I had thought I understood horror, we see it all over the world, we hear about it every night on the news, we know what motivates it, every day political analysts explain the terrifying logic, but the only person who truly understands horror is the victim. And now I was a victim, the victim, the son of victims, and the pain was real, deep, mysterious, unspeakable. Devastating. Pain came hand in hand with an aching doubt. First thing the next morning, I phoned the Algerian Embassy in Paris to find out if my parents had been among the victims. I was transferred from one office to another, put on hold, and I held, breathless, gasping, until finally a polite voice came on the line.

‘What was the name again, monsieur?’

‘Schiller . . . S,C,H,I, double L, E R . . . Aïcha and Hans Schiller.’

As I listened to the rustle of paper, I prayed to God to spare us. Then the polite voice came back and in a reassuring voice said, ‘Put your mind at rest, monsieur, they’re not on the list I have here . . . Although . . .’

‘Although what?’

‘I do have an Aïcha Majdali and a Hassan Hans, known as Si Mourad . . . Do those names mean anything to you.’

‘That’s my mother . . . and my father . . .’ I said, holding back my tears.

‘Please accept my condolences, monsieur.’

‘Why aren’t they listed as Aïcha and Hans Schiller?’

‘That, I’m afraid, I couldn’t say, monsieur, the list was sent to us by the Ministry of the Interior in Algeria.’

Rachel had told me nothing. I never watch TV and my mates don’t even know it exists. Nobody dreams about sitting in a dark room watching pictures and listening to people prattling on. If I did hear about the massacre it was only in passing, and I didn’t give a toss. Aïn Deb, Algeria, didn’t mean much to me. We knew there was a war on there, but it was far away, we talked about it the same way we talked about wars in Africa or the Middle East, in Kabul, in Bosnia. All my friends are from places where there’s a war or a famine, when we talk about that shit we never go into detail. Our life is here on the estate, the boredom, the neighbours screaming, the gang wars, the latest Islamist guerrilla action, the police raids, the busts, the dealers, the grief we get from our big brothers, the demonstrations, the funerals. There are family parties sometimes, they’re cool, but they’re really for the women. The men are always downstairs, standing outside the tower blocks shooting the breeze. If you go at all, it’s only to say you went. The rest of the time we’re bored shitless, we just hang around on corners waiting for it to be over.