‘Today, we cry for our dead’
Parisians are trying to come to grips with deaths of so many people
PARIS — Clutching a white rose, Grégory Reibenberg led a mournful procession through the streets of Paris’ 11th arrondissement Sunday, finishing at the restaurant he owns that two days earlier had been transformed into a scene of death.
After two men got out of a car and sprayed La Belle Équipe with gunfire Friday night, he held his dying wife in his arms, assuring her he loved her and he would look after their young daughter.
Belle Équipe is French for ‘beautiful team,’ but Sunday it was a shattered team that assembled outside the restaurant, embracing and crying, the occasional sob piercing the air.
“There are people who lost friends. There are people who survived the attack who are here,” Reibenberg said.
Friday was the birthday of an employee of another of Reibenberg’s restaurants in the neighbourhood, and staff and friends had gathered at the Belle Équipe to celebrate. The sidewalk terrasse on Rue de Charonne was full when the terrorists struck.
“It’s a place filled with life, this little corner,” Reibenberg said, and he is determined that it again become so, despite the assault that claimed the lives of 19 among the 129 people killed Friday.
“Of course we think of the dead. They are always there. It’s forever.”
He said he is trying to replace the horror scene with fond memories of his wife and the other “beautiful people” gunned down. His mind, he said, is calmer.
“The scene is no longer running non-stop. I am no longer seeing the last 20 minutes with the mother of my daughter.”
Youssef Boudjema, an associate of Reibenberg, said he lost a dozen friends in a few minutes.
“I arrived by car, and the first thing I saw was my best friend Gregory holding his dying wife,” he said. “I think of the people who were killed, not the killers. They do not even deserve to be talked about. The victims are in my heart. Today, I think all of France knows them. … Today, we cry for our dead.”
Jean-Pierre Vouche, a psychologist who accompanied Reibenberg in Sunday’s march, said the couple’s eight-year-old daughter asked whether there was an antidote when informed of her mother’s death.
Vouche told her, “You look at a star, and you say, ‘Mommy is there and you talk to her.’ ”
That sort of horrible question is being asked over and over here, with an official death toll at 129 and expected to climb. The victims were mostly young, killed while attending a rock concert at the Bataclan or starting the weekend at one of the neighbourhood’s restaurants and bars.
Frédéric, who owns a grocery and cheese shop a block from the Belle Équipe and declined to give his last name, was asking another question.
Friday night, he heard the gunshots and ran to the restaurant to find a nightmarish scene. The attackers’ Kalashnikov rifles had severed feet and arms, and there was blood everywhere. He tried to provide first aid, applying tourniquets, but he watched as people died around him.
And it was a seemingly interminable 20 minutes before paramedics arrived, he said. After the Jan. 7 terrorist assault on Charlie Hebdo that killed 12, people feared a repeat attack, he said, and yet authorities were unprepared.
Throughout the central Paris neighbourhoods targeted Friday, people ignored official warnings to avoid crowds and gathered at sites near the killings to leave flowers and write messages of solidarity.
At one point a loud bang at the Place de la République provoked a panicked rush as people feared a repeat attack, but it turned out to be a false alarm.
“Even if they tell us to stay home, Paris is still standing,” said Éric Mbwaki, who visited the Belle Équipe Sunday to pay his respects.
“Life continues and we have to celebrate it while remembering the dead.”