The Blue Line (6 page)

She followed the shadowy figures that rose up out of hiding places like her own and fled silently into the grayness. Julia and the wounded young woman reached the road. She begged Julia not to take her to the hospital, confessing that she was an active member of the Montoneros' clandestine networks. Her name was Rosa.

A shopkeeper on his way to Buenos Aires gave them a lift in his van in the dead of night. Julia asked him to drop them off outside Theo's house. She prayed the whole way that the d'Uccello brothers had returned home and would be able to help them. Theo was already back and was keeping a close watch on the street from the window. He rushed out the minute he saw Julia, firing questions at her. He had been injured too. Gabriel, who'd been the first to come home, had quickly
set up a makeshift infirmary in the living room and was tending to half a dozen wounded.

Still in a state of shock and not yet aware of the scale of the incident, the young people were already calling it “the Ezeiza massacre.” They knew that hundreds of people had been wounded but still didn't know how many were dead. Over the next few days, graffiti on the city's walls accused some government ministers of the crime, and a rumor began that right-wing Peronists had given the order to fire on the crowd. As for Perón, he blamed his left-wing supporters for the massacre, calling them “beardless youth.” Some people claimed that Perón feared the revolutionary excesses of the Montoneros, others that it was a military tactic to pit the Peronist factions against each other.

By October 1973, when Perón was elected president for the third time, Theo had hung the flag of the Montoneros next to the general's photograph: a black rifle crossed with a spear on a red background, with the letter
M
in the middle. In his view, Perón was the natural leader of the Montoneros. Gabriel, for his part, could not forgive the general for having scorned the young Peronists by using the humiliating expression “beardless youth” when so many of them had given their lives to enable him to return to the presidency.

Mama Fina warned Julia that hard times were ahead, but her granddaughter was defiant: if Mama Fina had had a vision, she only had to tell her about it. Julia was old enough now to take care of herself. Whatever Mama Fina might think, Julia
remained optimistic. Like Theo, she maintained that Perón had had nothing to do with the massacre; now that he was actually back in power, things could only get better.

In fact, as far as Julia was concerned, things were getting better. She had grown in self-confidence and become popular at high school; she was closer to her father, and, above all, like Anna, she had found true love.

Because of Theo, Julia began to take a genuine interest in politics. She participated in several of the meetings Gabriel organized at his home. Julia was happy to see Rosa at the meetings. She had recovered from her wounds and was now a regular. Julia and she were fast becoming friends.

It was at one of these meetings that Julia met Father Mugica. She couldn't take her eyes off him all evening. At forty-three Carlos Mugica was a very attractive man, even in his cassock. With his light-colored eyes, wry smile, and lock of blond hair falling across his forehead, he was simply irresistible. He spoke plainly, exuding an undeniable charisma. Julia listened to him, trying to understand his arguments and struggling not to allow herself to be influenced by his charm.

FATHER MUGICA

Austral Autumn

1974

T
he priest noticed Julia's embarrassment and, believing her to be shy, took it upon himself to include her in the conversation. They were talking about the Ezeiza massacre. Each of them described their experience, because all the people in the living room had been at the rally. One of the young men standing near Father Mugica confirmed that the shots had been fired by snipers positioned on the roof of the airport. Ordinarily security would have fallen to Cámpora's interior minister, Esteban Righi, himself a left-wing Peronist. But apparently Perón had insisted that security during his speech at Ezeiza be entrusted to a colonel with connections to José López Rega, who represented the Peronist far right and had become close to El Conductor.
*

Father Mugica explained that if Perón was elected, the government would have to make some painful choices. Peronism could unite the far right and the far left for as long as it was a case of confronting the dictatorship, but once they were in power, the internal divisions would become unmanageable.

Theo insisted, as if trying to convince himself, that if Perón had to make a choice, he would come out in favor of the Montoneros. “Perón knows he owes us everything. He said so publicly when he was in exile. It was the Montoneros who destabilized the dictatorship. Perón even praised the ‘wonderful youth' after the execution of General Aramburu!”

“Yes, but that same ‘wonderful youth' is now ‘beardless.' Make no mistake, Theo, the general has already made his choice,” shot back Augusto, one of Gabriel's friends.

Julia had been listening attentively to the discussion from the start. She hesitated for a moment, then ventured: “Maybe Perón has changed since he remarried. If Evita were still alive . . .”

“What are you talking about?” Theo interrupted, annoyed at being contradicted twice.

His reaction threw Julia, who fell silent like a scolded child. Father Mugica intervened to encourage Julia and calm things down. It was true, he said, that Evita's absence was a factor that had to be taken into account. Even though she had been dead for twenty years, her name continued to have genuine political significance.

“Perón's marriage to Isabel hasn't simplified matters,”
Augusto added. “You can't really say he made a good choice! She can try all she likes to look like her and copy her hairstyle; she's not fooling anyone. Evita was the idol of the
descamisados
, but Isabel's sympathies lie with the right.”

“Funny, I get the impression that in Argentina we talk more about the wives than the presidents themselves!” came a voice from the back of the room. Everyone laughed.

“Maybe so, but it's strange, to say the least, that Perón didn't make any attempt to have Evita's body brought home. . . .” Augusto continued.

Theo returned to the fray. Given that Aramburu's body had been found before the junta returned Evita's remains, Perón could surely not be held accountable in this respect, he argued.

Rosa, who was also at the meeting, asked to speak, cleared her throat, and said, “Didn't General Lanusse return Evita's body to Perón and Isabel two years ago, when they were in Madrid? Or if not, he at least told them how to get it back. I've heard the Vatican secretly helped bury her somewhere in Italy. . . .”

Everyone turned to Mugica.

“I don't know, to be honest,” he said. “But it's highly likely that was the case, or at any rate that the Vatican made sure Evita had a Christian burial.” Choosing his words carefully, he went on: “I too have wondered whether the general's obvious shift to the right would have been possible if Evita were still alive. But, general speculation aside, it's clear that the success
of the Montoneros and the demonstrations of power by the youth since the Cordobazo
*
have unsettled Perón. . . .”

He scratched his head, preoccupied. “Obviously, while Perón was in exile it was easy for him to encourage unrest. He knew it would weaken the putschists. But now that he's back as head of state, it's more alarming than anything else. Now, none of us knows who is really influencing the general. Has he made secret deals—with the USA, for example?”

Gabriel interrupted him. “If, as you say, Perón's government has shifted to the right, it's possible that what we're witnessing is the start of a civil war.”

Everyone leaned forward to listen more closely.

“Like you, Father Carlos, I've always been opposed to violence,” Gabriel continued. “But I'm convinced it takes a great deal of courage to give up swords for plowshares, as you've always told us. Aramburu's assassination wasn't just a despicable crime; it was a strategic mistake on the part of the Montoneros. Now people who don't share our views think we're monsters and that we have to be gunned down.

“In my opinion, the Ezeiza massacre was the first step in an extermination plan. There were all kinds of innocent people in the crowd—lots of young people, but also pregnant women, children, elderly people. Where are the murderers? Where is the justice? My dear father, the question we should be asking
ourselves is whether, in these circumstances, we should now turn the other cheek. To be honest, what's worrying me most is this Triple A business.”

“What's Triple A?” asked Julia.

Father Mugica bit his lip, then said slowly, “It's little more than a rumor. At least for now. Apparently a group of men with close ties to Perón have set up death squadrons under the leadership of El Brujo.
*
They call themselves the Triple A: Argentine Anticommunist Alliance.”

“And who is El Brujo?”

“The minister for social welfare, José López Rega. It's his nickname because he dabbles in the occult, that kind of thing. I'm sorry to say I'm well acquainted with him. I worked with him at the ministry when the Cámpora government was in power. I resigned because of him. He used to be a police corporal several years ago. He's very close to Isabel. Maybe that's why he's one of the few people to have survived from one government to the next.”

Then, as if holding back from saying more, he added with a frown: “You'd have to have a pretty dark sense of humor to appoint a man who's supposed to be the head of a gang of killers minister for social welfare, don't you think?”

The conversation took a new turn. The minister for social welfare was doing absolutely nothing to improve the situation in the
villas miserias
. The layoffs following the worker strikes
and the arrests of trade union leaders had not helped matters. Entire households were now living in the most degrading poverty.

“How can we accept that right next to the wealthiest neighborhoods, entire families are dying of hunger!” protested Rosa.

“We all live in ghettos, we just don't realize it,” said Father Mugica. After a moment's silence, he added: “Just off Plaza San Martín, a stone's throw from Torre de los Ingleses, there are families who do not eat every day. I'm worried the only reason López Rega has been appointed to the Ministry of Social Welfare is to get rid of them.”

“Isn't there something we can do?” asked Julia, visibly moved.

“Something can always be done,” Rosa replied.

Father Mugica continued: “López Rega thinks you can eradicate poverty and hunger by eradicating the poor. We think people who live in poverty are different, feel differently, because they are used to being destitute. They bother us because they mar the beauty of our capital city. Gradually we forget that they're human beings. It's not much of a stretch from there to putting them into concentration camps.”

—

Julia joined Father Mugica's team working in Villa 31. She couldn't believe it was so close to her own home. Just by turning a street corner she found herself plunged into a different world. There were still houses, cars, even electricity poles. But
it all looked unfinished and rickety. Most of the buildings were made of big hollow concrete blocks stuck together with mortar that had dripped and dried down the sides, as if the urgent need to get them up had rendered unnecessary any thought of giving them a proper finish. Second, third, and even fourth stories were stacked haphazardly on the foundations. Where they existed at all, roofs were made of sheets of corrugated iron, plastic, or asbestos, never the right size, unattached, half balancing in midair. The noises were different too, as if the world of the millions of poor had gone to live on the streets. The aggressive odors betrayed the lack of basic amenities. And there was the human swarming, constant, desperate, peculiar to the hopeless, and the hordes of children in the streets, and the unspeakable chaos of a permanent construction site.

The young team was in the grip of conflicting emotions. Only Father Mugica remained unruffled. He talked to the people he visited with the same consideration, the same attitude of restraint and attentiveness, that had struck Julia at the d'Uccellos' house. But there was something more: an energy, a kind of barely suppressed elation, that he didn't have elsewhere. He flourished in this underworld, at one with himself; his rebellion against the system was fueled by love, not resentment.

Julia had just come to this conclusion when an elderly woman, who seemed to have been following them for some time, interrupted her thoughts.

“Are you related to Josefina d'Annunzio?” she asked with a hesitant smile.

“Mama Fina, you mean? Yes, of course, I'm her granddaughter!”

“I thought as much,” the woman said happily. “You look uncannily like her.”

She went on with a secretive air: “You know, I'm very fond of your grandmother, and grateful to her too. You could say it's partly because of her that I'm still alive.”

The old woman began laughing, a hand over her toothless mouth. Her small eyes shone intensely in their deep-set sockets, intensifying the hundreds of furrows plowed in her rough skin.

“Oh! It's quite a strange story,” she continued. “Maybe she'll tell you about it.”

Then, delighted with the effect she'd had, she added: “You can tell her the girls in the cooperative have worked hard this week; this time she'll really be satisfied with the quality.”

—

That was how Julia learned that Mama Fina was a regular visitor to Villa 31 and that she'd known Father Mugica for years. She had set up a cooperative for unemployed young mothers. They took turns looking after the little ones while the others made children's clothing. Smocking was their specialty—that explained the long dress Mama Fina had given Julia, which she'd worn to Anna's eighteenth-birthday party. Mama Fina took the dresses to storekeepers in La Boca and San Telmo. The profits were shared equally among all the young mothers who were members of the cooperative.

When Julia returned home, she went straight to Mama Fina and threw her arms around her neck. It didn't occur to her to be upset with her grandmother. Full of admiration, she told her everything she'd learned about the cooperative, the old lady, and her social-action activities. Julia understood that, in a way, Mama Fina's discretion about her good works was the same as her own efforts to conceal their gift. All the same, Julia was excited. She told Mama Fina she wanted to work with her at the cooperative and with Father Mugica in Villa 31.

“Good timing,” Mama Fina answered. “I want to set up a health center at the cooperative. I know Father Carlos has connections with some pharmaceutical wholesalers. If you want to help me, I'll give you a small budget. You'll have to draw up a list of essential drugs, and you can run the shop after school.”

—

One month later Julia had invited everybody she knew, including Theo, Gabriel, and Rosa, to the opening of her health center. They had all helped her, especially Señora Pilar, the old woman who was a friend of Mama Fina's and who did the accounts for the cooperative. Gabriel had made up a list of drugs to stock. He had also agreed to train Julia in first aid and how to offer basic medical advice. Rosa, for her part, had offered to take turns with Julia to make sure there was always someone at the health center.

Julia's work in Villa 31 brought her even closer, if that was possible, to her grandmother. When Theo came to call for her
on May 1, 1974, on his way to the demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo, Julia took care to ask Mama Fina her opinion and left only after she had gotten her blessing.

The Plaza de Mayo was packed to bursting, and columns of Montoneros were chanting slogans against the government's “gorillas,” El Brujo and the vice president, Isabel. Despite all this, there were no violent incidents. Perón appeared as expected on the balcony of the Casa Rosada. In his speech to the workers, he violently disparaged the Montoneros, calling them “stupid” and, once again, “beardless.” The public insult resulted in a spectacular retreat by the ranks of Montoneros, who withdrew with military precision. Julia and Theo returned home earlier than expected, despondent but unharmed.