‘Argentinean,’ Che corrected him. ‘I recently renounced my Cuban citizenship. But help you? How?’
Bob explained his idea. During the endless hours he’d spent in his own company, he’d daydreamed elements of a plan, but the final part had only slipped into place after he’d caught sight of the mercenary and Cuban that morning. His intention had always been to somehow disappear and return to the United States with a new identity, but there had been logistical holes the size of planets in his scheme. By placing the Cuban in his debt, he was hoping to fill at least one of these holes and hitch a ride to Cuba; Cuba, at least, was a lot nearer to home than the Congo.
‘And how were you going to disappear? Simply evaporate?’ Che asked.
‘I was hoping they’d think I was dead,’ Bob replied.
‘That’s no good. Your superiors will want proof. Do you have dog-tags?’
‘Not dog-tags as such, but this chain around my neck would identify me to a commanding officer if I got killed.’
‘Okay, follow me,’ Che said after a few moments thought, and led him to the Cubans’ encampment.
‘Go get Raoul’s body!’ he ordered two of the soldiers with hair as long as his. ‘Put it on a stretcher, get some gasoline and then follow me.’
The four of them walked back to the tree where Bob had positioned himself that morning, unwrapped Raoul’s body and placed it on the ground. Bob saw then that Raoul was Afro-Cuban and pretty much the same height and build as himself. Without being asked, but knowing what he was supposed to do, he took the chain from his own neck and placed it around Raoul’s. Che nodded his approval. The mercenary’s body was brought to the same spot, and gasoline poured over both.
‘It’s your death,’ Che said to Bob. ‘You do the honours.’
Bob struck the match Che passed him, and tossed it on to the bodies. There was a whoosh as the gasoline caught fire and Bob’s identity disappeared in flames.
‘Now that’s how you fake your own death,’ Che said, a look of satisfaction on his face.
A sudden thought crossed Bob’s mind. ‘What were Raoul’s teeth like?’
Che looked at him. ‘I was his commander, not his dentist. How the fuck should I know?’
‘It’s just that the US army takes teeth seriously.’
‘Why? Do you need a perfect smile to join your army these days?’ Che sneered. ‘I thought you Americans only needed good teeth to run for political office or enter beauty pageants. We have no time for such fripperies in Cuba. We don’t have beauty pageants and we don’t have elections.
‘So tell me Senor Crenshaw, why does the mighty US army take such an interest in the teeth of its soldiers?’
‘It keeps dental records for purposes of identification,’ Bob said. ‘If they recover a body that’s been dead for a long time, or mutilated and unrecognisable, they look at the teeth.’
They waited for the flames of fire to lick their last bone, and then poked around the skeletons of Raoul and the mercenary. It became immediately apparent that Raoul’s teeth would never pass for Bob’s: the central four teeth of Raoul’s upper jaw were completely missing.
‘Now what?’ Bob asked.
Che handed him a machete, kept in a leather scabbard attached to his belt. ‘Cut off both heads at the neck and bring their skulls.’
Bob took the machete and did as instructed. He returned the heavy knife to Che and then threaded a piece of thin rope through the eye sockets of each skull. He tied the two ends of the rope together to form a handle, and followed Che and the two Cubans as they headed back in the direction of their encampment. After about a mile Che halted, and ordered one of the Cubans to dig a hole four feet deep.
‘Why so deep?’ Bob asked.
‘To make sure no animal gets a scent of them,’ Che replied. ‘I think you’ll agree that it’s best these bones never see the light of day again?’
Bob agreed and, after a while, relieved the Cuban using the spade and finished digging the hole himself. He placed the skulls at its bottom, packed the soil firmly around and above them, and then placed fallen branches and loose vegetation over the disturbed area.
‘Congratulations,’ Che said to him. ‘You are now dead. All we have to do is get you to Cuba.’
For the rest of the day and deep into the night, Bob and Che talked; it was natural that two people now beholden to each other would want to learn more about each other’s lives. Che talked about growing up in Argentina, meeting Fidel in Mexico and travelling to Cuba; he talked of the time he’d lived in the Sierra Maestra Mountains fighting Batista and, with less enthusiasm, about his time in government. He told Bob about the disagreements he had with Fidel, how the man was a fool to trust the Soviets after the way they’d betrayed Cuba during the Missile Crisis, and of his decision to leave Cuba and offer his services to the revolutionaries of the Congo; revolutionaries, he lamented, who’d turned out to be little more than a jumble of in-fighting splinter groups with no discernible revolutionary programme. Disheartened by their incompetence and debilitated by asthma and dysentery, he’d already decided to leave the Congo to its own devices.
In turn Bob told him of his life and Che listened intently.
‘For young men we’ve both led interesting lives,’ Che said. ‘More interesting things will happen to us and, when they do, we should think of each other and remember the time we spent together in this hell-hole.’ He then gave Bob his beret with the single red commander’s star sewn on to it. ‘A present,’ he said. In return, Bob gave him the Springfield, and told him its name was Old Mo.
Che explained to Bob that he wouldn’t be travelling to Havana with him, but would write a letter of introduction for him to give to Fidel; Fidel would see to it that he got to the United States safely. When Bob asked him why he wouldn’t be returning to Cuba, Che turned downcast.
‘I’ve never failed at anything in my life, Bob. Okay, I never got a permanent position as a doctor and, come to think of it, I’ve never done too well as a husband or a father for that matter, but apart from these things, nothing. Failing as a revolutionary is a hundred times worse than failing on the personal level. It would be humiliating for me to go back to Cuba after making such a furore about leaving the country and devoting my life to world revolution. I’d be looked upon as a dog with its tail between its legs. They would never understand how impossible it’s been here, how futile.’
‘I think they’d understand,’ Bob said. ‘Surely the others would vouch for you?’
‘That isn’t the point.’ Che said. ‘I don’t want anyone vouching for me! Maybe in a few months, I’ll return. Maybe.’
When the two of them said their goodbyes, they shook hands and embraced.
Cuba
‘I can’t read this scrawl!’ Fidel shouted, after Bob gave him Che’s letter. ‘It may as well be a fucking prescription. We’ll have to wait till he gets back and verifies your story.’ He walked to within two feet of Bob and looked him in the eyes. ‘You know who I am, don’t you? But I don’t have a fucking clue who you are, gringo. You see my point?’
Fidel left Bob alone in the room and shouted instructions to an official sitting at the desk immediately outside its door. The official immediately made a phone call and, half-an-hour later, took Bob by the arm and escorted him downstairs to a waiting jeep.
‘Where are we going?’ Bob asked.
‘Out of the way,’ the official replied, and climbed into the backseat.
Out of the way proved to be a remote farm in the mountains of Pinar del Rio called San Andres de Caiguanabo. An old man and woman lived there as caretakers, and showed Bob to a small cabin close to the main house. The official told him the old couple would look after him, feed him and take care of his laundry; in return, he would be expected to perform farm chores. ‘Everybody works in Cuba!’ the official informed him.
While Che stayed in Dar-es-Salaam and then Prague, Bob helped with the tobacco crop, fixed fences, chopped firewood and painted the house and outer buildings
. He ate well, smoked good cigars and enjoyed the company of Bebo and Hilda, the old caretakers. He also found he enjoyed the manual nature of his work. What he didn’t particularly enjoy, however, were the visits of Fidel, the man’s endless and meandering harangues and the questions he’d ask and then always answer himself.
‘How tall are you?’ he asked Bob on one of these visits.
‘About six two.’
‘I don’t think so, gringo. I’m six foot two and I think I have the edge on you. I could have been a professional basketball player. Did you know that? What about you, did you ever play?’
Bob thought that if Fidel took off his boots, they’d be exactly the same height, but said nothing. ‘I shot a few hoops,’ he said, ‘but baseball was my game. I used to pitch for the school.’
‘For the school? Ha! I was one of the country’s top pitchers,’ Fidel retorted. ‘I doubt you’d have been my standard. I could have made a living playing either baseball or basketball, but I didn’t, I chose not to. I set aside my own ambitions, sacrificed them and myself for the good of the country, for the people of Cuba. Have you ever done anything like that? I didn’t think so! You Yankees like making money too much. But do you give it to poor countries like Cuba?
‘I once wrote your President Roosevelt asking him for a ten dollar bill. You think he sent it? Fuck no! All those millions and he couldn’t spare ten dollars for a small Cuban schoolboy. Even Batista wasn’t such a tightwad. He came to my first marriage, did you know that? Gave me and Mirta $1,000 for our honeymoon. Probably knew I was going to topple him one day and thought he could buy me off. The bastard got it wrong, though. No one buys Fidel off: not the Americans, not the Soviets and not the Chinese. If ever a man was his own man, then that man has to be me: Fidel Fucking Castro.’
‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything from Che, have you? Is he coming home any time soon?’
‘You know something that’s funny, gringo? People think they’re all chummy with Guevara when they get to call him Che. He ever tell you his nickname, the name his real friends call him? No, I didn’t think so. Telling you would have been too much of an irony. It’s Sniper! Sniper Guevara. Ha!’
‘Did he used to be a sniper?’ Bob asked.
‘Not in your sense of the word. The name comes more from his lack of social graces, the way he talks to people, assassinates them mid-sentence if he doesn’t think their argument’s worth a shit.’
‘So, is he coming back any time soon?’ Bob asked again.
‘A month, two at the most. He’s in Europe now, but thinking Latin America. He thinks countries there are ripe for revolution just like the Congo was. Gets it fucking wrong every time. He ought to listen to me more.
‘Was he still wearing his hair long in the Congo? He was? I thought as much. I can’t get it into his head that he’s not a rock star or one of those fucking hippies. I don’t mind the beard, we all wear those, but his hair’s a mess. Makes him look too much like a pretty boy.
‘He’ll be staying here when he gets back and you’ll see him then. He’ll like the place. You’ve done a good job fixing it up. The fences look particularly good.’
Bob had barely finished thanking him for his comments when Fidel launched into what he obviously considered a related topic.
‘You know the two things a man needs most of in life? No? Then I’ll tell you. Rubble and wood! A man can never have too much. Rubble and wood always come in handy. And it’s the same for a country. No country can have too much rubble or wood. They’re the basis of a nation’s economy.’
Bob never did figure out how a man who talked as much as Fidel ever found the time to accomplish anything, let alone run a country. The man talked for hours on end, and on all subjects. He had opinions on anything and everything. After taking three hours to answer a simple query about Cuban cigars, Bob learned never to ask Fidel further questions. It was strange how he ended up liking the man.
Bob was leaning against a fencepost and smoking his first cigar of the day when he noticed the plume of dust rising from the mountain road leading to the farm. Dust always signalled the arrival of a visitor, usually Fidel, and Bob braced himself. It was late afternoon and the month was June.
The vehicles came into view and Bob saw that it was a small convoy: two jeeps to the front, an old American sedan in the middle and two jeeps to the rear. His interest was aroused and he walked to the house where Bebo and Hilda were standing.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Commandante Guevara has returned to us, Senor. He is to be our guest,’ Hilda said excitedly.
‘Well I’ll be damned,’ Bob said. ‘I’d almost given up on the guy.’
The vehicles drew to a halt, handbrakes were applied and engines extinguished. Sixteen soldiers dismounted from the two jeeps, and the driver of the sedan climbed out shaking his head. Fidel and Che remained in the backseat of the car, arguing and gesticulating furiously.
‘Same old same old?’ Bebo asked the driver, a broad smile on his face.
‘You got it,’ the driver replied exhaustedly. ‘We’d barely left Havana before they got into it: People or Individuals, Soviets or Maoists, Agrarianism or Industrialisation. And then Fidel went and called him Wispy Beard and all hell let loose. You know how sensitive he is about his beard.’
The door of the sedan was suddenly flung wide open and the two revolutionaries came tumbling out, grappling with each other and trading insults. No one intervened and no one – apart from Bob – even showed the least bit surprise. Hilda shrugged her shoulders and announced there was food waiting for them inside the house, and that they should eat it before it got cold. Everyone headed inside and sat down at the long table, leaving Fidel and Che rolling around in the dust, one moment the advantage with Fidel, the next with Che.
Ten minutes passed before the two men joined them at the table. They entered the room laughing, arms around each other’s shoulders. Hilda put two plates of food in front of them and told them not to blame her if it was cold. She spoke to them as she would errant sons.
The meal ended and Fidel and most of the other soldiers lit cigars. Che took a pipe from one of his pockets, filled the bowl with tobacco and leaned back in his chair, disappearing behind a cloud of smoke.
‘So, gringo,’ Fidel said to Bob. ‘Did you finish making the bunks?’
Bob said he had.
‘So where are they?’
‘Surprisingly enough, I put them in the bunkhouse,’ Bob replied.
Fidel gave him a hard stare. Over the months, and when it had been just the two of them together, Bob had been allowed to speak to Fidel with familiarity. He interpreted the look as an indication that he should be more reverential when others were in the room.
‘Show me them!’ Fidel commanded.
Fidel followed Bob to the bunkhouse. He stopped at the door and surveyed Bob’s handiwork from a distance: ten sets of two bunks, five against each side of the room perpendicular to the walls. He then walked the length of the room and inspected each bunk in detail.
‘They’re adequate, gringo, but I could have done better. At school, they said I showed the talent of a master carpenter. I could have been a fucking cabinet maker, you know that? Another Chippendale or a Hepplewhite. No one had seen such craftsmanship for two hundred years. They called me a woodworking prodigy!’
Che, who had followed them to the bunkhouse, interrupted Fidel. ‘Then why did the bookcase you made wobble? You told me yourself it rocked from side to side. You laughed about it, remember?’
‘It was sabotaged! I distinctly remember telling you that someone sabotaged it – and, for God’s sake, stop creeping around like that, Guevara. You’re not in the jungle now!
‘I laughed only at the pitifulness of the person who did it, the shallowness of the life he led, his mean and jealous spirit.’ He turned to Bob. ‘This person planed half an inch off one side of the bookcase’s base. He sneaked into the woodworking studio at night like a thief, to steal from me, to undermin
e me. I promised Che that if this hedge-creeper was ever found, I’d allow him to execute the bastard. You like executing people, don’t you, Guevara? Eh?’ Che didn’t react, and Fidel continued.
‘If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I now have to return to Havana. Unfortunately, the country won’t run itself. I’ll see you in two days.’ He embraced Che and made to leave the room. As he drew level with the door he turned to Bob. ‘Start packing your bags, gringo. Next time I leave here, so do you.’
After Fidel had left the room, Che burst out laughing. ‘There’ll be no execution,’ he said to Bob. ‘The truth is he got his measurements wrong: that’s why the bookcase rocked from side to side. It’s as simple as that. The man’s got two left hands. Hell, if you gave him two pieces of wood and a nail, he’d be hard pressed to make a cross…
‘Good bunks, by the way,’ he added.
In the two days before Fidel returned, Bob saw Che only in the evenings. The Commandante and the sixteen soldiers would rise from their bunks before daybreak and spend the day trekking through the surrounding countryside, and returning only shortly before dinner. Che told him they were training for a new expedition which this time, he said, would be in Latin America. He also told Bob that his departure from Cuba was now in hand, and would happen after he returned with Fidel to Havana.
Fidel returned to the farm and stayed for two days. During this time training was suspended and conversation became the order of the day, sometimes meaningful and sometimes seemingly meaningless. Fidel talked about Bolivia, its history and geography; he talked about recent worker uprisings there and the country’s unique positioning at the centre of the continent. Fidel, however, also spent time talking to Che about the way he brushed his teeth, the way he tied his boots and the way he poured beer from bottle to glass.
‘Guevara, what are you doing?’ he asked Che one morning, as the revolutionary rinsed toothpaste from his mouth. ‘Use a fucking glass. Scooping water into your mouth with a brush takes too much time, valuable time. How would you feel if you failed in your mission because you’d spent too much time brushing your fucking teeth instead of fighting imperialists?’
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