Part 4 (1/1)

No One Writes to the Colonel is one of those prose works which, in spite of its undeniable ”realism,” functions like a poe and hoping, weather pheno or, in the unfortunate Colonel's case, not excreting), politics and poverty, life and death, solitude and solidarity, fate and destiny Although Garcia Marquez has always said that dialogue is not his forte, the world-weary humour communicated by his characters, uish each of the features of his mature works That unmistakable humour, as characteristic as that of Cervantes, reaches its definitive expression in this wonderful little novel, just as the Colonel hiettable personages of twentieth-century fiction The last paragraph, one of the most perfect in all literature, seems to concentrate and then release virtually all of the thees marshalled by the work as a whole The exhausted old ed to fall asleep but his exasperated wife, almost beside herself, shakes him violently and wakes him up She wants to knohat they will live on now that he has finally decided not to sell the fighting cock but to prepare it instead for combat: is one of those prose works which, in spite of its undeniable ”realism,” functions like a poe and hoping, weather pheno or, in the unfortunate Colonel's case, not excreting), politics and poverty, life and death, solitude and solidarity, fate and destiny Although Garcia Marquez has always said that dialogue is not his forte, the world-weary humour communicated by his characters, uish each of the features of his mature works That unmistakable humour, as characteristic as that of Cervantes, reaches its definitive expression in this wonderful little novel, just as the Colonel hiettable personages of twentieth-century fiction The last paragraph, one of the most perfect in all literature, seems to concentrate and then release virtually all of the thees marshalled by the work as a whole The exhausted old ed to fall asleep but his exasperated wife, almost beside herself, shakes him violently and wakes him up She wants to knohat they will live on now that he has finally decided not to sell the fighting cock but to prepare it instead for combat: ”What e eat?”

The Colonel had taken seventy-five years-the seventy-five years of his life, minute by minute-to arrive at that instant He felt pure, explicit, invincible, at the moment he replied: ”shi+t”23 The reader too feels a sense of release; and finds no little aesthetic pleasure in the i and a sense of liberation and relief: a raising of consciousness, resistance, rebellion Dignity, always so important to Garcia Marquez, has been restored

Years later, No One Writes to the No One Writes to the Colonel becaed way's Colonel becaed way's The Old Man and the Sea The Old Man and the Sea, almost perfect in its self-contained intensity, its carefully punctuated plot and its brilliantly prepared conclusion The writer himself would say that No One Writes to the Colonel No One Writes to the Colonel had the ”conciseness, terseness and directness I learned from journalism” had the ”conciseness, terseness and directness I learned from journalism”24 Yet the end of the novel was not the end of the story There is always another way of telling a tale Twenty years later, Garcia Marquez would write a strange and disturbing short narrative, ”The Trail of Your Blood in the Snow” It ht be called No One Writes to the Colonel No One Writes to the Colonel revised and corrected If the first ould turn out to be his version of the affair at the time, an unmistakable self-justification, the later work is equally clearly a self-criticised histo mollify his ex-loverColombian couple travel to Madrid on their honeymoon and then drive to Paris As they leave the Spanish capital the young woman, Nena Daconte, receives a bunch of red roses and pricks her finger, which then bleeds all the way to Paris At one point she says, ”Iine, a trail of blood in the snow all the way fro” The authorso much of her own blood, Tachia had travelled in the opposite direction, all the way from Paris back to Madrid, in the middle of winter Is all this an exorcis couple arrive in Paris, Nena, who knows France well, and is two e, gloomy hospital” just off Avenue Denfert-Rochereau-where Tachia's haeht have died, and where her unborn child did indeed die Nena's untutored husband, Billy Sanchez de Avila, who has never left Colombia before this trip to Europe, and who dances in the Parisian snow just as Garcia Marquez himself had done the first ti with the crisis, in a cold, hostile Paris, and Nena dies in the hospital without hiain revised and corrected If the first ould turn out to be his version of the affair at the time, an unmistakable self-justification, the later work is equally clearly a self-criticised histo mollify his ex-loverColombian couple travel to Madrid on their honeymoon and then drive to Paris As they leave the Spanish capital the young woman, Nena Daconte, receives a bunch of red roses and pricks her finger, which then bleeds all the way to Paris At one point she says, ”Iine, a trail of blood in the snow all the way fro” The authorso much of her own blood, Tachia had travelled in the opposite direction, all the way from Paris back to Madrid, in the middle of winter Is all this an exorcis couple arrive in Paris, Nena, who knows France well, and is two e, gloomy hospital” just off Avenue Denfert-Rochereau-where Tachia's haeht have died, and where her unborn child did indeed die Nena's untutored husband, Billy Sanchez de Avila, who has never left Colombia before this trip to Europe, and who dances in the Parisian snow just as Garcia Marquez himself had done the first ti with the crisis, in a cold, hostile Paris, and Nena dies in the hospital without hione At Christmas Garcia Marquez was back in the Hotel de Flandre full time, at the end of what he would later call ”that sad autumn of 1956,”26 blamed by most of his friends for Tachia's problees of his novel, he had found a way to justify what had happened, at least to himself (he considered it a point of honour not to talk with otherwould stand in his way The survival of the cock at the end of the novel is also the survival of the novel itself despite a nagging woman; and, in the end, its completion took place just a feeeks after Tachia departed for Madrid He would date it ”January 1957” No baby was born but the novel was Tachia said he was ”lucky” to finish it under the circuree that luck had anything to do with it blamed by most of his friends for Tachia's problees of his novel, he had found a way to justify what had happened, at least to himself (he considered it a point of honour not to talk with otherwould stand in his way The survival of the cock at the end of the novel is also the survival of the novel itself despite a nagging woman; and, in the end, its completion took place just a feeeks after Tachia departed for Madrid He would date it ”January 1957” No baby was born but the novel was Tachia said he was ”lucky” to finish it under the circuree that luck had anything to do with it

Now there was no Tachia to buy food, haggle over prices and cook cheapthe barrel just like the old Colonel scrapes his coffee pot on the first page of the novel He would tell his friend Jose Font Castro that he once spent a week in his frozen attic hiding fro only from the tap in the washbasin His brother Gustavo recalls, ”I reme in Barranquilla: 'Everyone's my friend since One Hundred Years of Solitude One Hundred Years of Solitude but no one knohat it cost arbage in Paris,' he told me 'Once I was at a party in the house of some friends who helped me out a bit After the party the lady of the house asked ry that I salvaged what I could froe and ate it there and then'” but no one knohat it cost arbage in Paris,' he told me 'Once I was at a party in the house of some friends who helped me out a bit After the party the lady of the house asked ry that I salvaged what I could froe and ate it there and then'”27 In other respects he was at a loose end too Some friends were alienated by what they took to be his abandonenerously as a result He got a job singing in L'Escale, the Latin As with Tachia and where she herself had found occasional work before Mostly he was not doing vallenatos vallenatos but Mexican but Mexican rancheras rancheras in duet with the Venezuelan painter and sculptor Jesus Rafael Soto, one of the pioneers of kinetic art He earned a dollar a night (equivalent to about eight dollars in 2008) He et back to in duet with the Venezuelan painter and sculptor Jesus Rafael Soto, one of the pioneers of kinetic art He earned a dollar a night (equivalent to about eight dollars in 2008) He et back to In Evil Hour In Evil Hour but it had lost its hold on him after the months he had spent in the company of the old Colonel The Barranquilla friends at ”The Cave” had foros para Ayudar a Gabito,” or SAAG); together they bought a 100-dollar note, and met in the Rondon Bookshop to work out how best to send it to their friend Jorge Rondon, using his Communist Party experience, explained how he had learned to send clandestine es inside postcards This the friends did and si the trick Of course, the card arrived before the letter, and the indignant Garcia Marquez, as hoping for more than best wishes, snorted: ”bastards!” and threw the card in the waste paper bin That same afternoon the explanatory letter arrived and he was fortunate to be able to retrieve the postcard after ruh the hotel's dustbin but it had lost its hold on him after the months he had spent in the company of the old Colonel The Barranquilla friends at ”The Cave” had foros para Ayudar a Gabito,” or SAAG); together they bought a 100-dollar note, and met in the Rondon Bookshop to work out how best to send it to their friend Jorge Rondon, using his Communist Party experience, explained how he had learned to send clandestine es inside postcards This the friends did and si the trick Of course, the card arrived before the letter, and the indignant Garcia Marquez, as hoping for more than best wishes, snorted: ”bastards!” and threw the card in the waste paper bin That same afternoon the explanatory letter arrived and he was fortunate to be able to retrieve the postcard after ruh the hotel's dustbin28 Then he had no way of changing the ulo-in Ro for Garcia Marquez!-recalls: ”Soot in fro paid her salary and should have a lot of money on her So he went to see her-he was bundled up as usual, since it intertime-and 'La Puppa' opened the door and a current of warreeted hireat body and she would take her clothes off without any provocation So 'La Puppa' sat down-according to Gabo, what bothered him most was that she carried on as if she were fully dressed-and crossed her legs and started to talk about Colombia and the Colombians she knew He started to tell her his problem, and she nodded and went across the room to where she had a little money chest He realized that what she wanted was to have sex, but what he wanted was to eat So he went off to eat and pigged out so estion”29 No doubt this second-hand anecdote has gained a good deal in the telling It was ”La Puppa” ould take a copy of No doubt this second-hand anecdote has gained a good deal in the telling It was ”La Puppa” ould take a copy of No One Writes to the Colonel No One Writes to the Colonel back to Roulo's uncharacteristic discretion, it see after Tachia returned to Madrid Good for the battered ego, no doubt back to Roulo's uncharacteristic discretion, it see after Tachia returned to Madrid Good for the battered ego, no doubt

The fact rehteen months with only a cashed-in air ticket, sporadic charity fros of his own to survive on; and noback to Colombia By noever he spoke French, knew Paris well and had an assort one or two French people, Latin Americans from several different countries and a number of Arabs Indeed Garcia Marquez himself was frequently mistaken for an Arab-it was the era not only of Suez but of the Algerian conflict-and more than once he was taken in by the police as part of their regular security sweeps: One night, as I was leaving a cinema, a police patrol set about me in the street, spat in on It was full of silent Algerians, also picked up and beaten and spat on in local cafes They too, like the police who arrested ether, crammed like sardines in a cell in the nearest police station, whilst the police, in shi+rt sleeves, talked about their kids and ate wedges of bread dipped in wine To piss thes by Brassens against the abuses and stupidity of the forces of law and order30 He ht, Aherian viewpoint on the conflict and even involved hierian cause31 Econori the Pont Saint-Michel: Econori the Pont Saint-Michel: I didn't have a full appreciation of ht when I foundeaten a chestnut all day and without a place to sleepAs I crossed the Saint-Michel bridge I felt I was not alone in the mist, because I could clearly hear the steps of so in the opposite direction I saw his outline appear in theat the same speed as me, and I clearly saw his tartan jacket with its red and black squares, and in the instant we passed one another halfway across the bridge I saw his untidy hair, his Turk's ers and sleepless nights, and I saw his eyes were filled with tears My blood froze because thatof those days, he would declare: ”I too knohat it is to wait for the : that's how I finished No One Writes to the Colonel in No One Writes to the Colonel in Paris He is a bit me, the same” Paris He is a bit me, the same”33 It was around this time that Hernan Vieco, whose financial status was quite different, and who had taken Tachia in after the e, resolvedhim the 120,000 francs he needed to pay Madame Lacroix at the Hotel de Flandre On the way back froht, drunk but by no means incapable, Vieco told Garcia Marquez they needed a heart to heart He asked him how much his hotel account had now risen to Garcia Marquez refused to discuss the matter One of the reasons people often helped him in his youth was because they could always see that no matter how bad his circumstances he never felt especially sorry for himself and he never asked for help Eventually, after a scene of inebriated theatricality, Vieco flourished a fountain pen, wrote out a cheque on the roof of a parked car and stuffed it in his friend's coat pocket It was for the equivalent of 300 dollars, a substantial suratitude and with humiliation34 When he took the money to Madame Lacroix her response was to stammer, red with embarrassment in her turn-this was, after all, Paris, ho artists-”No, no, monsieur, that's too much, why don't you pay me part now and part later” When he took the money to Madame Lacroix her response was to stammer, red with embarrassment in her turn-this was, after all, Paris, ho artists-”No, no, monsieur, that's too much, why don't you pay me part now and part later”

He had survived the winter He was not the father of a baby He had not been trapped by a European Circe Mercedes was still waiting for hiht of his idol Ernest He with his wife Mary Welsh down the Boulevard Saint-Michel in the direction of the Jardin du Luxe old jeans, a lumberjack's shi+rt and a baseball cap Garcia Marquez, too ti, called froreat writer, whose novel about an old er overn cock, raised his hand and shouted back, ”in a slightly puerile voice”: ”Adios, ao!”35

11

Beyond the Iron Curtain: Eastern Europe During the Cold War 1957

IN EARLY M MAY 1957 Plinio Mendoza returned to Paris with his sister Soledad to find his friend thinner, wirier and more stoical ”His pullover had holes at the elbows, the soles of his shoes let in water as he walked the streets and the cheekbones in his ferocious Arab's face protruded starkly” 1957 Plinio Mendoza returned to Paris with his sister Soledad to find his friend thinner, wirier and more stoical ”His pullover had holes at the elbows, the soles of his shoes let in water as he walked the streets and the cheekbones in his ferocious Arab's face protruded starkly”1 But he was ie and hoell he knew his way around the city and its proble at the faots, when they heard that Rojas Pinilla had been overthrown and had gone into exile, just ten days after he had been condemned by the Colombian Catholic Church A five-man military junta had taken over and neither of the two friends was optiht follow But he was ie and hoell he knew his way around the city and its proble at the faots, when they heard that Rojas Pinilla had been overthrown and had gone into exile, just ten days after he had been condemned by the Colombian Catholic Church A five-man military junta had taken over and neither of the two friends was optiht follow

Both Garcia Marquez and Mendoza had leftist affiliations and illusions and were keen to visit Eastern Europe, especially in view of conflicting reports during the previous year which had begun with Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin and ended with the furore over the Soviet invasion of Hungary They decided to begin with Leipzig, where Luis Villar Borda had been living in exile for a year on a student grant Mendoza, who had been in work, bought a second-hand Renault 4 for the summer and on 18 June drove the vivacious Soledad and the downbeat Garcia Marquez off along the great Ger and Frankfurt2 From Frankfurt they drove in to East Germany Garcia Marquez's first article about this other Ger time to see it published-declared that the Iron Curtain was actually a red and white roadblock made of wood The three friends were shocked by conditions at the border and by the scruffy uniforuards, who, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not find it easy to write down the name of Garcia Marquez's birthplace Soledad Mendoza then drove theht towards Weimar At breakfast they stopped at a state restaurant and were again dismayed by what they saw Mendoza re and yawning as he got out of the car, said to hiot to find out about all this” ”About what?” ”About socialis into that unattractive eatery was like ”crashi+ng headlong into a reality for which I was not prepared” From Frankfurt they drove in to East Germany Garcia Marquez's first article about this other Ger time to see it published-declared that the Iron Curtain was actually a red and white roadblock made of wood The three friends were shocked by conditions at the border and by the scruffy uniforuards, who, perhaps unsurprisingly, did not find it easy to write down the name of Garcia Marquez's birthplace Soledad Mendoza then drove theht towards Weimar At breakfast they stopped at a state restaurant and were again dismayed by what they saw Mendoza re and yawning as he got out of the car, said to hiot to find out about all this” ”About what?” ”About socialis into that unattractive eatery was like ”crashi+ng headlong into a reality for which I was not prepared”3 Around a hundred Gers and queens, though they thears Later that night the three Colombians arrived in Weimar, from where they visited the nearby Buchenwald concentration ca Garcia Marquez, e to reconcile the reality of the death camps with the character of the Gerenerous as the Soviets” Around a hundred Gers and queens, though they thears Later that night the three Colombians arrived in Weimar, from where they visited the nearby Buchenwald concentration ca Garcia Marquez, e to reconcile the reality of the death camps with the character of the Gerenerous as the Soviets”4 The three friends drove on to Leipzig Leipzig reota, which was not the highest of reco and he reflected, ”We, in our blue jeans and shi+rt-sleeves, still covered in dust fron of popular democracy”5 At this point he was not clear whether to blame socialism itself or the Russian occupation At this point he was not clear whether to blame socialism itself or the Russian occupation

Garcia Marquez would state in the article he wrote about it that he and ”Franco” (Plinio Mendoza) had ”forgotten” that Leipzig was the site of the Marx-Lenin University, where they were able to meet ”South American students” and discuss the situation more concretely6 This was in fact the very reason they had chosen the city: it was the houised in his report as a Chilean coe, exiled fro political econo in exile-fro been closely involved with the Corant to study in the East German city This was in fact the very reason they had chosen the city: it was the houised in his report as a Chilean coe, exiled fro political econo in exile-fro been closely involved with the Corant to study in the East German city7 He had visited Garcia Marquez at Tachia's room on Rue d'assas when he had returned to Paris to renew his visa and ”actually existing socialism” was one of their principal topics of conversation ”Gabo and I,” Villar Borda told ht much the sa: a humanitarian and dereat deal of his life surrounded by fellow travellers, co the latter there would be regretful ex-communists, who stayed on the left, and resentful ex-coht Garcia Marquez would reluctantly conclude that dematic terms, to communism He had visited Garcia Marquez at Tachia's room on Rue d'assas when he had returned to Paris to renew his visa and ”actually existing socialism” was one of their principal topics of conversation ”Gabo and I,” Villar Borda told ht much the sa: a humanitarian and dereat deal of his life surrounded by fellow travellers, co the latter there would be regretful ex-communists, who stayed on the left, and resentful ex-coht Garcia Marquez would reluctantly conclude that dematic terms, to communism8 Villar Borda took the friends out to a state cabaret which had all the appearance of a brothel, with taxi and couples involved in low-level sexual activity Garcia Marquez wrote: ”It wasn't a brothel Because prostitution is prohibited and severely punished in the socialist countries It was a State establish worse than a brothel”9 He and Mendoza decided they should do their chasing of women in the streets The Latin American students whom they met, even the committed communists, insisted that the system imposed on East Germany was not socialism; Hitler had exterminated all the real communists and the local leaders were bureaucratic lackeys iht fro the people Garcia Marquez commented: ”I believe that at bottom there is an absolute loss of human sensitivity Concern for the masses makes the individual invisible And this, which is valid with respect to the Germans, is also valid with respect to the Russian soldiers In Weiuarded by a Russian soldier with a un But no one cared about the poor soldier” Garcia Marquez and Mendoza asked Villar Borda to put the some dialectical explanation for the state of East Geran a spiel and then paused and said, ”It's a heap of shi+t” He and Mendoza decided they should do their chasing of women in the streets The Latin American students whom they met, even the committed communists, insisted that the system imposed on East Germany was not socialism; Hitler had exterminated all the real communists and the local leaders were bureaucratic lackeys iht fro the people Garcia Marquez commented: ”I believe that at bottom there is an absolute loss of human sensitivity Concern for the masses makes the individual invisible And this, which is valid with respect to the Germans, is also valid with respect to the Russian soldiers In Weiuarded by a Russian soldier with a un But no one cared about the poor soldier” Garcia Marquez and Mendoza asked Villar Borda to put the some dialectical explanation for the state of East Geran a spiel and then paused and said, ”It's a heap of shi+t”

All in all, Garcia Marquez's reaction to East Gerative He hadhis ti and rebuilding with even greater enthusiasm than usual in an effort to antic capitalist operation within the do of e is beginning to e, antiseptic city where things have the unfortunate effect of seeanda agency10 Ironically, the propaganda worked very effectively on him and on his descriptions of East Berlin, which carry with the slogans that flood West Berlin with colour, only the red star shi+nes on the eastern side The merit of that sombre city is that it does correspond to the economic reality of the country Except for Stalin Avenue”11 Stalin Avenue, built on a monumental scale, was unfortunately also built with arity Garcia Marquez predicted that in ”fifty or a hundred years,” when one or other of the regiain be one vast city, ”a monstrous commercial fair built out of the free samples offered by both systems” Stalin Avenue, built on a monumental scale, was unfortunately also built with arity Garcia Marquez predicted that in ”fifty or a hundred years,” when one or other of the regiain be one vast city, ”a monstrous commercial fair built out of the free samples offered by both systems”12 Given the political tension and the competition between East and West, he concluded that Berlin was a panicky, unpredictable and indecipherable hu hat it see was manipulated, everyone was involved in daily deceptions and no one had a clear conscience Given the political tension and the competition between East and West, he concluded that Berlin was a panicky, unpredictable and indecipherable hu hat it see was manipulated, everyone was involved in daily deceptions and no one had a clear conscience

After a few days in Berlin the friends went back to Paris, as fast as they could Soledad Mendoza went on to Spain, and the two men wondered what to do next13 Perhaps their is were better in other countries Within a feeeks friends in Leipzig and Berlin scheduled to travel to the 6th World Youth Congress in Moscow suggested that Garcia Marquez and Mendoza should go too Earlier, in Rome, Garcia Marquez had tried to obtain a visa for Moscow but was refused four times because he had no official sponsorshi+p But in Paris, by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune, he now connected again with his talis his sister Delia, an expert in and practitioner of Colo a troupe of mainly black Colombians from Palenque and Mapale to the Moscow Festival Perhaps their is were better in other countries Within a feeeks friends in Leipzig and Berlin scheduled to travel to the 6th World Youth Congress in Moscow suggested that Garcia Marquez and Mendoza should go too Earlier, in Rome, Garcia Marquez had tried to obtain a visa for Moscow but was refused four times because he had no official sponsorshi+p But in Paris, by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune, he now connected again with his talis his sister Delia, an expert in and practitioner of Colo a troupe of mainly black Colombians from Palenque and Mapale to the Moscow Festival14 Garcia Marquez was a reasonably convincing singer, guitarist and druned up, then travelled to Berlin to meet the rest of the party There they would be joined by other Colo Hernan Vieco and Luis Villar Borda Garcia Marquez was a reasonably convincing singer, guitarist and druned up, then travelled to Berlin to meet the rest of the party There they would be joined by other Colo Hernan Vieco and Luis Villar Borda

Until the very last o He sent a melodramatic letter to Madrid to inforly back in contact, that Soledad Mendoza would be flying there in a few days and announcing that he hiht today” or for London, where he would continue working on his unfinished novel (In Evil Hour) (In Evil Hour) prior to returning to Colo Soledad in the Cafe Mabillon later that day (The reference to the Mabillon, where they had first talked, was no doubt intended, like most of the apparently insouciant letter, to wound his ex-lover) As for prior to returning to Colo Soledad in the Cafe Mabillon later that day (The reference to the Mabillon, where they had first talked, was no doubt intended, like most of the apparently insouciant letter, to wound his ex-lover) As for No One Writes to the Colonel No One Writes to the Colonel, which was their book: ”I've lost interest in it, now that the character is up and walking on his own He can speak now and eats dirt” In fact he could afford to lose interest in it because the book was finished He said that he saw Tachia's youngest sister Paz quite often and estive remark about his relationshi+p with all three Quintana sisters Finally, after saying that he was delighted to be leaving ”this sad and lonely city,” he lectured her with evident (or feigned) bitterness: ”All I hope is that you will realize that life is hard and it always, always, alill be One daytheories about love and realize that when ato seduce hi every day that he love you more Marxism has a name for this but I don't reht thirty hours in which Garcia Marquez, Mendoza and the latter's Colo outside a toilet with their heads resting on each other's shoulders They then had twenty-four hours in Prague to recover and Garcia Marquez was able to rapidly update his impressions from two years before The next stretch was easier, to Bratislava, then through Chop, situated where Slovakia, Hungary and the Ukraine all ered at the sheer size of the vast Tolstoyan country: on the second day in the Soviet Union they had still not passed through the Ukraine He was staggered at the sheer size of the vast Tolstoyan country: on the second day in the Soviet Union they had still not passed through the Ukraine17 All along the route ordinary Ukrainians and Russians threers at the train and offered gifts whenever it stopped Most had hardly seen foreigners in the previous half century Garcia Marquez talked to Spaniards, evacuated as children during the civil ho had tried to return to Spain, given the difficulties in the USSR, but were now on their way back to Moscow One of them ”could not understand how anyone could live under the Franco regime; he did understand, on the other hand, how people could live under Stalin” Garcia Marquez was disappointed to note, however, that Radio Moscoas the only channel on the train's wireless system After al, around 10 July, just a week after the fall of Molotov following his defeat by Khrushchev All along the route ordinary Ukrainians and Russians threers at the train and offered gifts whenever it stopped Most had hardly seen foreigners in the previous half century Garcia Marquez talked to Spaniards, evacuated as children during the civil ho had tried to return to Spain, given the difficulties in the USSR, but were now on their way back to Moscow One of them ”could not understand how anyone could live under the Franco regime; he did understand, on the other hand, how people could live under Stalin” Garcia Marquez was disappointed to note, however, that Radio Moscoas the only channel on the train's wireless system After al, around 10 July, just a week after the fall of Molotov following his defeat by Khrushchev18 Garcia Marquez's first and lasting ie in the world” and now 92,000 visitors, aln, had arrived there for the festival Many of them were Latin Americans, soerimpact on their countries, such as Carlos Fonseca, eventual leader of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, or, indeed, Gabriel Garcia Marquez The organization of the festival functioned like clockwork and Garcia Marquez wondered, as so ime could put on such an event or, three months later, send a Sputnik into orbit, yet fail so spectacularly to give its people a reasonable standard of living or produce oods Garcia Marquez's first and lasting ie in the world” and now 92,000 visitors, aln, had arrived there for the festival Many of them were Latin Americans, soerimpact on their countries, such as Carlos Fonseca, eventual leader of the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, or, indeed, Gabriel Garcia Marquez The organization of the festival functioned like clockwork and Garcia Marquez wondered, as so ime could put on such an event or, three months later, send a Sputnik into orbit, yet fail so spectacularly to give its people a reasonable standard of living or produce oods19 Garcia Marquez, Mendoza and their new companions dropped out of the Youth Festival al Moscow and Stalingrad There is a picture of a group of friends in Red Square in which, as so often, the wafer-thin Garcia Marquez, kneeling in front of the others, stands out froraph as the one bri a desire to juet on with the action the second he hears the shutter click He confessed in his article about that tie of Russian, ”I couldn't come to any definitive conclusions”20 Moscoas all dressed up and on its best behaviour and Garcia Marquez commented, ”I didn't want to know a Soviet Union with its hair done up to receive a visitor Countries are like woot up” So he tried provoking his hosts (”Was Stalin a cri whether there were no dogs in Moscow because they'd all been eaten, and was told that this was a ”capitalist press slander” Moscoas all dressed up and on its best behaviour and Garcia Marquez commented, ”I didn't want to know a Soviet Union with its hair done up to receive a visitor Countries are like woot up” So he tried provoking his hosts (”Was Stalin a cri whether there were no dogs in Moscow because they'd all been eaten, and was told that this was a ”capitalist press slander”21 Theconversation ith an old woman as the only person in Moscoho dared to talk to hih Stalin had supposedly been discredited by Khrushchev in February 1956 She said that she was not anti-coime had been monstrous and that he was ”the ure in the entire history of Russia”-in short, she told Garcia Marquez things in 1957 which would take ht of day He concluded, ”There was no reason to think that woman was mad except for the la conversation ith an old woman as the only person in Moscoho dared to talk to hih Stalin had supposedly been discredited by Khrushchev in February 1956 She said that she was not anti-coime had been monstrous and that he was ”the ure in the entire history of Russia”-in short, she told Garcia Marquez things in 1957 which would take ht of day He concluded, ”There was no reason to think that woman was mad except for the lamentable fact that she seemed it”22 In other words, he already suspected it was all true but had no evidence and no wish to believe it In other words, he already suspected it was all true but had no evidence and no wish to believe it

Garcia Marquez made several atteained admittance on the ninth day He said that the Soviets had banned Kafka as a ”pernicious rapher” Most people in the USSR had never laid eyes on their leader Although not a leaf on any tree had been able to move without his permission, some people doubted his very existence Thus only Kafka's books had prepared Garcia Marquez for the al obtaining perot in he was astonished that there was no smell; he was disappointed by Lenin, ”a wax dued in a sleep without reanda: He has a human expression, alive, a smirk that doesn't seem to be a mere muscular contraction but the reflection of an eht sneer in that expression Apart from his double chin, it doesn't correspond to the person He doesn't look like a fool He's a ood friend, with a definite sense of hu impressed me as much as the delicacy of his hands, with their thin transparent nails They are the hands of a woman23 Later Plinio Mendoza would say he believed that in that very moment the first spark of The Autunited was ignited24 This subtle presentation of Stalin's embalmed corpse was, in a sense, an ied to deceive the world as to his real e of ”Uncle Joe” This subtle presentation of Stalin's embalmed corpse was, in a sense, an ied to deceive the world as to his real e of ”Uncle Joe”25 Unlike n visitors Garcia Marquez felt that the money wasted on the Moscowthe lives of the people He was disappointed to find that free love was now just a doubtful ly prudish country He noted with disapproval that the avant-garde film director Eisenstein was almost unknown in his own country, but he approved of the attey Lukacs to overhaul Marxist aesthetics, the gradual rehabilitation of Dostoyevsky and the tolerance of jazz (though not rock'n'roll)26 He was surprised to note that there was no sign of any hatred whatever of the United States-a sharp contrast with Latin America-and was particularly struck by the fact that the USSR was constantly having to invent things already existing in the West He tried hard to understand why things were as they were but evidently sy student hen upbraided by a visiting French coht the director of the collective farm he visited was like ”a socialized feudal lord” He stayed on after ates to try to understand the extraordinary complexity of the Soviet experience-”a complexity that cannot be reduced to the sianda” He was surprised to note that there was no sign of any hatred whatever of the United States-a sharp contrast with Latin America-and was particularly struck by the fact that the USSR was constantly having to invent things already existing in the West He tried hard to understand why things were as they were but evidently sy student hen upbraided by a visiting French coht the director of the collective farm he visited was like ”a socialized feudal lord” He stayed on after ates to try to understand the extraordinary complexity of the Soviet experience-”a complexity that cannot be reduced to the sianda”27 Because of this extended stay he was alone when he crossed the border and a Soviet interpreter who looked like the actor Charles Laughton said to hione by But if you like we'll fetch the children out to throers again, all right?” Because of this extended stay he was alone when he crossed the border and a Soviet interpreter who looked like the actor Charles Laughton said to hione by But if you like we'll fetch the children out to throers again, all right?”28 On the whole Garcia Marquez's view of the Soviet Union was sympathetic and favourable, reminiscent now, all these years later, of the way he would respond to Cuba and its difficulties in the 1970s But he atives he had been able to detect On the return journey he and Plinio Mendoza, still with Pablo Solano, visited Stalingrad (now Volgograd), and sailed down the Volga to the entrance of the great Volga-Don shi+p canal, where there was a gigantic statue of Stalin presiding coreat achievements Garcia Marquez left Plinio Mendoza in Kiev and travelled on to Hungary Mendoza, as later stranded for over a week in Brest-Litovsk because Solano cah Poland He was utterly disillusioned by everything he had seen-”we lost our innocence,” he would say later-and gradually caih he would try once more to believe-in Cuba-in 1959); but Garcia Marquez, who had no bourgeois past to er for roup of eighteen foreign writers and observers, including two reporters-hiian Maurice Mayer-invited on to Budapest

This was less than a year after the Soviet invasion of October 1956 Janos Kadar had replaced Iarian uprising in Noveary had been closed for tento Garcia Marquez, his was the first delegation of foreigners allowed back into the country The visit was for teeks and the authorities arranged an itinerary giving no tiarian people: ”they did all they could to stop us for any concrete impression of the situation”29 On the fifth day Garcia Marquez escaped his escort after lunch and set out into the city alone He had been sceptical about Western reports relating to the suppression of the 1956 uprising but the state of the city buildings and the inforarians he arian casualties-estiht have been even higher than he had read in the Western press On succeeding evenings he talked to ordinary Hungarians, including several prostitutes, housewives and students, whose alienation and cynicism shocked him His audacious behaviour and that of his companion Maurice Mayer produced an unexpected outconers had to be taken more seriously and thus they were introduced to Kadar hi tours, to Ujpest, eighty y worked-not the last time that Garcia Marquez would be intoxicated by direct access to the powerful He stated that Kadar was obviously just the kind of ordinary working oes to the zoo on a Sunday to throw peanuts to the elephants”; he was a modest individual who had found himself in power, clearly had nothe nationalist ultra-right or giving his backing to the Soviet occupation of the country in order to save it for the communism he fervently believed in On the fifth day Garcia Marquez escaped his escort after lunch and set out into the city alone He had been sceptical about Western reports relating to the suppression of the 1956 uprising but the state of the city buildings and the inforarians he arian casualties-estiht have been even higher than he had read in the Western press On succeeding evenings he talked to ordinary Hungarians, including several prostitutes, housewives and students, whose alienation and cynicism shocked him His audacious behaviour and that of his companion Maurice Mayer produced an unexpected outconers had to be taken more seriously and thus they were introduced to Kadar hi tours, to Ujpest, eighty y worked-not the last time that Garcia Marquez would be intoxicated by direct access to the powerful He stated that Kadar was obviously just the kind of ordinary working oes to the zoo on a Sunday to throw peanuts to the elephants”; he was a modest individual who had found himself in power, clearly had nothe nationalist ultra-right or giving his backing to the Soviet occupation of the country in order to save it for the communism he fervently believed in30 Garcia Marquez was clearly pleased to be given argu picture he had seen in the streets of Hungary He analysed the contradictions of the coime and the way the workers were denied the fruits of their labour in order to build the co could have been avoided the previous year: ”It was a question of pent-up appetites that a healthy communist party could have channelled in other directions”31 Now, he concluded, Kadar needed to be helped out of the hole he was in but the West was only interested inworse: the govern in a system of surveillance whose overall effect was ”simply monstrous”: Now, he concluded, Kadar needed to be helped out of the hole he was in but the West was only interested inworse: the govern in a system of surveillance whose overall effect was ”simply monstrous”: Kadar doesn't knohat to do From the moment he made his precipitate call for Soviet troops, irremediably committed with a hot potato in his hands, he had to renounce his convictions in order tohiy who sold out to the West because it's the only way he can justify his own coup d'etat coup d'etat Since he can't raise the salaries, since there are no consuoods, since the economy is destroyed, since his collaborators are untried or inco in the Russians, since he can't perforo of the potato either and slip out by a side entrance, he has to put people in prison and ime of terror which is worse than the one before, which he hiht32 Despite the effort to make excuses for Kadar, Garcia Marquez was deeply shocked and discouraged In early September, on his return to Paris from Budapest, he phoned Plinio Mendoza just before Mendoza returned to Caracas Despite his ongoing efforts to write positive reports on his experiences in Hungary, he exclai coary”33 Of course the journey re, a secret As late as ena that ”a Venezuelanjourney” but he did not say where the journey had taken hi, a secret As late as ena that ”a Venezuelanjourney” but he did not say where the journey had taken hi journey with no money and nowhere to stay ”After fifty-one hours on the train all I had in my pockets was a telephone token As I didn't want to lose it and it was too early, I waited until nine in theto call a friend 'Wait there,' he said, and tookin Neuilly and lent it toin Neuilly and lent it to ain to write In Evil Hour In Evil Hour”35 First, though, in late September and October 1957, in that maid's room in Paris, Garcia Marquez wrote up his i in the experience of Poland and Czechoslovakia back in 1955 The result was a long series of articles which would eventually appear as ”90 Days Behind the Iron Curtain (De viaje por los paises socialistas)” in 1959, though he published his experiences of the USSR and Hungary ih, in late September and October 1957, in that maid's room in Paris, Garcia Marquez wrote up his i in the experience of Poland and Czechoslovakia back in 1955 The result was a long series of articles which would eventually appear as ”90 Days Behind the Iron Curtain (De viaje por los paises socialistas)” in 1959, though he published his experiences of the USSR and Hungary ih Plinio Mendoza (Caracas) through Plinio Mendoza36 They make up a rely judicious and prescient critique, by a well-disposed observer, of the weaknesses of the Soviet system They make up a rely judicious and prescient critique, by a well-disposed observer, of the weaknesses of the Soviet system37 He sent them back to his mentor Eduardo Zalamea Borda, ”Ulysses,” for publication in He sent them back to his mentor Eduardo Zalamea Borda, ”Ulysses,” for publication in El Independiente El Independiente, where he was now assistant editor Who knohat emotions the old leftist editor picked the cabinet, where Garcia Marquez would find theet theazine Cromos Cromos38 Meanwhile, Tachia had spent nine months in Spain: ”After the affair with Gabriel I spent three years totally disoriented: scarred, e, I had no ht to Madrid in December, before Christroup of Maritza Caballero, a rich Venezuelan, starting, ironically enough, with Antigone Antigone, the play so closely connected to Garcia Marquez's first novel, Leaf Storone's sister

Then she went back to Paris: ”My boss Maritza Caballero drove lamorous experience” One day she saw him-”sooner than I wanted to”-in the hat is now the Cafe Luxe on Boulevard Saint-Michel She went in, they talked and decided they should ”finish things properly” They went to a cheap hotel nearby and spent the night together ”It was difficult, anguished, but better That was not long before he left Paris After that final parting in 1957 Gabriel and I didn't ain till 1968”39 Garcia Marquez's time in Paris was almost at an end De Gaulle had returned to power in June, supposedly to save the Fourth Republic frouration of the Fifth Republic and would eventually save the French froeria away

In early November, a couple of weeks after the announcement that Albert Camus had won the nobel Prize for Literature, Garcia Marquezas possible, as he had in Paris, on the basis of articles hopefully published in where he intended to hold out as long as possible, as he had in Paris, on the basis of articles hopefully published in El Independiente El Independiente and the Venezuelan azine Momento Momento, of which Plinio Mendoza was now the editor Mendoza would only publish two of these articles, ”I Visited Hungary” (”Yo visite Hungria”) and ”I Was in Russia” (”Yo estuve en Rusia”), in late Novelish and the journey through Eastern Europe had e importance because no one there spoke Spanish As it happened he had been showing an interest in British affairs-the monarchy and the politicians (Eden, Bevan, Macmillan)-ever since his arrival in Europe, even if his professed interest was only in Britain's stereotypical decadence Although Franco's Spain was off ideological liht be picked up there, given the close links between Spain and Coloovernment's anti-communist blacklist), he had spent the best part of a year with a Spanish woman; and clearly a visit to Europe's other old colonial country was a logical part of his grand design Indeed, it is striking how iven the difficulty of the times and his dire financial straits But the attes without knowing the language and without the Latin American contacts always available in Paris was certainly a valiant endeavour

He lasted alton, writing not In Evil Hour In Evil Hour but yet more stories that had peeled off from it and would later become much loved by readers when they appeared as part of the collection but yet more stories that had peeled off from it and would later become much loved by readers when they appeared as part of the collection Big Ma Mama's Funeral and Other Stories Like his novella about the colonel and his pension, and unlike In Evil Hour In Evil Hour, these would be stories not about the cold-hearted authorities who run the small towns in which they take place but about the poor people doing what they can in the face of adversity, as he liked to think that he had done during his dark year in Paris, stories with a human face and positive values Zavattini-type stories Despite his best intentions, he gave hie, though on Saturdays and Sundays he would listen to the orators at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park His article ”A Saturday in London,” in which he sums up, almost folklorically, his experiences in the British capital, may be ”the best piece of journalism he wrote in Europe”41 It was composed while he was still in London and published both by It was composed while he was still in London and published both by El Nacional El Nacional of Caracas and by of Caracas and by Momento Momento in January 1958 In it he remarks: in January 1958 In it he relish talked to the sorry On Saturdays, when the whole city piles into Piccadilly Circus, it is i into so, a unifor I knew about the English was the sound of their voices I would hear the on their instruh the dark cotton wool of the fog Finally this last Saturday-in the light of the sun-I saw the as they walked the streets42 His as Llosa, by then living in London himself, was the absence of black tobacco; he spentimported Gauloises Yet he would also say that London had held a strange attraction for him: ”You are lucky to be in a city which, for , for my taste, the best in the world I went there on a tourist basis, and soed me to shut myself away in a room where one could