Ricochets Proches de Victimes d'Attentats: Le Grand Oubliés by Camille Emmanuelle

 Ricochets

Proches de Victimes d'Attentats: Le Grand Oubliés by Camille Emmanuelle is a strong book. Written by a journalist and writer specialized in sex, sexuality, problematics and joys of this human sphere, Camille is also a strong, fragile woman, plenty of simplicity and completely sincere with her readers.

What happened in her existence and the one of her husband Luz, a survivor of the horrible terrorist attack in the newsroom of Charlie Hebdo in a cold day of winter, January 7 2015, is pretty shocking, detailed trip in the horror and the beginning of a never-ending calvary. 

It's also a book written for launching a signal: it's not important if you are a survivor or a relative of a survivor: a terrorist attack is forever, and the implications, sometimes physicals, sometimes emotive or both, will remain at long, or maybe forever in that broken, fractured souls.

Camille saved the existence of her husband. For sure: that day was his birthday and she cuddled him a lot more than the necessary: this accumulated time spent at home, saved Luz. 

When Camille understood what happened at Charlie Hebdo, she tried to reach the place: it wasn't simple, but after a long waiting, she met her husband. An husband who told her that he had seen a massacre: most of their friends were killed.

After that, there was a meeting in a hospital: it was necessary to speak with a psychologist. And the psy asked to Camille if she knew that she would have had repercussions. Camille could not believe it: after all, she hadn't seen anything: she didn't assist to the horror, but very soon, too soon, she experienced that, living with a survivor meant also to start of being affected by the same problematics of her companion, a common phaenomenon as she explaines with several examples of other situations.

The first months after the terrorist attack she imagines...

She imagines Luz dead, in a coffin, and then, buried: maybe because they assisted at twelve funerals: maybe because being a survivor means a lot of questions, Camille portrayed herself as the widow, as the one who assisted to the tumulation of her husband.

It was terrible and terrifying: the nightmares of the husband were scaring: the idea of renting a room in a castle, where there were fireworks, they didn't know it, was a bad idea: they panicked, because of the horror experienced.

At first it was necessary to change their house. For obvious reasons. Luz was at risk. They choose other locations, and she missed, terribly missed Paris and her old existence. Luz, in the while, sounded more tranquil. He had lost in his past existence existence, his friends, everything.

Close to the terrorist attack, she discovered to be pregnant.

It meant that when she was having the baby, the imagines she internally visualized were not the ones of a happy family: she couldn't focus anything of it: she saw terrorist attacks, she imagined ugly scenarios. While she was having her baby.

Understandably under shock, they were helped and still are, by psychologists. Just, writes Camille, when we said that we were differently involved in the Charlie Hebdo attacks, psycholigists asked them all the time: "What?" thinking at the immense shock experienced.

Her relationship with people changed: after some while,  just few people asked her how are you? But sometimes it would be good  to tell, to share, Camille writes. She does it, particularly when she has drunk some more wine than the necessary, and she is in company: she becomes pretty chatty; she understands that to her and Luz the best pill they can use for trying to reduce fear, anxiety, anguish is wine: too much wine, admits Camille, candidly.

And what about their baby? Every possible pic of guns are banned, they don't treat the topic with the kid, because they can't tolerate the vision of violence; but...They are banning something from the existence of their baby.They understand that soon or late there will be maybe questions.

Luz sometimes is not fine.

One night, first months from the shocking event, he picked up several issues of Charlie Hebdo, the one appeared after the terrorist attack: on the cover, you'll remember there was written: Tout C'est Perdonne, but he was completely disconnected with the reality close to him: a sensation that hasn't been experienced anymore by her husband.

Trips, vacations also when they went for the first time in Greece, were an adventure, because Luz wasn't fine at all.

Realistically, writes Camille, there was an existence before the terrorist attack and after the terrorist attacks and the old times won't never be back because of this constant anxiety, and hyper-vigilance. She adds that she became with the time hyper-emotive with big tragedies, also pretty distant from her: she cried, desperate, per hours when there was the Orlando terrorist attack to the disco disco; at the same time she can't understand and tolerate anymore when people complain for little things that can happen in a daily base. When you have seen the hell, all the rest of daily problematics are like  Heaven. 

An interesting chapter is dedicated at a sexual harassment Camille lived in NYC. She wasn't still married with Luz, she had another companion; they had a discussion, she left the hotel and went in a local. There, she met this guy, with which she started to talk of the more and of  the less: she didn't have any kind of intention of having a sexual intercourse with him but the day after when she woke up she understood that surely that unkown man of passage had had a sexual intercourse with her. Without doubts. She went to the hospital for the several exams; she had spoken with authorities, but they hadn't taken her in consideration; Camille didn't want to leave this episode alone, terrorized as she was by illness like HIV, shs adds that she takes pills in grade of "preventing" the illness, and also because if he had had sex with her, for sure, she didn't remember it, because drugged. So, this one had been a violence.

We are distant from the time of the MeeToo movement where more or less everyone have said their words in terms of abusea; distant from the big american sexual scandals, and women had less power. Not in France, where authorities investigated and at the end recognized that she had been a victim,

That word, victim, set free, writes Camille, herself from all the possible responsibilities. She wasn't culpable of anything: that man was!

A long chapter is dedicated to France law and rights of the so-called ricochets, and another time, Camille focus the attention on the power of humor, thinking that humor can be helpful and paradoxically good in tragic moments: Roberto Benigni in his movie La Vita è Bella tried to conquer the son with a game, a game for not let him explain what was happening; hiding what reality the world was experiencing in that exact moment; under many ways he used humor, and thanks to it the son survived, maybe less shocked than not other people who hadn't had a father like the one described in the movie by the italian beloved actor.

The questions in the mind of Camille are many and sometimes they involve her daughter as well. Questions on life, death, separation, love. 

Another great movie example is the one by Frank Capra, one of my favorite ones!!! La Vie est Belle. The history this one: George Bailey is a dreamer. He would want to travelling the world, building beautiful houses, visiting places, shaking hands with tons of people around the world; but...

Life becomes hard with him, asking sacrifices. The oldest brother marries a beauty and will move away; the old Bailey suffers of a heart attack dying, and George, ready to leave, remains in Bedford Falls, because he must fight the solitary battle against a disgusting old man, similar to Scrooge, the character invented by Charles Dickens, called Potter. Potter will be rich but he is a heartless man and he will try all his best to destroy George: at some point Bailey will think that his life counts more if dead than not alive.

Many people pray for him and his soul, beign a very good man and so God sends to Earth Clarence, an angel with the soul of a kid, still wingless: he will let show to George what his existence would have been if he wouldn't have been existed. The pharmacist became crazy because once sold some poison to a lady, instead of the proper medicine (George had noticed it: the man had lost the son and didn't understand anymore what he was doing): Clarence will let him show also the poor existence of the rest of citizens, like also the one of his wife, who worked in a library and was still unmarried! 

Camille admits that maybe she hasn't never seen angels (it's not difficult at all to see them! I hope she will! They are hidden in unknown people, in special occasions, and wherever there is a profound discomfort) but certain episodes the months before the terrorist attack let her think a lot.

Psychologists, various kind of assitance, the life of Luz and Camille turned upside down, and a tremendous impact in her existence was also the horrible decapitation of a high school teacher Samuel Paty. It was a horrible terrorist attack, and France remarked strongly its laicity.

Camille started to enter again in that spiral of horror as lived before. She drunk again too much and she felt a sensation of big desperation; 40 terrorist attacks in all Europe for religious purposes.

She starts to think that this one is a never-ending story, that nothing will return to the normality. This time was Luz who helped her, calling the psychologist. The psychologist told her that their situation is this one: Camille has like lived the traumatic moments seen by her husband at Charlie Hebdo, with her empathy and that's why now she is feeling this immense sufferance.

Written with big competence, this one is a long confession of a dark period in the existence of this couple and in the one of Camille, seen without hiding, without omitting, but putting all herself in the description of the several phases experienced by them and the state of the things at the moment.

What I can wish for this couple is to see some light after this tunnel of sufferance. Sure: it won't be simple but not impossible.

Highly recommended book.

I thank Grasset for the physical copy of the book.

Anna Maria Polifori