by Aleida March
Another of those selfless mothers with extraordinary strength was Melitina Delgado, Marta Lugioyo’s mother. Marta was a well-respected lawyer, who undertook numerous dangerous assignments for the underground revolutionary movement. She owned a car at a time when not many people had cars, and it was easy for her to move around in relative safety. When we used her mother Melitina’s home, we never felt we were imposing on her. She knew the purpose of our meetings, and sometimes she had some compañeros to stay with her for short periods of time. We were always careful not to compromise this safe house, the home of Melitina and “Papito,” as we called Marta’s father.
In acknowledging these compañeras, I have by no means mentioned all those who contributed to the emancipation of our country and restored its dignity.
Appendix
THE STONE
Ernesto Che Guevara
This is one of several short stories Che Guevara wrote for Aleida during 1965 while he was in the Congo, Africa. While mourning the loss of his mother, he imagines the circumstances of his own death.1
He gave me the news in the way such things should be told to a tough guy, a man in charge, and I was grateful for this. He didn’t hide his concern or his distress, and I tried not to show mine. It was as simple as that!
Besides, I had to wait for confirmation before I could mourn properly. I wondered if it was okay to cry a little. No, no, it was not possible. The leader cannot have personal feelings. It’s not that he’s denied the right to have personal feelings, he simply must not show them like his soldiers might.
“It was a friend of the family who called to say she was seriously ill, but I wasn’t there that day.”
“It’s serious—you mean she’s dying?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure to tell me if you hear anything else.”
“As soon as I hear anything... But I don’t think there’s any hope.”
Death’s messenger left but I had no confirmation. The only thing I could do was to wait. When the news became official, I would decide whether or not I had the right to show my grief. I was inclined to think not.
The morning sun struck hard against the rain. There was nothing strange in this; it rained every day and then the sun would come out, making itself felt and removing the dampness. In the afternoon, the stream would be crystalline once again, although not much rain had fallen in the mountains that day. This was pretty normal.
“They said it stopped raining on May 20 and wouldn’t rain again until October.”
“That’s what they said... but they say so many things that aren’t true.”
Would nature adhere to the calendar? I didn’t care whether it did or not. In general, I didn’t care much about anything at all—this forced idleness, this stupid war without a purpose. Well, maybe the war had a purpose, but it was all so vague, so diluted. Whatever its aims were, they seemed unattainable, like some surrealist inferno where tedium is the eternal punishment. It mattered to me. Of course it mattered.
I have to find a way of breaking out of this, I thought to myself. It was easy to work things out in one’s head. You could make a thousand plans, each as tempting as the next, put two or three of the best together, simplify them, put them down on paper and deliver it. That was the end of it and then one started anew. Theirs was an unusually clever form of bureaucracy: instead of filing anything, they made it disappear. My men said they smoked it—any bit of paper can be smoked if there’s something inside it.
There was an advantage to my mental pondering. What I didn’t like could be changed in the next plan. Nobody would notice. It seemed like this could go on for eternity.
I felt like a smoke and took out my pipe, which, as usual, was in my pocket. Unlike my soldiers, I never lost my pipe. It was very important to me. One can travel any distance along paths of smoke—I would say plans can be created and victory imagined without it seeming like a dream, but more like reality made vaporous with the distance and the mist that is always present in smoke trails. It’s a good companion, the pipe. How could they lose something so essential? What brutes!
They were not really brutes. They had done their work and were exhausted. So they didn’t have to think, and what use is a pipe if not for thinking? One can dream. Yes, one can dream. The pipe is important when one dreams from afar, dreaming toward a future whose only path is smoke, or dreaming back to a past so distant it is necessary to retrace one’s steps. Urgent yearnings are felt elsewhere in the body. They have vigorous feet and keen eyes and don’t need the aid of smoke. My soldiers lost their pipes because they were not essential to them: things that are important are not lost.
Do I have anything else like that? Ah, the gauze scarf—that was different. She gave it to me in case I injured my arm, in which case it would make an amorous sling. The problem was if I were to crack open my nut. But then there would be a simple solution: it could be wound around my head to tie up my jaw and I would take it with me to the tomb. Loyal even unto death. But if I was left lying on the mountainside, or if somebody else picked me up, there would be no gauze scarf. I would decompose on the grass or they might exhibit me; maybe I would even appear in Life magazine, my desperate death gaze fixed at a moment of extreme fear. Because everyone is afraid. Why deny it?
Through the smoke, I followed old trails and reached into the most intimate corner of my fears. These were always linked to death, that disturbing and inexplicable nothingness. Inexplicable, however much we Marxist-Leninists like to describe death, with conviction, as just nothingness. What is this nothingness? Nothing. The simplest and most convincing explanation possible. Nothing is nothing. Shut down your brain, dress it in black robes, with a sky of distant stars if you please; that is what nothingness is—nothing. The equivalent of infinity.
One survives in the species, in history, that mystified form of life, in actions, in memories. Have you never felt a shiver run down your spine when reading of Maceo’s machete charges?2 That is life after nothingness. And our children? I would not want to live through my children. They don’t even know me. I am just a foreign body that occasionally disturbs their peaceful existence, getting between them and their mother.
I imagine my oldest child, and she, now with gray showing in her hair, is saying, “Your father wouldn’t have done this, or that...” Inside myself, the child of my father, I feel a tremendous sense of rebellion. As a son, I would not know whether or not it was true that, as a father, I would not have done such-and-such a thing, or had done something badly. But I, as my son, would feel vexed and betrayed by this memory of I, the father, being rubbed in my face all the time. My son had to become a man, nothing more, not better or worse, just a man. I was grateful to my father for his sweet and un-selfrighteous displays of affection. And my mother? Poor old dear. Officially, I did not yet have the right to mourn her and still had to wait for confirmation.
I was wandering like this along the trails of smoke when a soldier interrupted me, pleased to be useful.
“You haven’t lost anything?”
“Nothing,” I said, associating this particular nothing with the other of my reverie.
“Check.”
I felt my pockets. Everything was in order. “Nothing.”
“And this little stone? I saw it on your key ring.”
“I’ll be damned!”
I was hit by savage self-reproach. One loses nothing essential, nothing vital. Is one alive if things are no longer necessary? As a vegetable, yes, but as a moral being, no—at least I don’t believe so.
I felt the chill of memory. I found myself, rigorous, meticulous, feeling my pockets while the water flowed past, opaque with the mountain soil, hiding its secret from me. The pipe—first of all, the pipe—it was there. The papers or the scarf would have floated. The vaporizer present; pens here; notebooks in their nylon covers, yes; the matchbox, also present. All in order. The chill melted.
I had brought only two small keepsakes with me into battle, the gauze scarf my wife had given me an
d the key ring with the little stone in it from my mother, an inexpensive, ordinary thing. The stone had come loose and I kept it in my pocket.
Did that stream flow with mercy or vengeance, or was it simply dispassionate, like the leader? Does one not cry because one must not, or because one cannot? Is there no right to forget, even in war? Is it necessary to disguise a lack of feeling as machismo?
I don’t know. I really don’t know. I know only that I feel a physical need for my mother to be here so that I can rest my head in her bony lap. I need to hear her call me her “dear old fella” with such tenderness, to feel her clumsy hand in my hair, caressing me in strokes, like a rag doll, the tenderness streaming from her eyes and voice, the broken channels no longer bearing it to the extremities. Her hands tremble and touch rather than caress, but the tenderness still flows from them. I feel so good, so small, so strong. There is no need to ask her for forgiveness. She understands everything. This is evident in her words “my dear old fella...”
“Do you find it pretty strong? It affects me, too. Yesterday I nearly fell over when I tried to stand up. They probably didn’t dry it properly.”
“Yeah, this tobacco is shit. I’m waiting on the order to see if they bring some cut tobacco that’s half-way decent. One has a right to smoke, even just a quiet and pleasant-tasting pipe, don’t you think.?”
1. See Ernesto Che Guevara: Congo Diary. Episodes of the Revolutionary War in the Congo (Ocean Press, 2011) for his fascinating account of Cuba’s assistance to the liberation movement in the Congo.
2. Antonio Maceo was a Cuban independence fighter against the Spanish.
ALSO FROM OCEAN PRESS
CHE GUEVARA READER
Writings on Politics and Revolution
Ernesto Che Guevara
This bestselling anthology features the most complete selection of Che Guevara’s writings, letters, and speeches available in English. Far more than a guerrilla strategist, Che Guevara made a profound and lasting contribution to revolutionary theory and Marxist humanism, as demonstrated in this comprehensive book.
The Che Guevara Reader includes essays on the Cuban revolutionary war and guerrilla warfare, Che’s analysis of the first years of the Cuban revolution (in which he played a major role) and his vision for Latin America and the Third World.
“Che was the most complete human being of our age.”
—Jean-Paul Sartre
ISBN 978-1-876175-69-6 (paper)
CHE: A MEMOIR
Fidel Castro
In this unique political memoir, Fidel Castro writes with great candor and emotion about a historic revolutionary partnership that changed the face of Cuba and Latin America. Fidel creates a vivid portrait of Che Guevara—the man, the revolutionary, and the intellectual—revealing much about his own inimitable determination and character.
This fascinating memoir includes Fidel’s speech on the return of Che’s remains to Cuba 30 years after his assassination in Bolivia in 1967, and provides a frank assessment of the Bolivian mission.
“For me, it has always been hard to accept the idea that Che is dead. I dream of him often, that I have spoken to him, that he is alive.”—Fidel Castro
ISBN 978-1-920888-25-1 (paper)
REMINISCENCES OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
Ernesto Che Guevara
The dramatic art and acute perception of Che Guevara’s early diaries blossom in this highly readable and entertaining account of the guerrilla movement against the Batista dictatorship that led to the 1959 Cuban revolution.
This new, thoroughly revised edition reveals how this revolutionary war transformed not just a nation struggling against appalling poverty and oppression but Che himself, who begins as troop doctor and ends as a guerrilla commander, who will become a world-famous revolutionary.
“Reflects the life of an extraordinary and important man.”
—Library Journal
ISBN 978-1-920888-33-6 (paper)
THE BOLIVIAN DIARY
Ernesto Che Guevara
This is Che Guevara’s famous last diary, found in his backpack when he was captured by the Bolivian army in October 1967. It became an instant international bestseller after his death, catapulting Che to iconic status throughout the world.
Newly revised by Che’s widow (Aleida March), and including a thoughtful preface by his eldest son Camilo, this is the definitive account of the attempt to spark a continent-wide revolution in Latin America.
“Thanks to Che’s invariable habit of noting the main events of each day, we have rigorously exact, priceless, and detailed information on the heroic final months of his life in Bolivia.”
—Fidel Castro
ISBN 978-1-920888-24-4 (paper)
CONGO DIARY
Episodes of the Revolutionary War in the Congo
Ernesto Che Guevara
Che Guevara’s intriguing account of the revolutionary war in the Congo, filling in the missing chapter in his life. Prior to his fateful mission to Bolivia, in 1965 Che led a secret Cuban force that went to aid the African national liberation movement against the Belgian colonialists.
Now thoroughly revised by Che’s widow Aleida March, this diary remained unpublished for decades because of its controversial content, but, like his other diaries, reveals Che’s great literary gift, his razor-sharp intellect, his dry wit and brutal honesty.
Features a foreword by Gabriel García Márquez.
“Che Guevara’s feats in our continent were of such magnitude that no prison or censorship could hide them from us. His life is an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom.”
—Nelson Mandela
ISBN 978-0-9804292-9-9 (paper)
SELF-PORTRAIT
A Photographic and Literary Memoir
Ernesto Che Guevara
A remarkable photographic and literary memoir offering an intimate look at the man behind the icon that draws on the rich seam of diaries, letters, poems, journalism, and short stories Che Guevara left behind in Cuba.
Compiled using exclusive material from his family’s private archives, this is unique among the many books about Che Guevara revealing, for the first time, Che’s personal world—his extraordinary candor, his irony, dry wit and great passion.
This beautiful, enlightening volume humanizes Che.” —Rain Taxi
ISBN 978-1-876175-82-5 (paper)
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
Notes on a Latin American Journey
Ernesto Che Guevara
The book of the movie of the same name by Walter Salles starring Gael García Bernal.
The young Che Guevara’s lively and highly entertaining travel diary features exclusive, unpublished photos taken by the 23-year-old Ernesto on his journey across a continent, and a tender preface by Aleida Guevara, offering an insightful perspective on her father—the man and the icon.
ISBN 978-1-876175-70-2 (paper) • ISBN 978-0-9870779-5-0 (e-book)
LATIN AMERICA DIARIES
The Sequel to “The Motorcycle Diaries”
Ernesto Che Guevara
This is Ernesto Guevara’s journal of his second trip through Latin America, revealing the emergence of a revolutionary now called “Che.”
This book includes letters, poetry, and journalism that document his return to exploring the continent of Latin America following his graduation from medical school in 1953.
After leaving his native Argentina, Ernesto revisits Machu-Picchu in Peru, witnesses the aftermath of the 1952 Bolivian revolution and is profoundly affected by his experience in Guatemala during the 1954 US-inspired coup. He flees to Mexico where he encounters a group of exiled Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro, marking the beginning of a political partnership that profoundly changes the world and Che himself.
Included in this book is a foreword by Alberto Granado, Che’s traveling companion in The Motorcycle Diaries.
ISBN 978-0-98042927-5 (paper) • ISBN 978-0-9870779-7-4 (e-book)
DIARY OF A COMBATANT
&n
bsp; From the Sierra Maestra to Santa Clara Cuba: 1956–58
Ernesto Che Guevara
Che Guevara’s original, unpublished diaries from the guerrilla war in Cuba’s Sierra Maestra.
The never-before published diary Che Guevara kept during the guerrilla war in Cuba when he joined the struggle to overthrow the Batista dictatorship that led to the 1959 revolution. Che’s widow Aleida March has now meticulously transcribed for the first time the small notebooks in which Che recorded his comments on events and individuals, often with devastatingly brutal frankness.
Unpublished for over 50 years, these original dozen notebooks were the source for the articles that comprise Che’s famous Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War, on which Steven Soderbergh based the first part of his epic movie “Che,” starring Benicio Del Toro.
This book includes a large number of unpublished photos and a fascinating introduction by Che’s close political collaborator, the veteran Cuban revolutionary Armando Hart.
ISBN 978-0-9870779-4-3 (paper) • ISBN 978-0-9870779-8-1 (e-book)
Ocean Press
www.oceanbooks.com.au