Che Wants to See You Page 7
Rita finally gave Melchor permission to leave for Santiago on condition he returned for a few days each month to do the workshop’s books. We celebrated New Year with our new friends, poor but with the warmest of hearts. For the first few months of the New Year the tension between Fontana and me was mitigated because the workshop was running well. All the same, his deadline was approaching. Then Fidel appeared on TV and made a furious attack on Aníbal Escalante, the most hard-line Stalinist in the old Communist Party, a member of the ORI’s national leadership and the visible face of the sectarianism sweeping through the political and administrative bodies. I felt a great relief at this dismantling, albeit temporarily, of Stalinism.
When the workshop was running smoothly, Melchor introduced a discordant note. The rector of his art school in Santiago wanted me to come and teach art, or art appreciation to be more precise. The students needed to learn about art, its history, its significance and transcendence. I appreciated the offer, but I declined. I barely had time to sleep. I couldn’t even leave the workshop to teach in Holguín, let alone on the other side of the Sierra Maestra. Melchor came back with another proposal. If classes were on Saturday and Sunday, I could travel on Friday night, teach on Saturday and Sunday morning, and return late on Sunday night. I don’t know what possessed me to try it. Perhaps the example set by Melchor’s determination. After all, I had not come to Cuba to be a potter.
The road to Santiago wound through hills and cane fields. The last fifty kilometres were breathtaking. The Sierra Maestra was like a botanical garden, totally green, with palm trees leaning at a variety of angles, elegant dancers in a choreography created by the cyclones that pound the mountains and flatten the forest. The River Cauto crossed the road a couple of times. The city of Santiago appeared below the road and extended out round the bay, following the contours of the mountains. Looking for my hotel, I felt as if I were in New Orleans, seeing the same type of buildings, broad-walks with railings, and wrought-iron balconies, and because most of the lively crowd were black and it was hard to tell if they were walking or dancing. The next morning Melchor took me to the university campus.
The Faculty of Medicine had lent the Theatre School some of its classrooms. The students were different from my political audience in Holguín: they were more interested and dynamic, and focused on the context and tasks of the Revolution seen through the prism of art. But like the workshop, it was my responsibility to mould this pure young clay, not knowing either if I was up to the job or what the results would be. Again I felt as if everything I said was received like desert rain, and it was my duty to make it drinkable, not ideologically or aesthetically contaminated. By general consent, the classes were organized around slides and art books, arranged in periods, schools, countries and cultures. We would have our work cut out. There was also a bit of colour theory, drawing, perspective, volume and some practical exercises.
On my second week in Santiago, I heard there was an Argentine looking for me. He was waiting by my truck in the car park when I came out of class. He was a short, jovial-looking man, slightly provincial, and good natured. He could easily have been the gardener, but he turned out to be a doctor, a professor of pathology in the Faculty of Medicine. This was Dr Alberto Granado, friend of Che and companion on his motorcycle journey round South America. After the Revolution, Che had invited him to work on the island. Alberto invited me to his house to meet his wife and children since, he said, Saturdays and Argentines were synonymous with barbecues. Preparing the barbecue broke the ice and by the time we started to talk seriously we were already friends. I glimpsed that my coming to Cuba was starting to make sense.
I stayed until late and when I came to leave, Alberto said that his house would now be my home in Santiago. We would be saving the Revolution money to boot. They made room for me in his study, a narrow room filled with books and toys. In the months that followed, until July 1962, we talked endlessly about recurring themes: Cuba, the Revolution, Latin America, Argentina, Che … Che, Argentina, Latin America, the Revolution, Cuba.
On Saturdays, when I came out of class, I would go to Petiso Granado’s hideaway, the pathology lab. I would cross a huge hall with rows of stainless steel tables, some with corpses or bits of corpses, then climb some stairs to a mezzanine where I would find Alberto Granado, calmly eating a cheese sandwich as if he were at a picnic in a flowery meadow smelling of lavender, instead of formaldehyde and disinfectant. Then we would go home to resume our discussions; an obsessive mutual, collective, national and international examination of conscience. We discarded all the Argentine political history that had shaped us.
I told him of my travels around the north of Argentina, and the re-emergence of an underclass, descended from the poverty-stricken gaucho militias and survivors of the colonialism of yesteryear, who were forging a political presence behind Perón’s deceptive populism and, thanks to him, could no longer be ignored. He told me about his own recent journey through the Chaco, the region where I had been. I must surely have asked the reason for that journey, since he was already living in Cuba, but I don’t remember an answer that might have made me put two and two together. We talked about the workshop, political control, sectarianism, the militias, the yaguas shanty town. He was always interested in how my political work was going. The weeks passed amid corpses, barbecues and discussions. Then in July, he told me Che was coming to Santiago on the 26th for the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada barracks. The weekend before the visit, Alberto said Che wanted to meet me. He planned a barbecue in his house.
However, two days before the celebrations, I was laid up in bed in Holguín with a stonking cold. The most important day of my life, and I was in no state to drive to Santiago, or even get out of bed. I got someone to call and explain the problem, and say how sorry I was. When I got to Santiago the following week, Alberto said Che had left a ticket to Havana in my name with Cubana airlines, and was expecting me as soon as possible.
On my second visit to Havana’s Rancho Boyeros airport, my expectations were different. I still did not know what lay ahead, but I felt that the old me, the spectator, was now sitting firmly in the front row. Sure enough, as Granado had said, a Rebel Army soldier in brand new olive green was waiting for me. He introduced himself as the Comandante’s bodyguard, and he was to take me to my hotel. It was none other than the Habana Libre. He filled in forms at reception with surprising agility and accompanied me to my room. He asked if I knew anyone in the hotel and when I said yes, he said I had to pretend to be here for work and not mention the real reason. And finally, he said that I had to be on call; whenever I went out, I had to leave word at the reception. ‘You never know when “the man” will be able to talk to you.’ I visited Gordo Cooke in his bunker and satisfied Alicia’s curiosity about the workshop, Argentines, communists and countryside.
Between two and three in the morning of the second day, the phone rang and a voice said: ‘Compañero, Che is expecting you.’ I went down. The bodyguard was there. He took me to the underground car park where a car was waiting. We swiftly crossed Vedado and headed for the Plaza de la Revolución where, after a few security checks, we ended up in the bowels of the Ministry of Industry. We took the lift to Che’s office and there, in a sort of kitchen which looked like the bodyguards’ bivouac, very young soldiers were drinking coffee or reading. I was to wait here. The opportunity to talk freely at Alberto’s barbecue had passed. Che was buried in his usual workload.
Then, a side door opened and Che appeared. He looked very tired – it was by now about four in the morning – and was wearing the same rumpled fatigues I had seen him play chess in. He ordered coffee to be brought to his office and turning to me, said simply ‘You’re here?’ and held out his hand. He said he was in a meeting with a delegation from I don’t know where, that unfortunately this time it was he who couldn’t talk, that he hadn’t time for the conversation he wanted to have with me, but someone would do it for him. I was to wait at the hotel until they came for me. He tur
ned and went back through the door he had come out of. I don’t remember uttering a single word.
A couple of days later, some men in civilian clothes (from the intelligence services) came for me. The car drove along the Malécon to Miramar, a smart suburb of villas with gardens, and stopped in front of one. We went into a living room with comfy armchairs, an elegant dining table, and many books. I was left alone, to wait. It was not long before an army officer came in. He did not look like the typical Cuban. He had a short military-style crew cut, large frank eyes, wide cheek bones and jaw, and a playful smile. As soon as he opened his mouth, I knew he was Argentine and that it was Jorge Masetti.
After all, it was logical. He, his interview in the Sierra Maestra, his book, had brought me here. I knew nothing of his life in Cuba. Only that he no longer ran the Cuban news agency Prensa Latina, but that Fidel had brought him back to front it temporarily during the Bay of Pigs invasion. I had glimpsed him twice on TV during the public interrogations of the prisoners. We sat down to talk just like two Argentines in a café. It wasn’t an exam, just a long exchange of opinions, ideas in common, work experience, mutual friends in Buenos Aires, illusions, disappointments, etc. I could see he knew exactly what I had been doing in Cuba and about my discussions with Granado, because he asked direct questions, like: ‘How long were you in Salta?’ ‘Are there mountains near the Tabacal sugar mill?’ Details I had given Granado.
We agreed there had to be revolution in Argentina. And, according to the theory of objective and subjective conditions, the time was ripe. The people were under attack, cheated, trapped, proscribed. The economy was growing, with a large productive capacity in food and consumer goods, but it was being usurped by foreign interests. The industrial infrastructure was developing, with large autonomous sectors, but the multinationals were taking over key areas that would be difficult to recuperate. A strong working class was ready to fight. There was a cultured and well-informed middle class. And an unequalled geographic position: all types of climate from the Andes to the Atlantic, and from the Tropic of Capricorn to the Antarctic. Argentina was the ideal country for a process of revolutionary change that would regain for its people the use of its immense natural resources, its own creativity and will to work, without being strangled by imperialist siege and blackmail.
Masetti said that the armed struggle was a real option. He had already done advanced military training at the new military academy which the Soviets had helped set up for the Cuban Rebel Army. After eight months of intense theoretical and practical training – having to put up with being a foreigner and being called Che’s ‘poodle’ – he had graduated top of his class. This type of training was essential. Unlike Batista’s, the Argentine army was extremely professional. Students from all over the continent came to study at our military academies. The project would not be like Cuba, first because of the size of the territory, and second because the population was mainly urban. Also, we had to take into account the level of politicization of the masses affiliated to traditional or populist parties, and with hegemonic influences that were difficult to combat. According to Masetti, the Cuban Revolution had shown that the foco theory would dismantle apparent hegemonies and focus popular support on an unexpected action, i.e. concrete activity instead of mere promises. The conversation took us into a realm of infinite possibilities, but Masetti was keen to establish the points we could agree on. He was not acting for himself, but on behalf of Che, his boss. In other words, if I thought the armed struggle could succeed in Argentina, Che had an offer to make me.
The project was to give serious military training to a small group who would set up a guerrilla base in Argentina, to be commanded by Masetti until after this vanguard group had consolidated its position and Che himself arrived. There were too many question marks for my liking, but the bottom line was, if it was Che’s plan and he was involved, I wanted to be in on it. So we got down to details: how the group would be formed, when and where the training would begin, the time it would take, and what we would study. Che would be sole overall leader, totally independent of the Cuban Revolution, although the Cubans would provide necessary help with infrastructure and equipment. Masetti was happy to discuss any queries I had about how the plan slotted into the Argentine political context, but this would obviously need a lengthy collective analysis and that, he said, would be one of our tasks during training. Naturally, a commitment to secrecy and the strictest cell structure was not only a matter of honour, but also of life and death. By accepting the offer, I took on board this commitment. In my second meeting with Che, he would define it more as a commitment to death than to life.
It was getting dark. We had been talking for six hours and my throat was dry. A very pretty Cuban girl came in to remind Masetti the children were waiting for him. Masetti apologized for various shortcomings while he introduced me. Conchita, his new wife, was pregnant. He fetched the children, who were too shy to come in, two of them between eight and ten, by his first Argentine wife. He was supposed to take them to their mother’s house, but we still had a few loose ends to tie up; so we continued, aided by some lemonade. I had to get back to Holguín and confront the problem of abandoning the workshop at such a critical stage of production. I had no idea how I was going to do it, without getting myself a bad name and into a political mess. Masetti would talk to Che about it. Then there was my wife Claudia. Although we had already planned to separate, and she would not mind my leaving, she would have to be sworn to the secrecy. She could not be left completely in the dark and be expected to be supportive. Masetti would bring that up with Che, too.
We left it that I would wait at the hotel for another couple of days at least, while he told Che the result of our conversation and my willingness to take part in the project. He made a call, and the security car came back for me. It left me at the hotel in a state of exaltation. I lay on my bed and thought over the events of the past few days, the people I had met, and ‘the project’, which was no more and no less than what I had come to Cuba for, although I never really thought it possible. And it had happened through a series of coincidences, connected by a mysterious force of destiny. It was after midnight when hunger (I hadn’t eaten all day) forced me out of bed, and I went out in search of some food and a large glass of rum.
Masetti came to get me the next day. We met on the corner of 23rd Street and the Malécon, and drove west out of Havana until we found somewhere for a drink and chat. Che would take care of the workshop, and also of Claudia’s residency in Cuba until we were in Argentina, or indefinitely if she wanted to stay. I had to get back as soon as possible, because classes would be starting in mid-August. I would find a ticket for tomorrow’s flight at the hotel reception.
I arrived in Holguín feeling really strange. Something was tearing at my insides. It was if my body was being emptied of ordinary organs and banal feelings, and replaced by more ascetic, rigorous ones. I was acting from my own free will, nobody was forcing me to do anything, although the idea of a small group, divorced from any political context, seemed like an irrational adventure. And yet, being a small group was what made the plan so rational: more than epic, it was logical. Everything would eventually revolve round Che being there, but he was not able to move the project forward as yet, nor come without a minimum of preparation. It was all about smuggling out the seed, planting it in land where it could germinate, and cultivating it.
A memorandum from the Ministry of Industry signed by Che, and addressed to the INIT, was copied to our workshop. It said I was to be included in a group of scholarship students on a course in specialized ceramic techniques in Czechoslovakia. I had to be in Havana by 15 August. The news hit the workshop like a bombshell. They didn’t see getting a scholarship as a success, rather as abandoning a scheme that represented a steady job. We had worked in consensus, like a family, without hierarchy or exclusion, each one bringing his skill and enthusiasm. I tried to convince them that I had contributed all I could, and that they now knew more about the equipment, kil
ns and clay than I did. Rita saw it as almost a personal triumph, at least of her support for the workshop project. I insisted on giving the carpenter, Argeo Pérez, the oak table he had made for me. He had asked for permission to work on it after hours and I had seen the love with which he polished the wood, made the chairs and put the finishing touches to the varnish. I saw Melchor and Alberto Granado for the last time in Santiago when I took the plane for Havana. Melchor was moved. Granado’s eyes were shining with personal triumph, like Rita’s, except that he understood what it all meant.
For the second time in less than fifteen days, I landed in Havana. The intelligence services were there to meet Claudia and I. While we waited for the key to her house, we repeated our vow of friendship and wished each other good luck. Suddenly, the army appeared in the shape of Olo Pantoja, a captain in Che’s column that had won the great victory in Santa Clara. A bit chubby with curly brown hair, he told Claudia her house was ready and introduced her to the people who would be looking after her. I was to go with him. Claudia and I said our last goodbyes, not knowing if we would ever see each other again. Pantoja took the bag with my few clothes and books and we got into an army jeep. There was barely enough room because the floor was littered with guns. ‘They’re for you, to practise with’, he said. The time had come. I had to learn to kill. That is, I had to learn to die.
Part Two