His parents were drawing further and further apart, and the disorder and money problems already present in Alta Gracia became more acute in Córdoba. These years witnessed the romance—more or less public in the small world of a mid-sized provincial town—between Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Raquel Hevia, a Cuban of exceptional beauty widely known in the city as a seductive, cheerful woman.†8 This was neither the first nor the last of the elder Ernesto’s affairs; as Carmen Córdova, Che’s cousin, recalls, “Everyone knew he was a ladies’ man; Celia knew.”21 Raquel’s mother, an actress of some talent, had moved to Córdoba with her daughter for health reasons. The daughter’s liaison with Ernesto senior began during the war.22 Despite the widely publicized nature of the affair (“it was a scandal in Córdoba”23), Ernesto senior once brought Raquel home for a visit, which can hardly have pleased Che and his mother. The entire relationship marked Che so strongly that when his girlfriend “Chichina” Ferreyra happened to recall the woman’s name a few years later, he snapped, “Never mention that name in my presence.”‡2
The Guevaras’ marital difficulties were becoming more serious and now affected five children, three of them nearly adult. As described by Betty Feigín, a contemporary of Guevara’s and the wife of Gustavo Roca, a lawyer from Córdoba who became a friend of Che’s later in life,
Family life was complicated. I remember when Juan Martín, the smallest of Ernesto’s brothers, was born and I went to see him. I remember the house where they lived, [in] such disorder. It gave an impression of poverty, neglect. Celia was a very intelligent woman, very attractive as a person, one could speak with her very easily, but one did not feel that things were going well. And then there were those things the kids talked about, that Ernesto was separated. There were many periods of great marital disagreement, with financial problems as well. They even lived poorly: all right from a sociocultural point of view, but with very serious economic limitations.*14
Dolores Moyano Martín has her own theory about the Guevaras’ home life during this time. In her loneliness, the adored and adoring mother may well have yielded to the temptation of casting her eldest son in a father’s role, as she tried to raise the younger children in an atmosphere of chaos, financial hardship, and marital tension. The couple’s estrangement and first separation—temporary, ambiguous, incomplete—did not actually occur until 1947 in Buenos Aires, though some place it earlier, in Córdoba.†9 The entire situation left a mark on Carmen Córdova, Che’s young cousin: “It was as if Ernesto [senior] just left, because he decided to leave, but then he would return. It was not a full break for the couple, or as if the marriage had ended.”24 In any case, the process that led to these tensions—and worse ones—was already well underway. In 1943 the couple’s final child, Juan Martín, was born in Córdoba. His relationship with Ernesto would be a crucial part of Che’s adolescence and youth and, of course, of the life of the younger Guevara:
I was a sort of brother-son; Ernesto was both my father and my brother. He would take me out for walks, carry me on his shoulders, play with me, and I saw him as my father.25
In regard to other domestic responsibilities—and obviously not just household chores—Celia was perhaps beginning to place unconscious but compelling demands on her oldest and favorite son. According to a cousin of Che’s, he would always hand to his mother part of the wages he obtained from the many odd jobs he held during those years; “I had the impression he sort of replaced his father.”26 These demands were probably never verbalized or made explicit: the communication between mother and son had plenty of room for insinuation and double entendres. Perhaps in response, Che gradually drew away: not in his love for his family but in his physical presence. This might help explain the beginning of his travels and his perpetual movement.*15 It also partly clarifies his initial inclination to study engineering in Córdoba, though his parents and siblings had already left for Buenos Aires. The moment of his final leavetaking from them had not yet arrived, however. For several reasons, Ernesto changed his mind. He followed his family to the capital to study, but soon took off, overtaken by his aversion for immobility. As it turned out, he never really put down roots in Buenos Aires.
His encounter with María del Carmen (“Chichina”) Ferreyra also dates from his time in high school, though the relationship would not really blossom until later, when Guevara was already studying medicine at the University of Buenos Aires. But Che’s friends during that period were already converging with Chichina’s: many of her cousins from the Roca and Moyano families were also close to the Guevaras, Granados, and other acquaintances. Convergence but not assimilation: Che was beginning to stand out from his friends. He dressed differently (in a careless, almost slovenly way), had contrasting tastes, and was by now far more cultivated. There also began to appear in some hidden niche of his psyche a glimmer of politicization, though still on a purely emotional level. It consisted in a certain sympathy and generosity toward those less fortunate than himself, and a willingness to fight by whatever means—but without knowing very well why or to what end. One of the most repeated anecdotes in Che’s biography, which appears in almost every account, is that told by Alberto Granado concerning his own detention in Córdoba in 1943 for having attended a student antimilitary demonstration.27 When Ernesto went to visit him at the police station, Granado suggested that he and other friends organize demonstrations with the secondary-school students. Che answered: “Demonstrate in order to have the shit beaten out of us? No way. I won’t march if I’m not carrying a piece [a gun].” More than a portent of Che’s revolutionary vocation, or even of any violent proclivities in him at age sixteen, the incident suggests an indeterminate combativeness and a certain idea of power relations: don’t fight if you can’t win. He would, repeatedly.
This incipient political awareness was marked by the influence of his parents, the intellectual atmosphere of Córdoba at the time, and Che’s scant familiarity with politics. No one recalls any special interest in politics on his part, or his holding any clear stance*16—though he already showed some signs of anti-Americanism, not untypical of “learned” Córdoba intellectuals at the time.†10 Che also had definite anti-Peronist feelings, but they derived more from the antiauthoritarian cycle of the war in Spain, the struggle against Nazism in Europe, and opposition to the rise of Perón by the traditional middle-class and intellectual left. Yet Ernesto seems to have been largely indifferent to the most important sociopolitical event of his lifetime thus far: the demonstrations of October 17, 1945, when the working class of Buenos Aires took to the streets to rescue Perón from his island prison, carrying him (physically and metaphorically) to the presidency of Argentina.
Ernesto completed his high school studies toward the end of 1946. He spent the summer working with the roads department of the province of Córdoba. Many factors induced him to study engineering in Córdoba, among them the fact that his family had already left for Buenos Aires, settling down in the house of Guevara Lynch’s mother on Arenales Street. But in 1947 she fell ill, and Ernesto moved to the capital to help care for her. When Ana Lynch died, Ernesto made a far-reaching decision. He enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine of Buenos Aires, and went to stay with his parents on Araoz Street, which, however, was no longer quite the family home. As Roberto Guevara euphemistically expresses it, “Ernesto often went to a studio my old man had on Paraguay Street, number 2034, apartment A on the first floor.”28 Or, as one of their cousins—closer to Roberto than to Che by age and vocation—recalls: “Toward the end of Ernesto’s years in Buenos Aires, their parents were practically separated; Ernesto’s father rarely slept at home. While the rest of the family lived in Araoz Street, he had his architect’s office in Paraguay Street, where he stayed most of the time.”29 Ernesto lived in the house on Araoz Street until he left Argentina in 1953. Che thus arrived in Buenos Aires barely a year after Perón’s enthronement; he would depart from his native country forever a year after Evita Perón died on February 26, 1952, as Peronism entered its prolonged t
wilight.
*1 Marx and Engels mention General de la Serna in an article entitled, precisely, “Ayacucho.” See I. Lavretsky, Ernesto Che Guevara (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1976), p. 13. Lavretsky’s true name was Josef Grigulevich; he was a well-known Soviet historian and veteran KGB agent whose career extended from the Spanish Civil War to the Sandinista revolution.
†1 “Our upbringing was totally anticlerical. Our mother, even more so. She was strongly anticlerical.” Roberto Guevara de la Serna, quoted in Claudia Korol, El Che y los argentinos (Buenos Aires: Editorial Dialéctica, 1988), p. 32.
*2 In 1926 Argentine women won a first series of civil rights, including that of contracts without their husbands’ consent, and child custody for widows. There was a vigorous women’s movement, if not a feminist one, in Argentina during the twenties. It was mainly of intellectual and socialist origins, and Celia de la Serna and her sister Carmen were doubtless in contact with it. The movement was identified to some extent with writers like Victoria Ocampo and Alfonsina Storni, as well as the struggle for women’s suffrage, which would only be attained in 1948 through the influence of Evita Perón. See Women, Culture and Politics in Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), chapters 5–8.
†2 Ernesto Che Guevara, “Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (el Congo),” unpublished manuscript, Havana, p. 17. This text, based on Che’s Congo campaign journals, remains unpublished although it has been extensively quoted, particularly in Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Felix Guerra, and Froilán Rodríguez, El año que estuvimos en ninguna parte (Mexico City: Planeta, 1994). In Chapter 9 of the present book, I will quote extensively from Che’s original, complete manuscript, made available to me in Havana by generous Guevaristas. Its authenticity was corroborated on comparing the copy thus obtained to that held by several of Che’s aides, including Jesús Parra, a former secretary of Che’s, who allowed me to compare the manuscript with his own in Havana.
*3 For instance, Argentina’s infant mortality rate at the time was 121 per thousand, Colombia’s 177, Mexico’s 228, and Chile’s 261, while Australia’s stood at 72. The proportion of inhabitants living in large cities was 31 percent, while in Brazil it was 10.7 percent and in Peru 5 percent. Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Economic History of Latin America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 86.
†3 Che’s father was not among the disappointed; he cast his first vote, in 1918, for the Argentine Socialist Party.
*4 Ernesto Guevara Lynch himself, for neither the first nor the last time, provides contradictory explanations on the origin of the funds which allowed him to purchase the land in Puerto Caraguatay. In his book Mi hijo el Che (Madrid: Editorial Planeta, 1981), he says he had received an inheritance from his father, and planned using it to buy land in Misiones. This version is reiterated by an official Cuban source, the Atlas histórico, biográfico y militar de Ernesto Guevara, vol. 1, published in Havana in 1990 (p. 25). But in a long interview with Josef Grigulevich included in the latter’s book (Lavretsky, Guevara, p. 14), Che’s father states: “Celia inherited a maté plantation in Misiones.”
†4 Guevara Lynch, p. 139. In another version, Guevara changed the roles but not the blame: “On May 2, 1930, Celia and I went swimming at the pool with Teté. The weather turned cold and windy, and suddenly Teté began to cough. We took him to the doctor, who diagnosed asthma. Perhaps he already had a cold, or perhaps he inherited the illness, since Celia had been asthmatic as a child.” Lavretsky, Guevara, p. 15.
*5 Whatever defects Guevara Lynch may have had as a father, Che’s mother attests to his devotion in caring for the child: “At age 4 Ernesto could no longer tolerate the capital’s climate. Guevara Lynch became accustomed to sleeping seated on the bed of his eldest son, so that the latter, reclining on his chest, could better bear the asthma.” Celia de la Serna, quoted in Granma (Havana), October 16, 1967, p. 8.
*6 Certainly, when they first arrived in Alta Gracia, the Guevara de la Serna couple went out together. Although the testimony of witnesses like Rosario González, a servant in charge of the children from 1933 to 1938, should be taken with a grain of salt, it points to a trend which would intensify in time: “Ernesto’s parents went out a lot, they were late-nighters, and would go to the Sierras Hotel for dinner every night at about seven. They would return at dawn, at four, at five. … Every day, that was very common for them. They would leave at seven, eight o’clock, they’d leave and not return for dinner. The children had dinner alone.” Rosario González, interview with the author, Alta Gracia, February 17, 1995.
*7 Once again, there are many interpretations of the precise responsibility of Che’s parents during this phase. According to his brother Roberto, even in this area the central role was taken by his mother: “He was a very sick boy. … But his character and willpower allowed him to overcome and vanquish it. My mother had a great influence in this sense.” Roberto Guevara de la Serna, quoted in Adys Cupull and Froilán González, Ernestito: Vivo y presente: Iconografia testimoniada de la infancia y la juventud de Ernesto Che Guevara, 1928–1953 (Havana: Editora Politica, 1989), p. 82.
*8 “I remember that the children followed him around a lot in the schoolyard; he would climb up a big tree that was there, and all the kids stood around him as if he were the leader, and when he ran the others would follow behind him; it was clear that he was the boss. Perhaps it was the family, because it was a different sort of family; the kid knew how to speak better and all that. You could tell there was a difference. Because they came from Buenos Aires, that made them seem superior. Those kids had another atmosphere at home; they never lacked any school materials, whereas the poorer children often needed more things, or didn’t have any coloring pencils or anything to paint with. These never lacked anything, they were in another category; well, not that one could tell their category because they were snobbish, not at all. But they spoke better, they did things better, their homework, everything. They didn’t skip the homework like other kids; often at home they don’t get any help, and so they come back to school without the homework.” Elba Rossi Oviedo Zelaya, interview with the author, Alta Gracia, February 17, 1995.
*9 Lugones, insisting that Argentina was a white nation, advocated an end to all nonwhite immigration. In his article “Splendor and Decadence of the White Race,” Alejandro Bunge wrote that “all the vigor of the race … the patriotism of superior men and the abnegation of the Christian spirit must devote themselves from now on to restoring the concept of the blessing of children and large families, especially among the more fortunate classes.” Quoted in David Rock, La Argentina autoritaria (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1993), p. 117.
†5 The friendship between Che and Cooke began when the latter arrived in Cuba in 1960, and Che received him at Havana airport. Ernesto Goldar, “John William Cooke: De Perón al Che Guevara,” in Todo es historia (Buenos Aires), vol. 25, no. 228, June 1991, p. 26.
*10 “Exercise is the most common trigger of asthma. Eighty percent of people with asthma get some degree of chest tightness, cough, or wheeze when they exercise.” Thomas F. Plant, Children with Asthma (New York: Pedipress, 1985), p. 56.
†6 “The half-scrum is the link between attackers and defenders. … He is the man who initiates the attack … and the most likely to become a leader on the field, because he must constantly give orders to the forward players. … His function does not require speed, but skill with the ball. … He was required to fill a static function (in which he did not run the risk of becoming breathless).” Hugo Gambini, El Che Guevara (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1968), p. 48.
‡1 “Asthma is caused by a complex set of physiological reactions which are not yet completely understood. We can say for sure, however, that asthma is not due to a defective mother-child relationship or to any other psychological problem, as has been suggested in the past.” Plant, Asthma, p. 62.
*11 The list of triggers, as well as the hereditary etiology of asthma and its relationship to endogenous adrenaline discharges, all stem from a highly useful
and interesting conversation between the author and Dr. Roberto Krechmer, one of Mexico’s leading experts on children’s asthma, in Mexico City, December 20, 1995.
†7 I owe the outlines of this interpretation to Susana Pravaz-Balán, who, in the course of a conversation in New Brunswick, New Jersey, on December 1, 1995, transmitted to me with more knowledge and perspicacity than these lines suggest, a series of ideas about asthma, Che, and ambivalence.
*12 There is a certain continuity in his (preferences at school. In a primary-school report card dated 1938, his best results were in history, followed by civic and moral instruction, while he did poorly in drawing, crafts, and music, with average grades in arithmetic and geometry. Korol, El Che, p. 35.
*13 Dolores Moyano Martín, “A Memoir of the Young Guevara: The Making of a Revolutionary,” in The New York Times Magazine, August 18, 1968, p. 51. According to Moyano Martín, the story was told her by Jorge Ferrer, a boyhood friend of Guevara’s.
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