Chapter 10
1. Two parents
They are both in their sixties, both have lost their daughter in the Bataclan. The first is called Georges Salines. Retired doctor, dry, sharp, he looks like a marathoner: he is a marathoner. He attends the trial almost every day and to me he has become Georges, one of the people I talk to during the hearing suspensions and associate with on this journey. In memory of Lola, his daughter, he has written a beautiful book of love and mourning, and later he has co-written another that has displeased the circle of victims because it is a dialogue with Azdyne Amimour, the father of Samy Amimour, the terrorist who exploded on the scene of the Bataclan. (1) It is already difficult for us, instinctively, to admit that the children of executioners are not responsible for the crimes of their parents, but their parents …
Georges says their misery must also be heard. He says, and gives as an example, that barbarism is not fought with barbarism, that amalgams are destructive, that what justifies this judgment is scrupulous respect for the rule of law. Salah Abdeslam, the main defendant, expressed a few weeks ago the desire to “leave the doors of dialogue open.” Coming from him, this proposal is as delusional as that of Adolf Eichmann, convinced that a “conciliation committee” between Jewish survivors and Nazi criminals would allow, with a little good will, and if each side recognized their mistakes, to start over from the grassroots. healthier. It is evident that the will to dialogue has more weight if it is formulated by Georges Salines in that book in which the two parents come to pose together this horrible and insoluble question: Was the bullet that killed the daughter of one shot by the son of the other?
Three days after Georges’ testimony, it is the turn of Patrick Jardin, a massive, lanky man, who begins by congratulating the Commissioner of the Anti-Crime Brigade for having killed that “scrap” of Samy Amimour and says that individuals should be shot as Salah Abdeslam. It is a pity that the death penalty no longer exists, but at least these rabble must rot their whole lives behind bars before burning in hell. He says that 38% of French Muslims approve of the beheading of Samuel Paty and that the time would have come for the public authorities to draw the consequences of this figure. He says: “They accuse me of being spiteful and it is true, Mr. President, I am, and what disgusts me the most are the relatives of victims who do not feel hatred. The man who has written a book with the father of one of the terrorists makes me vomit. ” Those of us who hear this cannot condemn Patrick Jardin, because he has lost his daughter, but the jet of archaic fury that comes out of his mouth is frighteningly embarrassing.
Civilization consists in learning to replace the law of Talion with Law, justice with revenge, and my friend Georges is a highly civilized man whom I would like to resemble if I had to undergo such a test. But anyway we must recognize that it exists, because it must exist, otherwise we would not be human, this archaic fury that we have to learn to overcome. I admire the dignity of all those people who have marched through the bar saying that they do not feel anger, that they want a fair trial, that to give in to hatred would be to allow the murderers to triumph, but in the first place I think that it is too unanimous and virtuous a speech To be absolutely honest, and then I think they silence the Patrick Jardin in them too quickly and that it is a good thing that at least once out of 250 his limp and unforgiving voice has been heard. “They say I’m from the extreme right and maybe I am, I don’t know, but even if I’m from the extreme right, is my daughter less dead?”
2. The nut
One emotion expels another, a concentrate of humanity to another, one face to another: the immense psychotherapy of these five weeks has possessed the beauty of a collective story and the cruelty of a casting. Everyone went to the bar, prepared their text, it was a crucial moment in their life. For undoubtedly equal sufferings, some found the right words and shocked, the others threaded topics and fatigued. After half an hour it was over. The president said: “Thank you for all those clarifications” (standardized formula), and if the statement was really moving: “Thank you for that emotional testimony.” They retraced the corridor and sat down with the others.
The people of the Bataclan have this advantage in their misfortune: they are not alone. They are surrounded by companions. If they have been hostages, they belong to the gang: they are “otages pots”(Fellow hostages), as they call each other. They meet for a drink together. They form a brotherhood, from the beginning they are the ones who matter the most, to the point that we must continually remember that it should be said “trial of the attacks” and not “trial of the Bataclan.” Those on the terraces complain that they already consider them less, but the great forgotten are those of the Stade de France. They have only dedicated one session, the first, a day that seems very far away.
Before we approach another totally different phase of the trial, the interrogation of the accused, I am reminded of one of those very timid testimonies: that of that graceful but sad girl who was part of a television team sent to do a report on the fans of the France-Germany match. The interviews had ended, but before leaving she told herself, out of a scruples of conscience that cost her dearly, that they could take a few more ambient shots in the vicinity of the stadium. It was then that the blast of an explosion lifted her off the ground. Let us remember that the three terrorists who exploded there were luckily stupid enough to do so not inside the stadium, where they would have caused a carnage, but, as they were late to enter, outside, where there was practically no soul and only They killed one person, little compared to the general tragedy, but that one dead man is no less dead and his children are no less orphans.
There are nuts between the objects that an explosive belt projects, and one of them was embedded in Marylin’s cheek. He could have disfigured her, but he didn’t. It can be said that she got away well, but no: the happy girl that she was no longer exists. Of the girl who danced, laughed and crossed Europe with a backpack, of that girl in whose skin she felt comfortable, she speaks like a ghost. They have fired her from the job she dreamed of and just got. His partner has fallen apart, he has returned to live his life dwarfed in his parents’ house. Now she is unemployed, suffers insomnia, is scary, is startled at the slightest noise, wherever she is she looks for the emergency exit and also everyone does not give a damn about the experience she has lived.
Oh, so you were a victim of the attacks? Were you at the Bataclan? No? On the terraces, then? No? At the Stade de France? Was there an attack there? Ah I did not know it. To make sure she remembers what everyone has forgotten, Marylin always carries with her, in a small plastic tube, the 18-millimeter nut that was removed from her cheek. She takes it out of her bag, in front of the court. He says, “I want to show it to you, but I’ll keep it.” She puts it in her bag and leaves, and another 250 testimonies parade later and overshadow her own, but even so I will not forget Marylin who walks away, alone, graceful and sad, with her nut on the tube.
(1) “L´Indicible de Aà Z” (Seuil, 2016) and “Il nous reste les mots”, with Azdyne Amimour (Robert Laffont, 2020).
© ‘L’obs’. Translation by Jaime Zulaika.
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