Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gabriel García Márquez Read Free Book Online

bracelet. You won’t see anything made of gold in my house either.
    MENDOZA : You and I learne something in Venezuela which has been a great help in life, namely, the link between bad taste and bad luck. The Venezuelans have a special word for this jinx attaching to pretentious people, objects, and attitudes. They call it
pava
.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Yes, it’s an extraordinary defence mechanism that ordinary people’s common sense has erected in Venezuela against the explosion of bad taste among the nouveaux riches.
    MENDOZA : You’ve made a complete list of objects and things with
pava
, haven’t you? Can you remember any of them?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Well, there are the most obvious, the most common ones. Big conch shells behind the door …
    MENDOZA : Aquariums inside the house …
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Plastic flowers, peacocks, those embroidered Manila shawls … It’s a very long list.
    MENDOZA : You also mentioned those young men in long black cloaks who entertain in restaurants in Spain.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : The student musical groups. There are very few things with more
pava
than those.
    MENDOZA : And formal dress?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Yes, but there are differing degrees. Tails have more
pava
than a dinner jacket but less than a frock coat. A tropical dinner jacket is the only item of this kind of dress which escapes.
    MENDOZA : Have you ever worn tails?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Never.
    MENDOZA : Would you never wear them? You would have to if you won the Nobel Prize.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : I’ve already had to put not wearing tails as a condition of my attending a function or ceremony on other occasions. What else can I do—tails have a jinx on them.
    MENDOZA : We also found other more subtle forms of
pava
. You once decided, for instance, that smoking in the nude didnot mean bad luck, but smoking in the nude while walking about did.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : And going around with nothing but your shoes on.
    MENDOZA : Of course.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Or making love with your socks on. That’s fatal. It can never work.
    MENDOZA : What other things?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Disabled people who use their disabilities to play musical instruments. People without arms playing the drums with their feet or the flute with their ears, for instance. Or blind musicians.
    MENDOZA : I suppose certain words have a curse on them too. I mean words you never use when you’re writing.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Yes, all sociological jargon—words like “level,” “parameter,” “context.” “Symbiosis” is a word with
pava
.
    MENDOZA : “Approach” is another.
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Yes, “approach.” And what about “handicapped”? I never use “and/or” or “in order to” or “over and above.”
    MENDOZA : And do people have the same effect?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Yes, but it’s better not to talk about them.
    MENDOZA : I think so too. There’s one writer who carries
pava
with him wherever he goes. I’m not going to mention him by name because if I do this book will be doomed. What do you do when you meet people like that?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : I avoid them. Above all I refuse to sleep in the same place as they do. A few years ago Mercedes and I rented a flat in a town on the Costa Brava. We soon found out that a neighbor—a lady who’d come over to say hello—had
pava
. I refused to sleep there. I spent the day there but not the night. I went to sleep at a friend’s house at night. Mercedes got really fed up about it, but there was nothing I could do.
    MENDOZA : What about places? Do they have this effect on you too?
    GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ : Yes, not because they bring bad luck in themselves, but because at some time I’ve had a premonition there. This happened to me in Cadaqués. I know if I ever go back there I’ll die.
    MENDOZA : You