The Blue Line Read Online Free Page B

your gift to someone else, for example, first you have to become a mommy and have a boy. Sometimes mommies have little girls and sometimes they have little boys. But in your case, to pass the gift on, you have to have a boy.
    â€œSo you see, Julia, it’s not all that easy, because we don’t choose. Do you understand?”
    â€œSo the mommies don’t say what they want when the baby is in their tummy?”
    â€œNo, not the mommies or the daddies. It’s a surprise.”
    Julia began to swing her legs, hitting her heels against the wall. “And I’ll give my inner eye to my son? Like you gave your eyes to Daddy?”
    â€œYes, but the gift skips a generation. That means yourdaddy has the gift, but he can’t use it. The daddy has to have little girls, and then one of his little girls will receive the gift and can use it.”
    â€œLike me. It’s your gift that you gave to Daddy, and now it’s mine.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œBut why did Daddy give it to me?”
    â€œYou know, that’s a big secret. Your daddy doesn’t know the inner eye exists.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause it’s a secret.”
    â€œBut why is it me who has the inner eye and not Anna?”
    â€œBecause usually it’s not the eldest girl who inherits the gift.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œBecause nobody should be able to guess who will have it. That way it’s a real secret.”
    â€œSo nobody knows I have the inner eye?”
    â€œNobody except me. Because I have it too, so I can recognize it. You didn’t know either, Julia, even though you have the gift. Now that you’re a big girl, I can tell you about it and you can keep it a secret.”
    Julia drank in her words, enchanted. She wasn’t sad anymore; she wasn’t angry. Mama Fina had put into words the thing she hadn’t been able to understand. She felt herself coming out of chaos.
    Her grandmother paused, searching Julia’s face, thencarried on, fixing her with her translucent eyes: “Do you understand what the inner eye is?”
    â€œIt’s a present nobody knows about.”
    â€œYes, but the main thing is that it’s a gift. It means you have a talent for something. Everybody has a gift of some kind. Some people are better at singing, other people at drawing, some at talking, others at listening. Sometimes it’s a tiny gift, like being good at organizing a closet. Sometimes it’s a very big gift, like being able to understand the stars. This gift can be wasted. Or it can be used to make other people happy. If I die before I’ve had the time to teach you everything, remember this above all else: we were given our gift so we can help others.”
    Mama Fina broke off and said in a schoolmistress voice, “Julia, repeat what I just said.”
    Julia took a deep breath and recited carefully: “We were given our gift so we can help others.”
    Mama Fina smiled, patted Julia on the cheek, and carried on. “Our gift is different. It’s secret because it’s unique. Other people don’t understand, and they might be scared. The way our inner eye works is a bit like looking through a keyhole: we can see things, but nobody knows we can see them. It’s like when we went to the movies to see Cantinflas, remember? We sat in our seats and we watched the story, but we weren’t in the story.”
    â€œThat was why the children were laughing, wasn’t it, Mama Fina? Because they weren’t in it.”
    â€œThe difficult thing for us is to figure out who it is who’s lending us their eyes. . . . Remember, when you saw Anna falling out of the boat, you guessed it was your mommy.”
    â€œYes, because I was scrrrrratching Daddy with Mommy’s hands,” Julia said, screwing up her face in an effort to mimic the gesture.
    â€œYou weren’t scratching Daddy. You were using Mommy’s eyes to see,