My limitation was that I could not write to music because I paid more attention to what I was hearing than to what I was writing, and even today I attend very few concerts because I feel that in my seat a somewhat prurient intimacy is established with strangers sitting near me. But with time and the possibilities of having good music at home, I learned to write with a musical background in harmony with what I am writing. Chopin's nocturnes for quiet episodes, or sextets by Brahms for happy afternoons. On the other hand, for years I did not listen to Mozart after I was assaulted by the perverse idea that Mozart does not exist, because when he is good he is Beethoven and when he is bad he is Haydn.
During the years in which I have evoked these memories, I achieved the miracle, and no kind of music interferes with my writing, though perhaps I am not aware of other virtues, for the greatest surprise was given to me by two very young and diligent Catalan musicians who believed they had discovered surprising affinities between my sixth novel, The Autumn of the Patriarch, and Bela Bartok's Piano Concerto No. 3. It is true that I listened to it without respite while I was writing the book, because it created a very special and somewhat unusual state of mind in me, but I never thought it could have influenced me to the point where it would be noticed in my writing. I do not know how the members of the Swedish Academy discovered that weakness when they played it as background to the awarding of my prize. I was grateful in a most profound way for that, of course, but if they had asked me--with all my gratitude and respect for them and for Bela Bartok--I would have preferred one of Francisco el Hombre's spontaneous romanzas from the fiestas of my childhood.
In those years there was no cultural project, no book to be written or picture to be painted in Colombia, that did not pass first through Mutis's office. I was witness to his dialogue with a young painter who had everything ready for his obligatory journey to Europe but did not have the money for the trip. Alvaro had not even heard his entire story when he took the magic carpet out of his desk.
"Here's your passage," he said.
I was dazzled by the naturalness with which he performed these miracles without the slightest display of power. For this reason I still ask myself if he did not have something to do with the request made to me at a cocktail party by Oscar Delgado, the secretary of the Asociacion Colombiana de Escritores y Artistas, that I participate in the national short-story contest that was about to be declared void. He said it in so unpleasant a way that the proposition seemed indecorous, but someone who overheard explained to me that in a country like ours, one could not be a writer without knowing that literary competitions are simple social pantomimes. "Even the Nobel Prize," he concluded without the slightest malice, and without even thinking about it he put me on my guard for another extraordinary decision that waylaid me twenty-seven years later.
The jury for the short-story competition was composed of Hernando Tellez, Juan Lozano y Lozano, Pedro Gomez Valderrama, and another three writers and critics from the big leagues. And so I made no ethical or economic determinations but spent the night in a final revision of "One Day After Saturday," the story I had written in Barranquilla in a burst of inspiration in the offices of El Nacional. After it had been lying in a drawer for more than a year, I thought it might stir a good jury. It did, and there was an extraordinary prize of three thousand pesos.
At this same time, and without any relation to the contest, Don Samuel Lisman Baum, the cultural attache of the embassy of Israel, dropped into my office, for he had just inaugurated a publishing enterprise with a book of poems by Maestro Leon de Greiff: Fifth Hodgepodge Compendium. The edition was presentable, and I had heard good reports about Lisman Baum. And so I gave him a very much revised copy of Leaf Storm and sent him on his way with the commitment to talk later. Above all about money, which in the end--of course--was the only thing we never talked about. Cecilia Porras painted a new cover--which she was never paid for either--based on my description of the character of the boy. The graphics workshop at El Espectador provided at no charge the plate for the title pages in color.
I knew nothing else until some five months later, when Editorial Sipa of Bogota--I had never heard of it--called me at the paper to tell me that the edition of four thousand copies was ready for distribution, but they did not know what to do with it because no one had any word from Lisman Baum. Not even the reporters on the newspaper could find any trace of him, and no one has to this day. Ulises suggested that they sell the copies to bookstores on the basis of a press campaign that he himself initiated with a note that I still have not finished thanking him for. The critical reception was excellent, but most of the edition remained in the warehouse, it never was established how many copies were sold, and I did not receive a centimo of royalties from anyone.
Four years later Eduardo Caballero Calderon, who published the Biblioteca Basica de Cultura Colombiana, included a pocket edition of Leaf Storm in a collection of works that were sold at newsstands in Bogota and other cities. He paid the contracted rights, meager but on time, which had for me the sentimental value of being the first I had received for a book. The edition had some changes that I did not identify as mine, and I did not concern myself with not including them in subsequent editions. Almost thirteen years later, when I passed through Colombia after the launching of One Hundred Years of Solitude in Buenos Aires, I found on the newsstands in Bogota numerous remaindered copies of the first edition of Leaf Storm selling for a peso each. I bought all I could carry. Since then I have found in Latin American bookstores other scattered leftovers, which they were trying to sell as historic books. About two years ago an English dealer in old books sold a copy of the first edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude, signed by me, for three thousand dollars.
None of those incidents distracted me for an instant from the grinding of my journalist's mill. The initial success of the serialized articles obliged us to find fodder to feed an insatiable beast. The daily tension was untenable, not only in identifying and searching for topics but in the writing, which always was threatened by the charms of fiction. At El Espectador there was no doubt: the invariable raw material of the profession was the truth and nothing but the truth, and that kept us in a state of unendurable tension. Jose Salgar and I ended up so tormented by this that it did not give us a moment's peace even on Sundays, our day of rest.
In 1956 it was learned that Pope Pius XII was suffering from an attack of hiccups that could cost him his life. The only antecedent I recall is the masterful story "P. & O.," by Somerset Maugham, whose protagonist died in the middle of the Indian Ocean from an attack of hiccups that consumed him in five days, while people from all over the world were sending him every kind of extravagant remedy, but I believe I did not know the story at the time. On weekends we did not dare go too far in our excursions to the towns on the savanna because the paper was prepared to publish a special edition in the event of the pope's death. I was in favor of having the edition ready, with only a few spaces to fill with the first cables of his death. Two years later, when I was a correspondent in Rome, the resolution of the papal hiccups was still being awaited.
Another irresistible problem at the paper was the tendency to concern ourselves only with spectacular subjects that could bring in more and more readers, and I had the more modest one of not losing sight of another less-well-served public that thought more with its heart. Among the few topics that I managed to find, I have kept the memory of a simple story that caught me on the fly through the window of a bus. At the entrance to a beautiful colonial house at number 567 on Carrera Octava in Bogota there was a sign that underrated itself: "Office of Unclaimed Letters of the National Mail Service." I do not remember at all if I ever lost anything by means of those detours, but I got off the bus and knocked at the door. The man who answered was responsible for the office with its six methodical employees, covered by the rust of routine, whose romantic mission it was to find the addressee of any letter gone astray.
It was a lovely house, enormous and dusty, with high ceili
ngs and decaying walls, dim corridors and galleries crowded with ownerless papers. An average of one hundred unclaimed letters came in each day, and of these at least ten had the correct postage, but the envelopes were blank and did not even have the name of the sender. The employees in the office knew them as "letters for the invisible man," and they spared no effort to deliver or return them. But the ceremony for opening them to search for clues had a bureaucratic rigor that was somewhat useless, but praiseworthy.
The article, in just one installment, was published with the title "The Postman Rings a Thousand Times," and a subtitle: "The Cemetery of Dead Letters." When Salgar read it, he said: "You don't have to wring this swan's neck because it was born dead." He published it, with the correct spread, no more and no less, but you could see in his expression that he was as grief-stricken as I by the bitterness of what might have been. Rogelio Echaverria, perhaps because he was a poet, celebrated it in a good-humored way but with a remark I never forgot: "It's just that Gabo will clutch at any straw."
I felt so demoralized that on my own account--and without telling Salgar about it--I decided to find the addressee of a letter that had drawn my special attention. It was postmarked at the Agua de Dios Leprosarium and addressed to "The lady in mourning who goes to five o'clock Mass every day at the Church of Las Aguas." After making all kinds of useless inquiries of the parish priest and his assistants, I continued interviewing the parishioners at five o'clock Mass for several weeks, with no result. It surprised me that the most faithful were three very old women, always dressed in strict mourning, but none of them had anything to do with the Agua de Dios Leprosarium. It was a failure that took me a long time to recover from, not only because of self-love or the desire to perform an act of charity, but because I was convinced that behind the actual story of the woman in mourning lay another impassioned story.
As I was foundering in the swamps of writing feature articles, my relationship with the Barranquilla Group was becoming more intense. Their trips to Bogota were not frequent, but I assaulted them by phone at any hour and in any difficulty, above all German Vargas, because he had a pedagogical concept of reporting. I consulted them about every problem, and there were many, or they called me when there were reasons to congratulate me. I always thought of Alvaro Cepeda as a classmate in the seat next to mine. After the cordial two-way mockery that was mandatory within the group, he got me out of the swamp with a simplicity that never failed to amaze me. On the other hand, my consultations with Alfonso Fuenmayor were more literary. He had the knowledgeable magic to save me from difficulties with examples from great authors, or to dictate to me the saving citation drawn from his bottomless arsenal. His greatest joke was when I asked him for a title for an editorial about street vendors of food who were being hounded by authorities from the Health Department. Alfonso gave me an immediate reply:
"The man who sells food does not die of hunger."
I thanked him with all my heart, and it seemed so opportune I could not resist the temptation of asking him whose it was. Alfonso stopped me cold with the truth I had not remembered:
"It's yours, Maestro."
In fact, I had improvised it for some unsigned editorial but had forgotten it. The story circulated for years among my friends in Barranquilla, whom I never could convince that it had not been a joke.
A chance trip by Alvaro Cepeda to Bogota distracted me for a few days from the galley ship of the daily news. He came with the idea of making a film for which he had only the title: The Blue Lobster. It was a well-informed error, because Luis Vicens, Enrique Grau, and the photographer Nereo Lopez thought he was serious. I heard no more about the project until Vicens sent me a rough draft of the script so that I could add something of mine to Alvaro's original idea. I added something that I do not recall today, but I thought the story was amusing, and it had a large enough dose of lunacy to make it seem like ours.
Everyone did a little of everything, but the papa by right was Luis Vicens, who imposed many of the things remaining from his first steps in Paris. My problem was that I found myself in the middle of one of those lengthy articles that left me no time to breathe, and when I managed to get free the picture was already being shot in Barranquilla.
It is an elementary work whose greatest merit seems to be its command of intuition, which may have been Alvaro Cepeda's tutelary angel. The Italian director Enrico Fulchignoni was present at one of its numerous private showings in Barranquilla, and he surprised us by the extent of his compassion: he thought the film was very good. Thanks to the tenacity and audacity of Tita Manotas, Alvaro's wife, what still remains of The Blue Lobster has gone around the world at daring festivals.
These things distracted us at times from the reality of the country, which was terrible. Colombia considered itself free of guerrillas after the Armed Forces took power under the banner of peace and harmony between the parties. Until the massacre of students on Carrera Septima, no one doubted that something had changed. The military, eager for causes, wanted to prove to the journalists that there was another war going on different from the eternal one between Liberals and Conservatives. We were involved in this when Jose Salgar walked up to my desk with one of his terrifying ideas:
"Get ready to find out about the war."
Those of us who had been invited to find out about it, with no further details, met at five sharp in the morning to go to the town of Villarrica, one hundred eighty-three kilometers from Bogota. General Rojas Pinilla, on one of his frequent stopovers at the military base in Melgar, was expecting our visit at the halfway point and had promised a press conference that would end before five in the afternoon, with more than enough time for us to return with firsthand photographs and news.
Those sent by El Tiempo were Ramiro Andrade and the photographer German Caycedo; there were four others whom I have not been able to recall; and Daniel Rodriguez and I from El Espectador. Some wore country outfits, for we had been warned that perhaps we would have to take a few steps into the jungle.
We went as far as Melgar by car, and there we were divided among three helicopters that took us along a narrow, solitary canyon with high, craggy walls in the Cordillera Central. But what impressed me most was the tension of the young pilots, who avoided certain areas where the guerrillas had taken down one helicopter and damaged another the day before. After some fifteen intense minutes, we landed on the enormous, desolate square of Villarrica, whose covering of gravel did not seem strong enough to support the weight of the helicopter. Around the square were wooden buildings with shops in ruins and residences that belonged to no one, except one that had just been painted and had been the town hotel until the terror began.
In front of the helicopter you could see the spurs of the cordillera and the tin roof of the only house just visible through the mists along the cornice. According to the officer who accompanied us, the guerrillas were there with weapons powerful enough to hit us, so that we had to run to the hotel in a zigzag and with our torsos bent over as a basic precaution against possible shots from the cordillera. Only when we reached it did we realize that the hotel had been converted into a barracks.
A colonel with battle decorations, the good looks of a film star, and an intelligent affability explained without alarm that the advance guard of the guerrillas had been in the house in the cordillera for several weeks and from there had attempted several night raids against the town. The army was sure they would attempt something when they saw the helicopters in the square, and the troops were prepared. But after an hour of provocations, including challenges over loudspeakers, the guerrillas gave no signs of life. The disheartened colonel sent a reconnoitering patrol to make certain someone was still in the house.
The tension eased. We journalists left the hotel and explored the nearby streets, including the less embellished ones around the square. The photographer and I, along with some others, began the ascent to the cordillera along a tortuous horseshoe cornice. On the first curve there were soldiers lying in the underbrush, prepa
red to shoot. An officer advised us to return to the square, since anything could happen, but we paid no attention. Our intention was to climb until we found some guerrilla advance guard that would save the day for us with a big news story.
There was no time. Without warning we heard several simultaneous orders and then a sharp volley from the soldiers. We threw ourselves to the ground near the soldiers, who opened fire at the house on the cornice. In the instantaneous confusion I lost sight of Rodriguez, who ran to find a strategic position for his viewfinder. The shooting was brief but very intense, and it was replaced by a lethal silence.
We had returned to the square when we caught sight of a military patrol coming out of the forest carrying a body in a wheelbarrow. The head of the patrol was very excited and did not permit us to take pictures. I looked around for Rodriguez and saw him appear, about five meters to my right, with his camera ready to shoot. The patrol had not seen him. Then I lived the most intense moment, torn between wondering if I should yell at him not to take the photograph for fear they would shoot him by accident, and the professional instinct to take it at any price. I did not have time, because at the same moment I heard the thunderous shout of the head of the patrol:
"That photograph will not be taken!"
Rodriguez lowered his camera in a slow gesture and came to stand beside me. The cortege passed so close to us we could smell the acid breath of the living bodies and hear the silence of the dead one. When they had gone by, Rodriguez whispered in my ear:
"I took the picture."
He did, but it was never published. The invitation had ended in disaster. Two more soldiers had been wounded, and at least two guerrillas who had already been dragged to the refuge were dead. The colonel changed his mood with a somber expression. He gave us the simple information that the visit was canceled, we had half an hour for lunch, and right after that we would travel to Melgar by highway since the helicopters were reserved for the wounded and the dead. The numbers of each were never revealed.