The Blue Line

by Ingrid Betancourt

  Her world starts to spin in slow motion. She hears Mama Fina’s voice speaking from afar: “Julia, repeat back to me what you have to remember.”

  To serve others. She turns deathly pale. “Oh, my God!” she shouts, and rushes outside. She wants to call for help, to set off at a run. She races back into the house, takes the stairs two at a time, fetches her car keys from her handbag, and grabs her cell phone.

  The moving truck is blocking the driveway.

  “It’s a matter of life or death,” she calls out to the man in the blue overalls.

  The others, who are standing to one side, grumble among themselves. They must take me for a lunatic. Who cares. The man flicks his cigarette away, turns on the engine, and starts to move the truck.

  Julia is already behind the wheel of her car. She calls Theo while the truck is backing out of the driveway. She tries his number once, twice, twenty times.

  “He’s turned his phone off!” she yells, banging the steering wheel.

  30.

  THE LIE

  Between Boreal Springs

  (1977–1980)

  In the event of a loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically drop from the ceiling, the flight attendant had said. Mothers were required to secure their own masks before assisting their children. If she hadn’t been given that instruction, Julia would have done exactly the opposite—and yet Mama Fina had always insisted that she needed to be in the best shape possible so she could help others. The reasoning was the same.

  “Your body is only limited by your mind,” Mama Fina used to say.

  Right now that didn’t seem very real. Going into exile, alone, with her baby in her arms, Julia questioned her abilities and strength of mind. The flight attendant was no help. She’d probably never see her again, but this girl was Julia’s first contact with the outside world, and she wanted to get off to a good start.

  Julia looked up and smiled at the young woman as she went past. She had nothing to be embarrassed about. The flight attendant didn’t deign to return the smile, but Julia noticed the set of her mouth softening and took heart. Yes, she’d been through a lot, and she was crossing the Atlantic for the first time in her life to arrive in a country where she didn’t know a soul. But she didn’t want to feel scared anymore.

  When the flight attendant had finished serving the passengers, she crouched down beside Julia to ask if Ulysses needed his bottle warmed up. Julia repaid the gesture by thanking the girl profusely. They began to talk, and Julia ended up telling the girl some of what had happened to her. The young flight attendant’s curiosity had gotten the better of her reticence. Although Argentine by birth and from the same generation as Julia, she knew nothing about politics, let alone the extermination campaign that the ruling military junta was carrying out against the left.

  “I’m Alice. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  “I don’t know. I know nothing about France, or what will happen when I get there.”

  “Your family must be worried sick about you having to leave like this. I make the round trip every week: I’d be happy to be your go-between. I could take your letters and bring you theirs.”

  The mail service was particularly slow, and phone calls very expensive, but thanks to the flight attendant’s offer, she would be able to communicate easily with her family. And she’d just made a friend. The thought gave her renewed courage.

  Julia landed at Roissy Airport on a foggy spring morning. She was met by a representative of the French foundation Terre d’Asile, a young Chilean woman called Conchita who worked as a translator. She had been following Julia’s case for the past six months and had been in constant contact with her family and the French embassy in Buenos Aires. Julia immediately felt at ease.

  Conchita lifted Ulysses deftly into her arms, and the baby gurgled contentedly as they rode the futuristic escalator tunnels that led to the exit. The airport was like nothing she had known before. Julia was mesmerized, as though she’d stepped into a flying saucer.

  “For the first six months you’ll be staying at a center for refugees in Fontenay-sous-Bois, and you’ll have intensive French lessons at the church at Porte de Choisy. After that, we’ll see,” the young Chilean woman told her.

  —

  There were Brazilians, Chileans, and other Argentines at the center, all refugees like her, fleeing the dictatorships of South America. Julia didn’t have time to be bored. In the evenings, after lessons and once Ulysses had fallen asleep in their small room, Julia would meet up with Conchita and the priest who taught them French in the church. As she was learning very quickly, they had decided she should become an interpreter for new arrivals.

  At the end of the six months, Julia was able to rent a small apartment using her single-parent housing allowance and her wages as a part-time worker at a chemical plant in Fontenay-sous-Bois. Her work as an interpreter was voluntary. And she still had time to chat with all the people who came to see her, just like the stream of visitors to Mama Fina’s house in La Boca.

  Julia no longer felt alone in her new world. She had also struck up a friendship with a French student who helped her out with Ulysses. He obviously had a crush on her. But Julia was living on standby, waiting for the moment when she would be reunited with Theo.

  Unfortunately for her, the news from Argentina wasn’t encouraging. Alice regularly brought her letters from her family, including the much-awaited blue envelopes from Mama Fina. But there was still no news of either Theo or Adriana.

  Her fellow refugees had discovered a phone booth right in the middle of Avenue de la Grande Armée that had been cleverly tampered with. By dialing a particular set of digits, they could make free long-distance calls to South America. Julia had been tipped off about it by some friends. It was the only way she could afford to speak regularly to Mama Fina, Anna, and a few school friends, and it made her exile far more bearable.

  “I’m coming to see you this summer,” Mama Fina announced shortly before Ulysses’ second birthday.

  Julia spent the next few months in anticipation of this reunion. She was also hoping Mama Fina would arrive with some confidential information she couldn’t share over the phone.

  The thought that Theo might be alive helped Julia keep her head above water. If no one had been able to confirm that he had left Buenos Aires with Adriana on the Donizetti, it was simply because their escape plan had worked so well that they had managed to disappear without a trace. After all, Mama Fina said she’d lost all contact with Captain Torricelli, and the Donizetti had never returned to South America. This seemed perfectly normal: it had been the Donizetti’s last crossing, and the ship had been scrapped in 1977. That said, Father Miguel, the priest Julia had sent Adriana to, was among the junta’s most recent desaparecidos. He had been suspected of being in contact with the Montoneros, though Mama Fina knew, through Angelini, that it wasn’t because of Theo’s escape. Therefore, if Theo was still alive, why hadn’t he tried to find out what had become of Ulysses and her?

  “I’m starting to fear the worst,” Julia admitted to her friend Olivier.

  “Yes, it’s strange that you haven’t had any news for over a year.”

  “It isn’t like him. He would have found a way to communicate if he could,” Julia said, keeping a watchful eye on Ulysses as he waddled between the table and the kitchen door, ready to catch him before he fell.

  —

  One evening, shortly after the football World Cup, Olivier turned up in a state of great excitement. He had heard that Montonero militants were trying to sneak back into Argentina in a bid to end the dictatorship.

  “It’s incredible, isn’t it?”

  “Are you sure it’s not just speculation?” Julia asked.

  “Listen, I know what I’m talking about. I have contacts too, believe me!”

  “Really?”

  “If you must know, there wa
s a Montonero delegation at the last socialist youth conference. Let’s just say the Socialist Party has a good relationship with them.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Well, they have the support of Europe’s Social Democrats. Their leader has met everyone: Willy Brandt, Felipe González, Olof Palme, even Mitterrand!”

  “That’s precisely why I think it doesn’t make sense. Look, if they have all these backers, why are they walking into the lion’s den instead of fighting from the outside?”

  “So, according to you, they should take it easy abroad while the others are getting themselves killed? If I was in their shoes, I’d do the same!”

  Julia fell silent. Olivier stared at the floor, holding a glass in his hand.

  “Let’s not talk about it anymore. Anyway, I shouldn’t feel concerned,” he said finally.

  “Do we know who they are?”

  “Of course not! It’s not the kind of thing that’s printed in the papers!”

  “Well, you’re pretty well informed, so it can’t be all that secret!”

  Olivier left, slamming the door behind him.

  He broached the subject again a few weeks later.

  “Do you remember what I told you about the Montoneros?”

  “What, you mean the Normandy landings?” Julia quipped as she got Ulysses dressed for preschool.

  “That’s not very nice, Julia. But, in fact, I think you were right.”

  “What about?” she asked, hastily pulling on her coat.

  “They were arrested by Battalion 601 as soon as they set foot in the country. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Julia pulled Ulysses’ hat down over his ears and stayed crouched next to him. “How do you know?”

  “I just know.”

  “Do you know where they are now?”

  “Desaparecidos.”

  Julia dabbed at the beads of sweat on her forehead. “Will you come with me to drop Ulysses off at school?”

  Olivier took the child in his arms.

  “Do you have any names?” Julia asked as they left the building.

  “Not really. All I know is that the son of an actor called Marcos Zucker has fallen into their hands.”

  “Who?”

  “Marcos Zucker.”

  “I haven’t heard of him. Who else?”

  “We don’t know much. What we do know is that they’ve been sent to El Campito.”

  Julia turned pale. She kissed Ulysses, smiled at him, and handed him over to his teacher.

  Prisoners never returned from El Campito: an innocuous-sounding name for the concentration camp inside the military school at Campo de Mayo. Julia knew as much. In the Devoto maternity unit she’d heard people say that the military was especially keen to send pregnant prisoners there. There was a list of military officers wanting to adopt their babies. After giving birth, the mothers were executed and the babies given to new parents.

  Overcome by anxiety, Julia didn’t want to talk about it anymore. She knew that casting doubts could become a deadly poison. Mama Fina had warned her against the temptation to give voice to her apprehensions, because, she said, the energy in words can transform our fears into reality. So Julia didn’t say anything, but it was a possibility she couldn’t exclude. If Theo had agreed to return to Argentina and been captured again, that would explain his silence. Her attitude toward everyday life changed. She lost her appetite and developed a taciturnity that even Ulysses could only dispel momentarily.

  Alerted by Alice, Julia’s parents decided to lie to her. They led her to believe that Theo was being held in the Unidad 9 prison in La Plata, which was in itself good news. She was told Theo wouldn’t be allowed to write to her but that he could receive her letters.

  Julia’s life changed overnight. She began to make plans for the future and to try to get her career on a firm footing so that she could support Theo when he got out of prison.

  “We have to stop seeing each other,” she told Olivier.

  “But I can still help you, you know.”

  “It’s better if you don’t. Please understand me.”

  “I don’t want Ulysses to go out of my life like this, Julia, and besides, you don’t even know if Theo will want to live with you again. Prison changes people.”

  “Not him. And he is Ulysses’ father, Olivier.”

  “Let me help you,” he persisted.

  “The best way to help is for you to leave us.”

  The separation from Olivier proved harder than she’d thought. She didn’t feel any closer to Theo, and in fact found herself more alone than ever.

  Anna was mortified too. In a way she thought it was disrespectful to lie to her sister, even if it was to help her. So she began to do what she thought Julia really needed: she discreetly searched for Theo.

  First she went to the d’Uccello house. It was empty, but she learned from one of the neighbors that Theo’s uncle, a man named Mayol, had looked after the house for a while.

  “Señora d’Uccello’s brother, I believe,” the woman told her. “They’re the ones with the money, you know.”

  “I see. And this gentleman . . .”

  “Señor Mayol? He’s gone abroad. He went to work for a big American company. From what I hear, he’s a highly skilled scientist.”

  Anna did not find out anything else at the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires, where Theo and Gabriel had gone to high school. The cold reception she was met with deterred her from asking any more questions. She obviously made sure to avoid the universities, which were under surveillance by the intelligence agencies, and finally went to Father Mugica’s church, more in the hope of renewing her courage than because she expected to glean any new information.

  “You should go and talk to the Jesuits at the Colegio Máximo de San José,” the sacristan told her.

  He knew the d’Uccello family well. The children had been baptized there, and he also remembered Julia because he had often seen her in church before Father Mugica’s assassination.

  “If Gabriel or Theo were at any time seeking refuge, that is probably where they would have found it,” he told Anna.

  There was an atmosphere of suspicion at the Colegio Máximo de San José. Anna had to explain her case to a number of people before being allowed to talk to the prefect of the congregation. Everyone she spoke to confirmed that neither of the d’Uccello brothers had taken part in what they called a “spiritual retreat.”

  “Give me some time to ask around,” the bursar told her. “I’ll let you know if I find anything out.”

  In the end the only thing Anna was able to ascertain was the itinerary of the Donizetti. The ship had set sail from Buenos Aires on June 26, 1976, and called at ports in Brazil and the Caribbean before returning to Genoa, where it had been sent to the shipbreaking yard the following year, as Mama Fina had already learned. The captain, Enzo Torricelli, was retired, and the passenger manifest wasn’t available.

  But a few weeks later she got a call from the bursar of the Colegio Máximo. “Come and see me,” he told her. “I have something for you.”

  Anna realized as she walked into the bursar’s office that she wasn’t going to be told what she hoped to hear.

  “I have some information that should interest you,” he announced, offering her a chair. “We think we’ve traced one of the d’Uccello brothers.”

  Anna gripped the purse she’d just placed on her lap.

  “Gabriel d’Uccello. We believe he was murdered four years ago.”

  Reeling from the news, Anna walked out of the bursar’s office not knowing which way to go. She could not believe such an atrocity had taken place so close to her. She knew the rumors, of course, but the description she had just heard was much worse than anything she could have imagined. She had no idea whether Julia knew.

  Since her sister’s departure, Anna
had become aware of the insidious fear that permeated the whole country. It was now taboo to mention Julia’s situation. The fact that Julia had disappeared for so long, that she’d been arrested and then expelled from the country, was never mentioned at social gatherings, not even with very close friends. Besides, nobody in the family really knew what Julia had gone through during the months of her absence, and none of them dared to openly ask her about it.

  Then Anna remembered Rosa. They had tried to help her when Julia was in prison. If Rosa was back in her right mind, she might turn out to be the only link left. She decided to go to the psychiatric ward in the Devoto prison. It was the only thing she could still do for her sister.

  The guard who let her in looked astonished. “No one ever visits her, and today there are two of you!”

  Anna turned and saw a young blond woman in a blue gingham dress sitting next to Rosa in the courtyard of the ward. She seemed to be talking to her very affectionately. Anna approached quietly, not wanting to interrupt them.

  She heard the young woman say, “Rosa, it’s me, Adriana. Tell me you recognize me.”

  31.

  ANNA

  Boreal Winter

  1985

  Ulysses had been in elementary school for several years when Julia received a long, thick envelope with a black border from Alice. Her friend left her so that Julia could read the letter privately.

  Seated by herself in a café, Julia lacked the courage to open the envelope. For years she had refrained from asking questions because it was more bearable to live with a lie. Eventually she had come to the realization that Theo’s silence couldn’t be due to an administrative ban, since his status had been “legalized” in an official prison. She continued to write to Theo, for the letters were as much to herself as to him, and this rigor and discipline helped her stay the course, even if she no longer expected a reply.

  Her diligence was rewarded, she felt, by the wonderful version of Theo that Ulysses was turning into. True, he had the d’Annunzio features. Ulysses looked a lot like Julia’s father and had inherited Mama Fina’s transparent eyes. But he had Theo’s character: proud, passionate, hungry for life.