Killing Che

by Chuck Pfarrer

  On the way out, he paid Magda for their meals and for a few more rounds of drinks. Magda smiled an amazing mouthful of gold and said she thought Zeebus might be good for at least another gelato.

  Hoyle left the Impala parked on the street and wandered a few blocks. It was full dark now; lights from the shops and signs were reflected up by wet sidewalks. It had rained quickly and silently while they’d eaten. Curfew had been lifted weeks ago, and La Paz seemed to have forgotten it. There were people about, and cafés and restaurants were doing business, spilling laughter and the clink of crockery out into the streets. Los Escudos was across town from the embassy, and the people Hoyle passed would not have recognized him. From afar, his height marked him as a foreigner, and closer, his complexion as a gringo; tonight that didn’t matter very much.

  Hoyle found a small place off Avenida Mariscal Santa Cruz, a neat, dark wiskería. He ordered a bourbon, and when the setup came, he asked the waiter for a pen and paper. He drank and began to compose a letter.

  He wrote, Darling—. He thought to write Dear Maria, but he wished to leave her anonymous, as he would himself. Hoyle glanced at the time and wrote in the corner 11:30 P.M. and La Paz, Saturday. He drank a bit, then went on, I wanted to get a note to you before I left the city. I don’t know exactly how long I’ll be away, I think a week or so, but I’ll make up some reason to come back. Hoyle thought that it did not read well; it might be misunderstood. He wrote, Some business reason, and I will try to give you as much notice as I can.

  The words flickered on the page, and they pinched him. He was reminded that he had to schedule his visits, as Maria had to make time to see him. Time for them both was purchased with lies.

  I understand that you are taking a risk for me. I do not want to put you into difficulty. You mean more to me than you know. I miss you and I’ll be back as soon as I can. A night with you is worth a hundred days. Please send a note to me when you can. And please tell me when you think we might be able to see each other.

  The words disappointed him; that they applied to both their affair and the business he’d asked her to do also bothered him. Still, he put the pen into the small light from the candle and wrote, I miss you and miss you every day. He signed his initial, P, and folded the paper. He did not want to read it again. He thought it fell very short of the mark.

  The bar and tables were filling up, and now that the letter did not occupy his attention, Hoyle was aware of sitting alone. He put the note in his pocket, placed some money on the table, and nodded to the waiter as he walked back into the night. “Buenas, Señor,” the waiter said in a deep and grave voice.

  The evening was chill, and it occurred to Hoyle that he would have to drive to the safe house for an envelope, then out again to post the letter. He was maybe half a mile from Maria’s apartment. He had walked from the restaurant toward her place; he knew that she had una cita that evening and that she was with Alameda. This tugged slightly at him, but he made the event a blank in his mind.

  Though he knew better, he walked down the avenue toward Cochabamba and turned onto her street. The night spread overhead, and clouds wheeled about like stage scenery pushed around between acts. Hoyle walked slowly, having much time to weigh what he was doing. He thought that he would pass by for only a second, and if there was no one about, he would slip the note under her door.

  The whiskey had warmed him against the high, thin air of the city. This was not the right thing to do—to drop off a note. It could be found by the wrong person; it might be mislaid. The correct thing to do was return to the safe house, get an envelope, and properly mail it. Maria could go to the post box when she had the time. When it was safe.

  Hoyle kept walking. He put his hand in his pocket, and it fell on the paper. He looked ahead and saw Maria’s apartment. He saw stairs leading up to the door, and a light on in the front window, her window. Hoyle crossed the street; there was no traffic, and there were no pedestrians near him, so he walked steadily on toward the light. It was her light among all the windows of the city, and when he came upon it, he looked up slightly from the street, and between the curtains, the light showed the color of her room.

  Beyond the curtains, Hoyle saw Maria, and then he saw Alameda holding her. Alameda’s arms were about her waist and his head inclined; they were kissing. For a moment Hoyle’s brain refused to work, and he stopped dead on the sidewalk. It seemed as if the earth had avalanched under his feet, as if he’d been cast off it for an instant. At first there was no pain, and he took in the small view of the room; the couple entwined, and behind them the mirror on Maria’s dressing stand, a hairbrush on it, cosmetics on a silver tray. Hanging across the mirror was a rosary of pearl and silver.

  Seconds passed. For Hoyle, there was an expanding blank spot, disbelief and then empty shock, as in a man who looks down and finds a finger gone from his hand. Hoyle’s eyes moved from the nightstand to Maria, and he watched as they kissed and continued to kiss. Maria’s hands went up Alameda’s back and to the back of his neck.

  A shimmering malice blossomed around Hoyle’s face, a burning as real as flame. His thoughts collapsed into equal parts hurt, fury, and humiliation. None of the feelings made sense. There was no rational way that he should be surprised or hurt by what he saw—Hoyle knew Maria was not his alone. But the sight of her in another man’s arms stung him, vexed him, made him feel beaten and small. He could not help himself; a feeling of anger and duplicity condensed around him like little droplets of fog. He felt the letter under his fingertips and slowly closed his fist over it. He closed his eyes and opened them again, but the scene did not change: Maria was in the arms of Alameda.

  They were making love.

  Hoyle turned and staggered into the street, the city howling around him. He had watched, gripped by one agony, and now he walked away dragging another.

  39

  THE GLOOM WAS abiding. Above the canopy, there was no moon; occasionally, wind rustled through the treetops, and water came down from the leaves like a shower. Dinner in the evening had been the last of the rice and the meat of three sparrow hawks. The camp was very quiet, most of the men preferring sleep in their hammocks to shuffling about battling the rumbling of their guts and pangs of hunger. The fire was allowed to burn out, and Guevara wrote in his journal only briefly, a concisely worded entry noting that some of the men were quite demoralized. There had been no news from the runners he had sent south to Base Camp, and it was decided to send another courier. Marcos and three others were already heading south; it was estimated that they would reach Base Camp in two days. With luck, Marcos would cross with a return party heading north.

  At night Guevara lay awake in his hammock and listened to Castro speak on the shortwave radio. Parts of the hours-long oration drifted in, clear and strong, and other parts were embroidered by static and an intermittent crackling, a sound like lightning striking. No one else crouched by the radio, and Guevara listened alone, the small sound of the speaker tittering through the darkened forest. The speech was interminable, Fidel rolling his “R”s, pausing in the middle of sentences, spellbinding himself if not his listeners. Guevara began to wonder why he’d bothered to listen. Fifo could talk!

  He was about to get up to piss when, from the shortwave, came these words: “The imperialists have killed Che many times and in many places…”

  Guevara turned his head. Castro droned on. “But we anticipate that any day now, where imperialism least expects it, Comandante Ernesto Guevara will rise from the ashes like a phoenix, seasoned by war, a guerrilla fighter, healthy. And that someday again we will have very concrete news of Che…”

  There was a long, sustained burst of applause; on the radio, it sounded like the noise of a waterfall. The ovation continued, peppered with shouts of “Che vive.” Guevara pushed his hand from under his mosquito netting and switched off the set. There was then only the sound of the river and the hum of insects. Hearing Castro’s voice had made Guevara glum, and he was aware of a pain behind his heart. When
sleep finally came, he surrendered without dreams.

  The following morning he was up early, out and among Joaquin’s troops toward the back side of the slope. He walked by himself, visiting each of the hammocks, trying to gauge morale, aware of the scant rations and hard miles over the last five days. He wanted to gain a sense of their feelings and instill in them the necessary spark to push these last two or three hard days back into camp. The men received him cheerfully.

  Guevara could not help noticing that they were all looking harder, their eyes, especially. They had toiled mightily for the last four months, the march just one of many exertions. Their uniforms and boots were showing signs of heavy wear. Most of their trousers were out through at least one knee, and most uniform shirts were stained with sweat and white-gray around the collar. All had lost weight, some as much as ten kilos, and Guevara was but one of the three doctors among the column who could plainly see the early signs of malnutrition among the men. Some suffered from it patently—Inti and Miguel had begun to display swollen feet and hands—and all were increasingly gaunt.

  For the most part, they were in good spirits, but a few were notably discouraged and did not pretend otherwise for their commander. Four of the Bolivian comrades—Chingolo, Eusebio, Paco, and the shifty-eyed Pepe—were of depressed manner and dampened enthusiasm. They were silently obstinate and disrespectful by turns, and already the others had taken to calling them resacas—the dregs. Guevara, too, knew that they were finished; these men were last on every march, straggling in as long as two hours behind the column. Selfish with exhaustion, they rarely assisted with the communal chores of making camp, gathering wood, hunting, or drawing water. Unless under orders, they sat moping, sometimes in a group, or worse, when they did get put to work (and always they had to be ordered), their griping, ass dragging, and dirty looks were spread around, as contagious as yawning.

  This morning Guevara made no pronouncements. He simply talked to them as he talked to the others, calmly and firmly reminding all that thirty hard miles remained. He did not give a pep talk; for the dregs, it would be useless, and for the other comrades, it was unnecessary. Most of the men held their convictions as strongly as Guevara: They believed fervently in the cause, and they were confident in the idea that they would tear South America into pieces. Resacas on one end and the indomitable Joaquin on the other: The differences in morale were vast.

  After his tour of the encampment, Guevara announced that they would eat one of the mules. Scarcely had he made the declaration than a shot rang out down the trail, and the haunches and loin of the pack animal were delivered to the campfire. Mule meat and mule ribs were roasted while a pair of rafts were built to cross the Rio Grande. The animal’s burden (ammunition, supplies, and radio equipment) was distributed equally around the column and piled onto the remaining animals. As the bits and pieces were moved, the two remaining grizzled old mules stood picketed with their ears back, suspiciously sniffing the smoke that wafted down from the fires.

  By late afternoon, cooking was done, and the first of the rafts was completed. Guevara ordered the center group to start a crossing. Piles of rucksacks and weapons and great masses of cooked mule flesh wrapped in sheets of tarpaulin were made fast, all was put aboard, and Guevara helped pole the raft out into the stream. The raft turned and lurched, tipping and flinching like a drunkard as the current carried it. Four of Guevara’s group could not swim, and these men clung in a pile in the center of the craft, their teeth grinding and their knuckles white. At last the banks of the Ñancahuazú were reached, and the raft made fast to the bank. As the center group’s supplies were put ashore, Guevara walked back up the riverbank to a spot across from the remaining group.

  The animals were driven across by Pedro and Victor. Helped by an eddy and the remarkable steady swimming of the animals, all crossed and soon emerged dripping on the shore. Guevara watched as Joaquin’s group piled aboard their craft, poling themselves toward the eddy. From the beginning, the crossing did not go well. The raft was spun into the middle of the river, and soon the water was too deep for the poles to touch bottom. Joaquin jumped in to hold on to the raft’s side and provide propulsion by kicking. The eddy pulled them in the desired direction for a while, but the current proved irresistible. The raft was drawn downstream, and it was so heavily laden that twice it nearly capsized as it lurched over the tops of standing waves in the rapids. Within five minutes, Joaquin’s party was swept around the bend and out of view.

  Guevara cursed. As the raft disappeared downriver, he ordered Tuma after them. He scrambled down the bank quickly, mounted one of the mules, and rode off.

  The sun was slipping below the ridgeline, and long shadows appeared gradually from the river bottom. Guevara made the decision to establish camp, feed his men, and wait for Joaquin to return. Nearly all of their clothing, equipment, and weapons had been waterlogged during the passage, and the men set about hanging clothing in the trees and disassembling and oiling weapons as another fire was built and the joints of the mule were reheated.

  Guevara had lookouts posted up and down the river and ordered the men to eat. This they did eagerly, and the camp grew quiet with an enthusiastically conducted meal. Guevara sat apart as the others ate, picking at his food and scribbling an entry in his journal. He was less at ease than usual, as his forces now covered a wide area, and some were many miles distant. Taken together, the two detached groups—Pombo’s and Marcos’s—accounted for a little over a third of Guevara’s total force.

  Soon after nightfall, Tuma returned, reporting that he had ridden three miles downstream but had not found Joaquin. A thorough search of the riverbanks had not turned up bodies or equipment, so apparently, the raft had held together. Somewhere downriver, Joaquin had probably landed safely, but this unknown also contributed to Guevara’s anxiety. Joaquin was capable, and Guevara knew that he would join the main body as soon as he was able. Guevara was careful not to show his disappointment, but he was frustrated and angry that the river crossing had gone badly. There was no target for his displeasure. It was not Tuma’s fault, and after all, it was Guevara who selected the crossing place. The responsibility, ultimately, was his.

  Guevara thanked Tuma for his report and ordered him to his meal. The forest grew dark and was still.

  Night was coming on, and there was nothing to be done. Wind blew in scented gusts from the river, and the rushing noise of the water over the rocks reminded him to set up the shortwave. He tossed the antenna wire up over a tree branch and tuned in to the frequencies listed in his codebook. He deciphered a brief message from Havana, blandly reminding him that Tania and the others could be expected at the main camp within a few days; it said also that a shipment of Glucantine would be forthcoming. The disease the medicine treated, leishmania, was a parasitical infection carried by sand flies. Leishmania was one of the few diseases the column had yet to face. Hunger for the men and asthma for their leader: Those had been problems. Mercifully, Guevara’s affliction had abated in the last few days, though he, too, had symptoms of malnutrition, swelling in his legs and feet and a persistent tremor in his hands. The remedies for both, asthma and hunger, would be in good supply at the main camp. In this, he took some consolation. Even given a day or two to collect Joaquin’s group from downriver, they could expect to be home within the week.

  The entire column would be joined at the main camp, and D’Esperey and Sandoval would be there to exchange messages and to act as couriers. Guevara could suspect nothing out of the ordinary and had planned for no major reversals.

  Soon he would have the column pulled together in the vicinity of Base Camp; he would again have connectivity with La Paz and Havana. In the last eight weeks, he had tested the men, and some, the dregs, had been found wanting. Of his forty-odd combatants, Guevara had perhaps twenty he felt were actualized into viable guerrilla leaders. Most of the rest would come. A few, the resacas, were done. Guevara decided that these four—Chingolo, Eusebio, Paco, and Pepe—would be expelled from the column
and released from duty after the return to base.

  It was possible to win the game with the cards dealt to him. The enemy was a balloon, bloated and vulnerable, and Guevara was a needle. The Bolivian army was stupid and corrupt, the Americans behind them decadent and gutless. Guevara expected the army to react with increasing brutality, to burn villages and displace people in their hunt for the guerrillas. Through propaganda, Guevara would turn this to his advantage. Truth was not handed down from heaven—it was made by human hands.

  On his little hill, Guevara wrestled alone with the tribulations of command. He turned the facts over in his head and satisfied himself. With his forces dispersed, no single blow could take out the whole column. This half-truth gave some comfort but ignored a looming military fact: The occupation of a greater amount of territory brought with it the increased possibility of unplanned contact with the enemy. Marcos’s element was out of touch somewhere to the east, and Joaquin’s had landed at least three miles downriver. An enemy showing initiative could sweep up these three separated groups and crush them in detail.

  Guevara should have worried more that this could happen, but he did not. Perhaps he knew the enemy well enough; he did know the Bolivian army to be timid and incompetent. Perhaps he was confident that the night and the jungle were vast, and his forces were small and kept safe within. And perhaps he was tired; he had done his best for the day, and it was too bad that his forces were split up and out of contact with one another. There was tomorrow, and tomorrow they would be brought together and back under command. In truth, and in a cold military assessment, Guevara was at this moment extremely vulnerable—his forces were scattered and in disarray, and no competent commander would suffer them long in this condition.