The Death of Che Guevara

by Jay Cantor

  “We don’t need rituals to prove that,” Joaquin said paternally. “It’s true.”

  Camba said, “I think the Party’s position is disgraceful. Monje is going back on his word to us. I think he should be killed, and his blood will serve as an exemplary punishment for his vacillation. We could follow him right now and shoot him in the head, or we could have someone in the city do it.” He made a pistol with his finger and shot himself in the head. “Pow.”

  He still wanted a blood ritual; Monje’s blood this time. His desire to kill Monje, a party leader, a comrade, proved his commitment to me, to the others, to himself.

  Several of the men, though, nodded. I was surprised to see Mustache among them. I suppose they felt abandoned by the Party at a time when individually they each faced great danger.

  “No,” I said. “The Party will support us at some point. Once they see that we will win.”

  Tania agreed. “Yes. Che was right. I hadn’t seen it before. This way the Party won’t be a brake on your actions. And when you win victories the Party will support you.”

  From My Journal

  12/30/66: I am sad. Today I am very sad. There is clearly some problem with my friend’s, our chief’s, character. All this talk of purity! Who cares about purity? Only saints and crazy people who wash themselves over and over. Gandhi! He should have compromised with Monje, made some deal. Or lied to him. Or best of all, gotten men from him, taken Monje on the march with us as “political chief” and killed him. Not the way that Camba said, to make an example. That’s like Che, more purity crap, making examples to the world. No, it should have been sneaky, the way Fidel would have done it. Why does Che have to draw the line, be right, appear before everyone as an example, with clean hands, get us in bad difficulties?

  I spoke to him about it. “You should have made a deal with him.”

  “There was no deal possible.” He looked angry at me. He’s changed; he doesn’t want a “devil’s advocate” anymore. Or any opposition. But I am his friend, so I went on.

  “You got angry,” I said, “you consigned him to the flames. All right, he is no revolutionary, yes, I agree. But you could have lied to him. You could have let him think more highly of himself. You could have neutralized him.”

  “No, that would have muddled the situation. This way our stand is clear and sharp. Tania agrees with me.”

  “Who knows what she thinks!”

  “We will be an example to be emulated, a rallying point. Everyone knows what we stand for.”

  “I could have stood the ambiguity.”

  “No. By making our position clear we’ll attract better people, ones who are truly committed to us. The situation will organize itself around us. We will ring like a bell.”

  “Ding-dong!” It was all I could think of to say.

  Che laughed at me, and walked away.

  That was our conversation. It made me sad. It makes me scared, too.

  From Guevara’s Journal

  12/31/66: I laughed this morning to think of my conversation with Monje. It should have gone:

  Guevara: I spit on you.

  Monje: You’re a fool.

  Guevara: You’re a coward.

  Monje: You’re an adventurer.

  Guevara: You’re a worm pretending to be a snake.

  Monje: You’re an invalid pretending to be a hero.

  But then, this afternoon, I had a troubling conversation with Inti that was far from comical. (Inti is a profoundly serious young man, perhaps a little melancholy. I like him. I will make him political commissar over the Bolivians, to settle the uncertainties and doubts that are bound to develop about the line we are following—once the worm of hunger starts gnawing in their guts. There is nothing like hunger to improve the workings of the critical faculties. They will wonder if guerrilla warfare is mass enough, or is it adventurist, or is Guevara simply a madman. Once we win victories and gain recruits it will all seem clear to them again. But for the time of uncertainty and anguish, Inti can provide the necessary clarity, the necessary discipline.) Inti thinks that Monje knew—from conversation with Debray and Coco—that I would never agree to relinquish leadership of the guerrilla to the Party. He came with that demand, knowing it would force a rupture and leave him with clean hands, as if he’d tried to make a deal. That’s why he wasn’t disturbed by my insults. There had been no hurt on his face; I’d imagined it. I needed him but he didn’t want anything from our conversation.

  This was especially troubling: Monje’s reports to Fidel and Debray had been crucial in our decision to come to Bolivia (whatever we may have thought of him personally). He had described Bolivia as ripe for rebellion. Inti thinks this was a ploy to get Fidel’s money.

  But Inti says that he himself is unshakable in his conviction that ours is the right course, and that this is the right time to begin. Victory or death.

  Ise of Pines, May 1968

  MAY 6

  Even then I knew it would become a story!

  September 7: “Notes for the beginning of a book,” and “A name for the book of the Bolivian Expedition: The Revolution of the Weak Lungs.” I didn’t think of writing a book in Vietnam or in the Congo. But in Bolivia, it seems, I knew from the first. (I don’t remember knowing—yet there it is in my journal. I kept thinking of titles!)

  Again the dark of the room closes around me! Did thinking of titles, of making a story—was that evil? How stupid! I didn’t kill him so that I would have something to tell! I didn’t kill him at all! He nearly killed me!

  Anyway, his mother knew first. It’s in the manuscript he wrote before we left for the Congo to train the men. “You’ll make a story out of yourself.”

  He said once that I reminded him of his mother!

  No more today.

  MAY 7

  The worst thing is: sometimes it makes me happy. I look at the piles of papers, his, theirs, mine, the photos from U.S. magazines, the new pile that I’m making by copying out sections from their journals—and I’m filled with joy. I wish there were a mirror in this place: I want to dance in front of it! It’s mine, I think, it’s mine! That’s a terrible thing to think! To be happy for his—I can’t write it!—for his death—isn’t that what it means? Not “it’s mine”—but “he’s mine”!

  I didn’t kill him! He almost killed me!

  MAY 8

  I’m thinking of my conversation with him after Monje left. Why did he speak to Monje that way? To be pure? To make an example?

  In his manuscript he said that they made examples of their victims. They were terrorists. What if he made an example of himself? Was he a terrorist, with himself as victim?

  He wasn’t his only victim. Just five of us escaped. Five!

  In the book I was reading on this island last time, a thousand years ago, when I was a child, the mad captain threw his sextant overboard. He wanted to read his boat’s position from the stars. (What’s a sextant? Some way of finding out where you are? I need a dictionary.) Why does he do it? Was it like Che with Monje? (In the book it was called “dead reckoning.”) The captain wanted to make it hard on himself. (But it wasn’t just himself he was hard on. The whole boat went down. Only five survived.) So he could feel it was himself only, his will, uncompromised, shining purely, like a flare. Hilda was right. Purity makes bad politics. Like Quixote. Ahab. Bad politics but good stories. I think Che would have liked it better if we hadn’t used rifles! They would have had fancy weapons, and we would have just our will and the purity of our motives. (He hadn’t changed! He still hated technology!)

  Talking like this means no dinner tonight. I have to punish myself, send myself to bed.

  Bolivia, 1967

  JANUARY

  From Guevara’s Journal

  1/2/67: In the late afternoon, after a day’s work cutting trails, I gathered the men in the “amphitheater” for Joaquin to talk to them about Masetti. I wanted to reinforce my speech about the difficulties to come, the trials we would face; I wanted the men to have something
to test their green commitment against.

  Joaquin stood stiffly by the lectern. He is a huge man, with arms like steam shovels. He stared straight ahead as he spoke, not even looking from face to face. Public speaking must make him uncomfortable; and the mobility I remembered in his face has been gone since his return from Argentina. The only motion he made was the bobbing up and down of his giant Adam’s apple.

  It began as a lecture, in his deep paternal voice. “Before the guerrillas are established among the people is the most difficult, the most dangerous time for them. We must all be very careful that we are not seen, or that we have a good story for whoever sees us. This is what happened to us in Argentina: we were discovered before we could begin killing the soldiers. The zone we operated in didn’t have enough people. It was poor. And that made it difficult to get food.

  “The first thing our commander, Jorge Masetti, did, when we arrived in the mountains of Argentina, was to issue a proclamation of our existence, of our strategy, and our goals. He wanted the people to rally to us. He wanted to make our stand clear. This was a mistake. Before we were ready to face the army, the army knew all about us. Many people did come to join us, dedicated people, good people, people who were eager to fight. I remember a boy named Growald. He had his toenails extracted so they wouldn’t become ingrown and hobble him on the march.

  “But we never really saw the army. There were no victories. The guerrillas began to turn on each other.” Joaquin’s eyes were unfocused, sunk into himself; he wasn’t looking at any of us; he wasn’t talking to us anymore. He had told the story many times, he was telling it again. The images were made to pass through his mind and he tried to feel nothing. To feel nothing, he had to be far from the images. His face, I noticed, was covered with perspiration, but he didn’t touch it. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t, move his hands; they lay by his sides. I wanted to wipe the sweat from him.

  His voice became slower and slower, as he tried to keep from sinking into his dream, his nightmare. “There were fights constantly, just constantly. Men began to talk about whether guerrilla struggle was the right course. Maybe it was elitist or adventurist. Maybe we had begun too early. Maybe we should have prepared the ground more. Masetti should have stopped such talk; he should have been stronger. But maybe he had doubts himself, too many doubts. Everyone thought of a reason. The boy Growald was tried for lack of morale. That wasn’t the answer. He was tried for being too critical, for spreading dissension. I didn’t understand that. Everyone was doing it. And he hadn’t stolen food from others. The tribunal was undecided. But Masetti ordered him shot. I was ordered to carry out the sentences. I didn’t understand it. But I did it. The boy died shouting, ‘Long live the Revolution!’ ”

  I sat on a split log, part way up the hill, sucking on my pipe. It was out; it tasted stale. But my hands felt too heavy to light it again. I tried to remember what Growald’s face looked like, then realized that I’d never seen him, only heard about him from Joaquin. But I knew people like him, boys who at first are so ardent for the armed struggle they have to show it in some way, having their toenails extracted or their chest tattooed, or doing some ritual, like Camba’s. But this need just shows how weak their feeling is. I had even killed a boy like that. He had strangled a policeman in the city, without help, then walked to the Sierras with the man’s gun. Later he committed a rape, telling a peasant girl that he was Che Guevara, the doctor, and wanted to examine her. He begged me to have him buried with his uniform on. I couldn’t allow that. And he, too, died praising the Revolution.

  “From then on,” Joaquin said, “everyone knew that going on was pointless. But we went on, marching around. Our radio was broken. We had no contact with the outside. Masetti, our commander, became withdrawn. No one could speak to him. He didn’t speak to anyone, only gave orders, that’s how it was. Men began to desert. The army caught the deserters, and got information from them, and shot them. The army sent infiltrators to join us and lead us into traps. The army infiltrated our city network. They sent soldiers dressed as peasants into the zone, so they knew all our movements. We were betrayed constantly, over and over. Three of the guerrillas were captured when they surprised our camp. Some of us escaped, but without any food. We went deeper into the jungle. Three died of starvation. I saw this. We were so hungry that I saw men eat fruit that caused convulsions, and they ate it even though they knew it caused convulsions. That is how it was. Masetti and I were the only ones left. He left me one night and went deeper into the jungle. I wouldn’t follow him there—a wild place, with jaguars, and vegetation so thick that you couldn’t see the sun. It was a way of killing himself. I’m sure of that. He wanted to die. I made my way back into Bolivia, shooting monkeys and birds for food. I was the only one that escaped.”

  The men nodded, or stared at the ground, or looked very grave, suitably impressed. Stiff little masks of mourning; they were tempted to break into smiles. A sham, a false internal dialectic, a failure of the imagination. At the mention of each difficulty they said to themselves, Would I act like that? I would never act like that! And then it was as if the difficulty had been overcome in fact as well as in fantasy. Their pride in themselves increased proportionately. They were ready to face the next problem with their new pride, certain now that they wouldn’t give in to it. Illusory, suicidal dialectic.

  My limbs, too, were heavy with grief. I and Joaquin (he was heavy too; he continued to stand rigidly by the table), we were the only ones moved by his talk.

  1/7/67: I send the men out each day in small hunting parties, for birds. This will train their eyes. The farmers (Jorge, Coco, Aniceto) purchased additional food in Camiri.

  Groups from the vanguard (under Ricardo) cut more trails for escape. We now have trails on both sides of the Nancahuazu River.

  1/8/67: Our neighbor came to the Tin House to talk to Jorge again. (Jorge has a full mustache now. Still nothing immediately under his nose. But he leaves it alone. I think I’ll call him Jorge.) Our neighbor is a very nervous fellow, Jorge says. Ran the brim of his black felt hat through his fingers, over and over, with great dexterity, turning a wheel. “He has a long nose, and a thin face that slopes backward, the nose is like the tip of a pyramid. He’s got long flowing black hair that he combs backward. And he’s missing his two front teeth. His teeth are all rotten and brown. He reminded me of some animal, but I couldn’t think of the name of it.”

  “A ferret,” I said.

  “A hawk,” Ponco said.

  “A fox,” Inti said.

  “A bloodhound,” Camba said.

  “Please go on,” I said.

  “Well, I didn’t invite him in. I didn’t want him getting too chummy. He stared at his shoes for a while, asking if the shooting was good, how the game was running. He said, ‘There are certainly a lot of hunters, a lot of men with rifles around here, a lot of hunting going on, unh-huh, unh-huh, unh-huh.’ He said ‘unh-huh’ over and over after every few words. And in between sentences he would whisper things to himself very fast.

  “ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘we often have friends up to hunt. I told you we would be using this place as a hunting lodge for our friends, as well as doing a little farming. Don’t you remember?’ He was very oily with me, very obsequious. I acted like he was a piece of cow dung that I didn’t want inside, so he’d know his place and leave us alone.” Jorge paused, to see if I approved.

  I smiled. “Go on.” Jorge was a good mimic.

  “Algaranaz said, ‘Unh-huh, unh-huh.’ He was drunk, I think. He smelled boozy and rank. And he was leaning up against one of the door jambs as if to steady himself. While I was talking he started sinking down. He stopped turning his hat and gripped it till his knuckles were white. He braced himself against the door, and stared at me. We were only a few feet apart. He said, ‘I know you’re not a hunter.’ His eyes were going unfocused; I thought he was going to pass out. ‘No, I know what you’re doing, unh-huh, unh-huh. I know a lot of things about you.’ He started whispering again while I stared at
him, dumbfounded. ‘I know a lot more than you think I do. And I’m willing to collaborate in the cocaine business, unh-huh, unh-huh. The cocaine business, isn’t it? Isn’t it? That brings in a lot of money, doesn’t it? You have to be more even-handed with your gains. We’re not all as rich as you are, you know.’

  “I told him he was crazy, and just walked away. Left him in the doorway. After a while I saw he had clamped his hat down really hard on his head and walked off.”

  I instructed him to tell Algaranaz that we’d be happy to have his “help with the farm,” his advice on “how the game is running.” Offer him a small bribe, and add that if he makes any trouble for us at all, if he goes to the police, if he tells anyone, even a friend, you’ll find out about it and you’ll have him killed.

  I know Algaranaz’s type well, and we’re in no real danger. The peasant farmer who has done all right for himself, a shrewd, cunning man. A mixture of short-lived belligerence, petty daring, and deep subservience. Courage enough for a little blackmail, a little black-market dealing, but not enough essential dignity to see how petty his schemes are, that he’s just about as badly used as the poorer peasants, his occasional employees. The small landowner’s vanity is immense. But it’s just vanity, not pride. There’s no way for it to become revolutionary anger. The oppressor sits in his heart, a fierce fat little god, and exhales dread. Algaranaz has no character except what he apes from the class above him. He tries to make out his idol’s words, but when Algaranaz speaks them they appear all mangled, comical. He knows he sounds like a clown, and he hates himself for it. So he takes revenge on anyone more powerless. Greed, resentment, and dread are the substance of his little life. Jorge’s contempt was just the right tactic to remind Algaranaz of his place. The threat will be enough, when coupled with a sweet little bribe, to take care of him completely.