I needed to hole up, to be on my own. I’d got to the point where the only way to deal with the world is to go off and hide and wallow in your pain. I read Rachel’s diary over and over. This shit was so huge, so dark, I couldn’t see any way out. Then, suddenly, I started writing like a lunatic, me who’s always hated writing. Then I started running round like a headless chicken. What I went through I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

Malrich’s Diary - November 1996

Malrich’s Diary

November 1996

It was hard for me reading Rachel’s diary. His French isn’t like mine. The dictionary wasn’t much help, every time I looked something up it just referred me to something else. French is a real minefield, every word is a whole history linked to every other. How is anyone supposed to remember it all? I remembered something Monsieur Vincent used to say to me: ‘Education is like tightening a wheel-nut, too much is too much and not enough is not enough.’ But I learned a lot, and the more I learned, the more I wanted to know.

The whole thing started with the eight o’clock news on Monday 25 April 1994. One tragedy leading to another leading to another, the third the worst tragedy of all time. Rachel wrote:

I’ve never felt any particular attachment to Algeria, but every night, at eight o’clock on the dot, I’d sit down in front of the television waiting for news from the bled. There’s a war on there. A faceless, pitiless, endless war. So much has been said about it, so many terrible things, that I came to believe that some day or other, no matter where we were, no matter what we did, this horror was bound to touch us. I feared as much for this distant country, for my parents living there, as I did for us, here, safe from it all.