The Blue Line Read Online Free

cat’s tongue.
    Julia thought Mama Fina was beautiful, with her hair in a heavy braid across her shoulder and her large, full-lipped Neapolitan mouth. Julia’s father had inherited her transparent eyes, but the rest of her features had skipped a generation. In adulthood Julia would be pleased to see a younger version of Mama Fina looking back at her in the mirror. She was the image of her, except for the large, dark eyes she had inherited from her own mother.
    Julia didn’t speak during her convalescence. As the days passed, she became increasingly fascinated by Mama Fina. Her words were enchanting. They transported Julia to another country and another time. Mama Fina told her how she had left Italy when she was not much older than Julia, about the ship, her family, the starry sea under the heavens, the forbidden races on the first-class deck, and the games of hide-and-seek in the engine room. And the arrival in Argentina: different smells, a different language that she could understand but notspeak. Mama Fina described her trials with all the words she needed that kept eluding her and playing tricks on her. Identical words that meant one thing in Italian and another in Spanish. She was told to watch out for the
burro
, and she’d be looking around for the butter when they were talking about the donkey. And Julia laughed. For the first time ever, she laughed a real child’s laugh. Finally she understood her own mistake with the Río de la Plata.
    Mama Fina’s stories penetrated deep into her like balm. She explained to Julia what had actually happened on the night of the storm. Thanks to her bottles and cans, the twins had been able to save Anna. Julia sensed that, oddly enough, it was she Mama Fina was most proud of.
    Mama Fina’s description of what happened was better than if she’d seen it with her own eyes. The twins had jumped into the sea in order to disprove Julia’s prophecy that blamed them for the death of their big sister. The swell prevented them from seeing where Anna was, but she had managed to stay afloat, certain the twins would come after her because she too realized that Julia had prepared them. Hanging on to their containers, the twins had spotted Anna’s head above the water several times, only to see her disappear the next moment, getting farther away each time. They were half-dead from their exertions when suddenly she appeared, like a vision, suspended on the crest of a wave just above them. Crying out, they fought through the swell and managed to catch hold of Anna as she came down. She grabbed onto the floats; onlythen did she nearly pass out. But the boys had no intention of letting go of her. Adrift in a raging sea in the middle of the night, the three children hung on.
    At last the wind let up and the captain managed to turn the boat around. Instinctively calculating a possible drift, he tried to track them down. All of a sudden, their mother thought she heard cries. The captain shut down the engine. She hadn’t been mistaken.
    â€”
    Once Julia had recovered, everyone noticed she wasn’t quite the same. There was something precocious in her eyes, almost painful, like a scar.
    One day, when the family was gathered for lunch, Julia’s father made an announcement: their house was finally ready and they could move in over the next few days. He told them it was in an attractive neighborhood in the western suburbs of Buenos Aires, with parks, flower-decked balconies, and lots of children. The twins began to race around the table in excitement, and Anna was overjoyed. Only Julia didn’t look up from her plate. Her mother, noticing her silence, tried to cheer her up by pointing out that there were four bedrooms. As there was no question of separating the twins, Julia would have her own room. But there was no convincing her.
    Mama Fina got up to clear the table and disappeared into the kitchen. An embarrassed silence fell. Anna stared