The Blue Line by Ingrid Betancourt Read Free Book Online Page B

bullet to the head. The Montoneros had published a statement declaring that they would give up his body only in exchange for Evita’s remains.
    This was when Theo, who had just turned seventeen, decided to become a Montonero, against the advice of his older brother and despite Father Mugica’s warnings. His decision came just a few weeks before the news that Aramburu’s body had been found by the army in a hacienda owned by Ramus’s parents. Their property, La Celma, was situated in Buenos Aires district. Gabriel knew the place and had been there on a number of occasions.
    Theo asked Gabriel to put him in contact with Ramus. He was convinced his brother knew where Ramus was hiding, and he wanted to join the organization right away. Gabriel refused outright. Whether it was because he condemned theMontoneros’ act or because he wanted to protect Theo, Gabriel became angry with his brother and retreated into an obstinate silence. Theo was furious at him.
    The discord between the d’Uccello brothers lasted until the tragic events of the spring. On September 7, 1970, Carlos Gustavo Ramus died as he was pulling the pin out of a grenade during a confrontation with police in a pizzeria in the center of Buenos Aires. The leader of the Montoneros, Fernando Luis Abal Medina, was also gunned down in the shoot-out.
    The news spread like wildfire. Theo’s father and mother listened to every report on the radio, consumed with anxiety. Gabriel didn’t show up at dinnertime. The atmosphere around the table was fraught; their plates remained untouched, and none of them dared comment on the affair. The previous evening Gabriel had quarreled with his father, who had upbraided him for his leftist views and accused him of being a bad influence on his younger brother. Theo felt terribly guilty, knowing how strongly Gabriel opposed the violence of the Montoneros and how unfair their father’s accusation was. But he had lacked the courage to stand up for his brother, both the previous day and during the long, silent wait with his parents at the dinner table.
    Overtaken by remorse, Theo waited up for his brother until dawn, sitting in the kitchen glued to the radio. When Gabriel finally appeared, Theo threw himself at his brother and hugged him, putting an end to the feud that had separated them for months.
    Neither of them wanted to admit it, but they each felt the other had been right. A gradual change in their feelings, coupled with the recent events, had led them to see the political situation from the other person’s point of view. Gabriel began to reconsider his categorical refusal of the armed struggle, while Theo pondered the possibility of joining the Peronist Youth instead of an underground organization like the Montoneros.
    Father Mugica officiated at Ramus’s funeral. A huge crowd had assembled near the church of San Francisco Solano, right in the middle of the bourgeois Mataderos neighborhood. Gabriel and Theo attended the ceremony, feeling part of their country’s history for the first time. Ramus’s death manifested a new reality to the d’Uccello brothers: it brought supporters of the Montoneros onto the streets, revealing the importance of the movement as a political force to be reckoned with and no longer merely an urban guerrilla group.
    â€”
    The day General Perón returned from exile for the first time, Gabriel and Theo went to welcome him with a group of about a hundred young people. They had gathered in the rain against the orders of the police, who had forbidden them to go anywhere near Ezeiza Airport. It was November 17, 1972, a few days before Anna’s eighteenth birthday. Perón was detained at the airport for hours before being released into a desertedBuenos Aires on a tight leash by the military, which had imposed a curfew.
    Seven months later, on June 20, 1973, Gabriel, Theo, and Julia found themselves among a huge crowd come to celebrate Perón’s