Beautiful(50)

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.

What came through in most cases was how brave they were, how hard they were trying a year later to overcome their injuries, to move on, to be philosophical about it. Very few of them were angry or bitter. They talked about how they didn’t want to let what had happened ruin their lives, how they refused to add hate to the mix, and were determined to go on and lead good lives.

Véronique and the entire crew cried every day. It was an emotional six weeks while they worked on the documentary. Véronique refused payment for it and contributed her fees to a victims’ fund. The film had to be edited and would air on the anniversary of the attack. They had promised to send her a digital copy since she would be in the hospital in the States having her second surgery then.

She felt good about it, as though she had done something meaningful instead of moving furniture around in her apartment, shopping, or seeing friends, which she still wasn’t doing except with Gabriella when she came from Brussels for the day, or with Doug in New York.

Chip had sent her some papers, which she hadn’t had time to look at carefully, while she was working on the documentary. She finally sat down and read them one night. Her father had left her two million dollars, which was a drop in the bucket compared to what he had left his other children, but she was stunned by his generosity, and still wanted to do something meaningful with it, something that would honor him and her mother. She had no idea what. Her mother had left her enough to live on. She also had the apartment, and what she’d earned herself, which was invested. She didn’t need an extravagant life. She wanted to put some good back in the world to counter all the hate.



* * *



—

She was busy with post-production of the show right up until she left for New York. She had to do all the blood work again, in case something had changed. Both doctors found her in good spirits and thought that all her scars looked better, even her face. She told them about the documentary she’d been working on and they were impressed.

It was hard for her to believe that it had been a year since it happened. So much had changed in her life. She had lost her mother, found her father and lost him, and met her brother. Her father had left her an enormous bequest. She had survived. She was going out in public without a mask. Her modeling career had ended abruptly, and she had worked on the documentary and met many of her fellow victims. There was a silent solidarity between them, like survivors of a war, or a ship sinking, or an act of hatred so enormous that no one could understand it. She’d had victories and defeats and losses. Just being alive was a victory, and learning to live with her scars was an act of courage.

She talked to Dr. Dennis after he examined her scars, and she had told him more about the documentary.

“Have you thought any more about coming to Africa to see the hospital there where I volunteer?” he asked her.