Part 1 (1/2)

Gabriel Garcia Marquez_ a life

by Gerald Martin

PROLOGUE

Froins Obscure

18001899ONE HOT, ASPHYXIATING MORNING in the early 1930s, in the tropical coastal region of northern Coloh theof the United Fruit Co banana plantations Row after row after row, shi+ht steaa swamp from the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla, and now she was travelling down through the Banana Zone to the small inland town of Aracataca where, several years before, she had left her first-born child Gabriel with her ageing parents when he was still a baby Luisa Santiaga Marquez Iguaran de Garcia had given birth to three more children since that time and this was her first return to Aracataca since her husband, Gabriel Eligio Garcia, took her away to live in Barranquilla, leaving little ”Gabito” in the care of his uaran Cotes de Marquez and Colonel Nicolas Marquez Mejia Colonel Marquez was a veteran of the bitter Thousand Day War fought at the turn of the century, a lifelong stalwart of the Colombian Liberal Party and, latterly, the local treasurer of the municipality of AracatacaThe Colonel and Dona Tranquilina had angrily disapproved of Luisa Santiaga's courtshi+p with the handsome Garcia He was not only a poor itimate, a half-breed and perhaps worst of all, a fervent supporter of the detested Conservative Party He had been the telegraphist of Aracataca for just a few days when his eyes first fell upon Luisa, one of thewomen in the town Her parents sent her away to stay with relatives for the best part of a year to get the wild infatuation with the seductive newcomer out of her head, but to no avail As for Garcia hie to the Colonel's daughter would make his fortune he was disappointed The bride's parents had refused to attend the wedding he eventually ional capital of Santa Marta and he had lost his position in AracatacaWhat was Luisa thinking as she gazed out of the train ? Perhaps she had forgotten how unco of the house where she had spent her childhood and youth? How everyone would react to her visit? Her parents Her aunts The two children she hadn't seen for so long: Gabito, the eldest, and Margarita, his younger sister, also now living with her grandparents The train whistled as it passed the small banana plantation named Macondo which she remembered from her own childhood A few minutes later Aracataca ca in the shadeHoould he greet her?No one knohat he said But we do knohat happened next1 Back in the old Colonel's Big House, the woet: ”She's here, your mother has come, Gabito She's here Your mother Can't you hear the train?” The sound of the whistle arrived onceHouse, the woet: ”She's here, your mother has come, Gabito She's here Your mother Can't you hear the train?” The sound of the whistle arrived once more from the nearby stationGabito would say later that he had no memory of his mother She had left him before he could retain anynow, it was as a sudden absence never truly explained by his grandparents, an anxiety, as if sorandfather? Grandfather always one outThen Gabito heard them arrive at the other end of the house One of his aunts ca was like a dream ”Your mamma's in there,” the aunt said So he went in and after a moment he sao with her back to the shutteredShe was a beautiful lady, with a straw hat and a long loose dress, with sleeves down to her wrists She was breathing heavily in the e confusion, because she was a lady he liked the look of but he realized at once that he didn't love her in the way they had told hirandma Not even like he loved his auntsThe lady said, ”Aren't you going to give your ?” And then she took him to her and eet He was less than a year old when his mother left him Noas almost seven So only now, because she had come back, did he understand it: his et over it, not least because he could never quite bring himself to face what he felt about it And then, quite soon, she left hihter, and mother of little Gabito, had been born on 25 July 1905, in the small town of Barrancas, between the wild territory of the Guajira and the mountainous province of Padilla, to the east of the Sierra Nevada2 At the time of Luisa's birth her father was a member of a defeated army, the army of the Liberal Party vanquished by the Conservatives in Coloreat civil war, the War of a Thousand Days (18991902) At the time of Luisa's birth her father was a member of a defeated army, the army of the Liberal Party vanquished by the Conservatives in Coloreat civil war, the War of a Thousand Days (18991902)Nicolas Ricardo Marquez Mejia, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's grandfather, was born on 7 February 1864 in Riohacha, Guajira, a sunbaked, salty, dusty city on the north Atlantic coast of Coloion, holers and traffickers from colonial times to the present day Little is known about Marquez's early life except that he received only an elementary education but made the most of it and was sent ard, for some time, to live with his cousin Francisca Cimodosea Mejia in the town of El Carena There the two cousins were brought up by Nicolas's randmother Josefa Francisca Vidal Later, after Nicolas had spent a few years wandering the entire coastal region, Francisca would join his family and live under his roof, a spinster for the rest of her life Nicolas lived for a time in Camarones, a town by the Guajira shoreline soend has it that he was a precocious participant in one or ularly punctuated nineteenth-century life in Coloe of seventeen he becae of his father, Nicolas del Carmen Marquez Hernandez It was the traditional family occupation Nicolas had completed his primary education but his artisan fao furtherNicolas Marquez was productive in other ways: within two years of his return to the Guajira, the reckless teenage traveller had fathered two illegitimate sons-”natural sons,” they are called in Colombia-Jose Maria, born in 1882, and Carlos Alberto, born in 18843 Their racia Valdeblanquez, connected to an influential Conservative family and much older than Nicolas himself We do not knohy Nicolas did not iven their ht up as staunch Catholics and Conservatives, despite Nicolas's fervent Liberalism, since the custom in Colombia until quite recently was for children to adopt the political allegiance of their parents and the boys had been brought up not by Nicolas but by their ainst the Liberals, and thus against their father, in the War of a Thousand Days Their racia Valdeblanquez, connected to an influential Conservative family and much older than Nicolas himself We do not knohy Nicolas did not iven their ht up as staunch Catholics and Conservatives, despite Nicolas's fervent Liberalism, since the custom in Colombia until quite recently was for children to adopt the political allegiance of their parents and the boys had been brought up not by Nicolas but by their ainst the Liberals, and thus against their father, in the War of a Thousand DaysJust a year after the birth of Carlos Alberto, Nicolas, aged twenty-one, uaran Cotes, who had been born, also in Riohacha, on 5 July 1863 Although Tranquilina was born illegiti Conservative faion Both Nicolas and Tranquilina were, visibly, descendants of white European faible Casanova, would dally omen of every race and colour, the essential hierarchies froht to dark would be is both in the hos were best left in obscurityAnd thus we begin to grope our way back into the dark genealogical labyrinths so familiar to readers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's best-known novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude In that book he goes out of his way not to help his readers with reminders about the details of faiven and these repeat theenerations This becoe to the reader but it undoubtedly reproduces the confusions and anxieties experienced by its author when, as a child, he tried to led historical networks of faht up not by his parents but by his grand unusual about this in a frontier society underpinned for security by the concept of the extended faiti unusual about that either Iracia, a woh, to balance things up, she was illegitimate Furthermore, she was also his first cousin; this too was common in Colombia and remains more coh of course, like illegitirandmother, Juanita Hernandez, who travelled from Spain to Coloitiitimate relationshi+p, after she ed, with a Creole born in Riohacha called Blas Iguaran as ten years her junior And so it transpired that only two generations later two of Juanita's grandchildren, Nicolas Marquez Mejia, and Tranquilina Iguaran Cotes, first cousins, were h none of their surnames coincided, the fact was that his father and her mother were both children, half-brother and half-sister, of the adventurous Juanita You could never be sure who you weredahout One Hundred Years of Solitude-a child with a pig's tail ould put an end to the family line!Naturally the spectre of incest, whose shadow a e like that of Nicolas and Tranquilina inevitably raises, adds another, itimacy And later Nicolas spawned itimate children after he was married Yet he lived in a profoundly Catholic society, with all the traditional hierarchies and snobberies, in which the lowest orders were blacks or Indians (to whom, of course, no respectable family would wish to be related in any way despite the fact that, in Colo the most respectable ones, have such relations) This chaotic itiht and narrow path to true respectability, is the same world in which, row up and in whose perplexities and hypocrisies he would shareSoon after his nant-from the patriarchal point of vieays the best way to leave a woman-and spent a few months in Pana with an uncle, Jose Maria Mejia Vidal There he would engender another illegitioria Ruiz, with the woman who may have been the true love of his life, the beautiful Isabel Ruiz, before returning to the Guajira shortly after the birth of his first legitimate son, Juan de Dios, in 18864 Nicolas and Tranquilina had two arita, born in 1889, and Luisa Santiaga, as born in Barrancas in July 1905, though she would insist until near the end of her life that she too was born in Riohacha because she felt she had soitiitimate son called Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez Little wonder illegitimacy is an obsession in the fiction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, however huitia, as born in Barrancas in July 1905, though she would insist until near the end of her life that she too was born in Riohacha because she felt she had soitiitimate son called Gabriel Jose Garcia Marquez Little wonder illegitimacy is an obsession in the fiction of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, however huitimate children did not die dreadful deaths in the civil war, as the Colonel's favourite grandson would later fantasize in his novel (in which there are seventeen of thehter of Nicolas and Pacha Noriega, and she too becaorio Bonilla and went to live in Fundacion, the next stop down the line froa, whom I met in Barrancas, was the only person in toho still had one of the little gold fish which Nicolas Marquez had fashi+oned Ana Rios, the daughter of arsenia Carrillo, as enio Rios (himself related to Francisca Cimodosea Mejia, who also lived with Nicolas), said Sara looked very like Luisa, ”skin like a petal and terribly sweet”; For exahter of Nicolas and Pacha Noriega, and she too becaorio Bonilla and went to live in Fundacion, the next stop down the line froa, whom I met in Barrancas, was the only person in toho still had one of the little gold fish which Nicolas Marquez had fashi+oned Ana Rios, the daughter of arsenia Carrillo, as enio Rios (himself related to Francisca Cimodosea Mejia, who also lived with Nicolas), said Sara looked very like Luisa, ”skin like a petal and terribly sweet”;6 she died around 1988 Esteban Carrillo and Elvira Carrillo were illegitimate twins born to Sara Manuela Carrillo; Elvira, Gabito's beloved ”Aunt Pa,” after living with Nicolas in Aracataca, eventually went to Cartagena near the end of her life, where her a, would ”take her in and help her to die,” according to Ana Rios Nicolas Go to another informant, Urbano Solano, he went to live in Fundacion, like Sara Noriega she died around 1988 Esteban Carrillo and Elvira Carrillo were illegitimate twins born to Sara Manuela Carrillo; Elvira, Gabito's beloved ”Aunt Pa,” after living with Nicolas in Aracataca, eventually went to Cartagena near the end of her life, where her a, would ”take her in and help her to die,” according to Ana Rios Nicolas Go to another informant, Urbano Solano, he went to live in Fundacion, like Sara NoriegaNicolas's eldest son, the illegitimate Jose Maria Valdeblanquez, turned out to be the most successful of all his children, a war hero, politician and historian Hehters The son of one of theot, is Jose Luis Diaz-Granados, another writer7Nicolas Marquez moved fro before he became a colonel, because his ambition was to become a landowner and land was both cheaper and more fertile in the hills around Barrancas (Garcia Marquez, not always reliable in these matters, says that Nicolas's father left hiht a farm from a friend at a place known as El Potrero on the slopes of the Sierra The farm was called El Guasimo, na sugar cane froh rum called chirrinche chirrinche on a hoht to have traded the liquor illicitly, like most of his fellow landowners Later he purchased another farm closer to the town, beside the River Rancheria He called it El Istmo (The Isthmus), because whichever way you approached it you had to cross water There he grew tobacco, ar cane, beans, yucca, coffee and bananas The fars decayed and in so like a dilapidated family standard, and the whole tropical landscape aith e is just the visitor's iination, because he knows that Colonel Marquez left Barrancas under a cloud which still see before even that happened, the Colonel's sedentary existence would be overshadowed by war on a hoht to have traded the liquor illicitly, like most of his fellow landowners Later he purchased another farm closer to the town, beside the River Rancheria He called it El Istmo (The Isthmus), because whichever way you approached it you had to cross water There he grew tobacco, ar cane, beans, yucca, coffee and bananas The fars decayed and in so like a dilapidated family standard, and the whole tropical landscape aith e is just the visitor's iination, because he knows that Colonel Marquez left Barrancas under a cloud which still see before even that happened, the Colonel's sedentary existence would be overshadowed by warEVEN LESS IS KNOWN about the early life of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's father than that of his grandfather Gabriel Eligio Garcia was born in Since, Bolivar, on 1 Decedalena River, during the great civil war in which Nicolas Marquez was actively distinguishi+ng hirandfather was apparently called Pedro Garcia Gordon and was said to have been born in Madrid early in the nineteenth century We do not knohy Garcia Gordon ended up in New Granada, or who he married, but in 1834 he had a son called Aminadab Garcia in Caiia Garcia Marquez, Aminadab ”married” three different women and had three children by theeles Paternina Bustamante, as born in 1855 in Sincelejo, twenty-one years his junior, and they had three h the couple were not ave theemira Garcia Paternina, was born in September 1887, in Caimito, her father's birthplace She was to be the e of fourteen and thus the paternal grandemira spent most of her life in the cattle town of Since She hat in Hispanic culture used to be called a ”woman of the people” Tall, statuesque and fair-skinned, she never ave birth to seven illegitimate children by three of them, particularly a man called Bejarano9 (Her children all carried her name, Garcia) But her first lover was Gabriel Martinez Garrido, who by then was a teacher, though he was heir to a line of conservative landowners; eccentric to the point of delirium, he had frittered away almost all of his inheritance (Her children all carried her name, Garcia) But her first lover was Gabriel Martinez Garrido, who by then was a teacher, though he was heir to a line of conservative landowners; eccentric to the point of delirium, he had frittered away alemira when she was just thirteen and he enty-seven Unfortunately Gabriel Martinez Garrido was already married to Rosa Meza, born in Since like her husband: they had five legitiemira when she was just thirteen and he enty-seven Unfortunately Gabriel Martinez Garrido was already married to Rosa Meza, born in Since like her husband: they had five legitimate children, none of as called GabrielThus Gabriel Garcia Marquez's future father was known throughout his life as Gabriel Eligio Garcia, not Gabriel Eligio Martinez Garcia11 Anyone who cared at all about these things would have worked out alitiio would es Just as Nicolas Marquez had acquired an i a ”colonel,” so Gabriel Eligio, a self-taught homeopath, started to add the title ”doctor” to his name Colonel Marquez and Doctor Garcia Anyone who cared at all about these things would have worked out alitiio would es Just as Nicolas Marquez had acquired an i a ”colonel,” so Gabriel Eligio, a self-taught homeopath, started to add the title ”doctor” to his name Colonel Marquez and Doctor Garcia

PART I

Home: Colombia

18991955

1

Of Colonels and Lost Causes 18991927

FIVE HUNDRED YEARS after Europeans stumbled across it, Latin America often seems a disappointment to its inhabitants It is as if its destiny had been fixed by Colureat captain,” who discovered the new continent by mistake, misnamed it-”the Indies”-and then died embittered and disillusioned in the early sixteenth century; or by the ”great liberator” Simon Bolivar, who put an end to Spanish colonial rule in the early nineteenth century but died dision's disunity and at the bitter thought that ”he who hs the sea” More recently the fate of Ernesto ”Che” Guevara, the twentieth century's most romantic revolutionary icon, who died a martyr's death in Bolivia in 1967, only confirmed the idea that Latin America, still the unknown continent, still the land of the future, is horandiose dreams and calamitous failures after Europeans stumbled across it, Latin America often seems a disappointment to its inhabitants It is as if its destiny had been fixed by Colureat captain,” who discovered the new continent by mistake, misnamed it-”the Indies”-and then died embittered and disillusioned in the early sixteenth century; or by the ”great liberator” Simon Bolivar, who put an end to Spanish colonial rule in the early nineteenth century but died dision's disunity and at the bitter thought that ”he who hs the sea” More recently the fate of Ernesto ”Che” Guevara, the twentieth century's most romantic revolutionary icon, who died a martyr's death in Bolivia in 1967, only confirmed the idea that Latin America, still the unknown continent, still the land of the future, is ho before the name of Guevara circled the planet, in a small Colo the years when the Boston-based United Fruit Company chose to plant bananas there in the early twentieth century, a srandfather told tales of a war that lasted a thousand days, at the end of which he too had experienced the bitter solitude of the vanquished, tales of glorious deeds in days gone by, of ghostly heroes and villains, stories which taught the child that justice is not naturally built in to the fabric of life, that right does not always triudom of this world, and that ideals which fill the hearts and minds of many men and women may be defeated and even disappear from the face of the earth Unless they endure in the memory of those who survive and live to tell the tale

AT THE END of the nineteenth century, seventy years after achieving independence from Spain, the republic of Colombia had been a country of less than five million controlled by an elite of perhaps three thousand owners of large haciendas, most of ere politicians and businessraota, became known as the ”Athens of South America” The War of a Thousand Days was the last andof ed Coloht between Liberals and Conservatives, centralists and federalists, bourgeoisie and landowners, the capital and the regions In radually saw the Liberals or their equivalents winning the historical battle, whereas in Colombia the Conservatives were dominant until 1930 and, after a Liberal interlude froain until the mid-1950s and remain a powerful force to the present day Certainly Colombia is the only country where, at the end of the twentieth century, the general elections were still being fought out between a traditional Liberal Party and a traditional Conservative Party, with no other parties gaining a lasting foothold of the nineteenth century, seventy years after achieving independence from Spain, the republic of Colombia had been a country of less than five million controlled by an elite of perhaps three thousand owners of large haciendas, most of ere politicians and businessraota, became known as the ”Athens of South America” The War of a Thousand Days was the last andof ed Coloht between Liberals and Conservatives, centralists and federalists, bourgeoisie and landowners, the capital and the regions In radually saw the Liberals or their equivalents winning the historical battle, whereas in Colombia the Conservatives were dominant until 1930 and, after a Liberal interlude froain until the mid-1950s and remain a powerful force to the present day Certainly Colombia is the only country where, at the end of the twentieth century, the general elections were still being fought out between a traditional Liberal Party and a traditional Conservative Party, with no other parties gaining a lasting foothold2 This has changed in the last ten years This has changed in the last ten years

Although named the ”War of a Thousand Days,” the conflict was really over alovernment had vastly superior resources and the Liberals were at the mercy of the eccentricities of their inspirational but incoed on for ally bitter and increasingly futile From October 1900 neither side took prisoners: a ”war to the death” was announced whose so with still When it all ended in November 1902 the country was devastated and impoverished, the province of Panama about to be lost for ever and perhaps a hundred thousand Colo froht were to continue for many decades This has made Colombia a curious country in which the two major parties have ostensibly been bitter enemies for almost two centuries yet have tacitly united to ensure that the people never receive genuine representation No Latin American nation had fewer coups or dictatorshi+ps in the twentieth century than Coloh price for this appearance of institutional stability

The War of a Thousand Days was fought over the length and breadth of the country but the centre of gravity gradually shi+fted north to the Atlantic coastal regions On the one hand the seat of governota, was never seriously threatened by the Liberal rebels; and on the other hand, the Liberals inevitably retreated towards the coastal escape routes which their leaders frequently took in order to seek refuge in sy countries or the United States, where they would try to raise funds and buy weapons for the next round of hostilities At this time the northern third of the country, known as la Costa la Costa (”the Coast”), whose inhabitants are called (”the Coast”), whose inhabitants are called costenos costenos (coast-dwellers), comprised two major departments: Bolivar to the west, whose capital was the port of Cartagena; and Magdalena to the east, whose capital was the port of Santa Marta, nestling beneath the hty Sierra Nevada The two major cities either side of the Sierra Nevada-Santa Marta to the west and Riohacha to the east-and all the towns in between as you rode around the sierra-Cienaga, Aracataca, Valledupar, Villanueva, San Juan, Fonseca and Barrancas-changed handsthe war and provided the scenario for the exploits of Nicolas Marquez and his two eldest, illegitimate children, Jose Maria Valdeblanquez and Carlos Alberto Valdeblanquez (coast-dwellers), comprised two major departments: Bolivar to the west, whose capital was the port of Cartagena; and Magdalena to the east, whose capital was the port of Santa Marta, nestling beneath the hty Sierra Nevada The two major cities either side of the Sierra Nevada-Santa Marta to the west and Riohacha to the east-and all the towns in between as you rode around the sierra-Cienaga, Aracataca, Valledupar, Villanueva, San Juan, Fonseca and Barrancas-changed handsthe war and provided the scenario for the exploits of Nicolas Marquez and his two eldest, illegitimate children, Jose Maria Valdeblanquez and Carlos Alberto Valdeblanquez

Souaran had arita to the small town of Barrancas in the Colombian Guajira and rented a house in the Calle del Totumo, a few paces from the square The house still stands today Senor Marquez set up as a jeweller, s, bracelets, chains and his speciality, little gold fish-and establishi+ng, it seems, a profitable business which turned him into a respected member of the coer enio Rios, almost an adopted son, hoht him from El Carmen de Bolivar Rios was the half-brother of Nicolas's cousin Francisca Cirown up in El Carmen and whom he would later take with hian, after many years of Liberal frustration and bitterness, Nicolas Marquez was, at thirty-five, getting a bit old for adventure Besides, he had established a coreeable life in Barrancas and was looking to build on his growing prosperity Still, he joined the ardalena provinces and there is evidence that he fought harder and longer than many others Certainly he was involved from the very start when, as a comandante comandante, he was part of a Liberal army which occupied his native city of Riohacha, and he was still involved at the conclusion of the conflict in October 1902