“There is this bullet which crosses your forehead, then your body which rises like at the stake”. These are the first sentences of Sabine Garrigues’ book, nothing is known (ed. Le Tripode), released on September 14, 2023. Over the course of the 126 pages that make up her work, the author tells us, with modesty and sobriety, the hours which preceded and those which followed the attacks of November 13, 2015 A national drama, marked in each of our memories, it becomes a personal, family drama, from the pen of this mother, who lost her daughter, Suzon, aged 21, in the Bataclan attack. His son, Paul, who accompanied his big sister to the concert by Eagles of Death Metalis a survivor. Sabine Garrigues has never spoken in the media, neither in 2015 nor since. She stayed away from media attention to grieve. Till today. Quickly, she explains why. Confide, okay, but above all, don’t be tearful. This will be the golden rule of our meeting.
Writing, “an absolute necessity” to get through the drama
“This book is for my daughter, for my son, for all of humanityto myself”, she explains when asked about her writing process. Indeed, nothing is known is the result of several years of writing, thousands of pages written, a titanic work of sorting, selection, research “gasoline” of the message. When she lost her daughter Suzon, Sabine Garrigues remembered that writing became “an absolute necessity”. “There is something in me bodily which imposed itself as an energy that was overflowing, that was so painful that it had to go somewhere. For me, it came through words.” Once the words are spoken, she feels a form of calm, something “saving”she describes.
The literary object that emanates from it is stripped down, describes sensations, without capital letters, without periods. Verses that follow one another, she has kept the essentials. Before being published by Editions du Tripode, his text, originally called The earth is nothing but a piece of sky, had been set to sound by France Culture in 2022, which allowed her to carry out an initial sorting of what she was going to send and what she was going to choose to keep for herself. Certain powerful extracts bear witness to this search for beauty, for life, even in horror. Others, who recount the distress of this “mother of a dead girl”, are difficult to sustain. But the brain is well made, says Sabine Garrigues. “When I say ‘the death of Suzon’, I see a smile from SuzonI don’t see Suzon at the worst times.”
“Anger, I find it vain”
No anger. When Sabine Garrigues writes the names of the three terrorists who carried out the Bataclan attack, Samy Amimour, Foued Mohamed-Aggad and Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, or when she speaks about them out loud, we perceive neither anger, nor rage, nor hate. “Anger is extremely tiring and painful. Anger, I find it vain“, she explains. And then, this is not the only reason for what she calls a “empty in this place”. “I still see kids a lot (…) Afterwards, there is darkness in all that, I make no excuses. But I can’t help but see a baby being born. And a baby being born , he’s not going to plant bombs.” The three terrorists died the evening of the Bataclan attack. They will never be convicted for the crimes they committed. In total, 130 people lost their lives on November 13, 2015, under the bullets of terrorists.
“I lost my daughter in tragic circumstances, expresses Sabine Garrigues. But it’s as if it was something that didn’t concern me, this violence, what inhabits them, their utopia. It’s something I have no control over and I don’t want to. I don’t want to be involved in any way with that energy.” She claims to have grieved away from media attention and the gaze of curious people, an absolute necessity for her. “I couldn’t go to victims’ associations. I couldn’t stay in that atmosphere. Every year, I receive invitations to go to the November 13 commemorations, I never go, I didn’t go to the trial, I don’t want to take part in all that.” A way of protecting yourself, just like having left Paris and only being there part-time.
Sabine Garrigues documents the void that follows the loss of a loved one
Today, Sabine Garrigues organizes yoga retreats in the South-West. When we ask her about the way in which she approaches the subject – Suzon’s death – with those around her, her response is surprising. “No one knows where I live, she admits. It’s easier to live without having to talk about it. This permanent compassionate look drained me of all my strength.” Feeling the gaze of others on her, the author did not experience it as support. This plunged her into a state of continuous sadness which ended up suffocating her, she describes. However, she wants to make things clear: “That doesn’t mean I deny the event.” The proof is offered to us by this work, imbued with truth and light.
At the source of this impulse, she describes the difficult passage of hours, of days, which follows the loss of a loved one. “How long will it last ? This succession of days, these daily attempts to do something. Do something. Yes, so as not to completely miss it in case there is something to understand.” Small daily steps, which quickly transformed, for her, into a desire to “sublimate existence”she says. “Since we are here, then let us really be there, with all that we are as human beings, as living beings, as interconnected beings”, a feeling she didn’t have before her daughter’s death, she confides. And despite the ordeals she has gone through, Sabine Garrigues does not lose hope. “Throughout time, there has been light and darkness, and the two are in balance. We cannot eradicate darkness. So, it’s up to us to focus on the light, since that’s what interests us and what nourishes us.”
nothing is known (ed. Le Tripod), by Sabine Garrigues, can be found in bookstores now.