while his team waited for its turn on the practice field, the boy would sit on the ground reading, his back propped against a light post. Ernesto was already reading Freud, enjoyed the poetry of Baudelaire, and had read Dumas, Verlaine, and Mallarmé—in French—as well as most of Émile Zola’s novels, Argentine classics such as Sarmiento’s epic
Facundo
, and the latest work of William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. A zealous reader himself, Granado couldn’t comprehend how the teenager could have gotten through so much. Ernesto explained that he had begun reading to occupy himself during his asthma attacks, when his parents made him stay at home. As for his reading in French, this was the result of Celia’s influence. She had tutored him during his absences from school.
For all their new friends and comforts in Córdoba, Alta Gracia remained dear to the Guevaras, and the family returned there often, sometimes renting cottages during the holidays. Ernesto was able to keep up his friendships with Calica Ferrer, Carlos Figueroa, and other members of his old
barra
. The González-Aguilars had also moved to Córdoba, and they lived in a house not far from the Guevaras.
The new family home on Calle Chile turned out to have some disadvantages that had been overlooked by Ernesto senior in his initial enthusiasm over its proximity to Parque Sarmiento and the Lawn Tennis Club. Their neighborhood of Nueva Córdoba, built on a hill rising up from the city center, was still in the process of being urbanized. It was a hodgepodge of residential homes surrounded by undeveloped vacant lots called
baldíos
. On these lots, and in the dry creeks that ran through the area, poor people had built shanties. One of the shantytowns lay directly across from where the Guevaras now lived. It was inhabited by colorful personalities, among them a man with no legs who rode around on a little wooden cart pulled by a team of six mongrel dogs that he urged on with a long, cracking whip.
Dolores Moyano, who had become a close friend of Ernesto’s youngest sister, Ana María, was now a constant visitor in the Guevara household. Moyano recalled that one of their pastimes was to sit on the curb of the “safeside” of the street and watch the goings-on among the slum dwellers of the
baldío
. One of them was a woman in black who nursed her baby under a
paraíso
tree and spit phlegm over his head. Another was a dwarfish twelve-year-old called Quico who had no eyebrows or eyelashes. They bribed him with sweets to show them his strange white tongue.
Although they were much better off than their poor neighbors in the hovels of cardboard and tin, the Guevaras soon discovered that their own home was built on a shaky foundation. Before long, huge cracks began appearing in the walls, and from his bed at night, Ernesto senior could see stars through a crack in his ceiling. Yet, for a builder, he was remarkably casual about the dangers. In the children’s room, where another crack appeared, he remedied the situation by moving their beds away from the wall in case it collapsed. “We found the house comfortable and we didn’t want to move, so we decided to stay as long as we could,” he recalled.
The sharp contrasts of urban life may have been new to the Guevaras but were becoming increasingly typical in Argentina and throughout Latin America. Since the late nineteenth century, changing economics, immigration, and industrialization had brought about a radical rural-to-urban population shift, as poor farmworkers migrated from the countryside to the cities in search of jobs and a better way of life. Many of them ended up in the shantytowns, or
villas miserias
, that sprang up in Córdoba and Argentina’s other large cities. In a span of only fifty years, Argentina’s demographics had reversed completely, from an urban population of 37 percent in 1895 to 63 percent in 1947. During the same period, the population as a whole had quadrupled from 4 million to 16
Facundo
, and the latest work of William Faulkner and John Steinbeck. A zealous reader himself, Granado couldn’t comprehend how the teenager could have gotten through so much. Ernesto explained that he had begun reading to occupy himself during his asthma attacks, when his parents made him stay at home. As for his reading in French, this was the result of Celia’s influence. She had tutored him during his absences from school.
For all their new friends and comforts in Córdoba, Alta Gracia remained dear to the Guevaras, and the family returned there often, sometimes renting cottages during the holidays. Ernesto was able to keep up his friendships with Calica Ferrer, Carlos Figueroa, and other members of his old
barra
. The González-Aguilars had also moved to Córdoba, and they lived in a house not far from the Guevaras.
The new family home on Calle Chile turned out to have some disadvantages that had been overlooked by Ernesto senior in his initial enthusiasm over its proximity to Parque Sarmiento and the Lawn Tennis Club. Their neighborhood of Nueva Córdoba, built on a hill rising up from the city center, was still in the process of being urbanized. It was a hodgepodge of residential homes surrounded by undeveloped vacant lots called
baldíos
. On these lots, and in the dry creeks that ran through the area, poor people had built shanties. One of the shantytowns lay directly across from where the Guevaras now lived. It was inhabited by colorful personalities, among them a man with no legs who rode around on a little wooden cart pulled by a team of six mongrel dogs that he urged on with a long, cracking whip.
Dolores Moyano, who had become a close friend of Ernesto’s youngest sister, Ana María, was now a constant visitor in the Guevara household. Moyano recalled that one of their pastimes was to sit on the curb of the “safeside” of the street and watch the goings-on among the slum dwellers of the
baldío
. One of them was a woman in black who nursed her baby under a
paraíso
tree and spit phlegm over his head. Another was a dwarfish twelve-year-old called Quico who had no eyebrows or eyelashes. They bribed him with sweets to show them his strange white tongue.
Although they were much better off than their poor neighbors in the hovels of cardboard and tin, the Guevaras soon discovered that their own home was built on a shaky foundation. Before long, huge cracks began appearing in the walls, and from his bed at night, Ernesto senior could see stars through a crack in his ceiling. Yet, for a builder, he was remarkably casual about the dangers. In the children’s room, where another crack appeared, he remedied the situation by moving their beds away from the wall in case it collapsed. “We found the house comfortable and we didn’t want to move, so we decided to stay as long as we could,” he recalled.
The sharp contrasts of urban life may have been new to the Guevaras but were becoming increasingly typical in Argentina and throughout Latin America. Since the late nineteenth century, changing economics, immigration, and industrialization had brought about a radical rural-to-urban population shift, as poor farmworkers migrated from the countryside to the cities in search of jobs and a better way of life. Many of them ended up in the shantytowns, or
villas miserias
, that sprang up in Córdoba and Argentina’s other large cities. In a span of only fifty years, Argentina’s demographics had reversed completely, from an urban population of 37 percent in 1895 to 63 percent in 1947. During the same period, the population as a whole had quadrupled from 4 million to 16
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