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tells of their early
years in Europe: the apartment they shared in Madrid, new friends, their first
quarrels (occasionally they came to blows), dirty old women and men, how it was
impossible to work in the apartment, the long hours Fernández-Gómez spent holed
up in the National Library, and travels that were generally pleasant but
occasionally wretched.
    Fernández-Gómez marvels at his own youth: he writes of his body, his
sexual potency, the length of his member, how well he holds his liquor (although
he detests alcohol and only drinks to keep Zubieta company), and his ability to
go for days without sleep. He also marvels gratefully at the ease with which he
can withdraw into himself at moments of crisis, the solace he finds in the
practice of literature, the great work he hopes to write, which will “ennoble
him, wash away all his sins, endow his life and his sacrifices with meaning,”
although he declines to divulge the nature of these “sacrifices.” He tries to
write about himself and not Zubieta, in spite of the fact that Zubieta’s shadow
“clings around his neck like an obligatory tie or a lethal bond of loyalty.”
    He does not expand on political themes. He deems Hitler Europe’s
providential savior, but says little more about him. Physical proximity to
power, however, moves him to tears. The book is full of scenes in which, along
with Zubieta, he attends soirées, official functions, medal ceremonies, military
parades, church services and dances. The men in positions of authority, almost
always generals or prelates, are described in lingering detail, with the
tenderness of a mother describing her children.
    The Civil War is his moment of truth. Fernández-Gómez throws himself
into it with enthusiasm and courage, although he realizes at once, and informs
his future readers, that the constant companionship of Zubieta will be no small
burden. His evocation of Madrid in 1936—a city where he and Zubieta move like
ghosts among ghosts, in search of friends hiding from the Red Terror, and visit
Latin American embassies where they are received by demoralized diplomats who
can tell them little or nothing—is vivid and striking. It does not take
Fernández-Gómez long to adapt to the extraordinary circumstances. Army life, the
hardships of battle, the marches and countermarches do not dull his keen
fighting spirit. He has time to read and write, to help Zubieta, who is largely
dependent on him, to think of the future and make plans for his return to
Colombia, plans he will never put into practice.
    Almost as soon as the Civil War is over, Fernández-Gómez volunteers
for the Blue Division’s Russian adventure, along with Zubieta, to whom he is
closer than ever. The battle of Possad is recounted realistically, in harrowing,
unflinching detail, without a trace of lyricism. The descriptions of bodies
destroyed by artillery fire occasionally bring to mind the paintings of Francis
Bacon. The final pages evoke the sadness of the Riga Hospital, the solitude of
the bedridden warrior, far from his friends, left behind to endure the
melancholy Baltic evenings, which he compares unfavorably to the evenings of his
distant Cartagena.
    Although unedited and unrevised,
The Fighting Years of an American
Falangist in Europe
has the power of a work based on extreme
experience, as well as containing various colorful observations on lesser-known
aspects of Ignacio Zubieta’s life, over which we shall pass in discreet silence.
Among the numerous grievances addressed to Zubieta by his brother in arms
convalescing in Riga we note only one, of a purely literary nature, regarding
the authorship of the Schiller translations. In any case, and whatever the truth
of that matter, we know that the two friends met again, albeit in the presence
of a third party, the painter Lemercier, and that together they resumed the
struggle, this time in the controversial Brigade Charlemagne. It is hard to know
who led whom into that final adventure.
    The