The Death of Che Guevara by Jay Cantor Read Free Book Online Page B

pity, our tears. We have cried and applauded, but we have done nothing.
    We must not abandon Vietnam.
    Vietnam, like Cuba, should have been made, irrevocably, and no matter what the cost, a part of the Socialist world, to be defended by the missiles of the Socialist world, even—if the imperialists forced it—to the point of nuclear holocaust. This was not done. She was abandoned to fight alone.
    Vietnam is the vanguard of the struggle against imperialism. We must aid her with our hands.
    Sketch of world situation since WWII.
    Use figure of hands/of fire

A map on fire
    fire/light destruction/illumination
    A fire in a field on a shirt
    a body on fire
    The hands of a young woman in
    Vietnam (I see dirt under her nails)/
    our hands—the nails bitten down
    with anxiety; source of the
    anxiety? too psychological
    The people of Vietnam must be as
    real to us as our own hands.
JUNE 17
    This morning I sat at the table in the main room with Walter, keeping him company during breakfast. My asthma has been very bad the last few days, and I can’t make myself eat much. There is a dank smell for me everywhere that takes away my appetite and my strength. I sipped a cup of mate, mostly for the warmth on my hands.
    Walter said, chewing some bread and jam, “Why are we here?”
    “A metaphysical question?” I said. I knew what he meant; it was odd, I thought, that he hadn’t asked before. But often he waits patiently for situations to unfold themselves, to reveal their meanings; he is a watchful man. “I’m here,” I said, “waiting to find out what Fidel will do. He can help my plans; he could damage them greatly. I’m here to write my self-criticism, to make myself sure of my next step. I am writing a message about Vietnam, a call to arms.” Walter looked at me, and said nothing. “But I’m not writing.” My last words came in a wheeze; but I couldn’t use the epinephrine, again, yet.
    “What happened?”
    “You’re a poem, Walter. I don’t understand what you mean.”
    “Between you and our leader.” He
was
a poem—it was difficult ever to know if he were ironic.
    “We talked. We fought. We sat silently.”
    “What did he say?”
    “A great deal. At the end he said that perhaps I wanted to sacrifice myself and my closest comrades to appease my guilt. He said that I had sent many people to prove my theories, and they had died; and now I felt troubled. I couldn’t stand to live when they were dead on my account. I had to prove that my theories were good—they were
my
theories during this conversation—that they had died from mistakes of their own. Or I had to die myself, and appease my guilt. Maybe, he said, I wanted to die.” Talking like this made an anxious flutter in my chest; my lungs ached. “I think it’s nonsense, a way for him to avoid the question facing us. But I must wait for his help.”
    Walter stared at me, as I had at him a few days ago. Do I want him to die? I returned his look. He has large brown watchful eyes. His small face tilts backward from his chin to the brow. The last week he has grown a wispy black mustache. I wheezed more deeply. The outline of his face wavered in the bad air.
    “Very metaphysical,” he said. “Very psychological. Not like him. Not like you. Things must have gone very far between you.”
    “We had been looking at each other a long time, up on that platform he has. Neither of us had spoken. We’d exhausted our arguments. He had knownof my plans. He had to decide what he would do. We sat. Then he spoke that … nonsense—very slowly, his voice was hoarse, far away, a low murmur—there were pauses between his sentences, not his style at all. He knew he was avoiding the question. But I must wait. I said I would come here and think about what he had said.”
    “What happened before?”
    “The rise and decline of the Roman, Spanish, and British Empires. The whole history of imperialism. The Cuban Revolution.” I wheezed out a laugh. I laughed alone; Walter