dance, he would ask whether it was a tango, a waltz, or a mambo. Then he would clumsily guide his partner around the dance floor. “Dancing didn’t interest him in the slightest,” his close friend Carlos Figueroa recalled. Ernesto was a relentless seducer of girls, and the only reason he danced was to get close to his prey.
Only a few of his closest male friends and relatives were privy to his dalliances. Mario Saravia recalled Ernesto’s liaison with his family’s maid, a Bolivian Indian woman in her late thirties named Sabina Portugal, with whom Ernesto slept regularly. “She was the ugliest woman I have ever seen,” said Saravia. “But when she invited him, he would go to her room.”
Ernesto was informal with his parents, calling them affectionately
vieja
and
viejo
, but was equally self-deprecating when it came to himself. The nickname El Chancho (The Pig) was a particular source of enjoyment because of the outraged reaction it elicited from his socially sensitive father.
Ernesto on a hitchhiking trip, 1948.
When Ernesto senior discovered that Carlos Figueroa was its source, he stormed at him, furious over what he perceived as a slight to the family honor. In spite of or possibly because of his father’s displeasure, Ernesto kept the nickname and, in the rugby magazine
Tackle
he founded and edited for the eleven issues it survived, signed his articles Chang-Cho. (His merciless reviews of rugby matches were written in a quickly paced sportswriter’s jargon, peppered with anglicizations.)
Whereas Ernesto’s relationship with his father was combative, he was solicitous of his mother, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1946 and had undergone a mastectomy. Their union was so special that it excluded the other children, and several friends spoke sympathetically about the effect it had on Roberto in particular. More physically fit and two years younger than Ernesto, Roberto eventually excelled at rugby, but within the family his triumphs were overshadowed by those of his older brother, who was always seen as “conquering” his asthma. It took Roberto many years to overcome the resentment he had felt toward Ernesto since childhood.
Everyone in the family simply ignored the fact that Ernesto senior and Celia no longer shared a bed. He would come home late and, oblivious of whatever else was going on around him, flop down on the sofa and go to sleep. His other eccentricities made this behavior seem natural. He could not leave the house without intentionally forgetting something, like his keys, in order to come back. It was “bad luck” if he didn’t. This became an obsessive ritual. If anyone said “snake” around the family table, he would immediately say “wild boar,” the “countervenom” to the bad luck the forbidden word portended.
Celia, meanwhile, continued to run her house like a salon. The dinner table was her throne. She sat there for hours playing solitaire, which—like the cigarettes she habitually smoked—she had become addicted to, but she was always ready to receive some young person for conversation or to dispense advice. As for the practicalities of everyday life, she was above the fray. On her cook’s days off, she threw together meals with whatever happened to be in the refrigerator, with no notion of measurements or recipes. Visitors noted the absence of furniture, adornments, or paintings in the house, but were struck by the plethora of books, shelved and stacked everywhere. There were other peculiarities. The kitchen stove had a perennial short circuit, and the walls gave off electrical shocks to unsuspecting newcomers who leaned against them.
Just as Ernesto found the space and quiet he needed to study at Beatriz’s apartment or in the university library, his father soon found some refuge in a rented studio nearby. He had a new business partner, and together they set up a combination real estate agency and contracting firm called GuevaraLynch y Verbruch. Before
Only a few of his closest male friends and relatives were privy to his dalliances. Mario Saravia recalled Ernesto’s liaison with his family’s maid, a Bolivian Indian woman in her late thirties named Sabina Portugal, with whom Ernesto slept regularly. “She was the ugliest woman I have ever seen,” said Saravia. “But when she invited him, he would go to her room.”
Ernesto was informal with his parents, calling them affectionately
vieja
and
viejo
, but was equally self-deprecating when it came to himself. The nickname El Chancho (The Pig) was a particular source of enjoyment because of the outraged reaction it elicited from his socially sensitive father.
Ernesto on a hitchhiking trip, 1948.
When Ernesto senior discovered that Carlos Figueroa was its source, he stormed at him, furious over what he perceived as a slight to the family honor. In spite of or possibly because of his father’s displeasure, Ernesto kept the nickname and, in the rugby magazine
Tackle
he founded and edited for the eleven issues it survived, signed his articles Chang-Cho. (His merciless reviews of rugby matches were written in a quickly paced sportswriter’s jargon, peppered with anglicizations.)
Whereas Ernesto’s relationship with his father was combative, he was solicitous of his mother, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1946 and had undergone a mastectomy. Their union was so special that it excluded the other children, and several friends spoke sympathetically about the effect it had on Roberto in particular. More physically fit and two years younger than Ernesto, Roberto eventually excelled at rugby, but within the family his triumphs were overshadowed by those of his older brother, who was always seen as “conquering” his asthma. It took Roberto many years to overcome the resentment he had felt toward Ernesto since childhood.
Everyone in the family simply ignored the fact that Ernesto senior and Celia no longer shared a bed. He would come home late and, oblivious of whatever else was going on around him, flop down on the sofa and go to sleep. His other eccentricities made this behavior seem natural. He could not leave the house without intentionally forgetting something, like his keys, in order to come back. It was “bad luck” if he didn’t. This became an obsessive ritual. If anyone said “snake” around the family table, he would immediately say “wild boar,” the “countervenom” to the bad luck the forbidden word portended.
Celia, meanwhile, continued to run her house like a salon. The dinner table was her throne. She sat there for hours playing solitaire, which—like the cigarettes she habitually smoked—she had become addicted to, but she was always ready to receive some young person for conversation or to dispense advice. As for the practicalities of everyday life, she was above the fray. On her cook’s days off, she threw together meals with whatever happened to be in the refrigerator, with no notion of measurements or recipes. Visitors noted the absence of furniture, adornments, or paintings in the house, but were struck by the plethora of books, shelved and stacked everywhere. There were other peculiarities. The kitchen stove had a perennial short circuit, and the walls gave off electrical shocks to unsuspecting newcomers who leaned against them.
Just as Ernesto found the space and quiet he needed to study at Beatriz’s apartment or in the university library, his father soon found some refuge in a rented studio nearby. He had a new business partner, and together they set up a combination real estate agency and contracting firm called GuevaraLynch y Verbruch. Before
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