THE NEWYORKER, APRIL 13, 2020 37BOLOGNA, ITALY, BY BIANCA BAGNARELLIare heeding a difficult call to stay at
home. It’s a way of soaring into forma-
tion. And yet “murmuration” seems like
the right word for the great conver-
gence of humans travelling through this
time together, listening to the latest
news with our whole bodies, alert to
subtle atmospheric changes, making
constant recalibrations in response to
the fluxing crisis at speeds to rival the
dervishing starlings. How rapidly we
are adjusting our behavior, to protect
one another.
—Karen Russell
1
THE PROPHYLACTICLIFEH
ere in the village of X, we remain
hopeful. As inhabitants of an old
Yankee town, we have always practiced
social distance. Half of us still seem to
live in the Before Times and half in the
New Truth. Our market, post office,
and liquor store are full. In a wealthier
village nearby, people wear high-end
face masks while they shop. In a poorer
village with greater exposure to state
television, a sign at a café warns of the
virus from “Wuhan China.” The virusthe morning in a sweat, without fail. I
don’t have the virus. I have the fear. The
sickness is bad, but the response is worse.
I am a Leningrader. My grandfather
died during the siege, trying to defend
the city. Stalin was unprepared for the
onslaught; he had executed his best gen-
erals before the war even began. The
Army was unprepared. My grandfather
was likely not issued a firearm. My fa-
ther used to say that some soldiers fought
the Germans with sticks. Seventy-five
years later, our nominal leader has elim-
inated the pandemic-response team, has
surrounded himself with sycophants
and duraki. The increasingly scared and
depressed tone of his appearances re-
calls Stalin’s tone when he first realized
the scope of the crisis. What will our
leader do when he realizes he is cor-
nered? How will he ever give up power
and surrender himself to his reckoning?
I top off the tank of my car every time
I go for a drive. The border with Can-
ada is now closed.
We are walking a lot more now. I
walk about six miles every day, always
trying out new routes, discovering unex-
pected pastures brimming with muddyis surely among us, but it still feels dis-
tant, cosmopolitan. How soon before
that changes? Will it have changed by
the time you’re reading this?
I drive by the houses of friends, their
front parlors lit. Their lives look so toasty
in the morning fog. Approaching my
own house, I can see a stack of freshly
laundered towels in the upstairs bath-
room window and this places me in a
deep, familial calm. I know of worka-
holics desperately looking for work.
Some in tech or finance who usually
spend their days in airport lounges may
be surprised to discover that they have
families. My six-year-old spends much
of the day in a laptop haze as his play-
dates and education Zoom by. When
the sun sets, we engage in fierce rounds
of the Russian card game Durak (“the
Fool”). According to some traditions,
the loser, or Fool, must scrunch under
the table and yell out, “Koo-ka-ree-koo!”
(“Cock-a-doodle-doo!”). This is what
I’ll remember twenty years later, if there
is a twenty years later: acting the rooster
to my son’s delight.
During the day, I present without
symptoms. But I wake up at three in