The Death of Che Guevara (65 page)

Still, there was something impressive about Regis. Each night, nervous as he was, exhausted as we all were, he would sit and go over a manuscript on the Latin American Revolution he was carrying in his knapsack, revising, getting it right.

We learned from the captives that Gutierrez is occupied by the army. We cannot risk leaving our contacts there. We will move south towards Muyupampa, and look for a spot there.

4/13/67: We continued southwest towards Muyupampa, to put some distance between ourselves and the army. It is imperative that we find a safe place for the visitors, our contacts with the world beyond this canyon. It is particularly troubling that Tania disobeyed orders—an inexplicable lapse of judgment on her part—and came back to the camp. We must regain our links with the city network—and what might be suitable for Debray will not do for her.

4/17/67: We spent the day in camp, resting. The canned food has run out.

Tania put her arms towards the fire, catching her sleeve in the flame. She did it very slowly, so everyone could see, but no one did anything about it. She just stared at her burning arm, with a dazed expression. Moro grabbed her and with his good arm pushed her to the ground, rubbing her sleeve into the dirt till the fire went out. The doctor looked at the arm; she wasn’t badly burned. No one said anything.

She began to scratch herself with her nails, running them across her cheeks with a nervous mechanical motion. She was mumbling something to herself. Her nails began to dig into her skin hard, the blood rising under them, turning up furrows of some rich red earth. This time she was screaming, but not from pain, I think: wailing and crying.

I went to talk with her, to shut her up. There would be food to eat soon, I said. Her fever would get better. She wouldn’t have to march long distances anymore. I was going to leave her with Joaquin and many men. She knew Joaquin was a good man, our comrade from many struggles. They would stay
near here, safe from the army. We’d drop off Debray and Bustos and then rejoin Joaquin. She’d feel better soon. Joaquin would find a safe way for her to leave while we distracted the army. The doctor would take care of her now. She’d be feeling better soon, her fever would break. She would be on her way back to the city.

She became calmer, she apologized. It was not
her
talking, she said, but her fever.

It was her own fault, I thought, but did not say. She should never have come to the camp again. Debray could have found his own way there, as he was supposed to. She had disobeyed orders and common sense. Once the army found the camp, we had to get them out, wander about until we did, or be cut off from our support.

Why had she come?

I gave Joaquin his orders: Stay in the zone. Make a show of strength to keep down the army’s mobility. Wait three days while we go towards Iripita to drop off Debray and Bustos. “After that, if we haven’t returned, remain in the zone, avoid any head-on fighting, and wait for our return. It will give the sick a chance to rest.” We were standing in the sun, a distance from the camp, in a field of tall grass. It made my head ache. Sweat glistened all over Joaquin’s forehead. He looked past me as I spoke, his eyes glazed, his mouth open. The sun, I thought. It makes him look vacant, distant. He didn’t even nod in agreement.

We parted. I led the center group out of there. I couldn’t wait to put some distance between us and Tania and the other sick ones.

And now to get Debray out, away, gone.

4/19/67: We will continue to move south, to divert the army from Joaquin’s group. And there will be a safe town for Debray in that region, perhaps Lagunillas or Muyupampa.

4/26/67: A coded message from Havana. We tape-recorded it and played it over and over to decode it. Dark news: Brizola’s group in Brazil is finished. They were decimated by bubonic plague, and the few remaining ones picked up by the army.

Monje has met again with Fidel and announced to him his full support of the guerrillas. He has requested more money for operations in the city. Should it be given to him?

One almost has to admire Monje’s audacity. Ponco was right, I should have killed him when I had the chance.

Or is he responding to news of our victory at Nancahuazu? We are still the darlings of the airwaves. It is possible that the Party is coming around to our point of view. I must get a message to Fidel of our needs and how to contact us. He must oversee the Party’s good faith.

4/27/67: The Chilean radio station reports that U.S. military advisers have arrived in Bolivia.

Another Vietnam

4/29/67: Guerrilla strength is estimated by the radio to be three hundred men.

That means there are 257 phantoms. There are thirty-three human guerrillas with us, and ten with Joaquin. So far there has been no contact between us. The liaisons to Argentina, Peru, and the rest of the guerrilla groups already in operation or that Che hopes to form are here with us, trapped. Tania, our contact with the city, is trapped with Joaquin’s group. Debray, our liaison to Cuba, is with us. The radio equipment is broken, and there’s no way to broadcast to Cuba.

We can only listen.

Listen to the Meeting of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana. Fidel read Che’s message from “somewhere in the Americas.”

“The solidarity of all the progressive forces of the world towards Vietnam is similar to the bitter irony of the plebeians coaxing the gladiators into the Roman arena. It is not a matter of wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate: one must accompany him to death or victory. Vietnam must not be abandoned
.

“We must ask ourselves, How shall rebellion nourish? We have said for quite some time now, The struggle in our America must achieve continental proportions
.

“The beginning will not be easy. All the oligarchies’ power of repression, all their capacity for brutality will be placed at the service of their cause. Our mission, in the fìrst hour, shall be to survive. Later we shall carry out armed propaganda, in the Vietnamese sense: that is, the bullets of propaganda of the battles won or lost—but fought!—against the enemy
.

“The great lesson of the invincibility of the guerrillas will take root in the dispossessed masses. The galvanizing of the national spirit. Hatred as an element
of the struggle, a relentless hatred of the enemy impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective violent selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy
.

“How close we could look into a bright future should two three many Vietnams flourish throughout the world with their share of deaths, and their immense tragedies, their everyday heroism, and their repeated blows against an imperialism impelled to disperse its forces under the sudden attack and increasing hatred of all the people of the world
.

“Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, a battle hymn for the people’s unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear, and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and other men ready to intone the funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns, and new cries of war and victory.”

(
Prolonged applause.
)

A nice piece of work. Vietnam must not be
abandoned!
His favorite word. Forlorn word! We played the radios very quietly at night, deep in the forest. The glow from the dials was the only light. (Now is the hour of the radios.…) We had to lie on the ground with our heads near the speakers to hear.

Afterward no one said anything.

4/30/67: Last night I had a dream. We were on a high mountain together, Che and I. The air was very thin at the top of the mountain. I felt woozy in my dream. There was a little crust of blood inside my nose (I touched it with my finger as he was talking and brought it out to look at). We were above the timberline. The earth was red and dry. There was snow on nearby peaks. It was very quiet, the only sound the whoosh whoosh whoosh of the wind moving around us. Che was pointing out the countryside to me, saying that from this mountain we could see four of the countries of the continent at war. “There’s Patagonia,” he said, “and that’s Babylonia, and that’s Folderol, and that’s Pompadoodle.” (They were all funny names. I can’t remember them exactly.) “See, Camba,” he said, “they’re all turning red.” And it was true; the ground down there was oozing blood. When he finished pointing out the different countries, he said, “See, there’s a hill that looks like a dinosaur, don’t you think?” And he pointed to a hill that had an egg-shaped bulge in front of it. That was the dinosaur’s head. And on its trunk there were long thick bulges,
columns of red and green. Those were its legs. I could see it. Suddenly we were standing in front of the hill. It was a giant green-and-red lizard with a man’s face. The face was craggy, like a mountain, because it was a mountain, and bearded with a very wispy black beard. It wore a funny green cap. It said to Che, “You think you can eat me, young man? You want to try my tough salty meat?” It had a woman’s voice—very deep, but a woman’s voice. It laughed, a little high-pitched trill, like the nervous major who we captured. Then it swept its tail across us. The tail had sharp scales on it, sharp as razors. And they were so sharp, and moved so quickly, that if he cut you, you wouldn’t feel anything. (I don’t know how I knew this, but I knew it in my dream.) I looked at Che, and his face was covered with blood. I started to scream, and put my hands to my face, because I wanted to know if it was covered with blood too. But Che took my hands away from my face. He said, “Be quiet, Camba,” and put his arms around me. “Don’t worry, Camba,” he said. I was crying, and he rocked me in his arms. It was nice being held and rocked. That’s when I woke up.

I never got to feel my face and find out if there was blood on it.

Isle of Pines, May 1968

But why did Che separate himself from Joaquin?
From that time on we nosed about the countryside, looking for him, like an old dog with a cold. The army blocked our way to Joaquin—without even knowing what they were doing—and we wandered off in another direction, telling ourselves that we would join up later on, that Joaquin’s group must go this way, too, until the reports of their losses began to come on the radio, and we couldn’t tell ourselves that anymore.

At first the army was amazed—how could we strike at them from so many different places? They couldn’t
imagine
that we had separated into two groups. But the division made us weak, and it trapped Tania, our contact with the city. Watching Joaquin and Che talk together in the field of tall grass, I had thought that this was a minor tactical decision, leaving the sick with Joaquin, giving them a chance to rest so we could make a rapid foray towards Iripita and drop off Debray. But look at what he
wrote:
“I couldn’t wait to put some distance between us and the other sick ones.

“And now to get Debray out, away, gone.”

He
was a sick one himself—weak-chested, he could hardly breathe most
of the time! That’s why he separated us from Joaquin, that’s why he couldn’t stand
the other
sick ones. He wanted to put some
distance
between himself and them! He wasn’t like them! He wasn’t weak! He was a doctor who hated sick people! (And, now that I think of it, that has been true of almost every doctor I’ve ever known.)

Drawing the lines; he was always drawing the lines with that sharp mind of his. The line between him and weakness, between him and dirty compromises. To make himself pure he had to put more and more things on the other side of the line, weak things, hypocritical things,
things that weren’t like him
. And Debray? Why the rush to get rid of him? Did Che have to say that Regis was not like him? After all Che’s years of battle and sacrifice? Impossible!