Che Guevara (31 page)

Fidel Castro felt a deep antipathy toward the Yankees who had turned independent Cuba into a pseudo-republic and allowed venal dictatorships to take root there. His native Mayarí province was a virtual vassal state of the United Fruit Company, which owned gigantic tracts of land and most of the sugar mills. American and privileged Cuban employees enjoyed an exclusive life on the company’s housing estates, which had shops, hospitals, sports facilities, and private schools. Fidel’s father depended on “the Company.” Having leased much of his land from it, he was required to sell his sugarcane to United Fruit’s mills.

Fidel had probably always thought of himself as Cuba’s future leader. At school, he fought to become the undisputed leader of his peers, whether by coming in first in a poetry competition in grade school, becoming captain of the basketball team at Colegio Belén, or winning recognition in student politics at Havana University. At the age of twelve, he sent a letter to Franklin Delano Roosevelt to congratulate him on his third inauguration as president and to ask him for a dollar. While José Martí remained his lifelong inspiration, he came to admire powerful historical figures such as Julius Caesar, Robespierre, and Napoleon. He seemed to possess an innate knack for the horse-trading and cunning that make for success in politics, and he knew how to dissemble artfully.

These traits pointed up a major distinction between him and the man who would later stand at his right side. For Ernesto Guevara, politics
represented a mechanism for social change, and it was social change, not power itself, that impelled him. If he had insecurities, they were not social. He lacked the chip on his shoulder that Castro wore and had converted into a source of strength. His own family were blue bloods, however bankrupt, and he had grown up with the social confidence and sense of privilege that come from knowing one’s heritage. The Guevaras may have been black sheep within Argentine society, but they were still
society
. However much Ernesto sought to reject his birthright and to sever his family links, he was indelibly imprinted by them.

Although Ernesto certainly had a robust ego, it did not compare to that of Fidel Castro. In large groups, where Ernesto tended to hang back, observe, and listen, Castro was compelled to take over and be recognized as the authority on whatever topic was under discussion, from history and politics to animal husbandry.

Because of his asthma, Guevara was all too aware of his physical shortcomings, whereas the burly Castro recognized none in himself. He was not a natural athlete but felt he could excel in anything if he set his mind to it, and he very often did. Castro had an urge to
win
. It had been an achievement for Ernesto just to be able to
play
rugby and the other sports of his youth, to be accepted as a team member. It was camaraderie, not leadership, that he craved.

Taller than average, with Brylcreemed hair and a small mustache that didn’t suit him, Fidel had the well-fed look of a man used to pampering himself. And he was. He loved food and liked to cook. When he was in prison he wrote letters to friends describing in detail and with relish the meals he had whipped up. Ernesto, who was two years younger, was both shorter and slighter, with the pallor and dark dramatic eyes associated with a stage actor or poet. In many ways, their physiques reflected their personality differences. Fidel was unconsciously self-indulgent. Ernesto was a creature of the self-discipline imposed upon him by asthma.

Despite their many differences, Ernesto and Fidel shared some traits. Both were favored boys from large families, extremely spoiled, careless about their appearance, and sexually voracious. For both of them, relationships came in second to personal goals. Both were imbued with Latin machismo. They believed in the innate weakness of women, were contemptuous of homosexuals, and admired brave men of action. Both possessed an iron will and a larger-than-life sense of purpose. And finally, both wanted to carry out a revolution. By the time they met, they had tried to play direct roles in historic events of their time, only to be thwarted. And they identified a common enemy—the United States.

In 1947, while still at the university, Fidel had joined a group of Cubans and Dominicans undergoing military training on a remote Cuban key with the intention of invading the Dominican Republic to overthrow General Trujillo. The expedition was aborted at the last minute by Cuban troops, after President Grau San Martín had been alerted by Washington. As a delegate to the “anti-imperialist” youth congress organized in Bogotá by Perón in 1948, Fidel had joined in the rioting that took place after the Liberal Party opposition leader Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated. He tried to organize a popular resistance against the Conservative government. Then came Batista’s coup, Moncada, and prison.

Fidel had followed the events in Guatemala with interest when he was in prison and had sympathized with the battle of the beleaguered Arbenz government against that familiar specter, the United Fruit Company. The fall of Arbenz was instructive. It taught Fidel that if his revolution for Cuba was to be successful, he would have to proceed cautiously and to acquire a strong foothold of power before antagonizing American interests. It was just as obvious to him that if he was to rule Cuba with a free hand, foreign companies such as United Fruit would have to be nationalized. The trick, Fidel knew, was to proceed with tact and guile.

It was apparent to Ernesto, as it was to most people who met him, that Fidel’s rare personality was enhanced by the utter conviction that he would ultimately succeed. And if Fidel was not yet as convinced as Ernesto that socialism was the correct course to follow, he exhibited sympathy for the same goals. It would be up to those close to him, including Ernesto Guevara, to ensure that Fidel Castro’s revolution followed a socialist course.

“Ñico was right in Guatemala when he told us that if Cuba had produced anything good since Martí it was Fidel Castro,” Ernesto told Hilda not long after meeting Fidel. “He will make the revolution. We are in complete accord. ... It’s only someone like him I could go all out for.” He admitted that Fidel’s scheme of landing a boatful of guerrillas on Cuba’s well-defended coasts was a “crazy idea,” but he felt compelled to support him anyway.

On July 20, Ernesto wrote to his aunt Beatriz, telling her enigmatically: “Time has provoked a sifting out of the torrent of projects I was doing and now ... I can be certain of finishing only one, which ... will be exported to the next country I visit, the name of which no one knows but God and his new right hand.”

In honor of his new friend and comrade, Ernesto asked Hilda and Lucila to prepare a dinner for Fidel, and to invite Laura de Albizu Campos
and Juan Juarbe as well. That night, Castro displayed three of the traits he was to become famous for: his propensity to keep others waiting interminably, his tremendous personal charisma, and his ability to pontificate for hours on end. Lucila took offense at the long delay and went to her room, but Hilda waited patiently and was suitably impressed. “He was young, ... light of complexion, and tall, about six feet two inches, and solidly built,” she wrote. “He could very well have been a handsome bourgeois tourist. When he talked, however, his eyes shone with passion and revolutionary zeal, and one could see why he could command the attention of listeners. He had the charm and personality of a great leader, and at the same time an admirable simplicity and naturalness.”

After dinner, Hilda overcame her awe and asked Castro why he was in Mexico if his struggle lay in Cuba. “He answered: ‘Very good question. I’ll explain.’” Fidel’s answer lasted four hours.

A few days later, Ernesto told Hilda that he intended to join the rebels’ invasion of Cuba. Soon afterward, Hilda informed him that she was pregnant.

On July 26, to commemorate the second anniversary of the Moncada assault, Fidel organized a ceremony—complete with speeches given by himself and other Latin American exiles—in Chapultepec Park. Afterward, everyone gathered at a home where Fidel prepared one of his favorite dishes,
spaghetti alle vongole
.

At dinner, Ernesto sat quietly without saying much. Noticing his reserve, Fidel called out: “Hey Che! You’re very quiet. Is it because your controller’s here now?” It was a reference to Hilda. “Obviously Fidel knew we were planning to get married; hence the joke,” she wrote. “I then realized that they did a great deal of talking together. I knew very well that when Ernesto felt at ease he was talkative; he loved discussions. But when there were many people around he would remain withdrawn.”

Hilda interpreted Ernesto’s silence as a meditation on the momentousness of the enterprise he was involved in, but this has the unmistakable ring of after-the-fact mythologizing. It seems much more likely that he was pondering the dilemma he faced with her. He had decided to marry her—it was, after all, the honorable thing to do—but he wrote in his journal, “For another guy it would be transcendental; for me it is an uncomfortable episode. I am going to have a child and I will marry Hilda in a few days. The thing had dramatic moments for her and heavy ones for me. In the end, she gets her way—the way I see it, for a short while, although she hopes it will be lifelong.”

Marriage could not have come at a worse moment for a man who had always resisted domesticity and who had just found a cause and a leader to follow. Nonetheless, Ernesto went through with it, and on August 18, he and Hilda were married at the civil registrar’s office in the little town of Tepozotlán on the capital’s outskirts. Their witnesses were Lucila Velásquez; Jesús Montané Oropesa, a short, flap-eared public accountant (and a member of the Movement’s freshly formed National Directorate) who had just arrived from Havana as Fidel’s treasurer; and two of Ernesto’s colleagues from the General Hospital. Raúl Castro went along for the occasion but, on Fidel’s orders to keep a low profile, didn’t sign the ledger. Fidel, who suspected that his actions were being monitored by Batista’s secret police and the American FBI, did not attend, for security reasons, although he showed up at the party Ernesto and Hilda gave afterward, at which Ernesto prepared an
asado
, Argentine-style.

Ernesto and Hilda moved out of the apartment with Lucila into their own flat, in a five-story apartment building on Calle Nápoles in Colonia Juárez. Then they broke the news to their parents. “My parents sent back a letter scolding us for not telling them in advance, so they could come for the wedding,” Hilda recalled. “They also sent us a bank draft for five
hundred dollars as a present, asked us to send photographs, and Mother asked for a church wedding and said we should send her the exact date so she could have the announcements made for our friends back home.”

Ernesto and Hilda on their honeymoon in the Yucatán, 1955.

Ernesto wrote back to his new in-laws, employing a mixture of candor and light ribaldry that must have raised some eyebrows in the middle-class Gadea household. “Dear Parents: I can imagine your surprise at receiving our bombshell of news, and can understand the flood of questions it must have provoked. You’re of course correct in scolding us for not having informed you of our marriage. We thought it wiser to do it this way, in view of the numerous difficulties that we encountered, not foreseeing that we would have a child so soon. ... We are very grateful for the expressions of affection you’ve given us, I know they’re sincere: I’ve known Hilda long enough to feel that I know her family. I shall try to show that I deserve her at all times. I am also grateful for the ‘small gift’: You’ve done more than enough. Don’t worry about us. It is true that we’re not wealthy, but Hilda and I earn enough to keep up a home properly. ...

“I believe this adequately answers your affectionate letter, but I should add something about our future plans. First we wait for ‘Don Ernesto.’ (If it’s not a boy, there’s going to be trouble.) Then we’ll consider a couple of firm propositions I have, one in Cuba, the other a fellowship in France, depending on Hilda’s ability to move around. Our wandering life isn’t over yet and before we definitely settle in Peru, a country that I admire in many ways, or in Argentina, we want to see a bit of Europe and two fascinating countries, India and China. I am particularly interested in the New China because it accords with my own political ideals. I hope that soon, or if not soon someday, after knowing these and other really democratic countries, Hilda will think like me.

“Our married life probably won’t be like yours. Hilda works eight hours a day and I, somewhat irregularly, around twelve. I’m in research, the toughest branch (and poorest paid). But we’ve fitted our routines together harmoniously and have turned our home into a free association between two equals. (Of course, Sra. Gadea, Hilda’s kitchen is the worst aspect of the house—in order, cleanliness, or food. ...) I can only say that this is the way I’ve lived all my life, my mother having the same weakness. So a sloppy house, mediocre food, and a salty mate, if she’s a true companion, is all I want from life.

“I hope to be received into the family as a brother who has long been traveling the same path toward an equal destiny, or at least that my peculiarities of character (which are many) will be overlooked in view of the
unqualified affection of Hilda for me, the same as I have for her. With an
abrazo
for the family from this new son and brother—Ernesto.”