The Death of Che Guevara

by Jay Cantor

  The Barrien tos government continues to disintegrate. If only I have a hundred more men when the miners finally deliver their blow! That would be the end of Barrientos! Seldom has the possibility of the guerrilla as catalyst been so clear!

  The messages I gave Paulino will alert our allies to the necessary measures. This will make the decisive difference.

  On the march, deep in the thick forest, Camba shared another verse of his vegetable epic with us.

  From My Journal

  7/2/67: Camba sang us into the little settlement, repeating the last few days’ worth of verses—but all out of order—and adding one about a pretty but stuck-up tomato. Che’s spirits were good today and he enjoyed Camba’s tuneless singing. But I don’t trust Che’s mood—not because it is bad or good, but because he usually doesn’t have moods. He shouldn’t have moods. He surrendered his rights to them long ago, when he assumed his empty name.

  The small settlement—perhaps thirty square brown thatched huts—had a huge church, white stone and adobe with a sloping roof, and a scalloped front piece. The land in front of the church was bare dry earth, worked out long ago. Green hills rose behind the building; some plots of corn and the runners of potato plants spotted the small terraced fields of the hillsides. These people, I thought, had to walk a long distance to get to their work. Why do people make their lives so difficult?

  Why did I?

  We gathered up twenty or so from their huts with our insistent invitations, asking them to join us in the church for a talk. I held my rifle in front of one man, explaining to him that now he could tell the army we forced him to come to our meeting.

  He looked at the ground, sourly. “Do you think the army will care why we talked to you?”

  Most of the ones we found were older men, and women in black derby hats. But there was one young fellow, of a possible age for a recruit; he was very skinny, with large brown eyes.

  The church’s interior was a cave, with no seats. There were high tall windows near the wooden altar in front, but they were nearly black with smoke and dirt, and let in almost no light. Some green boughs had been scattered on the stone floor. Every fifty feet or so on a raised platform against the wall stood a clothing-store dummy. His costume had been painted on, but across his shoulders they had placed bright pieces of cloth. Silver and gold thread in the cloth absorbed the light from the dozens of candles that burned before each saint. The Indians had placed strings of dried berries around the dummies’ necks, and from the center of the strings they had hung little round mirrors.

  “You are in their hearts,” Camba said as he and I stood in front of one saint. I think that was a good guess—he has the knack of understanding them. Camba stuck his tongue out at the mirror.

  I didn’t like that. I felt uneasy even being inside a church—my stomach was queasy; maybe I was profaning something. I don’t believe in God anymore (do I? what will I say when I know I am dying?), but I still believe in profanation, or my stomach does. And now that I don’t believe anymore I feel I don’t belong in a church. The Indians’ piety, dark and thick, hung all over everything and seeped into me from the green boughs, the expensive cloth, the grotesque dummies. Each candle flame was a tongue sticking back at Camba and me, a tongue of flame from hell. (I still believe in hell.)

  The skinny fellow came over to the saint we stood near and crossed himself. He gave Camba a sniff, like a dog’s examination, and returned to the back of the church. It was funny, because the kid gave off a terrible stink himself, like compost, or a body decomposing. He carried a hoe, and stood in back by the big door, like a guard.

  Some of the other Indians crossed themselves by a favorite store dummy, or peered into the mirrors. “To see the state of their souls?” I said, and Camba smiled approvingly. As the Indians walked about, they lit more candles, and muttered brief prayers, just the way my mother would. The church blazed with white candles. But the dark that gathered under the high roof was too great for the light. The church was like a night sky, with many many stars, but no moon—pins of light, but still a dark place.

  Inti spoke, and the villagers quietly knelt on the floor in front of him, as if he were a priest come to perform Mass for them. He was barely visible from where I stood in the back, by the side, holding my rifle, just a tall shadow. He spoke of local conditions, the need for new tools to work the land efficiently, of new kinds of fertilizer and seeds. After the victory of the Revolution, he promised, when the villages formed cooperative ventures, they could work the land with tools paid for by Bolivia’s national resources. They could even have tractors!

  Whatever they were.

  He asked for questions, and some of the Indians crossed themselves.

  Che spoke then of the need for violent revolutionary action against the army. The Imperialists used the army to rule over Bolivia. They oppressed the people and stole from them. If the people worked together with the guerrillas, we could defeat the army and the Imperialists. Then the people would have their own army, and their own government.

  As Che spoke the skinny boy hopped about excitedly by the door, leaping up on one foot, with the other tucked up behind him, then bringing that hidden foot out at the height of his jump, to land upon. He went up and back behind the Indians with that crazy hop, his hoe on his shoulder. It looked like a parody of an army marching.

  The boy had on a white shirt with big wooden buttons, and as he hopped about, and Che talked, he took the shirt off. His skinny chest glistened with grease. Maybe he has a bad chest, too. All the time that he jumped about he talked to himself in a loud, rapid voice. Sometimes he pointed his hoe like a rifle.

  I thought that he must be a little mad fellow that they all took care of.

  Che spoke of the necessary battles we had won already—with the people’s help. My mad friend said “killy killy kill, die die die”—helping Che along. Then he said—I think, for he spoke very rapidly in a garbled mixture of Quechua and Spanish, shouting some syllables out and swallowing the rest—something about the Sheep and the Goats, and the Last Judgment. Everyone would get up again. Everyone would come back, good as before. “Where’s your arm?” he asked. He was very excited. “Where’s your leg? Have you lost it? It will all begin again! It will be all right!” He screamed this last promise in a choked voice, strangling the words.

  He reached out his hand to some imaginary playmate. “I am the Resurrection and the Life!” he said. So I supposed then that he hadn’t been listening to Che at all, but was remembering some things he had heard the priest say. I supposed Che was too far away, half in shadows, the fellow couldn’t hear him. And the boy spoke all the time anyway, he couldn’t be listening to anyone, couldn’t respond that quickly.

  But then Che said, “We must not abandon the miners, we must not abandon Vietnam!” Che’s words had a breathy sound, a halo of aspiration around them.

  The mad boy howled, “abandon Abandon ABANDON! Don’t abandon Me! I’m drowning, I’m drowning, I’m drowning!” His voice had a piteous choking sound, not of drowning in water, but in the darker stronger current of his confusion. I thought of my mother, late at night, very drunk, touching my face, and trying to recall my name, and I felt tears starting up behind my eyes.

  The people on their knees bent forward towards Che and back towards the half-naked boy, not turning towards him, just making a slight motion of their heads, like corn waving in the wind. No disrespect showed on their faces, no sly smiles—no expression, really, at all. They were stones. Or turnips.

  Che stopped for a moment, brought down by the mad chatter, or the indifferent audience. The boy stopped, too. Che and he faced each other, though I don’t think they could have seen each other’s faces. The boy smiled towards Che, drawing his lips all the way back savagely, a dead man’s grin.

  Che spoke of the people helping the miners now, in their time of need, by helping the guerrillas fight the army. If the army wasn’t stopped they would slaughter the miners, kill them to protect the North Americans’ p
rofits, profits that should be spent for the good of the Bolivian people. The people of Bolivia must make sacrifices now to defeat the Imperialists’ army and build the nation. We must cut off the hands of imperialism in Bolivia.

  The boy said that the army had blood on its hands, the blood of—and then there was a garbled sound that I thought was a name, maybe Christ’s.

  The people nodded.

  The army, he shouted, had bloody hands. But he had the truly bloody hand, the hand with the true blood on it.

  He held his hand in the air and waved it about.

  He had a bloody hand. He was a bloody man, he had a bloody hand, and he would have revenge.

  Che stopped again. Could he hear what the boy muttered in the back? Should I stop the boy? I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that! I felt somehow as if it were a deeper profanation than Camba’s tongue if I were to restrain this boy, if I were to lay hands on him. There was a forceful circle around him. And besides, I think I wanted to hear what he would say. But I came to my senses, and started to move towards him.

  “No,” Che shouted, and I thought he meant me. I went back to the wall. Maybe he thought it would make a bad impression if we expelled by force someone that the town took care of.

  Che spoke again of their having an army and a government of their own, one that served their needs instead of oppressing them.

  He was having trouble breathing—he is desperate for medicine—and thrust his chest forward to ease himself. Cruelly, the boy thrust his own chest forward, and imitated Che’s sound, for Che’s lungs were making an awful metallic racket. But it sounded almost musical from the boy’s mouth.

  “If we want our liberty we must take it, we must fight for it with our own hands!”

  My young friend shouted his mad poem, he was a bloody man, he had a bloody hand, and he would be revenged.

  The boy spat into his own hand, and held it up. I guess that was supposed to be blood. Nobody but Che and Inti and I looked at him.

  We must not let the Imperialists steal the wealth that belongs to all Bolivians. We must not let the Imperialists steal the tin miners’ lives.

  Che paused, trying to suck up air. The boy no longer talked along with Che, but listened to Che’s breathing. Then he shouted that they were poisoning the air.

  Che looked rapt, entranced.

  The boy went on talking, saying that he was the way.

  Che looked at the peasants and said, “You are the way!”

  I felt the whole world shake, the walls become liquid, for I felt Che was playing with the mad boy.

  The boy went on muttering to himself, conjugating redemption, I am the way, he is the way, they are the way, we are the way. Who made the world?

  “Imperialism,” Che began with a grinding sound. It was painful for him to speak so loudly, such an expense of breath.

  The boy wailed at that response, making a high meaningless sound, less coherent than an animal’s cry.

  Che stopped. “Thank you,” he said to the Indians.

  I thought I heard the boy shout, “Leave me alone!” But it might have been something in Quechua.

  On the way out the villagers bowed in front of the boy and held his hand to their foreheads. Maybe he isn’t crazy but some kind of holy thing. Or maybe they think crazy boys are holy. Sometimes the boy spat on his hand before he touched it to their foreheads.

  Anyway, we did leave him alone, moving back towards the east. I had some things I wanted to ask Che, but he didn’t want to talk.

  7/4/67: Morroco. My friend Paulino has been returned to his village by the army, over the back of a mule. I asked his mother to show me his grave, so I might put something on it, but she refused. Anyway, what words could I have said over his grave? Poor Paulino, his curiosity, heedlessness, and friendliness reminded me of … me. Poor Paulino, poor us. Poor me.

  Calixto offered us some pork, a bribe to keep us away from the village. When Che moved towards his house anyway, Calixto began to sob. He got down on his knees and grabbed Che’s legs.

  We took the pork.

  As we walked off Calixto shouted after us in a whining voice, “You must not judge us too harshly, sir!”

  “No medicine. No men,” Che said to me.

  Camba overheard. “No Paulino,” he said. “No wedding.”

  7/6/67: We moved along the rocky shore of the Florida River today, and were forced to climb a steep cliff that overlooked the river in order to move forward at all. The cliff had a narrow overhang that others before us had used as a path. It was smooth with their steps.

  Benjamin, as usual, fell behind. He was the skinniest of my comrades. Lately he had grown dizzy on the marches and held us up. Three days ago we found him sitting by the side of a path, resting his head on his arm. And two days ago he wandered off, dazed, and stood a few feet into the brush. Today, by the time we noticed him he was far back down the cliffside, senselessly fooling with the cloth ties of his knapsack

  Ricardo shouted at him. Benjamin’s head jerked upward, moving with a loose snap, like a puppet’s head. He made his way towards us with infuriating slowness. I wanted to kick the son of a bitch, for I knew that Che didn’t like being near the river.

  Che sent Benjamin ahead of us, so we could keep an eye on him.

  Benjamin nodded with empty eyes. We pressed ourselves against the cliff-side, and he made his way to the point, in front of Willy. Each day Benjamin, walking with trembling, jerky, unnatural steps, looked more and more like a cloth construction. He had to will each movement. I admired him for the effort, though I didn’t like him. Anyway, there was nothing I could do for him. I didn’t have any food to give him.

  Che had Willy carry Benjamin’s knapsack. Willy, a miner, is stocky and strong, and walks with a roll, in a stiff-legged way, like a sailor on the earth. I watched Che take him aside two days ago, and tell him to keep an eye on Benjamin. But Willy and Benjamin hadn’t cared for each other. Benjamin was very proud, and complained less than other comrades, but his distance, and his arrogance, made Willy dislike him. So Willy was always rolling ahead of him, like today.

  Che let Benjamin get about fifty meters up the path in front of Willy before we started after. We walked along for a while like that, picking our steps very carefully, moving upward. I was afraid. The path was narrow. And it was dangerous to be exposed this high up against the side of a cliff.

  Willy was telling us—telling Che, really—the story of his life. I’ve heard this happen many times before, here and in Cuba: during the march one of the men would walk with Che, telling him something embarrassing, some failure, some terrifying regret. Always they spoke in a quiet, urgent, yet slow way, like our progress along the cliff. Che is of us, and yet outside us, like a confessor or an artist—anyway we thought he would know what to do with our sorrows. I suppose Che is the way his own father was; he is our judge. We could leave him confirmed in our own lives—as if we’d read our own biographies, and the author, even if he hadn’t thought we were good people, had at least come to a just estimation of our sufferings.

  —I must ask Che if he noticed this, too. (I never did.)

  Willy was talking about his father. (Everyone but me has a father to talk about—an endless subject for stories.) Willy’s father was a union leader in the mines. “I was a little bastard,” Willy said.

  “Me too,” I said. Che looked over his shoulder at me, and wrinkled his brow.

  “I mean,” Willy said, “that my father and mother weren’t married when they made me.”

  “Me too,” I said. I lied. I didn’t want Willy to feel embarrassed; I wanted him to go on with his story.

  I needn’t have bothered. Willy wasn’t listening to me. I looked down past the edge of the path at the broad rolling river beneath us. I felt dizzy then, and squatted for a moment. Ricardo kicked me. I stifled a scream, and it came out like a peep—insofar as I am capable of a peep. I looked up; we had much higher still to go along the cliff.

  Willy’s mother was an Indian. His
father was part Indian, part Spanish, and part black. Willy thought that the more races you had in you, the more different kinds of misery you could have.

  “One is enough,” I said. For misery, I meant. But Willy wasn’t listening to me.

  Willy’s father hadn’t wanted to marry his mother. She had tricked him with her pregnancy with Willy. Willy didn’t know where his father had thought he was going! But his father had thought he had something better in him than being a miner. Willy’s father would hit Willy and the other children casually, but he beat Willy’s mother more seriously, all over her body—because she had trapped him. He acted like she was the reason Bolivians were poor! Or like Willy was—it was his fault for being born!

  Willy’s father had lived long enough to see his son go into the mines because he was a union official and he didn’t have to go down the shaft as much as the others. But when the strike came Willy’s father became the loveliest man alive, and he gave all his extra life back.

  Willy turned to Che, so I could see his face, sweet and sad. He looked like he wanted to stroke Che’s cheek.

  I knew from that mild sweet look that Willy’s father wouldn’t live till the end of the story. (Besides, this was Bolivia; most stories have a lot of doomed characters.)

  During the strike, Willy’s father had gone everywhere, talking to meetings, keeping up people’s spirits, seeing that food was shared, organizing the militia units, even helping to drill them. And what did he know about drilling a militia? Nothing! His father was a little guy. Willy was himself half again as tall as his father. And he was shorter than Che, and Che wasn’t that tall, was he? But his father had been strong then!

  Willy turned to us again and smiled. We inched along the side of the cliff. I put one foot down slowly and placed the other one in front, in a nice straight line. There was no room for error!

  Willy’s father had been lightning, darting everywhere. He had a large head, like Willy’s own, with curly black hair, and his father’s head bobbed up and down when he was excited, like a crow’s. The small birds try to peck at the crow’s eyes, and he snaps his head back at them. Well, Willy’s father had been like that when someone at a meeting raised an objection to what he said. He snapped his head at him and tried to smash his words. The man’s words were an annoyance, a danger.