A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes , A Son’s Memoir

Last week, Dr Harikrishna Varma, my younger brother, wrote me if I had read a book, A Farewell to Gabo and Mercedes. He is a career scientist trained in Japan and the Head of the Bio-Medical Technology Wing of the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology at Trivandrum. The book written by Rodrigo Garcia is the son’s memoir of his illustrious parents, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mercedes Barcha. My brother told me that the book reminded him of our parents and he was very moved on reading it.

I immediately ordered a copy of the book and have just completed reading it. I am emotionally disturbed after reading it. The book made me think about my own life and the myriad experiences I have had over the years. This includes the deaths of my parents as well.

Rodrigo Garcia, a scriptwriter by profession based out of California, tells us about the last days of his father fighting dementia and cancer through this book. Gabriel Garcia Marques, the Columbian novelist and one of the most acclaimed writers of the 20th century won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1982. Gabo, as he is fondly called by admirers, is known the world over as the author of the widely read books such as One Hundred Years of Solitude, Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, and Love in the Time of Cholera. In 2014, aged 87, already battling dementia, Gabo came down with a cold that proved fatal as it turned out to be the harbinger of his last stage of cancer of both lungs and liver.  

The memoirs give a detailed account by Rodrigo about his father’s last days at their Mexican home. He reminisces about various incidences in the lives of his parents and recalls their family life together.

The descriptions by Rodrigo are both very emotional and often with a fair share of humour too. It reminded me of the last days of my father. I was not as fortunate as Rodrigo to be near him in his last days. The feelings expressed by Rodrigo, I thought are very universal though his father was a celebrity known the world over. The discussions with the doctors in the hospital, the mother’s nonverbal communications, the remarks from the immediate relatives, the charge taking of the funeral authorities, our thoughts of the past, our sadness, our efforts to appear logical and balanced are all images and emotions that are common to all over the world in such extreme circumstances.

12th October 1982, the date Nobel Prize was announced

 The hard days in the life of his father are very painstakingly portrayed by the son.  Some incidences throw ample light to the tumultuous journey he has had and the total dedication Gabo had always shown to his profession in writing.

There is the mention about a young Garcia Marques watching from the door of the grandparents’ house as men walked by carrying the dead body of a man, and the wife walking behind them holding a child in one hand and the severed head of the husband in the other.

Then there is the recollection of his time in Paris when he visited a woman in the afternoon and tried to extend the visit to be asked for dinner since he was financially broke and had not eaten in days. The attempt failed and on the way out he rummaged through her garbage to find something to eat. The sad thing is that Gabo narrated this incident to his friends in presence of his embarrassed son who was just fifteen.

Gabo used to work most days from 9 in the morning until 2.30 in the afternoon. Rodrigo writes as follows: “When my brother and I were children, my mother would sometimes send us into the study with a message and he would stop writing and turn into us while we delivered it He would look right through us, his Mediterranean eyelids at half-mast, a cigarette going in one hand and another burning in the ashtray, and reply nothing. As I became older, I would sometimes add, “You have no idea what I just said, do you?” and still get no answer. Even after we walked away, he remained in that position, turned towards the door, lost in a labyrinth of narrative. I came to believe that with that level of focus there was little one could not achieve.”

Gonzalo, Gabo, Rodrigo Los Angels 2008

After the cremation of Gabo, the funeral service was attended by the Presidents of Columbia and Mexico. Gabo personally knew them long before they became the Presidents. Without mincing words, the Columbian President said that Gabo was the greatest Columbian who ever lived. The Mexican President’s in his speech had referred to Gabo’s family as “the sons and the widow”. Later Mercedes, strong-willed as she was, were to say emphatically, “I am not the widow, I am me”.

Rodrigo very touchingly says that whenever he used to bid goodbye, his father, even under dementia, would always say, “No, man. Why are you leaving? Stay”. I had felt like Gabo –though I did not say it- when my son said goodbye as he travelled back to the Netherlands last October. Years back, whenever I took leave of my father, I had read the same message in the old moist eyes of my father, particularly in his last days.

 Six years after Gabo took his last journey, La Gaba (As was Mercedes fondly called) succumbed to cancer. As the son recalls, she had been smoking for over 65 years and was frequently on oxygen support. She was a bold woman in the mould of her grandmother, a matriarch of her family. She was judgmental, but quick to forgive especially when a person shared their troubles with her to an extent she won over their devotion.

In our case too, my father passed away in 2012 and four years later my mother too was gone leaving us in the gloom. My mother was the last of the true matriarchs of my ancient family. She too was not very physical, but was profoundly affectionate and caring in her attitude that increased as the years went by.

Rodrigo Garcia observes thus: “The death of the second parent is like looking through the telescope one night and no longer finding a planet that has always been there. It has vanished with its religion, its customs, its peculiar habits and rituals both big and small. The echo remains”

I felt that intense loneliness when my mother left all of a sudden in 2016.

When both his sons were children, sometime in the seventies, Gabo wanted both to be with him for the New Year Eve of the year 2000. As the new millennia starts, he would be seventy-two, he knew.  Probably it was a wish to be alive on that date and he used to remind the children often about it. Well, he lived another 15 years after that.

After reading the book, I decided to ask my son and daughter to be with me for celebrating the New Year Eve of 2030. I would be 75 then. I may probably beat the prediction of an astrologer, who wrote on palm leaves that after the age of 72, the rest was best left guessing.   In 1992, a bright young astrologer of my good friend Srinivas (Presently a Principal Chief Commissioner of Customs and Central Excise) came with some soothing predictions that I would certainly have a long life and would not be getting any mortal diseases in old age to cut short the life span.

With my Mom Kochi 2014

Yesterday was the 94th birthday of my mother Nalini Rama Varma who,  left for her last journey in 2016 leaving us to sort out our lives on the path shown by her and our father.  Her spirit lives on in her children. All those traits, value systems and behavioural patterns of our parents live in us and are passed on to our children too, making our parents immortal. Ultimately, the great time swallows everything!

Palakkad, South India

21st February 2022