The Blue Line (4 page)

“She did on the boat.”

“But Mommy didn't call out to me on the boat!” Julia protested.

“Your mother doesn't know she called you because it comes from the heart, not the head. She didn't think,
I'll ask Julia to help me
, but when she was on the boat . . .”

“She was screaming and she was scratching Dad,” Julia interrupted, screwing her face up again, her little fingers outstretched.

“Yes, because she was very scared, and without thinking about it, her fear called out to you. Like when the telephone rings. And you answered.”

“You mean my inner eye answered?”

“Exactly. We can respond to other people's feelings with our inner eye, you and me. That's how it works. And most of the time, what we see hasn't happened yet. It'll happen the next day, or the day after, or even later.”

“So the telephone rings backward?”

“Something like that. The person who is calling us—our source—is experiencing what they see in the future.”

“Why?”

“That's just the way it is. When our inner eye answers, we set off on a journey through time. Our gift lets us go forward or backward while everyone else is caught in the present.”

“Is that why it's a gift?”

“Yes.”

“Why is it a good thing to travel through time?”

“Because we can help other people. Like you helped Anna.”

“But it was the twins who . . .”

“We've already talked about this, Julia. You're the one who wanted Anna to learn to swim. You're the one who took those containers on the boat. If you hadn't done that,
mi amor
, I wouldn't be able to tell you our secret, and your inner eye would wither by itself.”

“I would have lost my gift?”

“Yes.”

“I don't want to lose it, Mama Fina.”

DECRYPTION

Boreal Autumn

2006

S
he stands at the top of the stairs, dumbfounded.
Come on
,
it's perfectly natural to want to be alone in the bathroom
. All the same. He has never felt the need to lock himself in before.

She lingers there for a moment, then retraces her steps slowly, needing to clear her thoughts, to put some distance between the two of them. Get too close and love suffocates. The other person's presence becomes oppressive. So you learn to live without seeing each other, the way you stop noticing the pedestal table in the hallway.

Julia comes back downstairs and sits in the living room. She has already laid the table and tossed a salad. Distracted, sitting on the sofa in the dark, she stares through the window at the corridor of shadows formed by the elms and maples.

It is the same ritual after each journey. She has to be sitting
down, alone. When she was younger, she would wait for the dead of night and the privacy of silence. She needed to go back over her journey while the world was extinguished so she wouldn't have to worry about being caught unawares. She is practiced enough now not to have to wait until midnight. She can blank out the world with her eyes wide open. Only the sequence of images already etched in her mind flashes before her eyes. The images come back to her, not like the blurred recollections of memory but with a clarity and precision that sight alone can produce. It's like a store of pictures compressed between her eyes and her brain. Her pupils are contracted even though she's in the dark because she is staring at a light source inside her head. The film of her latest journey plays in a continuous loop: the hotel room, the young Asian woman, the man. She repeats the same sequence once, twice, a hundred times.

Julia has been rigorously trained to gather the information and sift through it. Nothing can be dismissed out of hand. She knows from experience that the most obvious details, the ones most likely to be overlooked, are often the most useful.

She needs to establish whom the images captured by her inner eye come from. She has to understand the connection, the reason why she has been linked to this particular person at this particular moment. Sometimes her source is a family member or friend, but very often it's someone she can't identify because she hasn't met them yet. After a journey, she knows for sure that the person will one day pass through the
meridian of her life. It is a rule. But Julia has to understand her role, the reason she has been called on to intervene.

This evening she feels a bit lost. The most surprising thing about the scene she's watching is precisely that there is nothing surprising about it. That's why she was able to sit down at her desk and finish her translation in one go. She'd nearly forgotten about the young woman with Oriental eyes, her cold smile, and the man with her. Nothing disturbing, nothing urgent about any of it.

What's more, she's not exhausted, the way she generally is when she returns. Because it's usually difficult, traumatic moments that take place in the antechamber of death: accidents, terrible suffering, crimes of passion, and murders. She intercepts a pivotal moment in the lives of people who, for one reason or another, are between life and death, faced with a crucial choice.

She goes back to the starting point, to the beginning of the sequence, in the room bathed in shadow. She is with her source in the hotel room. She hears Mama Fina's voice, her words directing her still. She has to look for details that will enable her to identify the source. Because this person wants to communicate something. Their subconscious is calling for help; they are leaving traces so they can be recognized.

She saw his knees, a shirt. She is sure it is a man. She is rarely mistaken: men have a particular way of seeing the world. Their vision is selective; they use different criteria from women to choose what information to store in their brains. They are more
interested in things that move, that change, that make contact. Women, on the other hand, dwell more on what remains hidden, on details and structures, on what is intangible. Julia wants to examine the room. She sees the clothes on the chair again; they look thrown rather than placed there. Is he in a hurry? Impatient? Young, perhaps? His standpoint is out of sight of the bathroom mirror. She can't see his face.

Are they a married couple? Maybe not. The young woman's hasty departure, her final gesture . . . There's a lack of intimacy, and not enough indifference for them to be an established couple. It could be a secret meeting, a passing fling. Julia sees the young woman's face again and focuses on it, trying to decipher her smile. Could she be an escort? Difficult to say. Casual and anonymous relationships do seem to have become a sort of hobby for some people. But perhaps not. There is something restrained about this young woman, a distance. She is protecting herself, as if she needs to stay out of reach.

The stairs creak. Theo is coming back down; she must regain her composure. Her pupils are already dilated when she turns to smile at him. He kisses her with irreproachable tenderness and tells her he'll get dinner. Julia takes her time; she would like to carry on thinking. But she is drawn by the smell coming from the kitchen.

Theo is busy making himself an omelet out of egg whites, which he's recently taken to buying in bulk from the discount supermarket. Someone told him they're a great source of protein. He is obsessed with getting back into shape, and egg
whites have become his passion. Julia is unable to share his enthusiasm. The very thought of that viscous substance makes her feel nauseated. But she doesn't say anything.

They sit down opposite each other. She nibbles at her salad while Theo wolfs down his omelet.

“How are you?” Julia asks in an attempt to fill the silence.

“Tired,” says Theo, getting up without looking at her.

Julia sighs. Maybe it's inevitable.

Her mind hauls up a catch of old memories. Their first date. He must have been barely nineteen, she fifteen at most. She was still living with her grandmother, he with his parents.

Sitting in a cafeteria in San Telmo, not far from Julia's school, he had ventured to take her hand. His daring had met with a cold reception. Not that Julia thought it improper: far from it. But she found some codes of behavior totally meaningless. By way of explanation, she'd nodded in the direction of a couple in their thirties sitting opposite each other two tables away. They were savoring a huge bowl of ice cream that was dripping down the sides; it was decorated with a small fuchsia-colored Chinese paper umbrella. Intent on wasting nothing, without exchanging a single word, they held hands while using their free hand to eat.

Theo had given a baffled shrug. Julia found it sad, not talking, not looking at each other. They had stacked their hands one on top of the other like two dead fish. Two hands tidied away on the side of the table: that was what they had done with their love. Julia didn't want a tidy love. She hated red
roses and Chinese paper umbrellas. She didn't want to end up eating ice cream in the company of a man to whom she no longer had anything to say. Theo had burst out laughing, and Julia had found him almost handsome. He had answered her in his own way. The next day, as she was running out of the house, late for school as usual, she had nearly gone flying on a carpet of red roses laid out on the doorstep.

—

Julia lets out another sigh. Theo has finished eating and is now absorbed in one of his electronic games. After thirty-one years and a life that has never conformed to convention, they have still managed to end up like that couple at the cafeteria in San Telmo, staring down at their plates while eating, unable to find anything to say.

They have endured too much suffering, overcome too many obstacles. Julia cannot resign herself to this. They do not have the right to settle into boredom when they have only just reached their goal.

She takes the stairs four at a time to their bedroom, opens the closet, slips on her black party dress, rummages through her shoe boxes, and pulls out the black stilettos that drive him crazy. She rolls her hair into a chignon and puts on some makeup, face inches from the mirror, drawing a black line above her lashes. She steps back and looks at herself. Yes, she looks good.

Julia turns around. Theo is standing stock-still in the doorway.

“What's got into you?” he asks.

“Come on. We're going out to have some fun.”

She pulls him to her and presses herself against him.

He is about to tell her he's tired, but he peers at her for a moment, then whispers teasingly in her ear: “Are you sure you want to go out?”

The tone is almost perfect. But it doesn't ring true to Julia. He has put his mask back on.

THE MASK

Austral Summer

1972

T
hey met for the first time at Anna's eighteenth-birthday party. The family had recently left the suburbs and moved into a two-story house in the Liniers neighborhood. Anna was thrilled, not only because it was a bigger house but because now she would be closer to Julia. She had always refused to let any distance come between them. It was Anna who came to Mama Fina's place in La Boca after school twice a week to see Julia, and it was she too who first told Julia what it felt like to be in love. The girls would lock themselves in the big bathroom for long confabs that could go on until dawn. Julia immediately knew when Anna was in love, because she would deny it while batting her eyelashes like butterfly wings. Julia found her sister's emotional states ridiculous and told herself she'd never be in love that way. But she did feel a prickle of
envy as she watched her sister plotting to win over whichever young man she'd set her heart on.

When Anna stayed over, Mama Fina's phone never stopped ringing. It was Julia's job to pick up and pretend she didn't know whether her sister was in, to give Anna time to decide if she wanted to take the call or have the person call back later. If Anna's favorite suitor, Pablo, called, Julia had to make a huge effort not to roar with laughter. Anna would fling herself to the ground and pedal frantically in the air, unable to control her emotion, while Julia, bent double, did her best to cover the receiver. Anna would exhale in small puffs to calm herself down. When she was breathing normally again, she would take the telephone, acting perfectly naturally, and apologize to the boy for keeping him waiting. As soon as Anna hung up, Julia would find herself racing around the fountain in the courtyard with her, whooping like a Sioux, as excited by the invitation as Anna.

So Julia went to help with the preparations for the party with the feeling that she had an important mission to accomplish. She'd heard that Pablo had just confirmed his attendance. She took charge of the decorations, making bright garlands from the glossy pages of magazines her mother had collected. She blew up multicolored balloons and hung them in clusters in the corners of rooms and above doors. She fitted colored lightbulbs in the ground-floor lamps and ceiling lights and turned the living room into a dance hall by pushing all the furniture against the walls. Finally she helped her mother stir
the huge pot of
spaghetti napolitana
and stack up plates on the buffet table.

The guests arrived all at once and Julia felt like an outsider. The boys strolled easily into the kitchen, kissed her mother, greeting her by her first name, and came out again holding the glasses she'd handed them. Standing next to her mother, Julia felt invisible.

When Anna, radiant in a turquoise print dress, switched on the new record player and Pablo unpacked his collection of LPs of the latest hits by Almendra, Sui Generis, and Led Zeppelin, Julia sought refuge in the small garden at the front of the house. She was too eager to dance, too afraid of not being asked, and even more afraid of being asked and not knowing what to do.

Through the wide-open door Julia watched the twins spinning all the girls around and Anna changing partners each time a new song came on, under Pablo's amused gaze. None of the boys was paying any attention to Julia. She was almost ashamed and berated herself for having dressed like a child, in a long blue paisley-print cotton dress with a smocked top that flattened her breasts.

A young man with rumpled hair and a blasé air came out, glass in hand, and sat down at her side, so clumsily that for a moment she thought he would spill his drink over her. Finally he turned around and gave her a beaming smile. Julia nearly walked away, horrified at the thought that he might be motivated by pity. But she found him so unattractive, with his
pockmarked skin and huge lips, that she felt as if their roles had been reversed and allowed herself to be pleasant.

He held out the glass to her. “An improvement on what your mother's dishing out,” he said.

Julia raised one eyebrow, half-offended, half-amused.

“It's Coca-Cola . . . with a dash of rum!” he went on.

“It's not really my thing,” Julia retorted.

“You're mistaken. Not only does it taste good, it'll make you friendlier. It's Cuban rum, you know. If you want to dance with me you'll have to drink some, like any self-respecting young revolutionary.”

“I don't want to dance with you.” As if to justify her lack of humor, she added: “I don't even know who you are.”

He jumped up, gave a bow, and, after ceremoniously kissing her hand, said, “My name is Theodoro d'Uccello—Theo to friends—and I am henceforth eternally at your service.”

Julia couldn't help cracking up. Theo had just won the first round.

He pulled Julia into the living room and they began to dance, roaring with laughter, heedless of the other couples they kept bumping into. Julia's mother wasn't exactly pleased with her daughter's behavior. In the end she got her husband to come in and restore order. Julia's father made a conspicuous entrance into the living room. The young guests looked on apprehensively, stepping back to let him pass. Grim faced, he walked slowly toward the boy who had his younger daughter mesmerized.

“I'm going to have to put my mask on,” Theo whispered, winking at Julia, as the head of the household approached.

Julia watched him, alert for the slightest faux pas. But Theo surprised her. He had morphed seamlessly into an adult: her father's equal. He apologized for his childish behavior, then proceeded to take the lead in the conversation, proving to be remarkably intelligent. He spoke about politics, happy to discuss the latest events in national life. He openly declared that he was a Peronist and was confident the general would make a triumphant return, because the military would eventually have to give in to pressure from the people. Julia's father, who made no secret of his support for the old leader, couldn't have been more pleased with Theo's politics.

Everyone knew Perón would soon be visiting Argentina for the first time since being forced into exile. But hardly anyone, not even his most loyal supporters, dared to envisage a general election that would see his definitive return to the presidency, as Theo maintained. And to tell the truth, Julia couldn't have cared less.

She went back outside and sat down, leaning against the garden railing. Being with the others had exhausted her and she needed to get away. She stared down the deserted, ill-lit street. Though the sidewalks were fairly narrow, space had been left to plant trees. Now they had to fight against the invasion of electricity poles and streetlights, half of which didn't work. The large, faded houses, the slender windows decorated with elegant wrought-iron balconies, and the crenellated roofs
bore witness to a more glorious past. There was something fragile about it all that appealed to her.

The party began to wind down, and one by one the young people took their leave. The house fell silent and Theo, one of the last to leave, kept his mask on to the end. He bade Julia a polite good night and walked off. He could be so respectable! She followed him with her gaze until he had turned the corner.

—

She shakes her head as she does her hair, as if to chase away these memories, then combs it into place with her fingers. He brings his mask out to hide something, as a last resort when he is feeling trapped. Julia pretends she hasn't noticed. She doesn't want to put him on his guard. Yes, she wants to go out. She is set on it now. She insists, as if acting on a whim. But she's shaken.

They take the car, avoiding each other's gaze, and scour the streets in search of some action. Julia affects a cheerful, casual air. But they're driving through a ghost town: all the bars are closed. They scour the streets near the station, venture down to the marina, around the shopping mall. Nothing. They are almost secretly relieved. On the way back home, they are suddenly blinded by some roadside neon signs just behind the heliport. It's a biker bar. And it's packed. Through the fogged-up windows they can make out a dance floor and a pool table. A crooner's baritone punctures the night through a swinging door held open by a couple.

They park the car and hesitate. There are some black girls singing in front of a huge karaoke screen. Julia rouses herself and drags Theo inside. The girls' crystal-clear voices are at odds with the heavy bodies they shake at a devilish pace while the men slouching at the bar ignore them. Theo doesn't pay them any attention either, at least no more than he does Julia. He seems distracted.

He goes to the bar to order a couple of beers, shunning all contact, and returns, lost in thought. Julia makes a fresh attempt at conversation. “It would do us good to go on a motorcycle ride one weekend.”

Theo's gaze returns to her for an instant.

“We could tour the Berkshires,” she suggests.

It will be beautiful there now, at the tail end of summer, and Julia knows Theo likes riding on mountain roads. Labor Day is coming up; it would be the ideal time to make the most of a long weekend.

Theo puts his glass down. He takes a second too long to answer.

“Yes, we could take a couple of days and leave Friday,” he admits. “But I'll have to be back Monday morning to hold down the fort.”

Julia doesn't want to ask any more questions. Hold down the fort on Labor Day, what a great alibi. Like the excuse he invented this summer not to go to New Zealand to visit their son. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, Theo claimed the trip had been planned without consulting him, and there was
no way he could leave the office. Julia went anyway, outraged by his dishonesty and because Ulysses had scheduled his vacation for the dates they'd planned. Besides, she wanted to meet her son's fiancée.

Her trip hasn't made things any better. Theo has been irritable since she got back and has gotten into the habit of making hurtful remarks. If he's run out of gas, it's because Julia doesn't contribute to the household expenses. If he can't find the remote for their new TV, it's because Julia isn't organized. If Julia walks into their bedroom unexpectedly, it's because she's spying on him. He's moved his office to the laundry room so Julia won't disturb him.

But that's not all. In spite of herself, Julia can't help keeping count of his new eccentricities: a sudden enthusiasm for heavy metal, a new interest in electronic games, and his latest craze, egg whites. For some reason Julia connects all of this to the story of a staff conference that Theo attended recently. He came back from it all excited. He told her about a colleague, a young Korean, whom he'd hit it off with. Then he told her he'd be back from work late sometimes because he planned on going to the gym with his new friend.

Funny, that's stuck like a fishbone
.

Theo has set two beers down on the table.

“By the way, thanks for the lunch, honey. The guys at the gym were green with envy. We were all starving after the workout.”

He sits down close to her and kisses her passionately on
the mouth. All of Julia's wild imaginings evaporate in an instant.
Maybe it's just a fit of jealousy
,
an aftereffect of my trance
. The thought takes her by surprise. She isn't tired; why make this connection? Mechanically she replays the images of the young Asian woman putting on makeup in the bathroom, the bed, the clothes on the chair. Theo puts his arm around her waist and pulls her to him. They get up, hand in hand, and dance between the pool tables. Julia thinks back to her Rothko painting and feels guilty for allowing doubt to creep in.

In bed later that night, Theo feels her moving and holds her close. Julia prays they'll stay this way always, pressed close together. A plane flies over the house. Its drone is soothing. She wouldn't want to be anyplace else but in his arms.

She wakes at dawn. Theo is already in the shower. She pulls on her dressing gown and goes downstairs to make him some lunch to take to the office. She opens the bag he uses to transport his gym clothes and lunch box. Yesterday's shorts and T-shirt are impeccably folded, the lunch intact, untouched.

Julia's heart freezes. Yesterday Theo described his gym workout to her in detail. He even mentioned he had heated up his lunch in the office microwave. Julia stops dead, staring at Theo's things. My God . . . what if there's someone else, and he meant her to find these things so she'd guess? Has he done it on purpose?

Julia doesn't hesitate for a second. She races up the stairs, pulls on a gray cotton shirt and a tracksuit, knocks on the bathroom door, and, taking quick, short breaths so her voice
won't betray her emotion, says, “I'm going for a run. I've left your breakfast on the table.”

She rushes back downstairs. She goes out by the main door and skirts the house to where Theo's car is parked on the private access road. She opens the door, taking care not to set off the alarm, climbs into the backseat, lifts the lever that locks the seat back, and folds the seat forward to access the trunk. She crawls inside, pulls the seat back into place, and freezes in her hiding place, panting.