The Blue Line

by Ingrid Betancourt

  She was about to leave, then changed her mind. She fished the lipstick she had just bought out of her bag and went to the mirror to apply it. The result took her aback. She would have to get used to it, she told herself as she shut the door of her apartment.

  It was a mild day that felt just like early spring. The women seemed somehow prettier dressed in cooler clothing. A small cluster of people had already gathered at the bus stop. Maria went to the street corner to buy a newspaper and returned to stand in line. The bus was approaching.

  “Adriana!” cried a voice behind her.

  She turned around automatically. Two schoolgirls were running toward her, shouting to a third girl to get on the bus, which had just pulled up. The girls arrived, out of breath, and pushed their way past the other passengers, jostling each other. Maria was annoyed with herself. After all this time she should have been able to control herself.

  The bus was full, but she found an empty seat in the back. She sat next to the window and gathered up her purse to let an overweight woman with a bag full of groceries sit down next to her. Maria watched unseeingly as the streets unfolded.

  If Papá were alive, I’d go back to my real name. But I prefer Maria. Her face was reflected in the bus window. She had another hour before she would arrive at her destination. Maria is strong. She can speak out; she’s comfortable around men. Maria. Maria Cruz. The woman sitting next to her had dozed off with her mouth open and her bag of groceries jammed between her legs. He couldn’t have found a better name. Maria Cruz. It’s a name that doesn’t attract attention. It’s short. Practical when you have to forge papers. She smiled to herself. But my Jesuit wasn’t the most imaginative. Maria Cruz, for heaven’s sake! The bus turned onto a main road and accelerated.

  Maria folded her newspaper into quarters so she could read it without bothering her neighbor. There was a short article in it about a forthcoming Sting concert at La Plata Stadium on December 11, 1987. The journalist mentioned the singer’s visit to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo at the square. Maria admired the women. They’d been braver than she had; she hadn’t dared to show her face. She leafed through the pages. Thankfully Julia had left Argentina. I wouldn’t have been able to carry on living if anything had happened to her. She rested the newspaper on her knees. At least she’d stayed, out of solidarity; she would never have gotten over her remorse if she’d left. The bus drove past some tall trees in a park that cast a refreshing shadow. She would have liked to go to the concert. But the Adriana in her didn’t yet feel ready to venture out on her own. The bus emerged from the shade back into the sun.

  The woman next to her stood up to get off. Maria let out a sigh of relief. She was happy. She was free; she had a job, a new life. There were things she wanted to do: wear perfume, go to the cinema, eat ice cream. A young girl took the fat woman’s place. I wonder what her life is like. Her son must be eleven years old now. The sun had become overbearing. It was starting to get hot inside the bus. She fanned herself with the newspaper and the girl next to her looked grateful. They passed the dome of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. Maria was only a couple of minutes away from her stop. She was about to get up and ring the bell when she went white as a sheet.

  His hair was longer and he had put on weight, but she would have recognized him anywhere. She had felt his eyes burning into her before she had seen him. The man in a gray suit and tie standing behind some other passengers and looking straight at her was El Cabo Pavor.

  She forced herself to look away so she could get her emotions under control, but she couldn’t contain the flood of adrenaline or stop her mouth from grimacing. Beads of sweat trickled down the nape of her neck. He can’t have recognized me. I’m Maria. He can’t do anything. The bus came to a stop. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. Just as the doors were about to close, she got up, smiled at her neighbor, who quickly made space for her to get past, and jumped off the bus. She walked straight ahead at a rapid pace. The bus drove off, and Maria could see El Cabo Pavor’s face glued to the window. He was staring at her.

  Maria waited until the bus had disappeared from view before turning down the first street on her right and running until she was out of breath. He’ll never be able to find me. She went into a café and called her office from a phone booth. She told them she was sick and wouldn’t be coming in that day. Then she placed a second call.

  “Father Fabian? It’s me. I have to see you right away.”

  —

  She didn’t want to keep them waiting. She ran her fingers through her curly hair, arranged the files neatly on her desk, put on her sneakers, and ran downstairs. The girls on her team were waiting for her on the first floor of the building. They had completed their preparations for the following day’s protest march and printed banners with the words JUSTICE AND TRUTH, the letters formed with the names of some of the thirty thousand “disappeared.” In the street, workers were hanging Christmas decorations on electricity poles. Bystanders looked on approvingly. She steered her young colleagues away for a drink before they went home to rest in preparation for the march the next day: December 8, 1997.

  “Good work. We won’t go unnoticed,” Maria told them. “There could be a lot of people.”

  “How many, do you think?” the youngest girl asked her.

  “We never know. Sometimes there’ll be a hundred of us, sometimes a thousand. It’s very hard to tell exactly how many. We take a look at the crowd and make a rough guess.”

  “Have you been on a lot of protest marches like this one?”

  “A few.”

  The waiter brought their drinks and left the bill on the table.

  “What did you do before you started working for the foundation?”

  “This and that. I worked for a church, I was an accounting assistant at a big company, and I did some tutoring. I even worked in a factory. But my dream was always to do what I’m doing now.”

  The girls looked at one another, slightly intimidated. One of them got up the courage to ask: “Did you know any people who were captured by the military?”

  Maria looked around for the waiter.

  “No, not really,” she replied, standing up. “Sorry, I’m very tired. I’m going home. See you tomorrow.”

  She picked up the bill, slipped a banknote into the waiter’s hand, and left. The bus station wasn’t far—a ten-minute walk at most. But at this time of day there were fewer buses. She would have to wait awhile. She fished around in her bag for coins. She opened her wallet and stared at her ID card. When Father Fabian had gotten her the card, she had had black hair and bangs. This new incarnation of herself, with curly red hair, still took her by surprise.

  The bus stopped right in front of her. Three other passengers got on. Ignoring them, she went to sit in the back. The fluorescent lighting in the vehicle gave her the unpleasant feeling of being in a moving window display. A few minutes later a man sitting in the middle of the bus stood up, ready to get off. While waiting for the bus to stop, he looked over in her direction and smiled. Maria blushed and then felt even more embarrassed. She could still feel her cheeks burning once the stranger had gotten off. I’m like a little girl. She ruffled her auburn curls automatically to try to drive away her thoughts—I must get better at this—and got off well before her stop so she would have to walk.

  The Buenos Aires she longed for was within arm’s reach: bustling streets, laughter at sidewalk tables, charming men. And yet she still refused herself any contact with this animated, noisy world. It wasn’t because of them. Not entirely. Soon she would be brave enough.

  The sound of organ music caught her attention. She tried to work out where it was coming from. For the first time she noticed a small Baroque church squashed between two chipped buildings from the 1950s. She pushed open the heavy door out of curiosity. Inside, a haze of incense hung in the air. Maria dipped her fingers in the font and slipped inside in search of cool ai
r. Sitting with her back against a white pillar, she contemplated the Madonna paintings in lavish frames decorated with gold-leaf arabesques and allowed herself to be carried away by the deep, sustained notes of the organ.

  There were quite a few people in the church, mainly women praying, and a short line in front of the confessional, which was tucked away in one of the side aisles. This ritual always intrigued her. She had made up a few sins the one time she had gone to confession and had never returned because she felt she would only make things worse by not knowing what to say.

  The door to the confessional opened and a penitent came out. The man blinked. She recognized him before he saw her and stood transfixed. He was wearing the same gray suit and had the same haircut he’d had ten years previously. She watched him make the sign of the cross and turn around, too stunned to think of ducking behind the woman sitting in front of her. The man’s gaze met hers. She lowered her eyes and picked up her purse. Her hands were trembling. He’s still looking at me. He’s recognized me. She stood up, made her way out of the pew, apologizing, and walked rapidly down the nave. El Cabo Pavor stared at her as he emerged from the embrace of a priest clad in a soutane and a clerical collar who had greeted him effusively. He hurried to reach the doorway before her.

  Maria sped up, panic-stricken. She pushed open the door and the noise from the street burst in as if to save her. He caught hold of her arm and pulled her back into a dark corner of the entrance hall. He pressed his body against hers to stop her from moving and clamped a hand over her mouth. He looked at her with the same mad stare, the same bulbous eyes, as before. She could feel his breath fogging up her eyes.

  “If you talk,” he said slowly, “I’ll kill you.”

  He pinned her to the wall with his full body weight.

  The door rattled and two elderly women came out. The man let go and stepped back just far enough for Maria to free herself. She fled into the street, the women staring after her disapprovingly.

  Maria ran, frightened by the echo of her footsteps on the asphalt, certain he was following her. She spent half the night crouching in the doorway of a building, watching the street. Day was breaking by the time she got home, having made a thousand detours. She collapsed onto her bed, shivering with fever, and felt herself spiraling back down into hell, lost in the insanity of Castelar. Hands were roaming over her body and she was sweating as she tried to break free, her sheets giving off the bitter smell of fear. She fell from the bed as she struggled in her nightmare and came to gasping for breath. She remained lying on the floor for a long time, her eyes motionless. He will never touch me again.

  —

  When she stepped outside, she felt she had finally left behind what remained of Adriana.

  In the street, men hurried past her blindly. Maria took her time walking to the bus stop and watched undismayed as she saw the bus pulling away. She hailed the first taxi she saw, climbed in confidently, and gave the driver the address. It’s taken me twenty-two years, but now I’m ready.

  Father Fabian was waiting for her at the corner, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, a bulky file under his arm.

  35.

  MARIA

  Austral Summer

  2001

  Julia left the building without the least desire to go back home. The piece of paper with Maria’s telephone number was in the pocket of her printed cotton dress. She walked down the avenue, staring straight ahead. Several taxis went by, but she made no attempt to flag one down.

  When she got to Mama Fina’s house, she found there was a family meeting in progress in the dining room. She tossed her straw hat on the table in the entryway, threw her shoes under a chair, and went to join the others. A lively discussion was under way. Olivier was sitting next to her father, answering a slew of questions from the twins. Ulysses was laughing along with his cousins: Anna and Pablo’s three sons and the twins’ children. The laughter grew louder as Julia entered.

  She hugged Ulysses and Olivier, blew the others a kiss, then sat down next to her father and took his hand.

  “They’re serious,” she explained. “The woman who saw me, Celeste Fierro, knows all the names and arrest dates and the secret detention center where we were sent. It’s a simple and efficient system.”

  “But it still took me a year to convince you to come here, Mom,” Ulysses broke in.

  Julia was silent, her good humor momentarily fading.

  “Are they getting results?” Julia’s father asked.

  “They’ve already managed to identify about four hundred bodies. It may not seem like much, but it’s a huge achievement.”

  “Is that right? Do you think there could be more bodies, darling?”

  “They say there are thirty thousand desaparecidos.”

  “I can’t believe it,” her father said. “How do they go about finding them?”

  “First they have to locate the mass graves,” Ulysses explained. “Then they carry out a proper archaeological dig: clearing away each layer of soil, registering locations, that kind of thing. Previously the government used to open up the mass graves with a mechanical shovel, so obviously there wasn’t much left to recover.”

  “I read somewhere that they found a hundred bodies without hands in Avellaneda Cemetery,” said one of the twins.

  “Tío, you’re making that up!” Anna’s youngest son interjected.

  “It’s true, I assure you. They used to cut off people’s hands in the morgue in the cemetery so they wouldn’t be identifiable by their fingerprints.”

  “Celeste told me about that too,” Julia confirmed.

  “But how can they identify anyone in those conditions?”

  “They compile information,” Ulysses answered carefully, watching for his mother’s reaction. “DNA from family members is very important. But they also try to match up all kinds of data: diseases, dental characteristics, what have you. They reconstruct each person’s history.”

  “Celeste is amazing,” Anna commented. “She keeps all that information stored in her head, like a computer.”

  “That’s true,” Julia said. “She spoke about some of my fellow prisoners as if she’d known them personally—she even knew details I’d forgotten: she asked me if I could remember three corpses being brought to Castelar for the inmates to wash. Paola was the one who’d told me about it; it had happened a few days before I arrived at Castelar. I just know the story because Paola said she felt mortified at the thought of someone handling her dead body to wash it.”

  Her voice wavered as she added: “Celeste told me Paola’s remains have been identified.”

  “Can we be sure the DNA testing is reliable, Olivier?” her father asked, to divert attention away from Julia.

  “If a body has been burned or the bones have been underwater for a while—if the person drowned, say—then the DNA is affected,” Olivier explained. “But the technology is constantly improving. These days it’s possible to reconstruct a person’s DNA sequence if we have DNA samples from their wife and child, for example. By subtraction, if you like.”

  “Did they ask you for a DNA sample?” Julia’s mother asked.

  Olivier stood up from the table and began clearing away the last remaining glasses.

  “Yes,” Julia said. “I promised I’d go back to the lab before I leave.”

  —

  The next morning Julia received a phone call from Celeste. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were organizing a rally. Supporters were to meet in front of the Casa Rosada the following Wednesday for their annual march.

  “They’ve been organizing these marches for years now. This year they’re demanding nonpayment of the foreign debt.”

  “Really? What does that have to do with anything?” Julia asked.

  Celeste laughed softly on the other end of the line. “They’re making a stand. They’re speaking on behalf of people who have no say.”


  There was a silence, then she continued, “As a rule I steer clear of these protests, but I’m mentioning it because Maria was the one who told me about it. She just called me.”

  “Did you tell her about me?” Julia asked.

  “Yes, I let her know we’d met.”

  Celeste paused again, then added: “Maria will be at the Manuel Belgrano monument at six in the evening. She seemed quite overwhelmed at the prospect of seeing you.”

  “Could you give me the details again?”

  “Tuesday, December 11, Plaza de Mayo, 6:00 P.M.”

  Celeste hung up. For a moment Julia felt as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice. She stared at the telephone in her hand. She had a choice. She could still decide not to go.

  The fact that she’d even considered it appalled her. She had spent twenty-four years waiting for this moment: why run away now?

  “Everything okay, darling?”

  Julia felt Olivier’s arms around her. She buried her face against him and stood motionless, breathing slowly. He took her face in his hands and made her look at him.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said.

  —

  She’d made up her mind: she wouldn’t go. What could she learn that she didn’t already know from the thousands of hours she’d spent looking for Theo? This rationale gave her a strong sense of peace over the next few days. But when the day came, at the last moment, and for the same reasons that had convinced her otherwise before, she grabbed her straw hat and left the house without her purse, as if she were just getting some air.

  She was swallowed up by the crowd long before she reached Plaza de Mayo. The closer she got to the monument to Belgrano, the more she needed to elbow her way through the crush of people. In her mind she was back at the rally when Perón had openly attacked the Montoneros. How many of the people who had been in the Plaza de Mayo that day were still alive? From what Celeste had told her, only a handful.