The Death of Che Guevara

by Jay Cantor

  “I don’t know,” the man said. His hand rubbed his leg. “And I told you, he isn’t frightened.”

  “He is not a living man,” Inti’s friend said. “He is different. He can’t die. He is already dead. He is a man wrapped in white, hidden away, already dead. His head is like gold.”

  “And he will become our ruler,” the woman who had fought Marcos to a draw said. Usually women weren’t so outspoken. “After he has fasted for three hours.”

  “For three days,” another woman said.

  “For three months,” the small man said.

  “You must come barefoot and bear a load if you want to see him,” the battler said.

  “A load?” I asked. I knew then that they were speaking of Christ, but they had made him over as an Indian.

  “To show you are his servant. On your back.”

  “No,” the man with the bulging eyes said. “On your head.”

  I was sure they were making this up as they went along! They couldn’t agree on anything. I looked at Che and each word seemed like a poison added to the air. The upper part of his body made a small circle.

  “You must fast a month before you see him.”

  “For three months!”

  “A year!”

  “He has a coat made of the soft skin of vampire bats.”

  This didn’t sound like Christ!

  “And a coat of hummingbird feathers that shine in the sun.”

  “For a month before he becomes our King there will be a great feast. We will drink for a month.”

  “For three months.”

  “He will see that llamas are given us. For eating.”

  “He is very even-handed with his gains.”

  One of the men kissed his two small fingers and flung them up at the sky.

  “Why do you do that?” Coco asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  The others went on speaking, adding to his glory, whoever he was. It gave them pleasure to multiply his luxuries.

  “He has a huge house, made of stone, not like our houses. He and his sisters live there.”

  The women laughed, and looked at the ground. (I thought for a moment that there was something suggestive in their laughter. But that was impossible.)

  “When he goes out men from his clan bear him in a huge chair, its legs covered in gold. Or they run with him cradled in their arms.”

  “We have come,” Inti said, slowly, deliberately, sadly, “to put an end to kings. You work now to feed the rich, your lives are wasted in work so that the rich might have gold legs on their chairs.”

  “Then kings are bad things?” one woman said, suddenly docile, confused, yanked from her reverie.

  “Yes,” Inti said. “You yourselves must rule.”

  She looked around her at the small man, the other women, then turned away from us all, disappointed.

  I watched Che during all this noise. He looked worse than Marcos, as he huffed and puffed, his eyes narrowed with anger and strain. “You’re the King,” I said. “Sometimes we carry you.” He, too, turned away, disappointed.

  They gave us some corn and directions to the river.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  6/5/67: Again their directions were wrong! The truck overheated on a dirt road to nowhere, and we hadn’t any water for it. Camba, without speaking, got up next to the engine, pulled down his pants, and, standing on his toes, urinated a tiny stream of drops into the radiator.

  Ponco applauded this striking improvisation.

  But none of us had more than a few drops of urine. We all added a little, plus two canteens of water.

  We marched farther north, until the truck ran out of gas.

  “Can’t piss gas,” Ponco said.

  Isle of Pines, May 1968

  MAY 19

  There were other old men who stared at Che, in other villages (and he stared back). “The old man had a maze of broken blood vessels around his nose.” “The old man’s lower lip was eaten away by the coca and limestone disease.” “A senile tremor on the right side of his face, which looked like a message, something obscure, contradicting his words.” “Glaucoma. He pressed close, but he couldn’t see my face.” And: “I’ve seen him before. That cold look. He would have spat at me—if he dared.”

  What if I combined them into one, the one who held Che by the shoulders, and walked off with the two young men (the last young men we would see for a while)? Sometimes they seemed like one person, like they had one thing to say, one song, and they had scattered the parts up and down the mountains. A song called: “Please please please sir leave our village.” Or: “We can’t help you sir.” I wrote some of it down, and some of it I remember:

  When we fought, in the Revolution, we thought we were getting something. But when we looked down there was nothing in our hands.

  I have many enemies. Why do I have to go out and look for someone to kill me?

  You hear that whining? I saw a man once pushed into the blade of a big saw. You hear that whining? You want to push me into the saw.

  The army came. They wanted my sons to be soldiers, so I’d be all alone. I had to hide my sons.

  All you can hear is your own blood in your head, your own life.

  I kill you, you kill me. That’s history.

  MAY 20

  He meant that the old man with the cold look reminded him of No Legs, from his childhood.

  I am the only person in the world who knows that, and if I died, the knowledge would die with me—the thing that he wanted to say.

  No Legs—the beggar who spat on him as a boy. I could show that. I could say that the old man who held his shoulders “had a maze of broken blood vessels around his nose, and something worse than winter in his eyes. He would have spat at me—if he dared.”

  I could …

  Can I?

  MAY 21

  I can’t spend forever balancing this. I have to make a choice. I have to get back to my work.

  But it would be right to make it one speech. It felt that way by the end. One single speech from all their lips: One word: No. Or: Farewell. (They, too, had a voice to say farewell in!)

  After Inti spoke Che stepped forward. “Now is the hour of decision,” he said to the thirty people, mostly old men and women. “Bolivians have a chance to make history. The whole world is watching what happens here in Bolivia.”

  This received the usual deep well-like silence, the silence which we might all drown in. The silence that fertilizes the grass growing over our graves. An old man hobbled forward, clippety-clumpety. He was very thin and pigeon-toed—the perfect recruit. He wore one of their dirty sweaters, woven from dust, and the usual felt hat. He held Che’s shoulders and looked up and down Che’s thinning body. He had a maze of broken blood vessels and something worse than winter in his eyes. Then he said:

  “I kill you, you kill me. That’s history.”

  No.

  Then he said:

  “Look, I’m missing a finger on my hand. See? I was drunk one day and working in a mill. You hear that whining? No? All you can hear is your own blood in your head, your own life. I saw a man once pushed into the blade of a big saw. You hear that whining? You want to push me into the saw.”

  No.

  MAY 22

  “I’ll tell you what history is. You talk so much. Sometimes they come and kill a few of us. Once we went off and killed a lot of them. They had rifles. The miners helped, they had dynamite. We blew the soldiers up. That was good! I liked that! It made me feel better. Then we worked our land. After a while the soldiers came back in new uniforms, and they killed us and made us leave our land. We didn’t like that so much! When we fought we thought we were getting something. But when we looked down there was nothing in our hands.

  “Look, I’m missing a finger on my hand. See? I was drunk one day, and working in a mill. Most men lose something working—even their lives. My wife died after she gave birth to my youngest son. My first son died from a fever. Most of the children don’t gr
ow up. Now you want them to go off and kill soldiers. Do you think the soldiers won’t fight back? You want my children to make history. I kill you, you kill me, that’s history. Why do my sons have to go out to look for someone to kill them? Can’t they find someone here?

  “It’s hard to stay alive, impossible to stay in one piece. See? Look! See? I’m using all my wits to stay alive. I’m thinking all the time. I watch my step. I try not to make enemies. I try not to let my enemies catch me off guard. I saw a man once pushed into the spinning blade of a big saw by an enemy of his. The sound of a big saw makes your guts flutter up and down, it makes you want to run away. It gives you a headache, like someone turning a nail in your head. It becomes everything inside your head. You don’t have any past. You don’t have any name. Just that sound in your head, like an ache. You can’t reason with it! What screeching! My friend forgot where he was, and his enemy pushed him into the saw.

  “I don’t want to be sawed up, so I use my willpower. I try to remember my name, even though the saw makes a big noise. I control my anger. I figure out when it’s a good time to plant. I try to say the right things when the soldiers come. I use my brains. God gave me a good brain, so I use it. They wanted my sons to be soldiers, so I’d be all alone. I had to hide my sons, I had to find good places to hide them, and make good excuses for where they’d gone.

  “When I was young, like the boys with you, we were at war with Paraguay. They wanted some of our land for cattle. I didn’t like them taking something that belonged to us. I went and fought them. We killed a lot of them every which way. They killed a lot of us. I don’t know who won the war. I don’t have any cattle. That wasn’t using my brain. That was stupid.

  “You hear that whining? You don’t? That’s because all you can hear is your own blood in your head, your own life. That whining is the saw. Someone is always happy to push you into the saw, to get land for cattle, to win freedom, for the honor of our country. Someday they’ll defeat me. My will will be too weak for me to go on. Someone like you or the soldiers will want to push me and my sons into the saw and I won’t have the strength to resist. The saw will have sharp blades. It will cut us in half like that, rip us to pieces! All we’ll hear will be the whining. Eeeeiiieee! you won’t even hear us scream. Little animals will come and lick our blood. We won’t mind. Good for them! But I’m not going to go off and walk into the saw, say, Here Mr. Saw, why don’t you cut off my legs, or make a nice meal of my head. That would be stupid! I’m not stupid. That’s why I’m still alive.”

  Then he raised his skinny arm, gestured to two young men—the only young men there—and they walked off into their hut.

  I had a nice dinner tonight of chicken with rice. Not too spicy. Spicy foods don’t agree with me anymore (and I’m afraid of airplanes). But I could eat it.

  I think I’m meant to help out in the writing, help say the things he wanted to say.

  Who am I kidding? Only he could grant me that privilege. And he left me to die.

  Bolivia, 1967

  From Coco’s Journal

  6/8/67: The Masicuri River. We bathed in small groups, all through the late afternoon and into the night. The long trees over the river were thick with balls of leaves at the top; the white light of the full moon was softened by them as it flowed down onto our bodies. It was like being in a huge room. The water was cold. Che was in my group, and I could hear him clanking near me. “He sounds like a motor,” I whispered to Inti. Camba overheard. “A motor shouldn’t get wet,” he said. He sounded genuinely worried, as if Che really were a motor! Che’s breathing became more labored, more and more mechanical-sounding, but he went on splashing himself. The water was thick with cold, the cold was like a color you could drink with your skin. Feeling it on my legs and balls was like drinking a color. Sometimes, after a difficult time on the march, or in battle, the way things look is very intense, I feel like everything, the trees, the river, is alive, as if it might be about to speak with me.

  In the morning we did laundry. Marcos has dozens of handkerchiefs! He washed each one individually, very carefully. Ponco went over to Marcos by the riverside, and held the linen up to his face. He said that each handkerchief was a story that he could read.

  Planes moved above the trees, the drone fading and returning.

  Che ordered a march northwest, towards the Rio Grande, where we will look for a crossing.

  6/14/67: We walked along the riverbank until this evening, when thickets, tangled so tightly that they formed a wall higher than a man, blocked our way. We could cut through the thickets, or cross the river. Che decided to cross, but the raft-building group couldn’t find suitable wood.

  I went with a small party, under Marcos, to look for peasant families that might have a boat. Suddenly the rocks behind us exploded into fragments. The enemy had set up a mortar tube across the river. Marcos remained calm, and we fired back, while retreating towards Che and the center.

  Che ordered an ambush set up on our side of the river, and sent a party to cut a trail for our retreat, parallel to the Masicuri, but farther into the forest.

  The army never crossed the river towards us.

  They are on both sides of the Rio Grande. Che says that they will expect us to go back south, towards the Nancahuazu, but we will continue moving west, along the riverbank, looking for a crossing. Che has an instinct for thinking the way the army does. (He said once that for as long as the war lasts the army and the guerrillas are part of the same organism.)

  I worked for a while as one of the machete wielders, hacking at the tangled bank. It was part woody material, part thick green vine that ran in and out and all through it. I copied Ricardo’s motion, raising the long blade and my arms across my chest and high above my head, over my right shoulder, then swinging down from the balls of my feet. But I was not so strong or graceful as he was. Sometimes the blade nearly bounced back from the vines. I felt their strength working against mine, as if they didn’t want to be cut.

  We made our way through. Che says we’re near Ispaca’s house.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  6/18/67: Ispaca came running out of his house to meet us, not by way of greeting, but to keep us away, to ward us off. And yet he did not have the courage to tell us to go away. He stammered. He looked down at the ground. He pulled on his black hair. His first words—when he could get them out—were that the pigs had died. He had cared for them, he swore, but none of them had lived.

  I tried to calm him. I told him not to worry about the pigs. I asked after his children’s health.

  The boy we had cured was fine. He was very grateful. But otherwise things were very bad with his family. The little girl, the one who talked all the time, she had died. And the infant that she had talked to—describing the world, I remembered, and its skinny suspicious characters—she had died, too. The sorcerer had taken them, Ispaca said. It was punishment, punishment for his son’s being saved by us. And then the pigs had died. Who knew what might happen next?

  I gagged hearing Ispaca’s story, as if his words had physically caught in my throat. He wouldn’t look me in the face. I felt that he himself didn’t believe the nonsense he’d spoken, that there was a deeper shadow than superstition behind him, forming his words. I asked him if the army had been there.

  He didn’t speak, but looked off towards the bright sky. He ripped some strands of tall grass from the ground, and threw them aside. A light breeze picked them up and carried them towards the river.

  I repeated my question.

  “Yes,” he said. The army had been there.

  Had they harmed him or his family?

  Yes, he said, they had. Then he laughed. Yes, they had harmed them.

  I promised that we would avenge whatever had been done to him.

  No, he pleaded. He didn’t want revenge. He didn’t want anything. He simply wanted to be left alone.

  Then he stared at the ground, and I think an inspiration came to him. The army, he said, they had killed the pigs, thinki
ng that they were meant for the guerrillas.

  Possible, I thought, but unlikely. Still, I wouldn’t have thought Ispaca would have had the courage, or the desire, to steal from us—unless he were desperate.

  But there is simply no way to get to the bottom of their tangled stories.

  I asked if he could spare us some food. Of course we would pay well for it.

  Please, no, we needn’t pay. We could take whatever we wanted.

  He meant: we needn’t pay for it, if we would only leave quickly, leave him alone.

  He gave us directions to a turbulent but shallow crossing. He said again that he was sorry about the pigs.

  6/19/67: The cold waters of the Rio Grande are now to the south of us.

  Monje, on Chilean radio, announced the Party’s total support for the guerrilla movement, the people in arms.

  The interview had an unsettling effect on the men. The possibility of help makes our isolation more palpable. And for the militants, Monje’s speech held out the possibility of reconciliation with that majestic (if, in the case of Bolivia, mainly imaginary) organization, the Communist Party, the church to which they had thought they might dedicate their lives, and so align those lives with the grand march of history. The guerrilla, not the Party, they realize now, is the forward point of that march in Latin America. But their old loyalty, and the nagging sense that the Party might still triumph over us in the end, made them anxious for a reconciliation. After all, the keys of the Revolution had been entrusted to the Party; Lenin had established its inevitability; so perhaps it would inevitably be the ultimate leader and master of the Bolivian Revolution. (And the Party had the support of the chief socialist power of the world.)

  I sat on my canvas ground cover, at some distance from the men. I could see that Jorge was excited. Jorge has hair all over his face now, but not a lot of it, and he played with the ends the way Debray used to (or, if he is alive, still does). Jorge was certain that the Party had been won over to our line by our victories, as I had said they would be. Monje, whom Jorge had once been ready to murder, had redeemed himself in his eyes—in part because Monje had shown himself adaptable to changing conditions. (What Jorge would previously have called unprincipled.) Adaptability, Jorge thought now, was a good Machiavellian trait, a necessity for the Modern Prince—and perhaps there was a criticism of me in this. Jorge is alert, and he senses how desperately we need the Party’s help.