The Blue Line

by Ingrid Betancourt

  The young team was in the grip of conflicting emotions. Only Father Mugica remained unruffled. He talked to the people he visited with the same consideration, the same attitude of restraint and attentiveness, that had struck Julia at the d’Uccellos’ house. But there was something more: an energy, a kind of barely suppressed elation, that he didn’t have elsewhere. He flourished in this underworld, at one with himself; his rebellion against the system was fueled by love, not resentment.

  Julia had just come to this conclusion when an elderly woman, who seemed to have been following them for some time, interrupted her thoughts.

  “Are you related to Josefina d’Annunzio?” she asked with a hesitant smile.

  “Mama Fina, you mean? Yes, of course, I’m her granddaughter!”

  “I thought as much,” the woman said happily. “You look uncannily like her.”

  She went on with a secretive air: “You know, I’m very fond of your grandmother, and grateful to her too. You could say it’s partly because of her that I’m still alive.”

  The old woman began laughing, a hand over her toothless mouth. Her small eyes shone intensely in their deep-set sockets, intensifying the hundreds of furrows plowed in her rough skin.

  “Oh! It’s quite a strange story,” she continued. “Maybe she’ll tell you about it.”

  Then, delighted with the effect she’d had, she added: “You can tell her the girls in the cooperative have worked hard this week; this time she’ll really be satisfied with the quality.”

  —

  That was how Julia learned that Mama Fina was a regular visitor to Villa 31 and that she’d known Father Mugica for years. She had set up a cooperative for unemployed young mothers. They took turns looking after the little ones while the others made children’s clothing. Smocking was their specialty—that explained the long dress Mama Fina had given Julia, which she’d worn to Anna’s eighteenth-birthday party. Mama Fina took the dresses to storekeepers in La Boca and San Telmo. The profits were shared equally among all the young mothers who were members of the cooperative.

  When Julia returned home, she went straight to Mama Fina and threw her arms around her neck. It didn’t occur to her to be upset with her grandmother. Full of admiration, she told her everything she’d learned about the cooperative, the old lady, and her social-action activities. Julia understood that, in a way, Mama Fina’s discretion about her good works was the same as her own efforts to conceal their gift. All the same, Julia was excited. She told Mama Fina she wanted to work with her at the cooperative and with Father Mugica in Villa 31.

  “Good timing,” Mama Fina answered. “I want to set up a health center at the cooperative. I know Father Carlos has connections with some pharmaceutical wholesalers. If you want to help me, I’ll give you a small budget. You’ll have to draw up a list of essential drugs, and you can run the shop after school.”

  —

  One month later Julia had invited everybody she knew, including Theo, Gabriel, and Rosa, to the opening of her health center. They had all helped her, especially Señora Pilar, the old woman who was a friend of Mama Fina’s and who did the accounts for the cooperative. Gabriel had made up a list of drugs to stock. He had also agreed to train Julia in first aid and how to offer basic medical advice. Rosa, for her part, had offered to take turns with Julia to make sure there was always someone at the health center.

  Julia’s work in Villa 31 brought her even closer, if that was possible, to her grandmother. When Theo came to call for her on May 1, 1974, on his way to the demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo, Julia took care to ask Mama Fina her opinion and left only after she had gotten her blessing.

  The Plaza de Mayo was packed to bursting, and columns of Montoneros were chanting slogans against the government’s “gorillas,” El Brujo and the vice president, Isabel. Despite all this, there were no violent incidents. Perón appeared as expected on the balcony of the Casa Rosada. In his speech to the workers, he violently disparaged the Montoneros, calling them “stupid” and, once again, “beardless.” The public insult resulted in a spectacular retreat by the ranks of Montoneros, who withdrew with military precision. Julia and Theo returned home earlier than expected, despondent but unharmed.

  Even the maté* with which Mama Fina welcomed them did nothing to lift their spirits. They stayed up all night setting the world right, realizing that their loyalty to Perón had now vanished for good. They eventually fell asleep wound around each other on the living room sofa, physically drained and demoralized.

  Julia woke at dawn feeling stiff all over, her throat parched. She was walking to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water when she felt the premonitory tremors come over her. She collapsed onto the tiled floor and, in the nearly instantaneous awakening of her inner eye, saw a burly man sporting a small, clipped mustache standing in front of her. He was wearing a brown parka and black pants, his body half-hidden behind a blue Renault. The man was emptying his 9 mm submachine gun into her.

  In shock, Julia saw the blood spurting out as she watched herself falling to the ground. She had just enough time to glimpse the man with the thin mustache get into the front seat of a green Chevrolet and speed off before she was disconnected from her source. When she came to, she was staring at her hands and crying, struggling in Theo’s embrace as he tried in vain to soothe her.

  Mama Fina arrived immediately afterward. She crouched down next to Julia, took firm hold of her hands, and asked Theo to leave them. Then, once she was sure they couldn’t be heard, she asked Julia in the same firm voice she would have used with a child: “Julia, what did you see?”

  8.

  THE SOURCE

  Austral Autumn

  1974

  Instantly she calmed down. Now she understood. She refused to say anything, claiming she’d simply felt faint. She wanted to give herself a moment to recover her composure. Above all, she didn’t want to arouse Theo’s suspicions. He was waiting anxiously for her, puzzled by Mama Fina’s brusque reaction. Julia went back and snuggled up in his arms again, reassured him, and pretended to fall asleep.

  It was only after Theo had left the house that she confided in Mama Fina. Julia was extremely pale. “I’m certain it was his car,” she said.

  “I’m sure you’re right, but that doesn’t mean he was your source.”

  Julia racked her brain with painful intensity. “In any case, the car wasn’t parked in a slum. I can see the street clearly, and it’s not in Villa 31. It looks more like a street in Liniers . . . or Mataderos. I don’t know, maybe it’s someplace I’ve never been.”

  “What about the man with the mustache? Would you be able to recognize him?”

  “Absolutely, if he were standing in front of me!” Julia answered without hesitating. “But I’m sure I’ve never seen him before. I could try to draw him if you like.”

  He was a man with delicate features—quite a good-looking fellow, with big eyes and thick, dark eyebrows. He had his hair parted on one side, an impeccably drawn mustache over thin lips, and a slight double chin that aged him. Mama Fina went out with Julia’s sketch in her pocket. She left her some freshly brewed maté and orders to rest. But Julia did nothing of the sort. She couldn’t just sit there. What if it was already too late?

  Julia headed to Retiro, near the railroad line, where she knew she might find Father Mugica. She went into Villa 31 and wandered through the maze of shacks piled up against each other, bag clasped firmly under her arm. By now she was a regular visitor. She recognized faces; a few children called out to her by name. She went up to them, one after another, to ask if they knew where Father Mugica was. No one had seen him. Then she went to the Chapel of Christ the Worker but had no luck there either.

  Julia realized it was already quite late. She glanced at her watch. Theo would be arriving at Mama Fina’s any moment now. He went with her every day to the cooperative to open up the health center. She had no way to get in tou
ch with him. Never mind. She would just have to do the return trip twice.

  When she got home, it was Theo who gave her the information she needed. “He’s probably at home, at his parents’ place in calle Gelly y Obes,” he told her.

  He wanted to know why she was in such urgent need of Father Carlos’s assistance. Julia claimed that some drugs had gone missing from the health center and she needed him to go with her to the police station.

  “You go to Retiro,” Theo said, taking charge of the situation. “I’ll see if I can find him at his place. We’ll meet up at the health center.”

  Theo knew nothing of Julia’s journeys or the strange lineage to which she belonged. She hadn’t attempted to explain it to him for fear he would think she was mad. Theo knew Julia had occasional fainting fits, but he simply thought she suffered from low blood pressure, quite common in young women, according to Gabriel.

  In fact, it had taken Julia a very long time to accept that she was normal. She had kept to herself as a child, fearing she would go into a trance at school and people would think she was crazy. It was only recently that she’d really begun to open up to other people, and this mainly because of Theo. But her newfound confidence was also the result of maturity. She had learned to exercise some control over her departures into trance, and Mama Fina, who embraced her role as mentor, pushed Julia increasingly to take the initiative and make contact with her sources.

  A few months previously, Julia had been tempted to share her secret with Theo. Each time she’d hinted at it, though, Theo had made fun of her, until one day he had rebuffed her outright. “Look, I’m a rational being. Only fools buy all this stuff about premonitions and clairvoyance!”

  Julia had been shaken, and all her childish insecurity had resurfaced painfully. It had even occurred to her that perhaps she had inherited a deformity, not a gift.

  She had only recently managed to articulate her unease. How could she not rebel against being involuntarily projected into the critical moment in another person’s life? Why should she agree to get mixed up in somebody else’s private life? It was no longer the fear of being judged by Theo that dogged her. On the contrary, since she’d decided to keep her secret from him, Julia felt more adult, so to speak. It was the realization that her power was backfiring on her and profoundly affecting her own freedom.

  This latest journey had been a traumatic experience. Did she really have a choice in the face of the terrible crime she had foreseen? Could she escape this appointment with someone else’s fate, the outcome of which filled her with such dread?

  Mama Fina had turned up at the cooperative health center. She wanted to tell Julia what she’d found out so far based on her sketch but instinctively realized her granddaughter was in no state to listen to her. Julia had launched into a self-accusing monologue. Mama Fina stayed stone-faced, waiting for the right moment to speak up. But Julia mistook Mama Fina’s silence for condescension. Confused, she paused, struggling with mixed feelings of shame and anger.

  Mama Fina broke in before she could get any more bogged down. “We’re on our own, my little Julia,” she said. “There’s no instruction manual. With or without the gift, we all face the same difficult condition of living with the awareness of our own mortality, even as we believe ourselves to be eternal. We all have a longing to break free from the shackles of time. But you and I know from experience that there are escape routes, that freedom is possible.”

  “But I don’t feel any freer than anyone else!” Julia retorted.

  “You might not be freer than anyone else, but you know you can be. Each time you go on a journey, the other person’s prospect gives you a different perspective on your own life. What you see affects your own feelings and feeds your innermost thoughts. You have learned to recognize elements of your own existence in that of your source. And because you’ve already acted as a catalyst, you know that destiny does not unfold before our eyes like a predetermined musical score but like a spring of ever-changing possibilities. It’s within this choice that we fashion our own identity. We are masters of our destiny, in the truest sense of the term.”

  “But I don’t have a choice! I’m subject to the whims of an inner eye that barges into my happiness to project me into other people’s unhappiness!”

  “Make no mistake, Julia, you always have a choice. You can refuse to make use of your inner eye. Or you can develop your gift.”

  “I didn’t choose it, Mama Fina, and neither did you, so how can you talk about freedom?”

  “You didn’t choose to be born, either, or to be a woman. But that doesn’t make you any less free. Because regardless of the kind of person you are by nature, you exercise your freedom by making the fundamental choice of who you want to be. It is because we can reinvent ourselves at any time that we are free—to act and react, to feel, and to think in a totally different way.”

  —

  Theo arrived. Carlos Mugica hadn’t been at the church of San Francisco Solano all day. But Theo had left a message for him in the hope that he would call back later. Julia felt unwell and went to sit down. Theo assumed it was a repeat episode of the morning’s low blood pressure. She buried herself in his arms, relieved he had come up with his own explanation.

  “Let’s go and say hi to my parents,” Julia suggested. “We can stop by Villa Luro on the way and see if Father Carlos is there. That way I’ll feel I’ve done something useful with my day.”

  Theo knew the route by heart. He often went with Gabriel to San Francisco Solano, where Father Mugica said Mass. They took the bus and got off a few stops early. The city was bathed in gold, perfect for an evening stroll, but to Theo’s disappointment Julia was in a hurry. As they walked up calle Zelada hand in hand, Theo could feel Julia trembling. He stopped and looked at her: pale skin, black hair streaming over her shoulders, black eyes. He held back from kissing her. Julia didn’t notice his emotion; she had caught sight of the church spire and quickened her step. The doors were closed and the building was in darkness. The sidewalks were empty. Julia spun around and her heart jumped: she was standing in the exact spot where the man with the thin mustache had emptied his gun into her.

  “What’s wrong?” Theo asked, taking her by the arm to steady her. “You’re not pregnant, are you? The timing isn’t exactly perfect, but I’d be the happiest man alive. . . .”

  Julia’s eyes sparkled with a strange intensity. She let him kiss her.

  They spent the rest of the evening at Julia’s parents’ house. Anna was transfixed by her sister. She had to admit that Julia was completely transformed. She and Theo made an unsettling couple; they gave off so much energy it almost made Anna feel uncomfortable. From the moment of her arrival, Julia had been monopolized by her brothers, who fired questions at her from every angle. Eventually Anna took her sister off into the kitchen. They embraced with heavy hearts, not really knowing why. They wanted to talk to each other but couldn’t recapture the language of their intimacy, perhaps in the confused sensation that their childhood was over.

  The only one who understood their emotion was their father. He had been watching them and guessed at Anna’s conflicting feelings because they resembled his own. Julia had become a woman, and he felt in this realization something of a paradise lost.

  The next morning Julia was up at dawn. She wanted to stop by the Chapel of Christ the Worker again before going to school to see if she could speak to Father Mugica. This time she had better luck. She saw him from far off, in jeans and an old turtleneck, busy helping the villeros* transport building materials to the site of a planned new community canteen. She suddenly felt stupid, unable to remember what she had come to say. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, giving the world a substance that diluted her visions.

  Father Mugica saw her approaching and once again mistook her hesitation for embarrassment. He went up to her.

  “Father, I’m sorry, but I have to talk to you. It’s a mat
ter of urgency and importance.”

  Father Mugica’s eyes widened. “Do you want to meet me after school? I could come to the health center if you like. Or you could come to Villa Luro this evening. I’ll be saying Mass at San Francisco Solano.”

  Julia thought for a moment. “Father, I think I’ll come to see you in Villa Luro. There’ll be fewer people there, right?”

  He smiled at her. “If you feel more comfortable in Villa Luro, that’s fine by me.”

  Julia thanked him, adding: “I’ll bring my grandmother along, if you don’t mind.”

  —

  Julia found a satisfied Mama Fina waiting in her green velvet armchair in the living room. She had gathered some new information. A high-ranking police officer friend, Commissioner-Major Angelini, had helped with her search. Mama Fina explained that they had known each other for years. She had warned him about a bombing conspiracy, which had been foiled as a result, and he had subsequently informed her of a raid by security forces to evict her villeros friends. She had seen to it that urgent measures were put in place to head off a potentially bloody clash. They were both from Naples, which gave them a sense of solidarity, given that the vast majority of porteños* were of Genoese origin. Both were also members of the San Juan Evangelista parish in the neighborhood of La Boca.

  “It’s possible your man is a small-time crook,” Mama Fina burst out. “If your sketch is a realistic likeness, it bears a strong resemblance to a man known as El Pibe.* He has close links to the minister for social welfare.”

  “El Brujo, you mean?”

  “Yes, exactly. He was kicked out of the police force a few years ago and reinstated recently out of the blue. He’s just been promoted to subcommissioner. It’s rumored he’s recruiting professional marksmen for an organization they call the Triple A, which they want to keep under wraps.”

  “Mama Fina, I recognized the place. It’s calle Zelada in Villa Luro, right across from the church of San Francisco Solano, where Father Mugica celebrates Mass on Saturday afternoons.”