In the center of the university is a large plaza dominated by the giant white wall of the school auditorium, upon which is painted, several stories high, the image of the Argentine communist revolutionary Che Guevara. The plaza’s proper name is Plaza Santander, named after the Colombian general, president, and “Man of the Laws,” who fought for his country’s freedom from Spain. Of course, no one calls it the Plaza Santander. All the students know it as Plaza Che, honoring a man who never fought for Colombia, or for rule of law, or for freedom.
We went straight to the plaza and we stood before the mural. There was Che’s face. Che as an icon, his hair like a halo, his eyes sorrowful like the eyes of Christ, looking not at the reality of the world but at his utopia, where none but the free suffered, and all the rest obeyed. And I laughed. I let her see me laugh. I wanted her to know I thought he was a clown, not a devil. Devils have dignity. And then I handed her the book.
“Che Guevara. Guerrilla Warfare,” she said, reading the cover, which displayed the same iconic Alberto Korda photograph the graffiti artist had used for his mural. It was my old, dog-eared copy from my student days, bound together with a copy of Che’s Cuba diaries. She looked up at the sorrowful, proud eyes above us.
“I want you to read this book,” I said. “And tell me how to win a revolution.”
She nodded gravely.
I left her there to explore the campus and went home delighted with myself. Cuban propaganda, of all things, would keep her safe.
• • •
That night, as Valencia was holed up in her room reading, I wondered what she was making of the work, with its yellow pages and its margins filled with notes I’d scribbled as a young man, naively imagining I was preparing myself for life in the army. I’d thought I was readying myself to reverse engineer Che’s tactics to crush my nation’s enemies. Flipping open the book the night before, I’d seen an old note of mine in the margin of the section on War Industry, next to where Che writes, “There are two fundamental industries, one of which is the manufacture of shoes.” There, in pencil, I’d written “Ah ha!” Who knows what I thought I’d learned.
It embarrasses me to admit it, but the book inspired me. The story it tells, through a series of dry tactical lessons, is a heroic one. Start with a small, dedicated group in the countryside. You need only thirty to fifty men—Castro had only had twelve who made it to the Sierra Maestra—but they must be devoted, incorruptible, their moral character vastly outshining the venal brutality of their enemy. They must hide in the wildest, most inaccessible places, forming a nucleus, a vanguard, a focus of revolutionary activity. With no industrial capacity, no ability to produce weapons or ammunition, the guerrilla band must take these from the enemy himself. As they strike blow after blow, slowly a few peasants will join and the movement will gain strength. The guerrilla band will become more audacious, their very audacity will inspire the people, revolutionizing them. As the people revolutionize, the guerrilleros will make more contact with the people of the zone, and the less isolated the guerrilla band will become. Soon, the true war for the state will begin, though the guerrilla’s heroism will already have won the struggle for the soul of the nation. What a difference thirty men can make as long as they are men who are pure of heart, saintly in conduct, and fearless in war. Forget the communist ideology, just think of the thirty men changing the world with their virtue. What soldier wouldn’t want to believe in such a thing?
I felt only a slight nervousness. Che’s notes, if she read them correctly, would provide the first hints of the truth behind the legend. Before his death, Che had many pursuers. The CIA. The Bolivian government. American Special Forces. But Guerrilla Warfare reveals the true killer—Che himself. A man so enchained by his own mythology that he not only spouted, but actually practiced, tactics directly at odds with the real story of what happened when Castro’s little band of guerrilleros arrived at Las Coloradas Beach in December 1956, ready to ignite the countryside in revolution.
• • •
“He’s actually quite heroic,” Valencia said. “I didn’t expect that.”
I almost choked.
“Who?” Sofia said.
We were at dinner, Sofia had made one of my favorite dishes, tilapia Veracruz. The sun was setting gently in the west, and through the window to my right I could see long, thin clouds blushing as they feathered over Monserrate. Everything was harmonious and orderly. Except my daughter’s mind.
“Che Guevara,” Valencia said.
Now it was Sofia’s turn to choke.
“Papa gave me his diaries.”
Sofia raised one manicured eyebrow. “To prepare you for school?”
“Yes.” Of course. She’d skimmed the dry tactics, but lingered on the drama of the diaries.
“How . . .” I said, trying to find my footing. “Why . . . how were they heroic?”
The book I had given her did not describe heroes, but an incompetent, hurried group of eighty men, crouched together in a leaky boat with bad engines, arriving on the island late, two days after the futile Santiago de Cuba uprising they were supposed to take part in, and arriving in the wrong place, a swampland where the unseasoned and undisciplined revolutionaries lost almost all their equipment as they trudged through saltwater swamps, developing open blisters and fungal infections on their tender feet. They were like nothing out of Guerrilla Warfare. They were filthy. They lost medical supplies and backpacks to the swamp. They let their ammunition get wet. And then, like idiots, they grabbed sugarcane from a nearby field as they marched and then tossed the cane peelings and bagasse behind
