Lácteos del Che

My grandmother was always my foundation, my abutment.....my Alcántara Bridge, as it may. Growing up in Buenos Aires, I never had a sense of who I was or who I could ever be? I never knew of my father and my mother died giving birth to me. So, my ontic composed of just two entities....grandmother and myself.

My grandmother, petite in nature, was known as a very proud and fearless individual in our capital town. She was also highly educated abroad, as well as, in our enriched cosmopolis. Also, another greatly known fact, to all whom reside in Buenos Aires, is that my mother is a cousin of and considered an ‘quasi’, immediate family member of the iconic, Ernesto ‘’Ché” Guevara.

This provided my grandmother with enormous self-affirmation throughout her years and guided her path of success, as a single female, raising a stubborn grandson, in a male oriented city. As long as I live, I can still recall her mantra. She would frequently espouse in Spanish, “No nací con bolas, pero aprendí a hacerlas crecer rápidamente”! Well, I was born with ‘Huevos’ but she taught me to carry them with the pride and the dignity of a ‘Guevara’. That reflection brings a smile to my face repeatedly.

Even sitting by her bedside, as she continued her journey from earthbound being into the great, spiritual abyss, I knew that her death would weigh on me. As a youth, she would tell me stories of how elegantly the cinema Teatro Grand Splendid was and how it illuminated the extremely wealthy city of Buenos Aires, of the past. The city at the time, I am told, was one of the greatest cities in the world. These are brilliant stories she explained to me, throughout my years and just before she passed away. With her passing, ‘Grandmother Catalina’ left me much of an inheritance, including a ‘little black book’ that some estimate is worth $20,000 or more?

We would enter that same building together, for one last time. But, it is no longer a cinema, but was resurrected as a marvelous bookstore of grandeur called, El Ateneo Grand Splendor. It highlights our gem of a city as ‘the most beautiful bookstore in the world’ and for great reason. It is so highly regarded as a ‘world-class bookstore’ and the vision of a foreseeing ‘Grandmother Catalina’. Fore, she invested in the building’s restoration and overlooked ever aspect of it’s resurrection as a bookstore. The most highly prized book in the store and to all whom reside in our capital city, is the ‘little black’ book, that I inherited from my grandmother.

This book is mysteriously known throughout Bruno’s Aires as, ‘ Palabras del Pueblo y su Protector ‘! It was confiscated and sealed by the C.I.A, only after the firing squad ended the life of “Ché”, in Bolivia. It was Ernesto “Ché” Guevara’s personal diary. A ‘little black’ book that followed him from an young, motorcycle-riding, medical physician to a cultivating, revolutionary leader traveling abroad.

This is a book that I now own, that I house in a fortress of a bulletproof glass, for all Argentinians to see. It is a book that we left sealed and no one, other than the C.I.A, has ever laid eyes upon the words written inside, including my grandmother nor I? We felt that the words of the ‘Protector’ are his and only his to know. We wholeheartedly postulated that his ‘little black’ book is, as the people of our Argentine capital city would like to say, “Our book of secrets appertain to Buenos Aires, but the words of ‘Che’, belong to ‘Che’ himself”!