One Hundred Years Without Loneliness: The Love Story of Gabriel Marquez and Mercedes Barga

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It rarely happens that a man already in the first minutes of acquaintance realizes that in front of him is his future wife. Especially if he is 18 years old and she is 13. But the future writer Gabriel García Márquez, possessing incredible insight, saw in a thirteen-year-old girl with whom he would spend his life. And I was not mistaken - Marquez and Mercedes Barga, that was the name of the girl, lived happily a whole life together, despite the fact that both were completely different - he is a mystic writer, temperamental and mysterious, she is harmonious and calm.

One hundred years without loneliness

The love story of Marquez and Barga began with a dance meeting when Mercedes was barely thirteen. The romantic writer was fascinated by the little Meche, as he called her, she reminded him of a bird, swift and graceful. The proposal made by Marquez that evening did not materialize until thirteen years later.

As Márquez recalled, although they were not engaged, they were waiting for what was intended. All the time before marriage, which Mercedes and Marquez did not spend together, they recognized and discovered each other in correspondence: they planned how their joint future would turn out, and confessed their feelings. And perhaps this form of communication helped them to truly understand each other in the future and preserve their marriage for the rest of their lives. As García Márquez later wrote, in a marriage with Mercedes they did not have a single reason for quarrels.

Gabo

Gabriel, the future writer, was born in the small Colombian town of Aracataca on March 6, 1927. In a large family, there was not enough time for Gabo, he was raised by his grandmother and grandfather, whose images, in one form or another, are found in almost all the works of Marquez.

Gabriel began writing at school, but chose the profession of a lawyer and in 1946 entered law, continuing to write. As he later argued, the job of a lawyer was to help him raise funds to marry his Mercedes.

Mercedes

On November 6, 1932, an unusually beautiful girl, Mercedes Raquel Barga Pardo, was born to a Colombian and an Egyptian. "The beauty of the land of the Nile," - so said Marquez later about the exotic appearance of his wife.

Unlike the dreamer Gabriel, Mercedes from childhood was serious and thoughtful - she studied well, read a lot and wanted to become a biologist. Helping her parents raise five more younger siblings, Mercedes waited for Gabrielle to fulfill his promise to marry her. And Marquez then preferred Colombian prostitutes to marriage with a girl in love, whom he considered, rather, his friends and called salvation from loneliness.

Rumors that Marquez had become a regular visitor to hotels, dropped out of law, Mercedes did not care about his affair with the Spanish actress. She didn't care who her husband would be, the main thing was that it would be Gabriel.

Despite his adventures, Marquez did not stop writing letters to Mercedes, sharing his experiences, state of mind, plans. He did not forget to tell her that every morning, when he wakes up, the first thing he sees is a photo of her, hanging over the head of his bed.

Family life is difficult … but worth it

The wedding did take place. Mercedes was late for her own wedding, and Gabo panicked. At that moment, he already understood that there is only one woman whom he wants to call his wife - this is his sword. Largely due to the fact that communication in letters was not interrupted, they knew each other much closer than many who have been married for many years. And this realization was acutely felt by Marquez at the moment when it seemed to him that Mercedes would not come.

In fact, Meche was not going to leave her dear friend and loved one. And there was a wedding, a trip to Venezuela, promises to be a caring husband and an exemplary father.

Gabriel and Mercedes did not live richly, they had to save money, buy only the most necessary things. But the main thing that was in their pair was caring for each other, mutual assistance during this difficult period. Marquez taught his wife to cook and housekeeping, Meche became the first listener and admirer of his literary creations. There was no heating in the house where they lived, and Mercedes learned to light the fireplace, because when it was cold, Gabriel could not write.

As a friend of Marquez, Gerald Martin, recalled, Mercedes brought orderliness into the life of Marquez, brought order to his manuscripts, became indispensable for him, as a mistress in their common home and as a friend.

In 1959, they will have a son, Rodrigo Garcia. In the same year, Marquez was sent to Europe as a correspondent. When Marquez is offered cooperation by the Prensa Latina branch in New York, he takes his wife and son with him. During this time, he became a supporter of the ideas of communism, which attracted him after his trips to Cuba and the USSR. This becomes the reason for threats both for him and for his wife and child, and, as a result, flight from the country to save himself in Mexico City. It was here that the persistent character of the writer's wife manifested itself, her readiness to accept trials together with her husband. Cheap hotels, the danger of a difficult path, not always kind-minded people, Mercedes disease - none of this was the reason for reproaches to Marquez. And he is once again grateful to life for his companion - a silent faithful friend.

The second son appeared in the family in 1962 already in Mexico. Marquez begins work on the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude and goes into this work for almost a year and a half. The wife raises money, communicates with merchants who lend food, negotiates with the owner of their rented housing. Realizing that until the end of the novel they will have nothing to pay for the apartment, Mercedes persuades the owner to wait. When Marquez finished his landmark creation, Mercedes silently pawns a hairdryer and a mixer to raise money to send the work to the publisher.

In 1967, Marquez's novel was released and made its creator famous. In the future, each of his works created a real sensation. At the zenith of his fame, Marquez did not forget how much he owed his patient and wise wife and devoted his labors to her.

To receive the Nobel Prize awarded to Marquez in 1982, the couple traveled to Stockholm together. Mercedes was there for all events. She gave the only interview in which she spoke not so much about herself, but about her husband and how grateful she was that he fulfilled his promise to marry when she grows up.

At the end of life

In the 1990s, Gabriel García Márquez was hit by a series of illnesses. And only the care of his wife prolongs his days and makes it possible to write a book "Remembering my sad sh … x" - the story of an old man's love for a young girl. … Critics saw in this work a similarity to the story of Marquez himself and his Mercedes, his declaration of love for this woman, immortalized in the work.

In the last two years of his life, Marquez suffered from Alzheimer's disease and often did not recognize anyone close to him except Mercedes. And until his last day she remained the faithful wife of her dear Gabriel.