The craftsmen remove the last plastic that covers the equipped kitchen, open to the living room. Elizabeth Fleury-Ligot tours the rooms of her spacious and bright apartment, completely renovated. White painted beams, parquet floors, views of the zinc roofs. typically Parisian… This is precisely the accommodation where they moved, in 1978, with their husband, Jacques. And they had to leave so suddenly, on Saturday, January 12, 2019, after an explosion due to a broken gas pipe transformed their building on rue de Trévise, at 9my district, in ruins, leaving four dead and hundreds of injured and homeless.
It’s the same, but everything is different, after four years of work and almost six years of waiting. “We redid everything in white. Before we had many colors. The wall there was blue and my husband had painted stripes there when we arrived. It was nice, wasn’t it, Jacques? » The latter, 91 years old, leaning on his cane, contemplates the libraries that they had built and that will house in a few days, during their remodeling, their thousands of books, currently stored in 140 boxes.
Their apartment has changed and they have “old”smiles Elizabeth Fleury-Ligot, 76 years old. “I feel like my life is interrupted. Our grandchildren often came to sleep with us, they felt at home here. It’s over, everyone grew up, gained their independence. It’s a real break.”confess. “I am happy, of course, with this return, but, for me, it is the last stop”says Jacques Ligot.
“I decided I found him gay.”
On November 4, several neighbors came, like the Ligots, to hand over the work. They are the first to regain possession of the premises, in the middle of the ballet of forklifts. The work has restored all its brilliance to number 6, to its twenty opulent accommodations with marble fireplaces and moldings on the ceiling and to its fern garden in the middle of the patio. It’s time for reunion. “Did you see the blue paint on the doors? It feels like Le Touquet”slips, mischievously, a neighbor of Elizabeth Fleury-Ligot. “I decided I found him gay.”answers the latter.
Each one inspects their accommodation, discovering the finishing touches in the common areas. And inevitably he thinks about the last day he lived here, the day of the explosion. “Jacques and I were going to take a train to Lyon. We were on the landing, with the suitcase, when a firefighter appeared. It circulated through the floors warning “be careful, there is a gas leak.” We asked if we could leave and he responded “hurry up.” It smelled very strong. Furthermore, Jacques, who is always one step ahead of me, had just told me “let’s save ourselves before it explodes.”remembers Elizabeth Fleury-Ligot.
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