From V13: Chronicle of a Trial, which will be published next month by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Carrère compiled the following text from the testimony of victims at the trial of perpetrators of the Bataclan theater terrorist attack, which took place in Paris on November 13, 2015. Translated from the French by John Lambert.

Clarisse: “What I like at concerts is looking at people’s faces. That night the faces were happy, everyone was in a fantastic mood. The energy was great.” Aurélie: “The pit was full, maybe a thousand people. As soon as the firing started, we got crushed against the barriers. I was hit by a bullet. I don’t know which of the three shot it.” Clarisse: “I tried to believe: We’re being taken hostage, if we do what they want, it’ll be okay. But no, after a couple of seconds, it was clear that they were here to kill us, and I thought, This is totally crazy, I’m going to die at the concert of some California rednecks that cost me thirty euros and seventy cents to get into.” Lydia: “I tried to jump over one of the barriers, but everyone was pushing and my leg got stuck. I asked if anyone had a knife so I could cut off my leg.” Amandine: “What hurt the most was being trampled on.” Thibault: “I threw my wife on the ground and jumped on top of her. Everyone in the pit was lying down. After the first bursts of gunfire, I saw a guy with a big build firing at the ground. He moved forward calmly, a step or two, a shot, a step or two, a shot. He wasn’t wearing a face mask. It was then, when I saw that his face was uncovered, that I realized we were all going to die.” Gaëlle: “My cheek had been ripped off and was hanging down beside my face. I put my right hand into my mouth to pull out my teeth so that I wouldn’t choke on them, because otherwise I could gag and attract the terrorists’ attention.” Thibault: “I thought, This is it, here, now. This breath is my last. The only thought that eased my mind somewhat was that I didn’t have any children.” Amandine: “They’d turned on all the lights and were shooting people, I’d say with a certain relish.” Édith: “They were very young, calm. At one point, one of the killers’ rifles must have jammed and another helped him unjam it with a joke, like buddies at a shooting range.” Pierre-Sylvain: “They stopped to reload and after that they slowed down, bullet by bullet, taking aim. A shout, a shot, a sob, a shot, a ringtone, a shot.” Amandine: “I didn’t want to suffer anymore. I thought, Okay, I’m going to die at thirty-two, surrounded by people my age who like me have wonderful lives to live, killed by people who’re getting a kick out of it.” Helen: “I heard him say, ‘There—that’s for our brothers in Syria. If you don’t like it, talk to your President Hollande.’ I don’t have the first idea what’s going on in Syria. I’m here to have fun with Nick, the love of my life, and I ask Nick, ‘Have you been hit?’ Yes, in the stomach, he’s in pain, he’s having trouble breathing, so I breathe into his mouth, and he dies.” Édith: “He gave this little speech about Syria, and it was like he couldn’t give a shit, like a lesson you learn by rote but really don’t care about. The only thing they cared about was shooting us. Pathetic.” Lydia: “You move, you die. We pretend to be dead. Mobiles ring nonstop, with those distinctive iPhone jingles that still chill my blood six years later.” Bruno: “I was wearing a white T-shirt, I weighed one hundred twenty kilograms, a sitting duck. I lay in front of Édith, thinking maybe it would protect her.” Édith: “I could hear the killing, curled up behind Bruno in the fetal position, waiting to die. I saw the door open at the other end of the balcony. The guy was three or four meters away, very calm, wearing white trainers.” Aurélie: “And then there was this horrifying explosion. Like 9/11, I thought: the first plane, then after that the second plane.” Édith: “There was a confetti of flesh everywhere. I remember thinking, There’s no more milk in the fridge and I haven’t paid my daughter’s lunch fees.” Amandine: “I saw feathers wafting down all around us, then I realized they were from his down jacket.” Gaëlle: “I remember lying in a gooey bog, everywhere the smell of blood and gunpowder, and then the explosion, the bits of the suicide bomber raining down on us.” Édith: “A friend of Bruno’s came over and said things were calming down, now was the time to escape. Bruno said I should come with them. I told him I couldn’t move, and he said: ‘Okay, I’ll stay with you.’ And he stayed with me. A perfect stranger.” Amandine: “I heard the police shouting, ‘Evacuate everyone who can walk on their own,’ and a man who was getting up saw my leg and said he was sorry but he couldn’t help me.” Aurélie: “A young man helped me get up and walk outside, then he went back into the Bataclan to help other survivors.” Édith: “They got us to stand up and walk toward the exit in single file with our hands on our heads. They told us not to look, but I couldn’t help looking. The sea of thick, black blood that kept getting bigger and bigger. All of these bodies that were drinking and dancing just an hour earlier. I saw the body of a young blond woman, so beautiful, just that her limbs were all the wrong way round.” Coralie: “I clutched my handbag. I was totally afraid of losing it because my health-insurance card was in it and I was going to need it when I got to the hospital.” Gaëlle: “Later I learned that the young surgeon who took me to the operating room in the hopes that they could save my face was a childhood friend—he didn’t recognize me.”