Paris - The Fear Is Real Now

A portrait of Paris one week after terror shook the city.

- Wright Thompson

FIVE DAYS LATER, France started to bury its dead. The friends and family of Manuel Dias gathered in a small church an hour and a half from the Stade de France’s Gate D, where he died.

Manu loved football and working, so much that about seven months after he retired he went back to driving buses and limo vans. His wife wanted him to quit completely and spend more time with her. Now she sat in the front row, in a hard pew in the town of Cormontreuil, where they’d built a life, surrounded but alone. The mourners looked down at the ancient stone floor, or up at the dark wood ceiling, as her cries filled the room.

“Why did they kill him?” she screamed.

The priest apologized for the lack of a body. It was “not showable,” he said gently, still being held as evidence by police. A portrait stood in place of a coffin. The mourners walked forward to light candles.His son stood up to speak, wanting his father to have the last gift a boy can give. Manu Dias left Portugal at 18, a refugee fleeing a dictator, promising himself that “he’d give his kids the education he couldn’t receive,” his son said. He became a professional driver, discreet and invisible when working. So ingrained were his habits he remained silent even when taking his family to the airport. Manu really never said much at all, but when his son would pack after visiting his family, he’d always find that his father had shined his shoes. If he could have one more conversation, he told the church, he’d say, “I am proud to be his son, and I will try to shave more often, and I will try to put on a suit for job interviews.”