Part 2 (2/2)

Not far away another young Latin Aed 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-Aress of Latin A to iic 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 ireed to ain at 2 pm on 9 April: the name Fidel Castro was found pencilled in Gaitan's appointment book for that day Little wonder the Colo press were soon clai that Castro was involved either in the plot to murder Gaitan or in the conspiracy to subvert the Pan-A, or both At times, Castro must have been no more than a couple of hundred yards from his future friend Garcia Marquez33 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 coanize for a revolution that never ca the loss of his typewriter-the pawnshop had been looted-and rehearsing his explanation for his parents However, when s house fro 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 coant calfskin briefcase which became his proudest possession But the on into which Luis Enrique and Palencia poured asit off in triuarita 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 fro, drunk on their illicit liquor, the young azed with stupefaction at the burning city centre35 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 assassinated I reot dressed all of a sudden and went out to the church She was going to give thanks to God 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 ho 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 assassinated I reot dressed all of a sudden and went out to the church She was going to give thanks to God 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 ho costenos costenos stayed indoors for three days The governe and snipers were still sporadically picking off those who ventured out The city centre continued to sota was in ruins But the Conservative govern 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 theain 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 thean 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 aiting 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 froota on different planes towards their different historical destinies stayed indoors for three days The governe and snipers were still sporadically picking off those who ventured out The city centre continued to sota was in ruins But the Conservative govern 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 theain 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 thean 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 aiting 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 froota 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 ht not have achieved lies in the realm of speculation No politician has since excited the masses as he did and Colo its real political problems with every year that has passed 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 classes the need to unite against the peasantry, the divided the nation's twentieth-century history in two What Gaitan ht not have achieved lies in the realm of speculation No politician has since excited the masses as he did and Colo its real political problems with every year that has passed 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 classes the need to unite against the peasantry, the Bogotazo Bogotazo sier represented by the urban proletarian masses Yet it was in the rural areas that the reaction would betwenty-five years of one of the world's e and costly civil wars: the sier represented by the urban proletarian masses Yet it was in the rural areas that the reaction would betwenty-five years of one of the world's e and costly civil wars: the Violencia Violencia

As for Garcia Marquez, it can fairly be said of hiht up in the events, that the Bogotazo Bogotazo was one of the s that ever happened It interrupted his law studies in the ave a shot in the ar for soave hi a place he hated and for returning to his beloved Costa, but not before he had acquired a faiving hiain would he take the two ruling parties entirely seriously Slow as he was to develop a nificant lessons that Garcia Marquez had now assimilated about the nature of his country; as he had lost or abandoned most of his material possessions, these new lessons were perhaps theena was one of the s that ever happened It interrupted his law studies in the ave a shot in the ar for soave hi a place he hated and for returning to his beloved Costa, but not before he had acquired a faiving hiain would he take the two ruling parties entirely seriously Slow as he was to develop a nificant lessons that Garcia Marquez had now assimilated about the nature of his country; as he had lost or abandoned most of his material possessions, these new lessons were perhaps theena

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 cohteen months Meanwhile all the transport systems of the country remained in chaos in the afterlas 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 cohteen months Meanwhile all the transport systems of the country reotazo and Gabito, with a heavy suitcase and a similarly heavy dark suit, found hi heat of the Caribbean coastlands, heading for Cartagena and Gabito, with a heavy suitcase and a similarly heavy dark suit, found hi heat of the Caribbean coastlands, heading for Cartagena1 Cartagena was the merest shadow of its former self When the Spaniards arrived in 1533, it beca Spain to the Caribbean and South A, 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 becoracious and picturesque cities anywhere in Latin America2 But after independence in the nineteenth century Barranquilla expanded to becoena 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 huliness and its fragility, back in the realm of the senses He had never before visited the heroic city and was struck, sinificence 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 soe, the curfew and the censorshi+p The young ht 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 oould 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 police the curfew, or possibly because he didn't have a cigarette to give theht 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 soe, the curfew and the censorshi+p The young ht 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 oould 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 police the curfew, or possibly because he didn't have a cigarette to give theht 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 residence3 Garcia Marquez went to the university, just a couple of blocks away and ed to persuade the authorities, who examined him in front of his prospective classmates, to take hiree, including passing 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-class 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 feeeks 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 hiswriters 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 froing editor, Clemente Manuel Zabala As luck would have it, Zabala, as a friend of Eduardo Zalamea Borda, had read Garcia Marquez's short stories in El Espectador El Espectador and was already an ad man's ti ter hi his first article the day after that and was already an ad man's ti ter hi his first article the day after that

At the time Garcia Marquez seems to have conceived journalis 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 theh 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 nificantly eased his conscience

El Universal itself was a new paper It had been founded only ten weeks before by Dr Doo Lopez Escauriaza, a patrician Liberal politician who had been state governor and a diplo 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 Doo Lopez Escauriaza, a patrician Liberal politician who had been state governor and a diplo Conservative violence, had decided to open a new front in the propaganda war on the Costa This had been a otazo 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 tru editor's dedication and lucidity that El Universal El Universal e offices, as a model of political coherence and, by the standards of the ti 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 colasses and was rarely seen without a cigarette in his hand He was also, it was rumoured, a discreet ho years and lived alone in a small hotel room He had been a political associate 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 e offices, as a model of political coherence and, by the standards of the ti 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 colasses and was rarely seen without a cigarette in his hand He was also, it was rumoured, a discreet ho years and lived alone in a small hotel room He had been a political associate 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 azine In the 1940s he had worked in the ministry of education and later he had collaborated closely with Plinio Mendoza Neira's azine Accion Liberal Accion Liberal

Zabala introduced Garcia Marquez to another recent recruit, Hector Rojas Herazo, a young poet and painter of twenty-seven fronize 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 hi poets and novelists as well as a widely ader, matic and apparently more passionate than his new friend, expansive and prickly at one and the saer, matic and apparently more passionate than his new friend, expansive and prickly at one and the saht, 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 ht and slept, when he slept at all, during ena where law classes began at seven in theand Garcia Marquez arrived hoht was a restaurant and bar nicknamed ”The Cave” on the waterfront behind the publicblack homosexual called Jose de las Nieves, ”Joe of the Snows”5 There the journalists and other night oould eat beefsteak, tripe, and rice with shriht oould eat beefsteak, tripe, and rice with shrimp or crab

After Zabala had returned to his solitary rooan to wander the port area, beginning at the Paseo de los Martires, where nine busts coainst the Spanish empire6 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 coluh 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 censorshi+p?” 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 coluh 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 censorshi+p?” 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 froned coluned 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 generalwriter asked prophetically how, in an era of political violence and dehueneration be expected to turn out as ”ood will” Evidently the novice journalist had been abruptly radicalized by the events of 9 April The second article was equally reraph” (”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 generalwriter asked prophetically how, in an era of political violence and dehueneration be expected to turn out as ”ood will” Evidently the novice journalist had been abruptly radicalized by the events of 9 April The second article was equally remarkable8 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 hu 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 hu 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 syion and their culture, not to -class 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 coota; the second embraced the writer's newly recovered cultural roots9 For the first time the future of Gabriel Garcia Marquez wasa 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 ned pieces and ned contributions for El Universal El Universal Mostly this was still a noticeably old-fashi+oned journalism of commentary and literary creation, more for entertainenre 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 co 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 journalisiven him an experience of the way in which the events of everyday life are transmuted into ”news,” into ”stories,” that immediately demystified ordinary reality and provided a powerful antidote to his recent excursions into the works of Kafka Journalists aled to adopt the hands-on, sleeves-rolled-up approach of US journalistic practices and fro 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 contes were still theto lose its grip on modernity Mostly this was still a noticeably old-fashi+oned journalism of commentary and literary creation, more for entertainenre 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 co 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 journalisiven him an experience of the way in which the events of everyday life are transmuted into ”news,” into ”stories,” that immediately demystified ordinary reality and provided a powerful antidote to his recent excursions into the works of Kafka Journalists aled to adopt the hands-on, sleeves-rolled-up approach of US journalistic practices and fro 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 contes were still theto lose its grip on h he had to learn, the new coluinality was obvious from the start and must have been a joy to the editor who hired hiena Afro-Colo for a literature at once local and continental which would represent ”our race”-an astonishi+ng perspective for Colonel Marquez's grandson to adopt at the age of twenty-one-and to give the Atlantic Coast ”an identity of its own”10 In mid-July of that first year Conservative police massacred Liberal families in El Carrandfather had been brought up with Aunt Francisca El Carlorious 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 thean, ”What happened in Carriovernment denials and inertia, was to end with the words, ”No doubt about it, in Car 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 massacre after the pivotal episode of the banana-workers massacre

In one sense there could have been no worse time to become a journalist in Colombia Censorshi+p was ih 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 censorshi+p would be continuously active All the nificant, 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 censorshi+p would be continuously active All the nificant, 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 teeks 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 falimpse of Mercedes we do not know By the time he set off he iven 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 falimpse of Mercedes we do not know By the time he set off he iven his parents to believe but he evidently did not have the heart to disabuse theotazo but the first tiota 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 tiio Gabriel, named, like himself only more completely, after their father In later life Garcia Marquez, enty 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, whoio declared: ”This baby looks like me; Gabito is not at all like me so we'll call this one after io Gabriel!” but the first tiota 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 tiio Gabriel, named, like himself only more completely, after their father In later life Garcia Marquez, enty 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, whoio declared: ”This baby looks like me; Gabito is not at all like me so we'll call this one after io Gabriel!”12 Back Gabito went to Cartagena It was only now, on 17 June, that he forh he had passed the intervieeeks before Professionally things were going well but econo writer in the face Despite being, effectively, a staff journalist, Garcia Marquez was paid by the piece Although he himself was never etary 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 ie 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