http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16210927
[Carlos the Jackal] claimed to be the grenade thrower at a Parisian restaurant in an attack that killed two and injured 30.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_the_Jackal
Accessed December 15, 2011 11:09 AM
It is not often one can say, “I had a close call.” In fact, I have wondered how many close calls a person may actually have and never know — the driver who enters the highway driving drunk in the wrong direction just after you have passed the intersection — one would never know.
the mugger who looks you over and decides on some other victim, whom he kills — one would never know
I could go on.
This close call I knew at the time. The grenade attack at the newspaper stand at the time I usually was buying the Sunday English-language paper there. In fact, I was out buying the paper when the attack happened.
I was buying the paper elsewhere. And I will never know what impulse carried me to that other newsstand that day. It was a very unusual decision.
It was a decision I could not comprehend even on the day it happened. And I was too busy then to consider the implications. I stayed too busy to think about it for many years.
Recently, I have thought about it as Carlos the Jackal re-entered the news.
I have no explanation for what happened that day.
But I do have a poem.
Accident of Survival
I am rolling Millie down a Paris sidewalk on an unusually bright Sunday afternoon in September 1974.
We are going to Le Drugstore aka Drugstore Publicis, not the one I usually visit
on Boulevard Saint Germain at Saint Germaine des Prés near our apartment,
but rather to Le Drugstore (also on Boulevard Saint Germain) at Odéon.
I go to Le Drugstore every Sunday to buy an English-language Sunday paper.
Millie is 17 months old, and I am 33 years old.
The walk is pleasant and I take my time.
I purchase the newspaper, then begin the long walk back down the boulevard.
By the time I reach rue du Four, I see a crowd up ahead – and flashing lights.
I cannot walk past Le Drugstore at the corner of Germain and rue de Rennes our direct route home
So I take a roundabout route – tired now–
and approach Grenelle and the hôtel particulier where we are renting an apartment
from a doctor and his family who are away for the Fall.
Our apartment is on the troisième étage (Fourth floor).
I fold the stroller in one hand and hoist Millie and the newspaper
onto the opposite hip,
take my time up the winding staircase.
The walk has now become too long.
I just want to read the paper and hope that Millie will take a nap.
I wonder a little about the crowd by Le Drugstore
the police cars and ambulances –
a heart attack probably –
open the door to find a frantic husband and father
he was working at Agence France-Presse today
(the French government news service)
when the news came in of a bombing at Le Drugstore
our Drugstore
and there was word of a baby in an umbroller
like ours and like that of many baby strollers that year in Paris
and the baby had been blown up
so he telephoned home and there was no answer –
the time of the explosion was my usual time to buy the paper.
The bomb went off in the newsstand area of the store.
His boss sent him home.
He walked from the Bourse office of AFP to Boulevard Saint Germain.
He circled the crowd – then came home to an empty apartment.
I do not know how long he waited.
We arrived innocent of his knowledge
but soon learned,
it could have been us.
I had saved Millie’s (and my) life that day
but only by accident.
From Forthcoming: The Last Collaboration
