The Blue Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

Someone told him they’re a great source of protein. He is obsessed with getting back into shape, and eggwhites 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.
    â€œHow are you?” Julia asks in an attempt to fill the silence.
    â€œTired,” 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 redroses 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.
    â€”
    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.
    â€œWhat’s got into you?” he asks.
    â€œCome 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.

5.
    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