The Blue Line Read Online Free PDF

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 themeridian 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 moreinterested 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.