“As fast as we can,” he answered.
“Call me then,” she said, and hung up, before she could change her mind.
Chapter 14
The producers of the show called her two days later with the schedule. They were starting the following week. They were going to interview forty-seven of the injured victims, more than thirty of whom were in hospitals awaiting further surgeries, and they were going to interview nine of the families of the victims who had died. She qualified as both.
She told them that as often as possible she would prefer to be photographed or filmed from the left side of her face, but was willing to have the right side filmed too. Her one concession to vanity was that she hired a makeup artist she had worked with many times. He was a genius, and she asked him if he could at least somewhat improve her ugly scars. Even he couldn’t make them disappear, but he could do a lot, and if she was going to be in a documentary that was going to be shown all over Europe and possibly the world, she had a right to look as decent as she could. The truth was still there and would be visible. The makeup artist, Jean-Louis, was happy to help, and he told her he’d work for the first week for free, as his contribution to the project. He normally charged a fortune, several thousand euros a day, and the network producing the show had a low budget for it, so she was grateful.
She had told Doug what she was doing, and had been sure he’d tell her she was crazy to expose herself like that. Instead, he said he was proud of her. A little part of her was proud of herself too. It was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she was the voice for all the wounded, broken people who had barely survived and the thirty-two who had died, so needlessly.
She went to the studio every day to study the research material on the victims, so she could ask them intelligent questions, and understand them better. She wanted to make a valid contribution. She told herself that when the project was over she was not going to become the spokesperson for the victims of the bombing. She was only going to do this once, and told the producers that too. She had been lucky and had survived. This was her way of giving back.
She was so busy she had no time to think of or do anything else. Gabriella came to Paris from Belgium, and Véronique had a quick lunch with her and no time to do anything else. She had a trial makeup session with Jean-Louis, so he could see what would work best to tone down her scars. He stood looking furious while working on her face and she thought he was angry at her.
“Those bastards. You had the most perfect face I’ve ever worked on. You still do, but then they go and do this…this shit…this travesty. It’s like putting graffiti on the Mona Lisa, or carving it up with a knife. Everyone can still see how beautiful you are,” he assured her, “but I hate them for what they did.”
“Maybe it was meant to teach me a lesson,” she said. “That beauty, as we think of it, doesn’t matter. One day I’ll get old, and I won’t look like this anymore. So it happened early, and I have to find other ways to be beautiful, from inside.” He stared at her, shocked at what she said.
“You’re some kind of saint,” he said.
“No, but you have to find a way to live with it. That’s true for the people who lost their limbs too. Some of them are remarkable in how they view it and are adjusting to it. It’s the ones who are filled with hate or anger or self-pity who don’t survive it, or not well.”
“I still think you’re a saint.” When he made her up for the cameras, you could still see her scars, but they didn’t look as raw or as frightening. Her recent surgery had calmed them down too. What was shocking was when the camera shot her from the left and you saw the smooth perfection of her face, and then you saw the right, intersected by two deep scars, butchered by the blast. But when she smiled, you forgot everything else. The producers were thrilled to have her associated with the piece.
* * *
—
Filming the victims was grueling. They cried. They told their stories. They showed their severed limbs, and photographs of themselves before the explosion, and right after. The stories were harrowing and heartbreaking, and the families who had lost loved ones tore your heart out with their grief. It made her think of Cyril and his parents again.
They filmed the victims who had done well too, who were fighting to turn it around, to be more because of it, who were in rehab, in wheelchairs, who had gone back to jobs or had to find new ones that could accommodate their disabilities. They all said that government benefits had been slow, and the red tape was endless. Many were in dire financial straits, and unable to pay their rent or feed their kids, if they could no longer work.