Spring in Paris, My Adopted City, After the Attacks

May 15, 2016

sometimes my travels turn up ghosts. In Parma, Italy, this spring, I spent days dreaming only of my next meal. Hocks of air-cured Parma ham and blocks of Parmigiano cheese awaited around every corner. Then, passing the city’s venerable university, the face of Guillaume, an old friend, materialized in my mind. A former bartender at my corner hangout, Café des Anges, he was part of the group gunned down on Nov. 13 at the nearby Belle Équipe cafe. He had studied and lived in Parma, a fact that I had forgotten until that moment. Funny, sly and fluent in Italian, he had been training recently to become a schoolteacher. I leaned against a wall, face to face with his terrible end once again.