The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt

Author:Ingrid Betancourt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

23.

HAEDO

Austral Spring

1976

The prison gate opened. Paola held her breath and signaled to Julia not to move. She climbed onto the toilet seat and looked out through the skylight.

“A lot of cars have arrived,” she whispered into Julia’s ear. “It must be a general again. The day Adriana and you escaped, it was Angelini who’d come to carry out an inspection.”

“Angelini?” Julia asked. “Commissioner-Major Angelini?”

“Do you know him?”

“No, not really. But I’ve heard of him.”

“He’s the one who’s ordered El Loco’s transfer.”

Her thoughts racing, Julia asked: “Has he been promoted?”

Paola shrugged. “I don’t know. In any case, he’s going. Sosa seemed to say that Angelini had reviewed all of our files. There was total chaos when they found out you’d run away. Actually, I’ve been meaning to ask you: who was the other prisoner?”

“I don’t know. We split up soon after. It was the only cell that hadn’t been padlocked. The man was half-dead; he’d come back from Mansión Seré. They must have thought that even if they left the door wide open, he wouldn’t be able to take as much as a step outside.”

Paola was looking at Julia with a strange intensity.

“You’ve just come back from Mansión Seré too. You know that, right? Sosa told me when they brought you back. So you met El Diablo. . . .”

Julia was stunned. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything.”

The sound of keys opening the door at the end of the corridor put them on the alert. They adjusted their hoods and waited, holding their breath, leaning against the wall.

El Cabo Pavor’s voice made them jump. He opened the door of their cell and barked: “You, the brunette. Over here. We’re going to finish you off once and for all.”

—

Julia was trembling all over. She found Paola’s hand and dug her nails into it as if to anchor herself there. El Cabo Pavor separated the girls and herded Julia out, spewing a torrent of abuse. He shoved her into the corridor and slammed the cell door shut. Back in the trunk of a car. The journey seemed short. She was sweating profusely despite the cold. Morón Air Base, where the death flights took off from, and Mansión Seré were both near Castelar, although located in different directions. Julia couldn’t hear the sound of jet engines. It could only be an escalation of the nightmare: she was returning to Mansión Seré.

The trunk was opened. The sound of boots, kicks, insults. She was dragged unrelentingly down a set of stairs, then flung into a dark hole. A metal door closed heavily behind her. Then nothing. She waited. The footsteps moved away. Then there was silence.

She couldn’t see a thing, not even her own hand. She began to feel her way around. It was an airless cell that seemed to be particularly narrow. From where she was sitting, Julia could touch the walls on either side by stretching out her arms. The room felt damp, like a cellar. She couldn’t stand up without her head touching the ceiling.

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