Che and I
As I was driving to work, I heard on the radio that Che, the legendary revolutionary, was visiting my hometown this coming Friday. My first reaction was to dismiss the announcement as a prank. By the time I reached the expressway, I was convinced that it was a case of bad radio reception since I was driving though some dead zones of which there are plenty in the suburbs where I live. However, after I reached my office, curiosity overwhelmed my better judgment, and I checked on the Internet and found that Che was indeed coming to my town. I could hardly believe that Che Guevara had accepted the invitation to make an appearance in Norton, Massachusetts, a small town in the middle of nowhere! I have been a big admirer of Che since my college days, and had dreams of following in his footsteps. Che had left a growing medical practice in his youth in Argentina, and joined Fidel and his rag-tag group of revolutionaries to sail to Cuba in a small ship named Granma, I recalled. I read his memoir on the Cuban Revolutionary War, based on his experience during the guerilla war in the Sierra Maestra, and fantasized about living in the jungles of South Asia and overthrowing one dictatorial government after another following the blueprints Che had created for Latin America. Unfortunately, the obstacles that I ran into were too much for me to overcome with my limited resources and energy, and I had to postpone my ambitions to become a firebrand revolutionary, but Che has always remained my hero even as I approach middle age. During my lunch break at work, I called the supposed venue of the Che Event, our local church, to find out more about Che's visit, and discovered that he was speaking at a fund raising event for the group, "Veterans of The Foreign Revolutionary Wars", (VFRW), one I was associated with a long time ago. I took down the information, and called one of the fellow revolutionaries from my past to share the good news with him. He was just as excited as I was about Che's visit and wanted to join me to attend the fundraiser! However, I could not tell my wife that I was planning to attend the Che event, since I was apprehensive that she would be alarmed if she deduced from my interest in the event that I still had any sympathies for Che after all these years, and even worse, she might conclude that I still harbored dreams of leading revolutionary uprisings which I did until I got married and we started on the family path. My wife is always teasing me about my feelings of sympathy for people's uprisings and urban guerrilla warfare, and her favorite quip to bring me down to reality was, "Family life and revolutionary wars don't go together." She was big into family life and kept a long list of influences, or character defects, that she thought were aligned with the "axis of evil", as she called it and conspiring to wreck family life: sports, revolutionary wars, golfing, boozing and other forms of addiction. She lumps all of them together under "temptations" when she is angry, or escapism when she is in a better mood. As the day for Che's visit drew nearer, I started going through the books I had accumulated over the years on armed conflicts, dialectical materials, and peasant wars in my garage as well as my basement. I was feeling happy as I rifled though some of the books that I considered holy during the heydays of armed revolution: Revolution in the Revolution (Regis Debray), Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War (Che Guevara), The Bolivian Diaries, The Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse Tung, and The Motorcycle Diaries. I leafed through Reminiscences and tried to find episodes that would bring back memories from my own youth when I knew every chapter of the book by heart. I also started looking for questions that I might be able to ask him during the QA session that is likely to follow his speech. I realized that one question that I always wanted to ask him and to find out the truth about was: was there really a rift between him and Fidel Castro as was rumored then, or did he actually leave Cuba to start a revolution in Latin America? I rehearsed in my own mind how I would phrase the question to ask Che. At first I thought I'd go for, "Are you in touch with Fidel these days?" I am secretly hoping to draw him into discussing his present relationship with Fidel, who is out of power and recovering from a case of intestinal illness, and then segue into the state of his putative disagreements with him during the early days of the Cuban revolution, leading to the issue of the factors that triggered his departure from Cuba. I figured that even if he only talked about the days when he was in the post-revolutionary government with major roles in creating the armed forces and shaping the Cuban economy, it would be a very interesting speech. But I also had some nagging doubts as to whether Che would be drawn into a conversation about the past, or would take the invitation implied in my question since he had just turned eighty one years of age, and might have lost some of his memories or his once razor sharp intellect. I tried some other variant of the questions I had in my mind, and eventually settled on a question which would be put together with a good mix of diplomacy, tact, directness and top it off with a little bit of deference to the veteran leader in the following way: "Why did you leave your comfortable life behind in Havana and move to live in the harsh and inhospitable jungles of Bolivia?" I thought this would give him a sense of my own revolutionary roots and current passion, and also show him that I had an inquisitive mind. On the day of the meeting, I told my wife that I was planning to go to the local library after work to attend a book club meeting. "Are you not having dinner with us tonight?" she asked, sounding a little concerned that I was missing dinner with the family. "Well, I don't think I'm going to make it to the book club meeting on time if I first stop by home to catch the dinner. Can you manage without me?" I asked with the right mix of remorse and fake compassion for her in my voice. I was afraid that she might become a little suspicious if she notices the slightest hint of excitement even in my eyes, and start drilling me about the "book club" meeting which I rarely attend. I will concede that in the past my cover-ups in cases such as these have been very ill-conceived and on some occasions in the past I was caught in these acts by trying to be too honest. My dilemma was, if I had told her the truth, she would not have believed me in any case, since she believes that Che is dead. She heard about Che from me during the times we were dating, and while she was sometimes nervous about my dormant revolutionary itch, she always felt reassured that all dedicated revolutionaries from the last century were either dead or retired. She and I enjoyed the movie The Motorcycle Diaries, based on Che's travels though Latin America, but she never misses the opportunity to remind me that "Che was a dreamer" and thoroughly unrealistic in his goals to create a domino-effect with his revolutionary wars. Whenever I tried to bring up his unfinished business, the Revolution, my wife would cut me off by saying, "Please let him rest in peace", in order to nip in the bud any discussion on this matter, and any fantasies that I might have of following the footsteps of Che. Unfortunately, or fortunately for me, she had missed the news item from two years ago when it was reported that Che had been found to be living in a small Panamanian village, recovering from severe head injuries suffered during his capture in the Bolivian jungle in 1967. The details of the discovery had been murky, according to several tabloids, with many people suspecting that the CIA and the Cuban Government had colluded to transport him to Panama and settle him there to recover and live in the care of some old revolutionaries. In preparation for the Che Event I managed to recover my old well-worn beret that I planned to wear on Friday to show my solidarity with Che. I have been very careful since we had our first child to conceal from my wife any remnants of my past associations, or indications of any sympathies I still had for revolutions, or revolutionaries. A slight misstep a few years ago almost ruined our marriage, when I joined a group of mercenaries (which I did not know they had been) and bona fide revolutionaries to sow the seeds of popular discontent among the masses in Bagistan and traveled there incognito. She thought I was going on a consultancy mission to the Caribbean and would call me every day to stay in touch. Once she found out from a friend the real purpose of my trip (I still have not found out who really ratted on me), she alerted various authorities, in the USA and abroad, including the US embassy in Bagistan, convincing them to keep an eye on us. After the failed Bagistan mission, her slogan changed to "Marriage and Revolution can't live together"; I am amazed how she always manages to come up with a slogan to serve her purpose or to be in sync with changing times, and to thwart any attempts to change my modus operandi to be in compliant with her wishes. I have tried hard to convince her that I was comfortable with my middle-class existence, and that I was faithful to her rather than the revolution. So the marriage survived. After the children were born, her slogan changed again, and the word "Families" replaced "Marriage". I showed up at the meeting location half an hour before the announced arrival time for Che. There were a few members of the VFRW and Veteran of Foreign Wars (VFW) who had already set up their respective propaganda displays with bulletin boards and tables distributing pamphlets. There were a few banners both inside and outside the meeting hall, and I was starting to feel good about my decision to come even though I was still feeling a sense of guilt at having to lie to my wife. I had my camera ready and was looking forward to taking a snap shot with Che. I put on my beret and made sure it was tilted the right way. My friends have told me in the past that when I wear my beret and pose in Che's famous pose, I have some resemblance to him. A soon as I thought of that, I started to feel excited and even thought of organizing a fund-raising event for my friends with a blowup of my picture with Che, which I would name "Che and I". I suddenly realized that I have to also remind the guys who buy these posters not to out me by showing it to my wife, or to mention the Che Event to her. I promised to myself that if the poster "Che and I" was a big seller, I would give all the proceeds to the VFRW. As I was taking my seat, I finally caught a glimpse of Che as he entered the hall and was proceeding towards the podium. He was clean-shaven but still wore a blue beret with a star at the crest. He was wearing an olive green combat uniform similar to the one he was wearing when Korda took that iconic picture. I suddenly started to experience a feeling of nostalgia and revolutionary pride, and it reminded me how much I worshipped that symbol when I was in college and even much later when I was hoping to join a group of revolutionaries inspired by Che. We were part of the "revolutionaries sans frontiers" movement, but unfortunately could not find a country or even an island that would be willing to host us or a location where we could spark a revolution. We were sometimes ridiculed by our friends, and our "revolution without a country" organization became the butt of many campus jokes, but we never gave up on our resolve. Soon Che was escorted to the podium and started speaking. He spoke in English and devoted his entire speech to his current mission, to raise money for the campesinos in Panama. I was in my dream world while he was talking about the poor peasants and land reforms in Panama, trying to visualize whether we could start a revolution in Panama. I did not ask him whether conditions were ripe for a revolution in Panama since I sensed it could be perceived as affront or a challenge to him since he had spend his last few years promoting peace rather than war. Finally, when the QA hour arrived, I raised my hand and asked him the question I had been rehearsing. The interaction went as follows: I: Comrade, what were objective conditions like in South America before you sailed for Bolivia? Che: I don't remember much from those days. As you can see after 45 years, my memory is slipping a little bit. I. Do you miss those hectic days in Havana during the Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis? Che (with a chuckle): Well, I do and I don't. All my friends are now dead, and I miss them. But, I have not been to Cuba for a long time and I don't remember what it was like working in Havana in the 60s. I decided not to ask any more follow-up questions since I realized that I had already used up my allocated quota, and other ex-revolutionaries present there were eager to get a slice of Che's time. I sat down and left soon after I had a chance to take the picture. I asked one of his associates to take a picture while I posed with him. I tilted my head up, as if looking at a distant object, and tried my best to give the "Che look". When I reached home after the event and opened my front door, my wife rushed out and asked me, "so how was the book club meeting?" "It went very well, but I missed being at home for dinner. I am starving since they did not serve any refreshments either. Do you have any leftovers for me?"
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