Do you have any news about Ernestito?

By Martin Guevara

HAVANA TIMES — The Revolution had entered this impasse that even couples experience after their initial lust, rumbling around on sofas and beds. It was facing dilemmas about which path to take to leave this Utopian island behind and to concentrate on the harsh differences that reality posed. Saying goodbye to the innocence and mystery of new horizons, there would no longer be any more passion filled kisses under the lighthouse or lingerie bitten to shreds.

The cold phase of the relationship had arrived and the frozen USSR was watching on. Years ago, Che had got into bed with Fidel in the center of messianic illusion, giving way to the lava of their inner volcano in an activity that was far more dangerous than writing, than observing, than mountain climbing, than flying a plane or rugby, global subversion using the people’s will.

They walked along parallel paths, with their own light, although it came from different places. Ernesto accepted Fidel’s leadership, but he didn’t stop pointing out the ideas that he felt were the right ones to build liberté, égalité and fraternité in the Americas at every step of the way and he criticized those who clashed with his initial ideas.

The Revolution triumphed with erotic power, enjoying unconditional love; they were the forefathers of the rock aesthetic, bearded with long hair and not very clean, working-class, rebels and disobedient, educated at fine schools, holding altruistic ideas; they just needed music, hedonism and Bacchus’ love; they had plenty of gunpowder, their willpower spread rampantly and there was a surplus testosterone, but they still romanticized. Then, they faced the plateau phase that takes place just before climaxing in the worst possible way.

Fidel, in a frenzy, lost his mind with those who shadowed him and reminded him that the revolutionary project was inclusive and democratic; Ernesto didn’t just obey his Comandante while at the firing squad, when it came to the economy or voluntary work. Romance had already become routine, there were far too many gentrified bellies and the sound of guns firing was needed, the comfort of new lands plagued with injustice as an excuse to say goodbye and welcome a new love.

Born so that his asthma would recklessly push him forward, only Goethe, Verlaine, Luis Felipe and Sartre could understand his burden.

Satisfaction was unlikely, like in Tomas Moro’s Utopia, just like creativity in art before being betrayed by the full stop, by the last stroke, laying down the chisel, when it rejects its capacity to transform and becomes an object.

Che, like Pieta Rondanini by Miguel Angel, remained in the limbo of the impossible, above the wave crest, against the wind, in the highest point that the sea allows, and he didn’t disappear among the sea foam and whirlpools like Fidel and water, who were so wise and adaptable.

However, from the heart of Africa, the bonfire led to barren land; he had just lost his mother in faraway Argentina, how would he keep his motor going? She had passed away in great pain without shedding a single tear, her only plea was to ask over and over again:

Do you have any news about Ernestito? Nobody knew where he was.

She left for another dimension on one of her other son’s birthdays, who weren’t absent like Ernesto, but who weren’t visible either.

The USSR was no longer Bolshevik, Fidel was no longer a rebel and Che’s motor needed more fuel to take another path; coming back to nothing, the Templar’s last stab, Rocinante’s last gallop trying to find the windmill and Dulcinea.

His image is constantly traveling about on t-shirts and wallets along with Marley, Lennon and Hendricks, his anxiety immortalized.

Finally, he reached Utopia.