Ten years after Gustavo Cerati’s death: intimacy in the clinic and his secret health record

One of the murals in front of the ALCLA clinic, where Cerati spent his last years in hospital

In mid-2013, Gustavo Cerati was visited by an old friend and collaborator in his room at the ALCLA clinic in Belgrano. Her friend spoke to him slowly, softly. She was looking for a reaction of empathy, to reach what was left of Gustavo, the person she believed was asleep at the bottom of almost four years of coma. Minutes later, Cerati slipped his tongue between her lips. Her friend believed that, with this simple gesture, Cerati was responding to her, that the leader of Soda Stereo, in some way, was still there.

Gestures like this were repeated during those years of hospitalization, signs that the few who had access to his room in the clinic saw with hope as something similar to a dialogue. Leo García, one of those who visited him most frequently, told me at that time: “I went to see him for my birthday, I touched his hand and he took it.” Lillian Clarke, the mother of the former Soda Stereo, assured, without resignation: “Gustavo recognizes voices, you touch his little foot and he moves his leg. There have been small advances for some time now. We have to wait for him to open his eyes.”

Of all those close friends who visited the room, García was the most emphatic in his will to live. Cerati was like an artistic and spiritual father to him, having allowed him to open one of Soda Stereo’s farewell concerts at River, in 1997, with his old band, Avant Press. He genuinely loved him. Giving him up for lost was out of the question. “He has vital signs, he’s not like a plant that doesn’t move. Letting him die never crossed the minds of those of us who are close to him. Thinking that is the mind of a murderer,” Leo challenged.

Cerati shortly before his stroke, at a presentation of his latest album, “Fuerza Natural”

And then Cerati died, in that same clinic. It was on September 4, 2014, ten years from today, Wednesday, four years and three months after the stroke he suffered after a concert in Caracas, Venezuela, when he lay down on a chair in his dressing room. They held a wake for him in the Buenos Aires Legislature, in a sort of state funeral attended by thousands to pay tribute to the king who never woke up.

The wall in front of the ALCLA clinic was already a graffiti sanctuary, with a mural of Cerati’s face, where devotees from all over Latin America came and prayed for him, signing messages with a marker. The room, in more than one way, was a sanctuary as well.

Spinetta had visited him shortly before his own death, to give him a guitar. Others came and told him stories, played music for him to listen to, and played instruments too. Oscar Fernández, from the Roho hair salon, his stylist, cut his hair from time to time. They celebrated several of Gustavo’s birthdays on August 11th. Also, more than one Christmas.

Cerati, contrary to what one might believe, did not spend his days lying in bed: most of the time he sat in a special orthopedic chair. He had his routine. A group of specialists moved him every day early in the morning, turning his body and keeping his muscles in good condition. He received frequent care from a kinesiologist, as well as massages and sessions of occupational therapy and music therapy. He was fed through a gastrostomy, with a tube installed in his stomach, with preparations of high nutritional value. Visiting him involved a safety and hygiene protocol, given the risk of infections.

Leo García, one of the close friends who visited him

But visiting him, on the other hand, was not like going to see a convalescent friend. There was an emotional cost. “It is a strange feeling,” said Leo García, “a bit of not wanting to accept it, I get into rough patches where it is difficult for me; sometimes I would go weeks without going.” The musician thought about the long goodbye, about the kindness, according to him, of his friend and teacher so that his possible death would not hurt so much.

Asking how Cerati was, how he looked after four years bedridden, was almost taboo. Lillian would say: “His muscles are fine, his skin is fine. He looks the same as ever.” Others sought to be more complimentary, with a portrait of an intact Gustavo, ready to return to his throne of Argentine rock when he wakes up. “Now that he doesn’t smoke, his skin is great; he doesn’t have a single stretch mark,” said a frequent visitor: “His hair hasn’t fallen out and he’s not gray.”

Another, more resigned, was honest: “Same, same-same, he is not here.” Meanwhile, the idol’s health status was communicated with euphemisms.

The transfer of Cerati’s coffin to Chacarita

In the face of a new anniversary of the stroke in Caracas, ALCLA released a new medical report in May 2014 to update his health status, a protocol courtesy that the clinic complied with every year. “’Stable’ will be the word,” Lillian had told journalist Diego Gualda hours earlier before the report was published, disappointed. The clinic’s statement said: “Mr. Gustavo Cerati remains hospitalized, clinically and hemodynamically stable, without acute complications, maintaining a good nutritional status. Neurologically, he has had no significant changes and remains on mechanical ventilation.”

But in reality, there was nothing new to say. “Neurological and clinical status stable,” said the 2012 patient. “No neurological changes, clinically stable,” declared the 2013 patient.

Cerati had been to the FLENI clinic in Belgrano before arriving at ALCLA. There, his medical record was under a pseudonym, with a more or less common name, which no one would associate with the musician. The details of the first times after his stroke revealed extensive damage to his brain. A specialist who knew the contents of that record assured me: “The chance of recovery was almost zero.”

Thus, Cerati spent four years lying in bed. A crowd followed his coffin after his wake in the Legislature, among flags from the continent. “The years have made us friends with this,” Leo García, who never lost faith, had told me.

(The information in this text was published by the author of this note in Noticias magazine in 2014)

Photos: Adrian Escandar and EFE