revolutionary logic upon the violently erratic actions of the popular uprising. Only two days before, he had interviewed the now martyred leader in his office in Carrera 7 and had apparently impressed the Colombian politician. Incredibly, they had agreed to meet again at 2 p.m. on 9 April: the name Fidel Castro was found pencilled in Gaitan"s appointment book for that day. Little wonder the Colombian Conservative government and right-wing press were soon claiming that Castro was involved either in the plot to murder Gaitan or in the conspiracy to subvert the Pan-American Conference and provoke an uprising, or both. At times, Castro must have been no more than a couple of hundred yards from his future friend Garcia Marquez.33 In retrospect the In retrospect the Bogotazo Bogotazo would be as crucial to Castro"s understanding of revolutionary politics as later events in Guatemala in 1954 would be to his future comrade Che Guevara. would be as crucial to Castro"s understanding of revolutionary politics as later events in Guatemala in 1954 would be to his future comrade Che Guevara.34 As Castro began to organize for a revolution that never came, Garcia Marquez sat mourning the loss of his typewriter-the p.a.w.nshop had been looted-and rehearsing his explanation for his parents. However, when smoke began to waft through the walls of the boarding house from the burning Cundinamarca state building behind it, the Garcia Marquez brothers organized their friends from Sucre and set off for their Uncle Juanito"s new house, which was only four blocks away. The band of friends and brothers joined in the generalized looting and Luis Enrique made off with a sky-blue suit which his father would wear for years to come on special occasions. Gabito found an elegant calfskin briefcase which became his proudest possession. But the most prized piece of plunder was a large fifteen-litre flagon into which Luis Enrique and Palencia poured as many varieties of liquor as they could find before bearing it off in triumph to Uncle Juanito"s.
Margarita Marquez Caballero, then twelve years old, today Garcia Marquez"s personal secretary in Bogota, vividly remembers the arrival of her favourite cousin, his brother and their friends. The house was full of refugees from the Costa and in the evening, drunk on their illicit liquor, the young men joined Uncle Juanito on the roof of the building and gazed with stupefaction at the burning city centre.35 Meanwhile, down in Sucre the family feared the worst, as Rita recalls: "The only time I ever saw my mother cry when I was a child was 9 April. Then I could tell that she was very upset because of Gabito and Luis Enrique being in Bogota at the time Gaitan was a.s.sa.s.sinated. I remember that at about three in the afternoon the next day she got dressed all of a sudden and went out to the church. She was going to give thanks to G.o.d because they"d just told her that her sons were safe. I was struck by it because I wasn"t used to seeing her go out, she was always at home looking after all of us." Meanwhile, down in Sucre the family feared the worst, as Rita recalls: "The only time I ever saw my mother cry when I was a child was 9 April. Then I could tell that she was very upset because of Gabito and Luis Enrique being in Bogota at the time Gaitan was a.s.sa.s.sinated. I remember that at about three in the afternoon the next day she got dressed all of a sudden and went out to the church. She was going to give thanks to G.o.d because they"d just told her that her sons were safe. I was struck by it because I wasn"t used to seeing her go out, she was always at home looking after all of us."36 In Bogota, the young costenos costenos stayed indoors for three days. The government had imposed a state of siege and snipers were still sporadically picking off those who ventured out. The city centre continued to smoulder. The university was closed and much of old Bogota was in ruins. But the Conservative government had survived and the leading Liberal politicians had reached an unsatisfactory agreement with the unexpectedly valiant President Ospina Perez which put some of them back in the cabinet but would effectively leave them out of power again as a party for another decade. As soon as they felt it was safe to return to the streets the two brothers, whose parents had urged them to fly down to Sucre, began to hustle for tickets to travel back to the Costa. Luis Enrique had decided to try his luck in Barranquilla, where the latest love of his life was waiting for him, and Gabito had decided to pursue his law studies in the University of Cartagena; or at least, he had decided to pretend to do so. A little over a week after the disastrous events of 9 April, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, his brother Luis Enrique and the young Cuban agitator Fidel Castro Ruz set off from Bogota on different planes towards their different historical destinies. stayed indoors for three days. The government had imposed a state of siege and snipers were still sporadically picking off those who ventured out. The city centre continued to smoulder. The university was closed and much of old Bogota was in ruins. But the Conservative government had survived and the leading Liberal politicians had reached an unsatisfactory agreement with the unexpectedly valiant President Ospina Perez which put some of them back in the cabinet but would effectively leave them out of power again as a party for another decade. As soon as they felt it was safe to return to the streets the two brothers, whose parents had urged them to fly down to Sucre, began to hustle for tickets to travel back to the Costa. Luis Enrique had decided to try his luck in Barranquilla, where the latest love of his life was waiting for him, and Gabito had decided to pursue his law studies in the University of Cartagena; or at least, he had decided to pretend to do so. A little over a week after the disastrous events of 9 April, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, his brother Luis Enrique and the young Cuban agitator Fidel Castro Ruz set off from Bogota on different planes towards their different historical destinies.
As for Colombia, it has become a historical cliche, but nonetheless true, that the death of Gaitan and the ensuing Bogotazo Bogotazo divided the nation"s twentieth-century history in two. What Gaitan might or might not have achieved lies in the realm of speculation. No politician has since excited the ma.s.ses as he did and Colombia has moved further away from solving its real political problems with every year that has pa.s.sed since he died. It was the crisis following his death which gave rise to the guerrilla movements that continue to compromise political life in the country until this very day. If it can be said that the War of a Thousand Days showed the upper cla.s.ses the need to unite against the peasantry, the divided the nation"s twentieth-century history in two. What Gaitan might or might not have achieved lies in the realm of speculation. No politician has since excited the ma.s.ses as he did and Colombia has moved further away from solving its real political problems with every year that has pa.s.sed since he died. It was the crisis following his death which gave rise to the guerrilla movements that continue to compromise political life in the country until this very day. If it can be said that the War of a Thousand Days showed the upper cla.s.ses the need to unite against the peasantry, the Bogotazo Bogotazo similarly showed the danger represented by the urban proletarian ma.s.ses. Yet it was in the rural areas that the reaction would be most brutal, beginning twenty-five years of one of the world"s most savage and costly civil wars: the similarly showed the danger represented by the urban proletarian ma.s.ses. Yet it was in the rural areas that the reaction would be most brutal, beginning twenty-five years of one of the world"s most savage and costly civil wars: the Violencia. Violencia.
As for Garcia Marquez, it can fairly be said of him, unlike most other people caught up in the events, that the Bogotazo Bogotazo was one of the most fortunate things that ever happened. It interrupted his law studies in the most prestigious university in the country and gave a shot in the arm to a young man looking for some further excuse to abandon his education; and it gave him an irrefutable pretext for abandoning a place he hated and for returning to his beloved Costa, but not before he had acquired a familiarity with the capital city which would be crucial in giving him a wider national consciousness. Never again would he take the two ruling parties entirely seriously. Slow as he was to develop a mature political consciousness, there were significant lessons that Garcia Marquez had now a.s.similated about the nature of his country; as he had lost or abandoned most of his material possessions, these new lessons were perhaps the most important things the young man took with him on the plane to Barranquilla and Cartagena. was one of the most fortunate things that ever happened. It interrupted his law studies in the most prestigious university in the country and gave a shot in the arm to a young man looking for some further excuse to abandon his education; and it gave him an irrefutable pretext for abandoning a place he hated and for returning to his beloved Costa, but not before he had acquired a familiarity with the capital city which would be crucial in giving him a wider national consciousness. Never again would he take the two ruling parties entirely seriously. Slow as he was to develop a mature political consciousness, there were significant lessons that Garcia Marquez had now a.s.similated about the nature of his country; as he had lost or abandoned most of his material possessions, these new lessons were perhaps the most important things the young man took with him on the plane to Barranquilla and Cartagena.
6.
Back to the Costa: An Apprentice Journalist in Cartagena 19481949 GARCIA M MaRQUEZ LANDED in Barranquilla in a Douglas DC-3 aircraft on 29 April 1948, two days after his brother Luis Enrique. Luis Enrique stayed on in Barranquilla and started looking for employment; he would soon land a job with the airline company LANSA and would work there for the next eighteen months. Meanwhile all the transport systems of the country remained in chaos in the aftermath of the in Barranquilla in a Douglas DC-3 aircraft on 29 April 1948, two days after his brother Luis Enrique. Luis Enrique stayed on in Barranquilla and started looking for employment; he would soon land a job with the airline company LANSA and would work there for the next eighteen months. Meanwhile all the transport systems of the country remained in chaos in the aftermath of the Bogotazo Bogotazo and Gabito, with a heavy suitcase and a similarly heavy dark suit, found himself perched on top of a postal truck in the searing heat of the Caribbean coastlands, heading for Cartagena. and Gabito, with a heavy suitcase and a similarly heavy dark suit, found himself perched on top of a postal truck in the searing heat of the Caribbean coastlands, heading for Cartagena.1 Cartagena was the merest shadow of its former self. When the Spaniards arrived in 1533, it became a vital bastion of the colonial system linking Spain to the Caribbean and South America and, before long, one of the most important cities for the delivery and sale of slaves in the entire New World. Despite this grim antecedent it had also become (and has remained) one of the most gracious and picturesque cities anywhere in Latin America.2 But after independence in the nineteenth century Barranquilla expanded to become the large trading city that Colombia required and Cartagena stagnated, nursed its wounds and its grievances, and consoled itself with the knowledge of its glorious past and its ravaged beauty. This decadent city was Garcia Marquez"s new home. He was back in the Caribbean, back in a world where the human body was accepted for what it was, in its beauty, its ugliness and its fragility, back in the realm of the senses. He had never before visited the heroic city and was struck, simultaneously, by its magnificence and its desolation. It had not entirely escaped the effects of the Bogotazo Bogotazo but, like the Costa as a whole, it had quickly returned to a somewhat uneasy normality despite the state of siege, the curfew and the censorship. The young man went straight to the Hotel Suiza in the Calle de las Damas, which doubled as a student residence, only to find that his wealthy friend Jose Palencia had not arrived. The owner would not give him a room on credit and he was forced to wander the old walled city, hungry and thirsty, and eventually to lie on a bench in the main square and hope that Palencia would soon turn up. Palencia didn"t. Garcia Marquez fell asleep on his bench and was arrested by two policemen for breaking the curfew, or possibly because he didn"t have a cigarette to give them. He spent the night on the floor in a police cell. This was his introduction to Cartagena and the auguries were not good. Palencia finally turned up the next day and the two young men were admitted to the residence. but, like the Costa as a whole, it had quickly returned to a somewhat uneasy normality despite the state of siege, the curfew and the censorship. The young man went straight to the Hotel Suiza in the Calle de las Damas, which doubled as a student residence, only to find that his wealthy friend Jose Palencia had not arrived. The owner would not give him a room on credit and he was forced to wander the old walled city, hungry and thirsty, and eventually to lie on a bench in the main square and hope that Palencia would soon turn up. Palencia didn"t. Garcia Marquez fell asleep on his bench and was arrested by two policemen for breaking the curfew, or possibly because he didn"t have a cigarette to give them. He spent the night on the floor in a police cell. This was his introduction to Cartagena and the auguries were not good. Palencia finally turned up the next day and the two young men were admitted to the residence.3 Garcia Marquez went to the university, just a couple of blocks away and managed to persuade the authorities, who examined him in front of his prospective cla.s.smates, to take him on for the remainder of the second year of the law degree, including pa.s.sing the subjects he had failed in year one. He was a student again. He and Palencia took up where they had left off in Bogota, went drinking and partying despite the curfew and generally acted like the kind of upper-cla.s.s student layabout that Palencia actually was and that Garcia Marquez could hardly afford to be. This idyllic state of affairs was brought to an end after just a few weeks when the restless Palencia decided to move on and Garcia Marquez moved up to the collective dormitory, which cost thirty pesos a month for full board and laundry.
Then fate took a hand. As he wandered down the Street of Bad Behaviour (Mala Crianza) in the old slave quarter of Getsemani, adjacent to the walled city, he came across Manuel Zapata Olivella, a black doctor he had known in Bogota the year before. The next day Zapata, a well-known philanthropist to his many friends and later one of Colombia"s leading writers and journalists, took the young man to the offices of the newspaper El Universal El Universal in San Juan de Dios Street, just round the corner from his student in San Juan de Dios Street, just round the corner from his student pension pension, and introduced him to the managing editor, Clemente Manuel Zabala. As luck would have it, Zabala, who was a friend of Eduardo Zalamea Borda, had read Garcia Marquez"s short stories in El Espectador El Espectador and was already an admirer. Despite the young man"s timidity he took him on as a columnist and, without discussing terms or conditions, said he looked forward to seeing him the next day and to printing his first article the day after that. and was already an admirer. Despite the young man"s timidity he took him on as a columnist and, without discussing terms or conditions, said he looked forward to seeing him the next day and to printing his first article the day after that.
At the time Garcia Marquez seems to have conceived journalism only as a means to an end and as an inferior form of writing. Nevertheless, he had now been taken on as a journalist precisely because of his pre-existing literary prestige, just past his twenty-first birthday. He contacted his parents immediately to tell them that he would now be able to support himself through his studies. Given his intention to give up those studies as soon as he could, and certainly never to practise law even if he qualified, the message significantly eased his conscience.
El Universal itself was a new paper. It had been founded only ten weeks before by Dr. Domingo Lopez Escauriaza, a patrician Liberal politician who had been state governor and a diplomat and now, in the light of growing Conservative violence, had decided to open a new front in the propaganda war on the Costa. This had been a month before the itself was a new paper. It had been founded only ten weeks before by Dr. Domingo Lopez Escauriaza, a patrician Liberal politician who had been state governor and a diplomat and now, in the light of growing Conservative violence, had decided to open a new front in the propaganda war on the Costa. This had been a month before the Bogotazo. Bogotazo. There was no other Liberal newspaper in that very conservative city. There was no other Liberal newspaper in that very conservative city.
Everyone agrees that Zabala was the newspaper"s trump card. Such was the managing editor"s dedication and lucidity that El Universal El Universal emerged, despite its unprepossessing offices, as a model of political coherence and, by the standards of the time, good writing. The good writing would be providential for the new recruit. Zabala was a slight, nervous man in his mid-fifties, born in San Jacinto, with "Indian" features and hair. Dark in complexion, with a slight paunch, he always wore gla.s.ses and was rarely seen without a cigarette in his hand. He was also, it was rumoured, a discreet h.o.m.os.e.xual, who dyed his hair black to defy the advancing years and lived alone in a small hotel room. He had been a political a.s.sociate of Gaitan. It was said he had been private secretary to General Benjamin Herrera in his youth and he had worked on the General"s newspaper emerged, despite its unprepossessing offices, as a model of political coherence and, by the standards of the time, good writing. The good writing would be providential for the new recruit. Zabala was a slight, nervous man in his mid-fifties, born in San Jacinto, with "Indian" features and hair. Dark in complexion, with a slight paunch, he always wore gla.s.ses and was rarely seen without a cigarette in his hand. He was also, it was rumoured, a discreet h.o.m.os.e.xual, who dyed his hair black to defy the advancing years and lived alone in a small hotel room. He had been a political a.s.sociate of Gaitan. It was said he had been private secretary to General Benjamin Herrera in his youth and he had worked on the General"s newspaper El Diario Nacional. El Diario Nacional. In the 1940s he had worked in the ministry of education and later he had collaborated closely with Plinio Mendoza Neira"s magazine In the 1940s he had worked in the ministry of education and later he had collaborated closely with Plinio Mendoza Neira"s magazine Accion Liberal. Accion Liberal.
Zabala introduced Garcia Marquez to another recent recruit, Hector Rojas Herazo, a young poet and painter of twenty-seven from the Caribbean port of Tolu. He did not recognize Garcia Marquez but he had briefly been his art teacher eight years before at the Colegio San Jose in Barranquilla. It was another of the extraordinary conjunctions which were already punctuating Garcia Marquez"s life; Rojas Herazo was himself destined to be one of the country"s leading poets and novelists as well as a widely admired painter.4 Craggy and leonine, he was louder and larger, more dogmatic and apparently more pa.s.sionate than his new friend, expansive and p.r.i.c.kly at one and the same time. Craggy and leonine, he was louder and larger, more dogmatic and apparently more pa.s.sionate than his new friend, expansive and p.r.i.c.kly at one and the same time.
Well after midnight, when Zabala had checked and corrected every article on every one of the newspaper"s eight pages, he invited his two young proteges out to eat. Journalists were exempt from the curfew and Garcia Marquez now embarked on a new life, which was to last many years, in which he worked through much of the night and slept, when he slept at all, during much of the day. This would not be easy in Cartagena where law cla.s.ses began at seven in the morning and Garcia Marquez arrived home at six. The only place open so late at night was a restaurant and bar nicknamed "The Cave" on the waterfront behind the public market, run by an exquisitely beautiful young black h.o.m.os.e.xual called Jose de las Nieves, "Joe of the Snows."5 There the journalists and other night owls would eat beefsteak, tripe, and rice with shrimp or crab. There the journalists and other night owls would eat beefsteak, tripe, and rice with shrimp or crab.
After Zabala had returned to his solitary room, Garcia Marquez and Rojas Herazo began to wander the port area, beginning at the Paseo de los Martires, where nine busts commemorate the deaths in 1816 of some of the first rebels against the Spanish empire.6 Then Garcia Marquez went home to work. After an anxious few hours, but infatuated with his own rhetoric, he trotted off to show his first column to the boss. Zabala read it and said it was well enough written but wouldn"t do. Firstly, it was too personal, and far too literary; and secondly, "Haven"t you noticed that we are working under a regime of censorship?" On Zabala"s desk was a red pencil. He picked it up. Almost immediately the combination of Garcia Marquez"s own inborn talent and Zabala"s professional zeal produced articles which were readable, absorbing and patently original from the very start. Then Garcia Marquez went home to work. After an anxious few hours, but infatuated with his own rhetoric, he trotted off to show his first column to the boss. Zabala read it and said it was well enough written but wouldn"t do. Firstly, it was too personal, and far too literary; and secondly, "Haven"t you noticed that we are working under a regime of censorship?" On Zabala"s desk was a red pencil. He picked it up. Almost immediately the combination of Garcia Marquez"s own inborn talent and Zabala"s professional zeal produced articles which were readable, absorbing and patently original from the very start.7 All Garcia Marquez"s signed columns in All Garcia Marquez"s signed columns in El Universal El Universal appeared under the byline "New Paragraph" ("Punto y Aparte"). The first, the one that received most attention from the editor, was a political piece about the curfew and state of siege, cunningly disguised as a general meditation on the city. The young writer asked prophetically how, in an era of political violence and dehumanization, could his generation be expected to turn out as "men of good will." Evidently the novice journalist had been abruptly radicalized by the events of 9 April. The second article was equally remarkable. appeared under the byline "New Paragraph" ("Punto y Aparte"). The first, the one that received most attention from the editor, was a political piece about the curfew and state of siege, cunningly disguised as a general meditation on the city. The young writer asked prophetically how, in an era of political violence and dehumanization, could his generation be expected to turn out as "men of good will." Evidently the novice journalist had been abruptly radicalized by the events of 9 April. The second article was equally remarkable.8 If the first was implicitly political in the traditional sense, the second was almost a manifesto about cultural politics: it was a defence of the humble accordion, a vagabond among musical instruments but an essential element in the If the first was implicitly political in the traditional sense, the second was almost a manifesto about cultural politics: it was a defence of the humble accordion, a vagabond among musical instruments but an essential element in the vallenato vallenato, a musical form developed in the Costa by usually anonymous musicians and, for Garcia Marquez, a symbol of the people of the region and their culture, not to mention of his own desire to challenge ruling-cla.s.s preconceptions. The accordion, he insisted, is not only a vagabond but a proletarian. The first article had been a rejection of the kind of politics coming from Bogota; the second embraced the writer"s newly recovered cultural roots.9 For the first time the future of Gabriel Garcia Marquez was moderately a.s.sured. He was doing a job, and one that other people recognized he was good at. He was a newspaperman. He would continue to study the law sporadically and unenthusiastically, but he had found his way out of the legal profession and into the world of journalism and literature. He would never look back.
In the next twenty months he would write forty-three signed pieces and many times that number of unsigned contributions for El Universal. El Universal. Mostly this was still a noticeably old-fashioned journalism of commentary and literary creation, more for entertainment than political information, closer indeed to the genre of daily or weekly "chronicles" which would not have been out of date in a Latin American newspaper of the 1920s. On the other hand, one of Garcia Marquez"s tasks was to sift through the cables coming off the teletype machine in order to select news items and propose topics for the commentary pieces and literary extrapolations that were so important in the journalism of those times. This daily practice must have given him an experience of the way in which the events of everyday life are trans.m.u.ted into "news," into "stories," that immediately demystified ordinary reality and provided a powerful antidote to his recent excursions into the works of Kafka. Journalists almost everywhere at this time were obliged to adopt the hands-on, sleeves-rolled-up approach of U.S. journalistic practices and from the beginning Garcia Marquez took to this like a duck to water. It would make him a very different sort of writer from the majority of his Latin American contemporaries, for whom France and French ways of doing things were still the models to follow in an age when France itself was beginning to lose its grip on modernity. Mostly this was still a noticeably old-fashioned journalism of commentary and literary creation, more for entertainment than political information, closer indeed to the genre of daily or weekly "chronicles" which would not have been out of date in a Latin American newspaper of the 1920s. On the other hand, one of Garcia Marquez"s tasks was to sift through the cables coming off the teletype machine in order to select news items and propose topics for the commentary pieces and literary extrapolations that were so important in the journalism of those times. This daily practice must have given him an experience of the way in which the events of everyday life are trans.m.u.ted into "news," into "stories," that immediately demystified ordinary reality and provided a powerful antidote to his recent excursions into the works of Kafka. Journalists almost everywhere at this time were obliged to adopt the hands-on, sleeves-rolled-up approach of U.S. journalistic practices and from the beginning Garcia Marquez took to this like a duck to water. It would make him a very different sort of writer from the majority of his Latin American contemporaries, for whom France and French ways of doing things were still the models to follow in an age when France itself was beginning to lose its grip on modernity.
Much though he had to learn, the new columnist"s originality was obvious from the start and must have been a joy to the editor who hired him. Just three months later, in his article on the Cartagena Afro-Colombian writer Jorge Artel, he was implicitly calling for a literature at once local and continental which would represent "our race"-an astonishing perspective for Colonel Marquez"s grandson to adopt at the age of twenty-one-and to give the Atlantic Coast "an ident.i.ty of its own."10 In mid-July of that first year Conservative police ma.s.sacred Liberal families in El Carmen de Bolivar, the town where Garcia Marquez"s grandfather had been brought up with Aunt Francisca. El Carmen had a long and glorious Liberal political tradition. It also happened to be the nearest large town to Zabala"s place of birth, San Jacinto, so both men took a special interest in events there and between them carried out a campaign based on the slogan, "What happened in Carmen de Bolivar?" Zabala"s grim joke, whenever he renewed the campaign, in the face of government denials and inertia, was to end with the words, "No doubt about it, in Carmen de Bolivar absolutely nothing happened."11 This is almost exactly the phrase Garcia Marquez would later use about his invented town of Macondo in a celebrated section of This is almost exactly the phrase Garcia Marquez would later use about his invented town of Macondo in a celebrated section of One Hundred Years of Solitude One Hundred Years of Solitude after the pivotal episode of the banana-workers ma.s.sacre. after the pivotal episode of the banana-workers ma.s.sacre.
In one sense there could have been no worse time to become a journalist in Colombia. Censorship was imposed immediately after the events of April 1948, though less brutally on the coast than in the interior of the country. Garcia Marquez began to practise journalism because of the Violencia Violencia but the but the Violencia Violencia severely limited what a journalist could do. For the next seven years, under Ospina Perez, Laureano Gomez, Urdaneta Arbelaez and Rojas Pinilla, albeit with variable intensity, government censorship would be continuously active. All the more significant, then, that the first article of Garcia Marquez"s career, dated 21 May 1948, had implied a clear left-of-centre political position. He would never diverge from this broad perspective; yet it would never, in the last instance (as the Marxists used to say), constrain or distort his fiction. severely limited what a journalist could do. For the next seven years, under Ospina Perez, Laureano Gomez, Urdaneta Arbelaez and Rojas Pinilla, albeit with variable intensity, government censorship would be continuously active. All the more significant, then, that the first article of Garcia Marquez"s career, dated 21 May 1948, had implied a clear left-of-centre political position. He would never diverge from this broad perspective; yet it would never, in the last instance (as the Marxists used to say), constrain or distort his fiction.
Only two weeks after starting with El Universal El Universal Garcia Marquez asked for a week"s holiday and travelled across to Barranquilla, up to Magangue and then on to Sucre to see his family. Whether he stopped off at Mompox to get a glimpse of Mercedes we do not know. By the time he set off he must have realized that his new salary was not what he had given his parents to believe but he evidently did not have the heart to disabuse them. This was not only his first visit since the Garcia Marquez asked for a week"s holiday and travelled across to Barranquilla, up to Magangue and then on to Sucre to see his family. Whether he stopped off at Mompox to get a glimpse of Mercedes we do not know. By the time he set off he must have realized that his new salary was not what he had given his parents to believe but he evidently did not have the heart to disabuse them. This was not only his first visit since the Bogotazo Bogotazo but the first time he had been home since he travelled to Bogota at the start of his university studies in February 1947, more than a year before. It was therefore the first time he had seen his mother since her own mother had died and the first time he had seen the last of his brothers and sisters, Eligio Gabriel, named, like himself only more completely, after their father. In later life Garcia Marquez, who was twenty years older than Eligio Gabriel, would often jokingly tell the story that the new child was so named because "my mother had lost me but she wanted to be sure there was always a Gabriel in the house." In fact when he personally delivered Eligio Gabriel, whom the family would call Yiyo, in November 1947, Gabriel Eligio declared: "This baby looks like me; Gabito is not at all like me so we"ll call this one after me, only the other way round-Eligio Gabriel!" but the first time he had been home since he travelled to Bogota at the start of his university studies in February 1947, more than a year before. It was therefore the first time he had seen his mother since her own mother had died and the first time he had seen the last of his brothers and sisters, Eligio Gabriel, named, like himself only more completely, after their father. In later life Garcia Marquez, who was twenty years older than Eligio Gabriel, would often jokingly tell the story that the new child was so named because "my mother had lost me but she wanted to be sure there was always a Gabriel in the house." In fact when he personally delivered Eligio Gabriel, whom the family would call Yiyo, in November 1947, Gabriel Eligio declared: "This baby looks like me; Gabito is not at all like me so we"ll call this one after me, only the other way round-Eligio Gabriel!"12 Back Gabito went to Cartagena. It was only now, on 17 June, that he formally registered at the university, though he had pa.s.sed the interview weeks before. Professionally things were going well but economically disaster stared the young writer in the face. Despite being, effectively, a staff journalist, Garcia Marquez was paid by the piece. Although he himself was never much of a mathematician and was relatively indifferent to budgetary questions, a friend, Ramiro de la Espriella, later calculated that he was paid thirty-two centavos, a third of a peso, for each article, signed or unsigned, that he wrote, and virtually nothing for his other duties. This was below any imaginable minimum wage. By the end of June he had been thrown out of the pension pension and had taken to sleeping on park benches again, in the rooms of other students or, famously, on the rolls of newsprint in the office of and had taken to sleeping on park benches again, in the rooms of other students or, famously, on the rolls of newsprint in the office of El Universal El Univ