The Blue Line

by Ingrid Betancourt

  “You can stay for a few minutes more,” the guard told Julia’s mother as Mama Fina was shown out.

  “Mom, I need to ask you a favor,” Julia said.

  Julia gestured behind her to where Rosa was sitting, crouched in the far corner. Her mother listened, ill at ease.

  “I want you to help Rosa. We have to find her family. She was Gabriel’s fiancée. She went mad after being tortured.”

  “After being tortured? You mean . . . My God!”

  Deathly pale, she moved closer to the bars and took Julia’s face in her hands.

  “Oh, my God!” she said again.

  —

  Things moved quickly from that point on. The French consulate sent an envoy to the Villa Devoto prison, but he was not allowed to meet with Julia. France then granted political asylum to Julia and her child. A safe-conduct pass was issued in their names authorizing their entry into French territory.

  On the day Rosa was transferred to the psychiatric unit, Julia was sent to Block 49, the block for mothers and infants. That same day, Julia also learned that the Argentine government had ordered her into exile. She was given the information while she and Tina were discussing a recent change in the law reducing the time prisoners were allowed to keep their babies with them from two years to six months. With the news of the deportation, Julia realized that her life had been split in two. Of all the people her new destiny would force her to leave behind, it was the separation from Mama Fina that caused her the most anguish. She didn’t know how she would ever find Theo again without her help. When the time came to pack her belongings, the only thing she insisted on taking was the bundle of blue letters that Mama Fina had sent her every week since her arrival at Villa Devoto. They were her only treasures.

  Julia arrived at Ezeiza Airport wearing the red satin dress she had worn on her eighteenth birthday. There hadn’t been any space left for it in the one small suitcase she’d been allowed, so she had resolved to wear it under her old gray coat. She walked with her head held high, pushing the baby carriage with one hand, the other handcuffed to the policeman escorting her to the plane.

  People stared at Julia as she walked through the endless corridors of the airport with the baby carriage and the policeman. Julia found some consolation in the officer’s obstinate silence.

  Five minutes before boarding, Julia was given permission to see her family one last time, through a window in the corridor leading to the gate. Her white-haired father and her mother were pressing their faces against the glass. Anna was sobbing in the arms of Pablo, who stood behind her. The twins had brought their guitars and were playing something she couldn’t hear. She spotted Mama Fina last and burst into tears. The policeman pushed her forward as she held up Ulysses for them all to see. She went meekly, looking back over her shoulder until she could no longer see them.

  Julia wiped her cheeks hastily as she boarded the Aerolíneas Argentinas plane. She felt the weight of eyes on her as she made her way down the aisle, and she kept her gaze lowered. She busied herself with pointless tasks, trying to appear composed, while the policeman handed her travel documents to the chief flight attendant. Then he removed her handcuffs, clipped them to his belt, and motioned to her to sit down. He left just before the aircraft doors were closed. A flight attendant passed Julia and gave her a condescending look. She stopped, pushed Julia’s suitcase under the seat with her foot, and ordered her to fasten her seat belt.

  The plane took off. Julia gazed out the window as her world shrank. Ulysses was already asleep in her arms. She sighed, leaned forward to pull out her suitcase, and rested her feet on it.

  It’s all I have, but I don’t need anything else.

  28.

  THE MOVE

  Boreal Winter

  2006

  Julia shuts her suitcase and looks around. There’s nothing left, no trace of her time in this house. Even the photo on the mantelpiece is gone. In front of her is a pile of about twenty storage boxes ready to go, filled with useless objects she cannot bring herself to throw away.

  If she had used the coupons Theo had left out for her, Julia could have saved 10 percent on the boxes. She has left them in full view on the kitchen countertop.

  When the movers arrive, they’ll have only a few items of furniture to cover and dump in the container for shipping to France. She lays her small suitcase on its side, sits down on the edge of the bed, and rests her feet on it. She certainly has more possessions than when she left Villa Devoto, but the only ones worth keeping are in her case. She still has the neatly tied bundle of blue envelopes containing Mama Fina’s letters.

  The movers will arrive in an hour’s time. She has nothing else to do. She had pictured this differently: the two of them waking up early, having time to look at each other, to feel pain together. Theo helping her pack.

  Maybe it’s better this way. She has stopped waiting. She spent the night on her own and managed to sleep. It’s more than she’d hoped for: she hasn’t been able to sleep for weeks. And this constant stomachache is exhausting her. She feels worn out. Existing has become a chore in a dull world. Even the pounds she has shed fail to give her any satisfaction.

  Theo has already begun his new life. She too would like to be excited, in love. She wishes sometimes that she could be angry with him, hate him. But she can’t. For now, she still loves him, until the day comes when she can remember the pain but not the attachment. She hopes she will love him forever, but in a different way. She needs that certainty in order to heal. Love is so short and forgetting so long.

  Finally she makes up her mind. She can’t refuse to go there any longer. Even though she’d wanted so much to be the exception, to prove the predictions wrong, to experience the grace to depart from destiny. She opens the suitcase, unties the envelopes yellowed by time, and pulls out one of the letters at random. Mama Fina’s voice comes back to her with each word, distinct, powerful, real.

  Julia allows herself to slide onto the floor. The convulsions come quickly. She has learned to travel at will. She knows what she wants. It is not the future that interests her now; instead, she is eager to go back, to see again, to understand. She plunges into the thick white substance with confidence, her inert body abandoned behind her. She glides forward, carried by her emotions. Julia knows the circuit through the stages of consciousness, the potential connections and openings. She has learned that the emotions are a universal force, subject to the same laws as energy, working through connected vessels. She advances backward, seeking the inflection point at which contact with the other moment in time becomes inevitable. She knows she is close, very close.

  Done. She just made it. All of a sudden, she resurfaces.

  The fountain in the patio is just confirmation of the mastery she has attained. Julia looks on, satisfied. She knows. She wants to take her time, immerse herself once again in this world that belongs to her. Her host’s eyes suit her. Julia walks through each of the rooms. She leaves the patio to go in search of the calabaza, the bombilla, and the maté that awaits her on the large cherrywood table in the dining room. She crosses the living room, where the upright piano on which she learned to play, like her father before her, stands in its usual place. A folded newspaper on Mama Fina’s armchair tells her the date: August 6, 1984. Her birthday. Of course. It is obviously no coincidence.

  In Mama Fina’s room the bed shows signs of a recent siesta, but the curtains aren’t drawn. It’s still early. She moves over to the bedside table, on which a large framed photo of her kissing Ulysses in his firefighter outfit stands beside a photo of her parents. The little wooden drawer opens. A rosary, glasses, pills. Julia sees Mama Fina’s hand rummaging around and then taking out a large magnifying glass.

  She goes back out into the corridor. Julia knows that Mama Fina is heading to her old room. She could count the number of steps. Everything is still there, intact, as if it were only yesterday that she’d moved out
to live with Theo. Her bed, her poetry collection, her sketchbooks, her old magazines, her dressing table, her desk.

  Mama Fina switches on the light and sits down at Julia’s desk. She opens the middle drawer, takes out a folder, and puts it down carefully in front of her. She opens it. A jumble of papers and newspaper cuttings. She begins to sort through them methodically with the help of the magnifying glass: recipes, movie flyers, articles. Mama Fina comes across a child’s drawing and sets it aside on a corner of the desk. Julia recognizes it. It is the drawing she gave Mama Fina to explain her first “journey” when she was only five years old. Mama Fina places a hand on it as she returns to her filing.

  She has already gone through half of the file’s contents when she stops at a newspaper cutting and holds it close to the light. It is a clipping from a society magazine. It is about the wedding of an air force captain—Ignacio Castro Matamoros, Julia reads in the caption—to a pretty girl named Mailen Amun. Mama Fina looks at the picture and inspects the faces of the newlyweds with the magnifying glass. Julia cannot help noticing that the young bride resembles her. She is probably the same age as Julia too. But Mama Fina’s gaze lingers on the face of the bridegroom. He is a big, muscular man with a buzz cut, petrol blue eyes, and a scar on his temple. Mama Fina places the cutting on Julia’s drawing and carries on sifting.

  Suddenly she stops, stands up, and walks back across the corridor. She returns to the living room, switches on the light, and sits down in her armchair to answer the telephone. The newspaper she places on her knees, El Clarín, is open to the crime section. A photograph shows a group of policemen in front of a row of identical houses. Julia thinks she recognizes Commissioner-Major Angelini, Mama Fina’s friend. The barely legible caption says the police are looking for the killer. Her grandmother drums her fingers nervously on the armrest of her chair. Julia knows she is looking for her source.

  Mama Fina contemplates the receiver for a moment before hanging up. Julia wishes she could be there to work with her. She goes back to Julia’s room and puts the folder away in its drawer, leaving the press clipping and the drawing on the corner of the desk. Then she sits down, takes out a few sheets of blue paper and a fountain pen from the side drawer, and begins to write. Julia knows the contents of the letter by heart. It is the one she is still holding in her hand.

  A sudden jolt brings her back into her own body. Julia is disconnected with a snap. She is projected into nothingness, despite struggling to stay with Mama Fina. Her being is sucked forward. Her body is calling her back. It is time. Very well. Her eyes flick open instantly. A burly man in blue overalls is bending anxiously over her. She can smell the cigarette smoke on his breath.

  “You okay, ma’am? Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, thanks. I must have nodded off. I’m sorry.”

  “I saw the door was open and everything was all packed up, so I thought . . .”

  “Don’t worry, you did the right thing.”

  Julia gets up, runs a hand over her hair, and smooths down her pants. She looks at Mama Fina’s letter in her hand. She’ll have to read it again carefully.

  But not now. First she has to move out.

  29.

  THE RULE

  Boreal Winter

  2006

  Julia watches from the window as the movers struggle with the art deco piano. It is a George Steck. It followed her all the way from Argentina to Connecticut, and she has no intention of leaving it behind. Not only is it rare, with its inlaid wooden case and oval soundboard, but it used to be in Mama Fina’s living room.

  The movers will be asking to take their break soon. Julia glances at her watch. As if reading her thoughts, the man in the blue overalls begins to stride across the lawn. Julia rushes downstairs. Too late: he’s trampled through the flowerbeds.

  “We’re just taking a half-hour break,” the man says.

  “Yes, of course, go ahead,” she answers, eyeing the muddy footprints on her parquet floor.

  The men are already sitting in the big truck with their sandwiches. Julia feels strange. She sits down too, at the foot of the staircase, and allows the river of images to flow again.

  The dimly lit room, the half-open door. The eyes of her host travel from the bathroom to the bedside table. In the half light, Theo reaches out for an object. He unlocks a cell phone and reads a three-line text. He scrolls briefly through his messages, then switches off the phone. His eyes swing back to the bathroom. The young woman is putting on her makeup, leaning close to the mirror. She’s wearing black stilettos. The hotel towels lie discarded on the floor. The young woman is about to pick up her purse, wave, and slam the door.

  Feeling the need to splash some water on her face, Julia gets up, stopping to pour herself a glass of cold milk on the way. She shakes her head as if trying to get rid of the images. The thought that Theo might burst in at any moment makes her nervous. She doesn’t want to see him. Not now. She checks her watch again. There are jobs where people are always on time. Her movers probably don’t fall into that category.

  She casts a final eye around and pulls a face. Damn, I forgot the china.

  She’ll have to ask them to pack it up. They won’t be pleased. Her mind has definitely been elsewhere. She opens up the cupboards.

  Too bad, I’ll leave it.

  The sound of her cell phone ringing startles her. She goes to look for it. She can’t find it anywhere, and now it’s gone silent. Julia searches behind the boxes, under the cushions, on the window ledges, and in the fridge. In the end she decides to use the landline phone to dial her own number. She hears it ringing upstairs; she must have put it in her suitcase. But instead she finds the phone waiting for her in the bathroom, vibrating and ringing at the same time, on the edge of the sink.

  It’s a message from Theo. Julia makes a gesture of annoyance.

  She jumps again. This time it’s the doorbell. The gang must be getting impatient on the stoop. She hurries downstairs, cell phone in hand, to open the door. Now it’s the boss who comes in, solemn and wearing a suit. Julia has to fill out and sign about a dozen forms. The other men have already dispersed throughout the house and begun packing up what’s left. She has to intervene to explain that the remaining items belong to her husband.

  The boss leaves. Julia suddenly feels more relaxed, and so do the men. One of them comes back with a large black and yellow building-site radio, made to survive a cataclysm, he says. He asks if he can turn it on while he packs up the books. She can’t refuse. The sound explodes into the house, startling Julia yet again. This time she laughs about it.

  “We like to follow the news. Have you heard about the plane?” asks the man, seemingly unable to keep quiet for longer than a minute.

  Julia raises her eyebrows. She hasn’t paid any attention at all to the outside world for the past few days. She’s happy for them to listen to anything they like; she just wants to take a quick look at Theo’s message.

  “No,” she answers politely, trying to find a quiet corner.

  “There’s a private jet heading from New York to Boston. They’re going to try to land not too far from here. Apparently there’s an airport in Stratford.”

  “Oh, right,” Julia says distractedly.

  “Yeah, I’ll find the live coverage for you,” the man continues, overeager. He fiddles with the radio dials. A woman’s voice fills the living room, describing the movements of the distressed plane and the various measures being taken to allow it to make an emergency landing on the runway of the small airport in Bridgeport.

  “. . . Sikorsky Memorial, which is actually situated in Stratford,” the voice adds, before launching into a lengthy discussion of the reasons for the long-standing confrontation between the two towns on the subject of the airport.

  Julia is miles away. She is totally focused on Theo’s message. Three lines asking her to forgive him. He calls her “my lo
ve.”

  “What a moron!”

  All heads turn to stare at her. No, she doesn’t supply an explanation. Instead she heads to her room. She’s going to reread Mama Fina’s letters.

  The yellow radio goes on providing details of the emergency. The aircraft is still reporting difficulties. There is now talk of a forced landing.

  Julia returns to the kitchen, hands on hips. Hell, no. She’s going to take all the crockery too. And all the pots and pans. She takes out piles of plates, large, medium, small; the cups, the saucers, the teapot, the coffee maker, milk jugs, saucepans, frying pans. She lines them all up on the counter with military precision.

  “Guys, I forgot about all this.”

  The movers look at one another. The man in the blue overalls walks around Julia in a circle, raises his cap, scratches his head, and declares in the voice of an expert: “That will take at least another hour and a half.”

  Julia agrees. The bill will be substantial, but that’s the least of her worries. She still can’t believe Theo’s nerve.

  “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d still be here waiting, telling myself the reason he didn’t come home all night was because he had too much work!” she mutters, stationing herself by the front door.

  —

  The movers have nearly finished. They’re rolling up carpets, taping the last boxes shut. The radio is still broadcasting live updates. The plane is now a few miles from Fairfield. It is flying over the Connecticut Turnpike and has begun to dump fuel. It won’t be able to reach Stratford. The pilot is asking for the highway to be cleared, and the authorities have given evacuation orders.

  Julia is impatient to have them finish. The house is empty, except for the yellow and black radio that has taken center stage in the room. Can’t they just shut this radio off! Julia freezes, then turns slowly to look at it, as if she was just discovering it. The voice continues: the highway, Fairfield, the plane.