I Just Wanted to Save My Family

by Stéphan Pélissier

  Originally published in 2019 as Je voulais juste sauver ma famille by Éditions Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine Cedex, France.

  Copyright © Éditions Michel Lafon, 2019

  English translation copyright © Other Press, 2021

  Poetry excerpt on this page from “Condemned Women: Delphine and Hippolyta” in The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, translated by James McGowan. Copyright © James McGowan 1993. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England. Epigraph on this page from The Trial by Franz Kafka, translated by Mike Mitchell. Copyright © Mike Mitchell 2009.

  Oxford University Press, Oxford, England.

  Production editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas

  Text designer: Jennifer Daddio/Bookmark Design & Media Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 267 Fifth Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10016.

  Or visit our Web site: www.otherpress.com

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Names: Pélissier, Stéphan, author. | Champart, Cécile-Agnès, author. | Hunter, Adriana, translator.

  Title: I just wanted to save my family : a memoir / Stéphan Pélissier; with Cécile-Agnès Champart; translated from the French by Adriana Hunter.

  Other titles: Je voulais juste sauver ma famille. English.

  Description: New York : Other Press, [2021] | “Originally published in 2019 as Je voulais juste sauver ma famille by Éditions Michel Lafon, Neuilly-sur-Seine Cedex.”

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020021949 (print) | LCCN 2020021950 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635420180 (paperback) | ISBN 9781635420197 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Pélissier, Stéphan—Family. | Pélissier, Stéphan—Trials, litigation, etc. | Refugees—Syria—Biography. | Human smuggling—Greece. | False imprisonment—Greece. | Lawyers—France—Biography. | Syria—History—Civil War, 2011—Refugees. | France—Emigration and immigration—Government policy.

  Classification: LCC HV640.5.S97 P45 2021 (print) | LCC HV640.5.S97 (ebook) | DDC 956.9104/231 [B]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021949

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020021950

  Ebook ISBN 9781635420197

  a_prh_5.6.0_c0_r0

  To my wife,

  ZENA

  To my daughters,

  JULIA AND MILA

  Contents

  First of all

  1. Wedding(s)

  2. Four thousand kilometers

  3. Living and growing up in Bashar al-Assad’s Syria (Anas’s story)

  4. We can’t leave them to die!

  5. Reunited in Patras

  6. Arrest

  7. In court

  8. Coming back, alone

  9. The challenge of crossing borders (Anas’s story)

  10. (Re)united

  11. Foreigners

  12. New lives

  13. Happiness with no clouds on the horizon (Zena’s story)

  14. When your world falls apart and the sky falls in

  15. Dear Mr. Pélissier, the French president has asked me…

  16. Raising awareness and media coverage

  17. An unbearable waiting game

  18. Seven years in prison (Zena’s story)

  19. Guilty of loving

  20. A reluctant appeal

  21. Being French! (Zena’s story)

  22. Today and tomorrow…

  23. The fight goes on

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  Appendices

  The Dublin III Regulation

  Syria: Some key dates in the conflict

  First of All

  My name is Stéphan Pélissier. I’m forty-seven years old. I live in Albi, a small town in southwest France, with my wife, Zena, and our two young daughters. I go to work, pay off my mortgage, and on Sundays we often go to my parents’ house for roast chicken.

  As you can see, my life is unremarkable, ordinary, and that’s the way I like it.

  I’m just like any other Frenchman.

  But I’m also a criminal who was condemned to seven years’ imprisonment by the Greek justice system in November 2017.

  My only crime was wanting to save my family: refusing to abandon my in-laws and their children to certain death as they tried to flee their native country, Syria, which had been torn apart by a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and sent millions more into exile.

  An ordinary Frenchman surrounded by a loving family.

  A Syrian woman, a brilliant lawyer who wanted to complete her studies in France, a country she’d always loved.

  And her parents, caught in the vise of civil war and then the horrors of an escape with a very uncertain outcome, buffeted between grasping human-smugglers and inhuman laws.

  These are the people you will meet in this book.

  This is my story, it is our story. And when you have finished reading it, I hope you will feel it is yours too.

  1.

  Wedding(s)

  What are you doing, Stéphan? We’re going to be late!”

  This must be the tenth time I’ve tied my tie today, but I can’t get it right. I do it often enough, except that today I’m not just going to a meeting. I’m getting married.

  Two little knocks at the door, and my mother comes in. She finds me facing the mirror in my bedroom in the family home, dressed impeccably from head to foot but with my tie still askew. I’m starting to lose patience. My mother instantly understands the problem.

  “Give it to me, darling, your father will fix it.”

  He taught me in the first place, he’s mastered this art. She soon comes back with a perfectly knotted tie, and I’m immediately calmer. I catch my mother looking at me in the mirror, full of pride and emotion. This gives me a chance to look at her too, my mother, my mom, the woman who gave me the love that allows me in turn to love. She’s dressed beautifully today, radiant with happiness and more than a little relief: She was starting to worry because I still wasn’t married at thirty-nine.

  “You’ll be down soon, won’t you?”

  I just need to arrange my pocket square and I’ll be ready. I’m marrying the most beautiful woman in the world, so the least I can do is perfect my appearance.

  My fiancée isn’t far away: While I’ve battled with my tie, Zena has been dressing in my parents’ bedroom, helped by her Serbian friend, Yelena. My bride-to-be will wear a dress we bought together in Nancy. Not very traditional! Just like our story so far, in fact…

  I race down the stairs four at a time. A minute later Zena comes down too. I gaze at her, so beautiful in her long bustier dress that accentuates her spectacular figure. She’s wearing simple pearl earrings and a necklace of fine lace. To my way of thinking, it’s obvious: A Hollywood star is coming toward me, smiling. The gentle toot of a car horn brings me back to the moment. The rental car has come to take us to the Mairie—the town hall.

  All our guests are waiting outside. It’s a short list: my close family and my closest friends, about thirty of us in all. Because my future wife’s family can’t join us for the big day, I’m very glad Yelena is here with her.

  My father takes my
fiancée’s arm, and my mother takes mine, and that’s how we make our entrance at Castelginest’s Mairie. My father has put on his red, white, and blue sash. We are especially lucky: As Castelginest’s town councillor, he will conduct our marriage ceremony. This makes me very happy, and I hope it’s a source of pride for a man I’ve always been afraid of disappointing.

  “Come in, my friends!” he says in a powerful voice, and our little gathering settles into the Mairie’s only room. Zena and I stay standing, side by side, facing my father, who has donned his glasses to read to us from the civil code. But before he starts, he puts the text down for a moment and looks at us.

  “My children, I’m the happiest of men this morning: I have the pleasure of officiating the marriage of my son, Stéphan, to the woman he loves. Not only am I witnessing my son’s happiness, I also have the pleasure of welcoming Zena into our family. I know what’s happening in Syria, and I’m painfully aware of what your parents are going through. Welcome, Zena, you will be like a daughter to me now.”

  The exchange of vows will be imprinted on my memory for the rest of my days. Although we’re speaking to my father, Zena and I turn to face each other, and our Yeses echo in the small hall. Zena’s is serious and gentle, mine resonant and vibrant. Caught up in the momentousness of our promises, neither of us smiles.

  After posing for a few photographs in the Mairie’s garden, we all head for the restaurant near Toulouse that we’ve rented out for the occasion. The order of the day is a very simple reception with a few speeches, music—some of it Greek, some of it Middle Eastern—and champagne. I stand up to speak just before dessert.

  “Dear friends and family, thank you for being here today! My darling, I’m so happy to be your husband, even though I still don’t know how I got you to fall in love with me. It’s a miracle, but God is great, every religion says so!”

  My friends laugh out loud and Zena smiles.

  “Thank you for coming to be with us today,” I continue, “some of you from a long way away. I’d like to remember those who are no longer with us, who we wish were here. And also people dear to me who couldn’t join us: my wife’s family. A special thank you to my close family: my sister, Sandra; my niece, Charlotte; and you, my parents. Lastly, of course I want to talk about the woman who became my wife today. Zena, I’d like to pay tribute to you for your sensitivity, your erudition, your cooking, and your strong personality, and of course I must mention your physical beauty and your inner beauty. I would like to honor your culture by reading an extract from the holy Koran, sura 113:

  “Daybreak—Al Falaq

  “I take refuge with the Lord of Daybreak, from the evil of what He created, and from the evil of the darkness as it gathers, and from the evil of those who practice sorcery, and from the evil of the envious when he envies.”

  Now it’s Zena’s turn to stand, and her whole body seems to be quivering with emotion.

  “I’d like to thank my parents-in-law, Claude and Marianne, and my sister-in-law, Sandra. They’ve welcomed me and taken me in as one of the family. They respect who I am and my origins. My thoughts are also with those who are far away but are always in my heart: my parents, whom I love so much. They have accepted my choices and trusted me. They love Stéphan and have welcomed him as he is. Lastly, I’d like to thank you, Stéphan, the man who is now my husband. I love how sensitive you are, and I love your strong character too—as you all know, sparks can fly with us two! I promise I will be faithful, loving, and true to you.”

  My wife sits down amid the applause, looks at me, and kisses me. “To the happy couple!” reverberates around the room, not for the first time, as the restaurant manager brings in the wedding cake, which was delivered by the local patisserie this morning. In pride of place at the top of this sculpted confection stand a tiny bride and groom in pulled sugar.

  My head’s spinning a little, if I’m honest. Zena’s eyes, the champagne, my friends’ smiles, children laughing as they run between the tables…And it all happened so quickly! To think that fifteen months ago I hadn’t even met Zena…

  * * *

  —

  At nearly thirty-eight, I’d been invited to most of my friends’ weddings and had watched them start families one after another. Meanwhile, although I couldn’t say why, it hadn’t happened for me. I’d had a few serious relationships in between long periods on my own. Either way, I’d never felt ready to commit forever, and the breakups had been painless enough to convince me I’d made the right decision. I hadn’t given up, though. I was still hoping the right person was out there for me somewhere. So I regularly signed up for dating sites for a few weeks, met someone I liked, and then returned to the site once I was single again.

  In late April 2011 I logged onto another dating site, full of my usual optimism. I perused the site and, almost intuitively, felt I should check “all of France” rather than restricting myself to the Toulouse region, as I had always done. A photo of a beautiful stranger appeared, a black-and-white portrait completely dominated by her incredible eyes. I got lost in them for a moment before noticing that the young woman, whose username was Venus, lived in Nancy. More than eight hundred kilometers away. Not very sensible, but who cared? So I sent a message to introduce myself. Venus’s answer didn’t keep me waiting long, but it had the effect of a cold shower:

  Venus: I’ve just had a look at your profile before answering and I really don’t like the way you operate. I’m looking for a serious relationship, I refuse to be with someone who’s not only already in a relationship but, worse than that, doesn’t say so clearly.

  Me: I don’t understand! I’m single, I promise!

  Venus: Of course you are…but you’re hoping to meet someone a long way away from where you live and you use a profile photo where it’s obvious there’s a young woman standing next to you.

  What an idiot! I looked closely at my profile photo and she was right: Next to me, as I stood there grinning, was a woman’s shoulder and a tumble of long black hair. It was just my sister, Sandra. The picture had been taken at a baptism, and it was the only decent one I had of myself. I’d cropped the image as best I could, but that wasn’t enough. Okay, so I now had to convince Venus that I was genuine.

  Me: That’s my sister next to me in the photo, it was taken at a family party. I’m looking for a serious relationship too, and if you give me the chance, if you’ll agree to meet me, I’m sure you’ll believe me.

  Venus: I don’t know. I need to think about it.

  Me: Okay. Take your time! Speak soon, I hope.

  For the next three days of feverish waiting, she was all I could think about. Then, finally, Venus contacted me again, suggesting I call her. I was over the moon and did everything I could to prepare for that phone call. When she picked up, I forgot everything I’d planned and lost myself in the sound of her voice. We talked for nearly two hours, but the time just flew by. A few phone calls later, Venus agreed to a Skype call. When the connection was made, I was struck by the contrast between our two faces on the screen. I had a huge, very nervous smile—even I thought that I was overdoing it a little. Meanwhile, she eyed me imperiously (although she later admitted she was just as nervous as I was). I can’t remember what I said during that conversation, just that I was hopeless and awkward but sincere and open. When she ended the call after about twenty minutes, I was the happiest of men: I finally knew her real name. “My name’s Mouzayan, but everyone calls me Zena.”

  In the space of a few weeks we got to know each other over the phone and on Skype. Zena told me she was Syrian—I didn’t know anyone from her country—and had been studying at Nancy University since 2007. She already had two master’s degrees in law and was now working on a thesis on penal law. She was, in fact, already a lawyer in Syria. Her parents had brought her up with a taste for French culture, and like her brothers and sisters she’d been learning to speak French since she was four. After a f
irst very brief marriage (which ended in divorce a few months later), Zena wanted to experience life in France and pursue her studies in more detail, having already excelled as the valedictorian of the law school at the University of Damascus. She had qualified as a graduate teaching assistant in Damascus, taken a language exam to confirm that she would be able to study in France, and secured a grant from the Syrian government to go to Nancy University.

  After two or three more Skype conversations, we wanted to meet for real. We decided to rendezvous in Lyon, a city we both wanted to visit and that was more or less equidistant from each of us. I arrived a few hours before she did and planned to be waiting at the end of the platform when she alighted from her train. I don’t know how I managed this, but I got to the platform late—my trademark, according to Zena. In the end we met in the station’s corridors. My first thought was, “Not a chance, Stéphan, it’ll never work. She’s too beautiful for you. Way too beautiful for you.” Her profile photo, and even what I’d seen of her on Skype, hadn’t prepared me for the gorgeous woman walking toward me. By the end of our weekend in Lyon, I was hopelessly in love, and when I took Zena back to the station, I didn’t want to waste any time.

  “If you’re ok with it, I’ll come to Nancy next weekend.”

  She was stunned, and I noticed her hesitate for a moment.

  “I…yes, ok. Come.”

  After that, it all happened very quickly.

  We decided that, after we were married, we would live together, so before the wedding Zena came down to join me in Toulouse, and then we moved to Albi, where I worked most of the time, which meant I had more time to be with Zena. The fact that she was a PhD student meant she didn’t need to live in Nancy; she could work just as well in the southwest, and could get on a plane when she needed to see her adviser.

  * * *

  —

  We started talking about getting married six months after we met. Zena was able to meet my parents at a very early stage, and we both felt that it was important that she officially introduce me to her parents before the wedding in Castelginest. My dearest wish was to travel to Damascus, but, with the Syrian civil war raging, I couldn’t get a visa. Meanwhile, Zena’s parents soon realized that they couldn’t secure the necessary permission to come to the ceremony in France. Zena then came up with the idea of arranging not only a meeting but a real wedding celebration in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, which is only about a hundred kilometers from Damascus.