PARIS — They call him their French angel.

His name is Selim. He lives in Barcelona, but grew up in France where his family lives. He speaks three languages: French, English and Spanish. He flew into Paris last Friday only for his younger brother’s birthday.

And when six students studying abroad through Syracuse University London found themselves stranded in the middle of a city under siege last Friday, he became their source of hope. He offered the six of them shelter when they were separated from their group  during the deadliest terrorist attack in France since World War II.

As their angel, they said, he took them under his wing.

• • •

 

Christina McGarrity said she will now always order crème brûlée whenever she sees it on a menu.

McGarrity, a junior inclusive elementary and special education major, was eating at a restaurant near the Louvre in Paris with five of her friends. In the previous two to three hours, they had branched off from the SU group, stayed in the Eiffel Tower area to see it light up after dark and headed to the Louvre to see the famous painting, Mona Lisa.

It turns out that getting dessert at that restaurant would shape their entire night.

“If we did not get dessert and had left the restaurant after dinner, we would have been walking near exactly where one of the shootings was at the same time it happened,” said Kathryn Mayer, one of the students with McGarrity. “I’ve never been so thankful for a dessert.”

Like other students from SU London who were trying to get back to the hotel, the six of them boarded the Metro and were waiting to get off at the République stop. However, as shootings had happened near the Place de la République, the train passed their designated stop and instead let them out at Goncourt, less than a mile away from the square.

At first, they thought the République stop was closed because of a protest earlier in the day that they had seen. But as they kept walking, they saw flashing lights from police cars and people crowding as they realized they couldn’t get through the road.

“I had a weird vibe and I was just thinking that we had to stay together,” said Mayer, also a junior inclusive elementary and special education major. “Down the street all you could see was the lights.”

They kept walking in hopes of finding a way around. They saw Parisians arguing with French police, but the officers were assertive and no matter what, no one was passing through.

That was when they ran into their new friend: Selim.

Lindsey Reuter, a junior sociology and inclusive elementary and special education dual major, said they were walking in Selim’s direction when they realized he — because he’s multilingual — was telling people they couldn’t go this way.

When they realized he spoke English, they told him they needed to get back to their hotel and showed him a map so he could show them directions.

“Do you know what’s going on right now?” Selim asked the group.

He then told them what he knew about the shootings down the road from where they were. That was the first any of them had heard about the attacks, Reuter said.

Selim tried to give the group directions on how to get back to their hotel, but they said he must have seen on their faces how confused and scared they were. He offered to walk them back to the hotel himself, and then acted as a translator to the police officers down the street to see if they could get a ride back to the hotel, but no one was allowed to pass through.

Selim told them to at least get off the street and get inside a restaurant or bar for safety. But in the time it took for them to walk by a strip of restaurants, talk to the police and walk back, every restaurant was empty.

They looked inside through the windows and saw half-eaten dishes, bars with drinks. The once-packed seats now were empty and deserted.

“That was when his eyes changed, and we realized he is in as much panic as we are,” Reuter said.

• • •

 

Realizing the students had no options, Selim turned to them and said, “OK, you’re coming home to my house.”

Mayer said she went against everything she was taught by listening to a stranger they had just met on the street.

“I will give people the benefit of the doubt a lot, but in this situation, I was staring him straight in the eyes and trying to figure out where to go, and he told me, ‘Don’t be scared. It’s OK,’” she said. “That was it for me. Connection built.”
When they got to his apartment, Selim gave the group access to his WiFi and phone chargers to contact family, friends and SU chaperones. Twenty minutes after they arrived, his mother, brother and brother’s girlfriend arrived. They didn’t question the six Americans sitting at their table. Despite some small language barriers, Selim’s family welcomed and greeted them like friends coming over for dinner.

They turned on the news to figure out what was going on, and because they couldn’t understand French, Selim would translate some parts for them. But in an attempt to get their minds off the events, they started playing card games and music and dancing with each other. At one point, Selim even opened an old rum bottle that he made with an ex-girlfriend three years ago.

“It was such a horrific night, but yet such a beautiful moment,” Mayer said.

When it was advised by SU London that the students should stay where they are, Selim said he would sleep at his mother’s apartment next door and the six of them would stay alone in his apartment. It was nearly 5 a.m. when he gave them his keys, taught them how to use the security system and let them be.

“It’s funny coming full-circle because we had put our trust in him the entire night, and then that he did it back by trusting us,” Reuter said. “That was so surprising.”

• • •

It was 8:15 a.m. when the group woke up. They decided not to wake up Selim or his family next door, left a note for him and went on their way.

But they felt so safe and secure in his apartment that leaving it was the hardest part.

“Stepping outside the gate felt like stepping back into a war zone,” McGarrity said.

On the 30-minute walk back to the Hotel Americain, they passed by two of the restaurants and bars where shootings occurred. They saw the news crews, flowers and candles placed on the sidewalk and the sawdust covered blood from the previous night’s attacks.

Upon reaching their hotel and seeing their chaperones, they felt a whole range of emotions: relief, exhaustion and safety, among others. But they also felt grateful that this man took them in, gave them shelter and made them feel comfortable and safe.

“Literally, at the moment when we were thinking, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ this man in a big puffy red winter jacket comes strolling down the road,” Mayer said. “He was just there at the perfect moment when we needed him.

“Whatever an angel is, that’s what he was.”

Published on November 16, 2015 at 11:02 pm

Contact Clare: clramire@syr.edu