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YORGEN FENECH TRIAL SUNDAY • 12 JULY 2026 | maltatoday The day after Daphne died I remember the day Daphne died. Wait, no. Start over. I remember the day Daph- ne was murdered. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. It was October. The harsh summer sun was slowly be- ing replaced by a gentle rain. It was still hot, but blue skies had begun to give way to soft grey clouds, their shad- ows running over the island like a veil in the wind. I sat beside my bedroom window, looking out into the fields of Żebbuġ. That's where I lived at the time. I was 13. My phone buzzed. A text from my friend. "They killed Daphne." My friend was a National- ist, if you can even say that about a 13-year-old. Well, she came from a family of Nationalists. God knows she tried to hide it. Thought that would be a question for some of you. Admittedly, I had no idea who Daphne was at the time. My dad told me she was a journalist. Funny, wit- ty, dangerous. A woman, one who wasn't afraid of an- yone. Not even the govern- ment. Not even the prime minister. She was a woman, he said. A mother. That was enough for me. I stared outside for a bit. She was driving along a field just like the one in front of me. "How strange," I thought to myself, then went back to my computer. More than that though, I remember the day after Daphne was murdered. English Literature at 8am. I was late. Mrs Cutajar sat at her desk as I walked in- to class, reading Act 5 of Macbeth to a silent room. I was greeted by the sharp smell of bleach. The cleaner must've been around the day before. You could always smell the bleach. "Here let them lie, Till fam- ine and the ague eat them up," she read; her eyes fixed steadily on the page as I took my seat. I was always late. I had read the play years earlier and sat at my ta- ble, vandalising my dirty uniform trousers with a sharpie. Then, the whispers started. "I have almost for- got the taste of fears," Mrs Cutajar continued reading. Whispers turned to muf- fled laughter. "The time has been my senses would have cooled." From the back of the class, I could only make out her name. "What are you laughing about?" I asked. "Don't worry about it," Maya responded. She came from a family of Labour- ites. Thought that might be a question for some of you. Maya looked away and be- gan digging into her My Lit- tle Pony pocket. "If you're gonna laugh that loud you might as well tell us what's so funny," I said to her, now leaning over my desk. "Or are you too embar- rassed to say it?" "We all know what hap- pened yesterday," she smirked. The teacher's eyes darted up from the page. "You can't talk about this in the classroom." "Say it," I said. "Say what happened yesterday." "You can't talk about this in the classroom," Mrs Cutajar repeated, but the eyes of the classroom had long turned away. "They blew up that woman with the big mouth." All was silent again. I remember when the La- bour Party was elected for the first time. It was March, but it was hot. Everyone was excited for the Easter holidays. Yel- low and pink and baby blue streamers hung over the classrooms, and the teachers had put up small stickers of the Easter bunny. Chocolate eggs were hidden around the school for us to find. It was the day after the election. I was nine years old. The news reached Class 4.2 shortly after the second break. We were all sweaty from running around in the sun. I don't remember which class it was, but I remember the notification pop onto the corner of the projector. Joseph Muscat was the new prime minister. Students began zipping past the classroom door. First one, then two, then crowds, waving yellow and pink streamers in the air. First one, then two, then al- together, Class 4.2 was out in the hallway. "Joseph is the best! Joseph is the best!" echoed down from upstairs. The stairwell began flooding with stu- dents from Year 5 and 6. The big kids had joined the party, but it didn't seem to matter. "Viva l-Lejber, Viva l-Lejber, hey! Hey!" Every- one was friends today. The teachers stood at the back of the hall, chuckling as they watched their stu- dents celebrate. A couple of the fun ones joined in on the chants, others just clapped along. Some stared in si- lence. "Say who did it," I told Ma- ya. "I don't care who did it," she shrugged. Although I was not quite sure what it was that Daph- ne did, something about that felt off to me. I shuffled in my chair and laid back. "She was a mother, you know." "If she wanted to live, she should've shut up sooner." "Maya! You can't talk about politics in the classroom," Mrs Cutajar said, evidently growing frustrated by our lack of cooperation. "Let's go on. There would have been a time for such a word. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace—" "She had a family." "You have to stop this," the teacher insisted. "There is no politics allowed in the classroom." "So what?" Maya snapped. "Joseph had a family." "You think he killed her?" "I already told you; I don't care who killed her," she said, twirling her pen in her hand. "She deserved to die for speaking against him. Jo- seph is the best." "Enough!" Mrs Cutajar shrieked, and, for the first time, we all listened. "You should be thinking about next week's test." I looked down at my table and Maya returned to her pen. All was silent, and the teacher continued; "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage." I looked outside the win- dow and it was raining. From the school window there was only concrete. I returned to one of the last clean corners of my uniform pants. "And then is heard no more. It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. Enter a Messenger." I was still a secondary school student when Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered. This is my recollection of that day and the day after EVA BRANNON ebrannon@mediatoday.com.mt Daphne Caruana Galizia (left) with her sister Corinne around 1982 (Photo: Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation)