PARIS – The indiscriminate taking of so many lives squeezed life out of Paris itself. Not all life but enough to create a sense of emptiness. Although far from extinguished, the City of Light is now unmistakably dimmed.
On somber streets, scattered with the dead leaves of autumn, Parisians went through the motions of trying to pick up where they left off before suicide attackers slaughtered 129 people, the latest official count. So much felt wrong and out of kilter.
The Eiffel Tower closed and, in doing so, became a 1,063-foot tall symbol of how much is changed. Its glittering lights, so powerful they usually radiate beams far and wide across the city, were also switched off Saturday night in mourning.
Disneyland Paris shut its doors. Instead of an Andy Warhol exhibition, the only thing out-of-town visitors Yvette and Guilhem Nougaret saw at the Museum of Modern Art was a sign announcing its closure “because of the circumstances.”
Shoppers expecting to fill their carts with groceries for the week trundled Saturday to outdoor markets only to find them shuttered and empty, on government orders. Bags of ice that fishmongers would have used to keep wares fresh on their stalls lay unused.
As they always do, people still sat and smoked at the sidewalk tables of cafes, but did so knowing that dozens were gunned down and killed doing exactly that just hours before.
“I wouldn’t sit outside,” waitress Flora Jobert said as she served a thick espresso, advising her customer to shelter inside. “I mean, you never know.”
Sirens wailing, blue lights flashing, a police car sped past.
“It’s been like that all morning,” Jobert said.
Along with fear, there also was deep and roiling anger. A retired lawyer, a fashion designer, a musician – people interviewed at random – all insisted: Life must go on, no surrender to terror. They clung to those thoughts like lifebuoys.
“I’m scared,” said Patricia Martinot, a cleaner, who still mustered the courage to take her dog, Dream, out for his morning walk and reported to work at dawn, traveling through unusually empty streets.
She looked battered, but not bowed.
“The TV has been on all night,” Martinot said. “I haven’t slept.”
On subdued Metro and suburban trains, passengers stared into the distance, lost in thought. Cesar Combelle, a bass guitarist, was awakened Saturday morning by his sister, who called him panicked, thinking he might have been among at least 89 concert-goers killed at the Bataclan hall, where witnesses described floors running with blood and bodies piled on top of each other.
“I feel like we’re descending back into the Middle Ages, that we’re slipping back into religious war,” said Combelle as he headed into the city center for band practice. “What really worries me are the political consequences and the military response that’s going to lead us to war.”
