The Death of Che Guevara

by Jay Cantor

  From My Journal

  1/11/67: Three days ago Jorge Vasquez paid the bribe to Algaranaz. Today three policemen came to the ranch to demand a bribe for themselves as well.

  The bug felt the touch but jumped in an unexpected direction. Algaranaz was more daring than Che thought. Or he couldn’t help boasting.

  We had to pay the bribe to the police. Soon the whole countryside will be on our payroll, and we won’t have to make a revolution. We’ll order them to become Communists, and fire the ones who don’t.

  Does Che, I wonder, underestimate the courage of the petite bourgeoisie? He has too many theories, sometimes, to see what’s right before his eyes. But it’s hard anymore to talk about these things with him. I’ll save it for my book, My Comrade, Che. (Or perhaps, My Difficult Comrade, Che. Or, My Pigheaded Comrade, Che.)

  From Guevara’s Journal

  1/14/67: Coco returned from La Paz, where he’d gone to get the recruits from the youth wing of the Party. I met him in the Bear Camp, overlooking the farm. He was still wearing his business suit, a thin blue fabric, worn through and too small for him. His black shoes were dusty from his walk, his face, usually so amiable-looking, was red, angry.

  “I got them all right. As planned. Then he popped up at the bus terminal.”

  “Who popped up?” I said. “Slow down.”

  “Monje,” Coco said. But he didn’t slow down. “He was waiting at the bus by the door, by the bus to Camiri. He stood right in front of the door and said, ‘I won’t allow you to take these men with you. They’re Young Communist militants, and they’re under Party discipline. I can’t allow them to go with you.’ You know, as if it wasn’t his idea, but a Party decision that he had to carry out. Well, two of them said they were going anyway, they didn’t give a fuck about Party discipline. They were good kids. They were brave guys. One of them said he was a Party member, and wanted to remain a Party member. One of them didn’t say anything at all. He was too confused. I thought he was going to faint in the middle of the bus station. He would have been a big help! Monje said that if any of them went with me on the bus he was going to give their names to the police, and tell the police all about them. I couldn’t believe that! I had loved Monje, you know, and he would kill us all! I said, ‘If you do that, I’ll kill you. I swear to you, Monje, that Inti or I will kill you.’ But I had to leave the men with him, and get on the bus, didn’t I? I didn’t have any choice, did I? I just couldn’t take the risk of his informing on us. The whole thing upset me a lot. I have to sit down. Why did he do that?”

  What is Monje’s game? First his offer to Fidel, and now this. His duplicity? Or perhaps even Soviet pressure?

  Kill him?

  Kill Algaranaz now? As an example?

  Too late for that.

  1/15/67: This evening a disastrous session of criticism, self-criticism. Coco’s report has made the Bolivians edgy. They wonder why the Party is so adamant? Is it good sense? Betrayal? Power politics? A reading of history on a level they are not yet initiated in? They are picking at a scab.

  The talk soon degenerated further. Benjamin, a serious young medical student from the city, part of Ricardo’s vanguard group, said Ricardo is playing favorites. (I have the vanguard group staying at the Bear Camp, keeping watch over the farm area.) “He makes Bolivians do all the shit jobs, all the carrying, all the cleaning up.”

  Ricardo was sitting near Benjamin, his long legs sprawled out. He did not defend himself at first, or even seem to notice, but remained relaxed, hardly moving. No one spoke. Ricardo said, “Benjamin, stop whining.”

  This stupid response infuriated Benjamin. As if against his will, hypnotized, he got up and walked towards Ricardo. He didn’t know what he was doing, he was so enraged, his anger pushed him forward, like a wind, until he was facing Ricardo. He shouted, nearly screamed, “You told me Bolivians aren’t worth shit!” Benjamin was shaking.

  Ricardo ignored him, turning away slowly, and looked at me. “I punished some of the Bolivians, Che, because they showed disrespect towards me, and towards you, Che.” He paused (as if he were trying to decide whether to break some slight to me or protect me; or perhaps for invention), “They called you … they called you a pompous fuck.”

  Benjamin emitted a screech, “That’s a lie!” His body leaned towards Ricardo in a little weaving motion. Then an extraordinary thing happened: Benjamin spat at Ricardo, but just as he was spitting, Camba put up his palm and caught the spit in his hand. He wiped his hand off on his pants, and gave Benjamin a sweet understanding smile.

  Everyone looked over at me. I was inappropriately smiling, too, at the unexpected grace of it. I ordered Benjamin to sit down, and talked a little of the difficulties of waiting, of the unity we would find once the march began. But I spoke cursorily, quickly, I couldn’t wait to dismiss them. Such petty difficulties make me nauseous. At that moment, despite my smile, I despised them all.

  From Camba’s Journal

  1/17/67: Ricardo is a stiff arrogant brutal courageous temperamental prick. I respect him but I hate him. He smokes a pipe and looks down at the end of it, so his eyes are together at the end of his nose. He wears thick glasses too, so his eyes look huge and watery. He has long thin fingers that he curves over the bowl of the pipe, and he moves very gracefully. Not like me. The way he moves is very smooth and attractive. Then he stops, like he’s remembering something, and becomes all jerky, the way I am.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  1/31/67: Monthly Summary. Monje’s actions cloud the picture. We cannot expect support from the Party until we win victories.

  The soldiers and police may soon tumble to what we’re up to, no matter what bribes we pay.

  We will sooner than expected have to enter the nomadic phase.

  We must form the guerrillas into a nucleus of steel.

  The arguments with Ricardo, and between Bolivians and Cubans, show that more speeches from me will not help.

  Only shared hardships can now speak.

  FEBRUARY

  From Guevara’s Journal

  2/4/67: Tania, in complete violation of the instructions I gave her, has come to camp. I did not think that such carelessness and disobedience were characteristic of her! There is always the possibility she was followed. If she was, not only will the army have found us, but our liaisons will be trapped here with us. She brought Debray, who will be the contact with Cuba, and Bustos, the Argentine liaison. They will be followed, Regis says, by Moises Guevara, bringing six men that he has recruited from the mines.

  2/5/67: A few groups of soldiers, small patrols, have been seen here and there near the Tin House, nosing about, even as far as the river. What are they looking for? and why? They are like some progressive disease, the first sign red spots here and there on the patient’s arms, legs, trunk.

  Jorge and I: aristocrats still. I misjudged Algaranaz. (My mother’s contemptuousness for people who were “not our type.”) Or Tania?

  2/6/67: The patient presented another symptom: reconnaissance planes flew over the zone today.

  From My Journal

  2/8/67: A group of thirty soldiers approached the Tin House across the open fields in front, and from along the riverbank. Pacho, one of the former miners, who was with Ricardo in the vanguard, disobeyed orders and shot one of the patrol. Ricardo struck Pacho across the face with the handle of a machete, and ordered the immediate retreat of the vanguard group towards the base camp, where Che was, with the main body of our men.

  A messenger from Ricardo preceded the vanguard. He arrived at the main camp, sweaty and out of breath, and told everyone to prepare for complete retreat. Che was enraged by Ricardo’s orders. He pushed his chest out as if he were having one of his attacks. He dictated a message to me for Ricardo, that “wars are won with bullets.” He ordered the vanguard to return to Bear Camp and set up ambushes in the established locations.

  He seemed exhausted by his rage, and conducted his meetings with Bustos on Argentina while lying in his hammock.
After that he began a chess game with Debray.

  It is all too fast I am stunned.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  2/9/67: I told Debray what a useful tool a pipe is for a guerrilla. Shreds of tobacco, cigar ends, can all be used in a pipe. I began to wax lyrical about my own pipe, engraved with names of battles in Cuba. “A pipe and a pair of boots, that’s all a guerrilla needs, Regis. Make a note of that for your book. With them he has a feeling of contentment—that’s the pipe—and security—that’s the boots. With decent boots he can flee from danger, he’s the master of his fate.”

  Debray, usually a note-taker, was hardly listening. He was jumpy about the coming battle. But he played well, as always.

  A poem to my pipe and boots?

  From My Journal

  2/9/67: If it was too early to engage the army before, why is it right now? We could have withdrawn, given up this project. The Party is against us here. The reports, both on the Party and the landscape, were wrong. And the miners Moises brought with him are crap.

  Che’s temper. Che’s pride.

  No. This time he was right. We are here. The time to fight is now. You can’t balance these things forever. Our violence will change the political situation, the Party’s attitude. I hope.

  From Coco’s Journal

  2/10/67: My first battle.

  Our ambush was by the river. After they walked into it and we opened fire we shouted, “Long live the Army of National Liberation! Long live free Bolivia!” At first I was so nervous I was firing my rifle as quickly as I could. Then I remembered what Che had said and husbanded my ammunition, picking my targets. When I did that I could hear my own voice, and I wasn’t really shouting our slogans—I was screaming them in a high-pitched voice at the top of my lungs. I could hear the other men from both sides, and some of them were screaming too. “Surrender, soldiers! We don’t want to kill you!” And: “Join us! We are your brothers!” I think it was my own brother, Inti, who was shouting that. He sounded calm. He always sounds calm. How I admire that!

  Their lieutenant was in the middle of the river, and that was where he was wounded. I think I shot him, but I can’t be sure. (Ricardo put his arm around me afterward and said it was me.) The lieutenant kept on shooting at the mountainside where our part of the ambush was. I saw him hit someone and heard a scream. It was Moro, I guess, wounded in the arm. The lieutenant managed to get to the riverbank, but then he was right in range and the bullets really started to come down on him. He did a strange thing: he raised his hands up, as if he could protect himself that way, as if they would keep off bullets! He was wounded in so many places! He died by the river, his body half in and half out of the water. Some of his men followed him forward, and they died too.

  From My Journal

  2/10/67: After the battle, Inti, one of the best of the Bolivians, was delegated by Che to speak to the captured officers, offering the major in charge a truce for the entire zone, “if you would be willing to stay with the guerrillas to guarantee it.”

  The battle had a curious effect on me. I felt my heart opening towards the captured men, not with pity, but as if it were a radio station! I could receive their thoughts, broadcast by their nervous mannerisms—and the major had a lot of tics. I was seeing things from their eyes. A tall sad-looking fellow with a mustache offered the major a truce if he would stay in the zone to guarantee it. The major laughed hollowly (I was sure his laugh had slowed his progress in the army). He tried to think of something to say to this bizarre offer. What did he care if there was a truce? And why did this sad-looking fellow think the major’s presence would guarantee anything? As if General Barrientos thought the major was the Holy Infant! He did not! The major twitched—he was finding it hard to come up with a reply. He was uncomfortable and scared. His clothes were wet. He thought: I wouldn’t want to die in water. Then he laughed again, thinking: As if your skin could feel clammy after death! For a moment he saw—I saw, I saw him seeing—the image of the lieutenant’s body lying half in and half out of the water. It made the major shiver. I don’t want a truce, he thought, I just want to be very very dry and very very far from here! The lieutenant’s body looked soft. The river was carrying the blood from a thousand wounds. It looked as if the river were killing him by draining his blood. But it wasn’t the river. It was these people, this tall stooped man, that black man staring at him now in a way that gave him the creeps. That stare made him shiver more. (It was funny thinking his thoughts, thinking that I gave his body that tremor.) He pressed his right arm against his side, to try to stop his shaking. It was getting out of control.

  The major looked at the guerrillas. They looked at him. I smiled, and he shuddered, as if I’d been considering how he’d taste. There were ten or eleven of us standing around the edges of the clearing, drinking coffee. That reassured him for a moment, and he stopped his shimmy. Coffee is innocent enough. Then the earthquake began again. As if you couldn’t drink coffee and then shoot someone! So they drink coffee, what does that mean? Something silly went through the major’s mind: Socrates drinks coffee; Socrates is a man. We’re all men because we drink coffee. So what? Men shoot each other too. (He touched his cheek, which had joined the dance of his body parts.) After they fool around with us, he thought, they’ll shoot us. They don’t have prisons to send us to, they’re guerrillas. So they’ll shoot us. The one who’s talking seems like a nice enough fellow, though. But so dour-looking! Who can tell what crazy people think, how they’ll act. And these are crazy people, who wait by the sides of rivers to kill you! “I retire from the army next week,” the major said. “I get my pension. It’s a good pension.” He laughed again, a little repeated hiccup of a thing, tee-hee, tee-hee, tee-hee. The dour fellow—Inti, they called him—didn’t smile. He never smiled. Story of my life, the major thought. Perhaps laughing was a mistake? “Well, I mean, unless you fellows overthrow the government. I guess that would be the end of my pension.” I wish that nigger bastard would stop staring at me!

  Camba, thin with intense eyes under very heavy brows that grow together over his nose, walked to one of the prisoners, a private. He put his arm around him in a friendly way. “Hi,” he said, and gave the soldiers a big smile. “I’m called Camba. It’s my nom de guerre, you know. I love having a nom de guerre. You’ll never guess who I really am. I want to sing you a song I’ve just made up.” And he began to sing:

  We can put you in the river.

  We can put you in the stream.

  We can put you in the mountain.

  We can put you in our dream.

  We can put you in the river.

  We can put you in the deep.

  We can put you in the mountain.

  We can put you all to sleep.

  The song, I thought, didn’t have much tune, but Camba chanted it in a very cheerful engaging way. The soldier, though, didn’t appreciate the humor of it. He had fainted after the first verse. Camba finished the song anyway, on the ground, kneeling beside the ranger, cradling his impassive face between his hands.

  Inti ignored the singing. When it was done he turned to the captain. I think Inti’s stare made the captain nervous, but he had his answers ready. “I’m a Communist. I only entered the army a year ago because the Party ordered me to.” The captain clearly thought of himself as a very clever guy. He had read a lot of books. He was sure to rise faster than the major. And he didn’t have an idiotic-sounding laugh. He was proud that he thought more quickly, was a quicker, better liar than the major. But wait—the major might believe him! That would be a disaster! “In fact,” the captain added, “I have a brother studying in Cuba.” That would prove to the major he was lying; he didn’t have a brother, only five sisters, everyone knew that and made fun of him for it.

  Inti said nothing. The captain thought that maybe he’d made a mistake. There had been rumors about Cubans. But maybe there were no Cubans here. Maybe they didn’t like Cubans! As long as he’d been in the army there had been rumors about Cubans.

 
“We are here,” Inti said, after a time (I knew how they felt listening to Inti: you could die in those pauses. Or be shot.), “to liberate Bolivia from Imperialism.”

  No one said anything.

  Camba brought coffee and plain rolls for the prisoners. While they ate, Inti talked more of our goals. He spoke slowly, sincerely, almost sadly. I saw his eyes rest for a moment on each face, and then (he hadn’t found the face welcoming) he would turn to the next. The captain flushed. He had felt suddenly silly eating his roll. What a stupid thing a roll is! It tasted heavy and dry inside my own mouth. The captain looked about nervously, and saw that the others, too, looked down at the ground when Inti glanced at them. The captain became angry at himself. Shit, he thought, that’s the ground he was trying to put us under.

  “Our quarrel,” Inti said, “is not with you, but with those who sent you, the rich men who plunder our country.” If I were the captain I would have understood that—theoretically. But if I’d been wounded? The captain looked over at the wounded men being bandaged by the guerrilla doctor, a dark man whose own arm was bandaged in a black sling. Would a wounded man, the captain and I wondered together, understand that it was nothing personal? We left out the dead altogether. They definitely wouldn’t understand.