Who Killed Daniel Pearl by Bernard-Henri Lévy Page B

created in memory of their child, and where they keep, on the floor, in cardboard boxes, all the folders, everything that was written, the tributes, the articles. And there we are, all three of us crawling around, moving boxes, searching, looking for every single photo published, even in the most obscure paper. “Maybe in this box. No, the one underneath. Further down. Wait, let me do it, it’s too heavy. Take that folder instead, the one with the Israeli clippings . . . ”
    I’m suddenly ashamed to have unleashed this frenzy.
    I can feel that they are in the same state of agitation at the idea of an unpublished photo as they must have been last year, when Danny’s death was not yet a certainty and one clutched at every clue, a detail, any fragment of information to rekindle hope.
    There is something so utterly poignant, given that the tragedy has already taken place, about searching in the past, in a brief episode from a time now sadly irretrievable, for one last retrospective reason to believe and hope, that I am overwhelmed by emotion.
    All the more so when, after ten minutes of showing me photos, always the same ones, among which I could never find my supposedly new picture, they finally hand me an issue of the Jerusalem Post . And there, I am forced to admit, was indeed the photo; it was rare, but not unpublished. I’m sorry . . .
    â€œLet’s go back to the video,” says Ruth, exhausted by our absurd quest. I had noticed immediately that she had respiratory problems. She is very small. Very slight. But she gets out of breath in a way that is usually associated only with diabetics and the overweight. And then it’s awful—she struggles to get her breath back. She pants. She looks like a survivor, I tell myself—still so youthful, so graceful, but with the look of a survivor. How do you live after such a disaster? Where do you find the strength to go through the motions of living? “Let’s go back,” she says. And I can see that she needs to go back to sitting on the couch.
    â€œWe haven’t seen the video. We were told about it. We were given the transcript. But actually seeing it, no, we haven’t seen it—how could a mother watch such a thing? We would have preferred that it not be aired at all. When CBS showed it, and from CBS it got on to the Internet, we were very angry, my husband and I. You have to show what these people are capable of, the CBS ‘expert’ on Islamic issues said—and showing it will discourage people from turning to Islam. What a joke! It’s the opposite. Instead, for a lot of people, it was an incentive. Used for recruiting and propaganda in the mosques. But what do you think?”
    I say you can make a case either way. But in cases like this, when in doubt, censorship is the worst solution. She shrugs—as if to say that in any case the battle is lost.
    She goes on: “Since you’ve seen it, I have a question. How is he dressed? Does he wear his top the whole time?”
    She sees that I don’t quite grasp the meaning of her question.
    â€œWhat I mean is whether there’s any part of the video where he doesn’t have his sweat suit top on. Did you see my Danny bare-chested?”
    I know that there is indeed such a moment on the tape. I know that when the hand has finished its butchery, when you see it moving around in the wound, he is in fact bare-chested, but then there’s a bizarre final shot, where he’s wearing his pink and blue top again. But I don’t dare tell her. I sense so much pain in her question, such secret entreaty, that I would like to tell her what she wants to hear, what she is hoping for—but what? I am silent.
    â€œAnd another thing. Can you explain why they killed him the way they did? The way they cut him in pieces then put him back together to bury him.”
    I hear Judea, the scientist, the man of rigor, grumbling in his corner: “Too many