Laura Van Slyke is an ASU creative writing alumna living in Paris. Below, she recounts how the terrorist attacks in Paris affected her and her friends.
(Friday) I was drinking on Rue de Oberkampf (11ème Arrondissement) with my friends at a bar called "My Woodie," a 50s-themed American nostalgia bar fully equipped with Beach Boys posters and a neon jukebox. Before we went out, we watched the sunset from the roof of my student dorm which is located at the top of the famously steep Rue de Ménilmontant (20ème Arr.). From the roof, we could see all of Paris, from Notre Dame in all of its strong-shouldered pride and the Seine rushing forward, to Sacre-Cœur. In the moments of darkness between the sun setting and the Eiffel Tower turning on its lights, my friend, Meera, another language assistant from India, and I looked away from the city and toward the clouds.
They were an angry, violent shade of dark pink. It was a strange color indeed. I don't say this to create a sense of looming terror, or to dip my toes into a pathetic fallacy, but rather because it was one of those moments when the city surprises you. Paris loves to do that, surprise you. Most of the time it's something small and unexpected: You're walking on a cobblestone street and an opera singer in a dazzling pink fedora rides by on a broken bicycle belting out an aria, or you're wandering around the Luxembourg Gardens and run smack into a Japanese blackberry tree. These are precious moments, and you have to let yourself be taken by them. They are gifts. Meera and I got to talking about these gifts, the moments that remind you that you actually live in the Ville des Lumières. "I think it's healthy to realize you live in Paris at least once a week," I laughed, "That's my epiphany goal: 7 days."
Meera responded, "Really? I shoot for 3 times a week."
"My Woodie" was five minutes away from the shootings in the Bataclan concert hall where police have reported 80 people were shot dead (Friday). We neither heard nor saw anything, and didn't learn about the shooting until we had relocated to another bar up the street where we were going to meet another friend to watch a set of Jazz Manouche. As we entered this bar and found a table, I noticed that everyone around us was on their cell phone, something I have never seen in Paris. The band sat on their stools with their instruments in their hands, holding them out of habit but not playing anything; the bartender was speaking in Arabic to a friend on his cell phone as he closed the blinds and peeked through them out to the street; the waiter stood at another window, also on his phone. When our friend called us to say he was not going to come because "it was not the night pour sortir," we learned that the soccer stadium had been attacked by a suicide bomber.
We had no idea what was happening, only that something was indeed happening and that it was very, very bad. We stayed in the bar for two hours, locked inside, all of us on our phones searching for more information. The numbers were vague and changing: "dozens dead at stadium," "10 hostages at concert hall," "deaths in the street at a local bar," "police saying 60 dead." Nothing was clear.
Everyone was looking for a way home. Streets were closed, but no one knew which ones, everyone was afraid to walk or take their bikes, Uber was shut down, the metro, buses and taxis weren't running. Luckily we were a ten-minute walk from my place, and when we finally got the nerve to leave the bar we walked quickly and we walked well, stopping only when strangers told us to, "prenez soin de vous," another thing that I have never seen in Paris.
In my room I made everyone gnocchi, and we ate it quietly as we all began receiving messages from friends all over the world. Last year, when the Charlie Hebdo and 20ème Arr shootings happened, the French government, police and press released information about the events as they were happening. Many were suspicious that the coverage was helpful to the attackers. Last night when my dad called me, he had more information in Tucson, Arizona than we had access to here. It was all purposefully vague as the French journalists were withholding information out of fear that it would leak into the wrong hands.
All we knew was that Hollande had declared a state of national emergency, that the borders were closed, and that the hashtag #porteouverte (open door) was being used by friends all over Paris who were willing to shelter those who were without homes for the night.
After a few hours and many cigarettes, my friends were able to find a cab and I felt very tired and I went to sleep. When I woke up (Saturday) morning and read that the death count is now 128, with more than 200 wounded, it finally sunk in. I watched a video of people running to escape the shooting in the concert hall. In the video people dragged their friends' bodies through the street. You can see a man hanging from a balcony that he had climbed to above the entrance of the venue, repeating "s'il vous plaît, s'il vous plaît" to the apartment window, begging to be let in.
They're calling this the biggest attack on Paris since World War II.
The streets are quiet today. There are not many cars, the café across the street is empty. The street market that's around the corner every Saturday is not there. I've been in my apartment looking out my window and from here I can see that my neighbors are looking out their windows, too. The sky is gray and the clouds are sure to be pink again tonight.
Living in France I'm reminded all the time of how frustrating it is to lack the capacity to express yourself with language. Most things don't translate, and if they do, they're always a little less intelligent, a little less funny and a little less emotionally nuanced. Today I get the feeling that everyone is lacking language. I don't know what to say for The State Press other than what I've been saying to everyone here: les mots me manquent. Je ne sais pas quoi dire, même en anglais.
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