After the attack
‘We are grieving ... but we are strong ’
A city in mourning
MANCHESTER, In ENGLAND front of television news cameras, Irina Kontorova relived the carnage of Monday night when a man blew himself up at an Ariana Grande concert, killing at least 22 people.
The student, 19, ran through a recount of her evening — how she was late, how she heard a bang after the final song of the show. Then she broke down. “They were just children, teenagers,” she said, her cheeks reddening as tears welled up. “They were covered in blood. They were crushed. Their legs were broken. Their arms were broken. And they were crying.”
Manchester is full of such stories. Thousands of people, many off them from way beyond Manchester, were at the gig.
Thousands more watched mobile-phone footage of the aftermath, short videos of running, stumbling, frightened teens — young girls, some attending their first pop concert, targeted by terrorists.
Monday night, mums in pajamas brought flasks of piping-hot sweet tea for the children of strangers and for the police. Locals offered a warm room — even a bed for a night — to families they had never met before. Random motorists turned up, offering lifts. Taxis from as far as 30 miles away in Liverpool queued to take hundreds of stranded concertgoers wherever they needed to go.
Manchester took heart from this instinctive solidarity Tuesday. At the feet of a statue of Victorian statesman Richard Cobden, Mancunians brought flowers and a mood of defiance. Somebody used gray gaffer tape to stick a yellow card to his marble pedestal: “This is Manchester. We unite. We are strong. We open our doors to strangers. We give free taxi rides.” Pavement artist Rachel Harrington, 23, chalked a message from Manchester’s new mayor onto the ground below Cobden.
“We are grieving today,” she wrote in white before adding in sky blue, “but we are strong.” She was to repeat the refrain on concrete across the city.
Artist Leslie Darlington, 69, watched her as he sat below Cobden and tried to make sense of the world with his sketchpad.
“This is therapy for me,” he said, coloring a blue balloon with a white dove above a crowd of milling mourners, each figure drawn long, like a shadow.
“What happened will take a long time to sink in. They will talk about strength, but there is also trauma and despair and fear,” Darlington said. “The legacy will take a long time to work through.”
Nerves were raw and frayed, but as stores shuttered on the main shopping drags, many residents refused to surrender their streets.
Outside an Adidas store — shut “because of unforeseen circumstances,” a notice tacked to its window said — a band of reggae buskers called Ruff Trade played Bob Marley.
“We want no more trouble,” they sang as two girls shimmied their shoulders in sync. “Let’s forget about our problems and smile.”
“We’re tough, we Mancs,” James Frieden, 25, said.
Snatches of conversation around the city told similar stories of sleepless nights tracing friends on social media, ears glued to 24-hour news coverage. Some people were so drained that they fell asleep on lawns, even as sirens continued to blare.
Police guarded them, many of the officers carrying automatic rifles. Two officers stopped to hear another busker, Sam Fairweather.
“Good tunes, fella,” they told the 30-year-old as he packed his amplifier and guitar onto a trolley.
“The beautiful thing about this city is that everyone helped,” Fairweather said.
As afternoon turned to evening, thousands took to the streets.
The city’s Sikh community marched into Manchester’s center, waving flags that read, “I heart MCR,” the city’s airport code.
Bystanders applauded as the marchers arrived in Albert Square in the shadow of the sandstone Victorian town hall, where St. George’s cross and Union flags flew at half-staff amid its turrets.
As the clocks struck 6, dignitaries emerged to the gentle chords of British composer Edward Elgar.
As politicians such as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Liberal Democrat Tim Farron looked on, their general election campaigns suspended, preachers and poets gave the city a voice.
The Rev. David Walker, bishop of Manchester, was cheered like a pop star as he defied those who would use an atrocity to spark hate.
“They are the very few,” he said. “But we are the many. ... You cannot defeat us because love is always stronger than hate.” Poet Tony Walsh read his work
This Is The Place: “It’s hard times again in these streets of our city. But we won’t take defeat, and we don’t want your pity. Because this is the place where we stand strong together. With a smile on our face, Mancunians forever.”