The New Yorker - March 30 2020 PDF

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In The Age of Corona-Virus stay with Us! @WorldAndNews
THE
NcW YOllKEll
MAR.CH 30, 2020
+ GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

9 THE TALK OF lHE TOWN
David Remnid on COrID-19 and alternativefacts;
chicken 'With a side efsanitiur; teen eorona tradur;
the trJilet-paper !Joarrkn; 'Viral '°nnedi<ms.
THE POLITICAL SCEllE
Suran B. Glasser I+ Hope Dies Last
The Newr 7"Pnper who won'tgive up.
SHOUT.f & MUR.MUl\S
Jolm Kenney 21 Guidelines
ANNALS OF OJLTIJl\E
fJI Lepure 22 Don't Come Any Closer
What can we learnfrom the literature efcontagiDn?
LETTER. FROM CHENGDU
Peter Hessler 26 Life on Lockdown
.Afamily's ~ce rfChinas nationwide quaranti1'14.
COMICSTRJP
Chrit Ware 35 "Self-Isolating: A Pandemic Special"
OLA\ LOCAL COl\RESPONDENTS
.Adam Gopnill 38 Abundance of Caution
with Philip Montgomery Fear and solitude as Nt!W Yorks ttreett empty.
FICTION
Han Ong 56 "Futures"
THE CRITICS
ON m..EVISION
Doreen St. F~iix 65 Turning to the 1creenfor togethernm.
A.. a\J1lC A..T LA..RGE
David Denhy 67 Harry Houdini's many escapes.
8001(.5
Carey Cep ef
71 The politicalamhitiOTU Joseph Smith.
73 Briefly Noted
Leo Robson 77 .Anna Kt.roans
fictional experimentation.
THE lHEATRf
V-mson Cunningham 80 jean 'Ibomer's ':tf Drama rfthe Southwest.·
POEMS
Jori4 Graham 30 "I Wont Live Long"
W. S. Di Piero 60 "Aubade"
COVER.
EritDroohr "Grand Central Terminal"
Dl\A..WINGS Sofia Warren, PaulNoth, Lars Kenseth, Zachary Kanin, Roz Chas!, Emily Flake,
Sara Lautman, Luke Kruger-Haward, David Ostrrw, Michael Maslin, Kim Warp SPOT.S Josh Cochran
CONTR.IBUlOR.S
Now is
Peter Hessler ("Life on Loduiown,"' Susan B. Glasser ("Hope Dies Last,•
the time p. 26) is a staffwriter. His latest book p. 14), a staffwriter, was the founding
is "The Buried: An Archaeology of editor of Politico Magazine. In May,
to start the Egyptian Revolution." she will publish, with Peter Baker,"The
Man Who Ran Washington."
Jill Lepore ("Don't Canu Any Closer, ..
listening. p. 22), a pmfi:~or oflllstory at Harvard, Adam Gopnik (':A.bu.ndance oJCtnliUm, •
will publish "If Then" in September. p. 3$') has been a staffwriter since 1986.
His books include "AThousand Small
PhilipMontgomery (~oJCau- Sanities."
mm, ..p. 3$'), a photographer, has been
a regular contributor to The New Y"'1ler Casey Cep (B(J(l/ts, p. 71)is a staffwriter
since2015.In2018,hisworkon theopi- and the author of "Furious Hours:
oid epidemic won the National Mag- Murder, Fraud, and the Last Tri.al of
azine Award for feature photography. Harper Lee."
Doreen St. Felix (On Telef)ision, p. 61} Han Ong (Fiction, p. 56) is a playwright
is The New Yor.ker'.r television critic. and a novelist. His first New Yorker
She has been a staff writer since .2017. story appeared in the 2019 FJ.ction Issue.
ChrisWare (Comic Sirip,p.,m is a writer Jorie Graham (Poem, p. 30) teaches at

and an artist. His latest book, "Rusty Harvard. She will publish a new poetry
Brown," was published in the fall collection, "Runaway," in September.
W. S. Di Piem (Poem, p. 6o) is the au- Eric Droom (Cowr) is a painter and a
thor of, most recently, the poetry col- graphic novelist. Recently. his drawings
lection "The Complaints" and "Mickey were on display at the Guggenheim
Rourke and the Bluebird of Happi- Museum.This is his thirty-sixth cover
ness: A Poet's Notebooks." for the magazine.
Join the best writers
in America as they make
sense of the world and
the people changing it. THIS WEEK ON NEWYOl\K.ER..COM
Hosted by David Remnick.
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WNYCSTUDIDS
How can we keep physicians and
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Elisabeth Eaves on whether building
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pandemic? Atul Chwande reports. outbreaks or result in catastrophe.
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!
THE NEW~ MAl\CH 30, !020
THE MAIL
WEIMAI\ IN LA. America.nlt published eleven books--
mainly fiction-between 1942and1948,
A1ex Ross's piece about German writ- by writers in exile such as Thomas
ers and composers who fled to Los Mann, Franz Werfel,Bruno Frank,Al-
Angeles during the Second World fred Doblin, and Lion Feuchtwanger.
War is fascinating ("Exodus," March Pazifische Presse books were hand-
9th). He brings to life the emigres' somely printed in editions of a few
sense of dislocation, dissatisfaction, hundred copies each. All the books
residual despair-and their infight- were in German, an effort by the au-
ing. As Ross mentions, manywere res- thors to keep the best of their culture
cued by Varian Fry, who helped art- alive "in the language of Goethe."
ists and intellectuals escape France in V'ictoria Dailey
1940and1941-Not mentioned in Ross's Los.Angeles, Calif
account is Hiram Bingham IV, the
U.S. vice-consul in Marseille, who, to PllCEITY'S POINT
the State Department's great displea-
sure, worked alongside Fry. Bingham In Idrees Ka.hloon's review ofThomas
issued thousands of U.S. visas to ref- Piketty's "Capital and Ideology," he
ugees, including Marc Chagall, Han- argues that Piketty's proposal to heav-
nah Arendt, and orclinarypeople such ily tax the incomes ofthe top one per
as my mother and grandparents. He cent may be excessive as a means of
engineered the liberation ofthe Ger- solving the most serious social prob-
man novelist Lion Feuchtwanger from lems (Books, March 9th). He argues
Les Milles, the French concentration that, instead, we need to eliminate
camp, by disguising him as a woman poverty and precariousness-without
and then hiding him at Bingham's which, he implies, the extreme con-
THE
villa until Fry could get him out of centration of wealth at the top is not
France. For all this generosity, Bing- necessarily an issue. But inequality cre- NE.W YOllKEll
ham was abruptly transferred to Lis- ates problems regardless of the exact
bon and then to Argentina. He warned financial status of those in the lower
the State Department about the ar- brackets. For one thing, extreme wealth
rival of high-ranking Nazis there- allows some to exercise undue politi- Wear our new
news the U.S. did not want to hear. cal influence. For another, living in a official hat to show
Bingham eventually resigned, and re- society ofgreat inequality is a cause of your love.
turned to his family's farm in Con- stress for the less wealthy-regardless
necticut. The trauma suffered by the oftheir level of prosperity, or whether
rescued intellectuals who remade their the poorest enjoy a reasonable stan-
lives in the U.S. was as enduring as it dard of living. Such stress leads to a
was for people like my parents. Of broad range of medical and psycho-
course, their horror was nothing com- logical illnesses, as is shown by the
pared with what was endured by those work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate
who could not leave Europe. Pickett in their book"The Inn.er Level,"
Jane M Friedman and other studies.
New York City John L Hammond
Prefessor ofSociology
Ross paints a full picture of the lives Hunter College and Graduate Center
of German CmigrCs in Southern Cal- New York City 100% cotton twill.
ifornia. One thing that is often over- Available in white and black.
looked in literary history is a small •
press, called the Pazifische Presse, that
some of them established. Its stated
mission was "to give testimony to the
newyorkerstore.com/hats
eminent cultural force tbatWllS expelled
by Hitler and which found a future in
In The I11Age ofto slot»
an effort Corona-Virus stay
the spread fl/ the '°10t1a'CJirus, Nt'Wwith Us!
York Ciiy @WorldAndNews
#llUeUllU, galleries, theatm,
miuie wmuu, cinemas, and rtstauranlJ haw cwwl. Hm:'s a ulection ofculture to be found online and Jtreaming.
GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN
Though the opening ofCattierine Den•""" latest .film, "TheTruth,"has been postponed, many ofher most
celebrated movies are available to stream on the Criterion Channel In one ofthe best ofthem, F~is
Truffaut's macabre thriller "Mississippi Mermaid" (above), from 1969, she plays a mail-order bride who
shows up at the Reunion Island estate ofa wealthy planter (Jean-Paul Bclmondo) with designs on his money.
Truffaut transforms the crime drama into a desperate romance and a portrait ofFrench social dysfunction.
traditional belief systems, religious and polit- double-aoues, fatal misunderstandings and
MOVIES ical, with the new gospel of movies-their own deft evasions, Murphy brings to life a teeming,
American faith, which comes to life onacrecn. Dbled put that undcn:uts nostalgia with authen-
Released in 2016.-R.B. (Stnoming on .Amaaon, tic mions of danger. Releaaed in 1989.-R.B.
A Beautiful Day HluTi.be, anJ othet- "1f'flicei.) (Streaming on Netjli:i anJ othtr rervias.)
in the Neighborhood
Tum Hanks, starting in Marielle Helli:r's new Harlem Nights
film aa the singular Mr. Rogers, complete with This boldly original, boisterously idiosyncratic, AKI'
cozy knitwear and matching homilies, not only yet introspective drama-a gangland tale, set
re-cRates f!ferf quirk ofthe chuactu's gesturel briefly in 1918 and then mostly in the nine-
and speech but prevents what could livc been teen-thirtiea-is the only movie that Eddie Deanna Dikeman
the mushieat of fables from sliding aver the Murphy has directed to date. He also wrote In 1990, when this photugnpher'1 parents were
edge into sentimentality. The 1tory turn1 on the elaborate story, about a night club run by in their early seventies, they sold her child-
the plight of Lloyd Vogel (Matthew Rhys). a a gambling-ring operator named Sugar Ray hood home, in Sioux City, Iowa, and moved to a
journalistwho is sent to interview Fred Bogen (Richard Pryor), whose adopted SOJ1 (Desi Amez bright-red ranch house in the same town. At the
and finds himself revealing the cause ofhis scan, Hines II), a trigger-happy orphan, grows up to end of their daughter's "risi.ts, they would stand
both phylial and emotional. Thill rcdemptiw bc:icomc his right-hand man, an impetuous trvu- outside as she drove away, um1 rising togd:hcr
encounter is played out in a low and •ubtle key; blemaker called Quick (Murphy). The film iu in a .farewell wave. For years, Dikeman captured
Heller, u she prowd in "CanYou Ever Forgive whirlingly divergent romp, blending agonizing those departing moments; the remlting por-
Me~" (2018), hu become something of a special- violence with outrageous humor; above all, it has trait series, "Leaving and Waving," compresses
ist in damaged souls. With strong support from the feel of oral history, of livea and times rescued nearly three decades of adiem: into a deft and
SUlall Kdechi Wat1on, as Vogel's win:, and Chris from oblivion. It featuta a boat ofattuagant, affi:eting chronology. The pair ncede into the:
Cooper, aa his sad and loutish father.-.Anthony Q.citing performers (including Della~ and warm glow of the garage on rainy evenings and
Lime ~in owiuwof1112S/19.) (Strtmn- Redd Fon), and the plot involves some out- laugh under the eaves in better weather. In
ing on .Ama:um, Googlt Play, anJ othtr mtlim.) landish twists, but the comedy is dead earnest. aummer, they blow kiues from the driveway.
With a labyrinth of brutal thrcau and subtle In winter, they wear scarves and stand behind
Eight Hours Don't Make a Day
The German director Rainer Werner Fuabind-
er's five-part, nearly eight-hour television ae- AKrONLINE
ries, from tm-one of his moat un115uaJ and
aelf-rc:vcaling projects-defies political shib-
boleths of his artistic milieu. It's centered on
one enended family in Cologne, and on the
romance between a factory worker named Jo-
chen (Gottfried John) and a receptionist named
Marion (Hanna Schygulla). Jochcn, who's de-
voted to his job, designs a derice to increue his
colle&£Uel' productivity-thereby threatening
their bonuses. Meanwhile, his grandmother
(Luise Ulrich) recruits the whole family to help
her illegally tum an empty storefront into a
nursery school. Fassbinder fills the series with
ordinary troubles-the shortage of alfordahle
howiing, cuual ruism, hostile bosses-and
dramatizes the practical. power ofwurlcing-daas
people to impnm: their circumatanccs. With
grand cinematic ftouri&hea-a gyrating camera
ona~floorandatacall table,~
colorful viaiom of romance, and hair-trigger
CDD!My of pratfalls and narrow escapes-Fus-
binder aalts the intrepid aploits of the hidden
heroell of daily life. In German.-Ridiard ~
(Smamint on w Critttion Channtl.)
Hail, Caesar! In 1996, the prescient American artist Mark Tribe recogruud that the
Joel and Ethan Coen'• inside-Hollywood com- Internet is more than a virtual showroom for conventional work-it's a
edy, set in 1951-amid Mc~te inqumtions
~ and aemal. taboos-is scintillating, uproarious, category-eva&ng artistic medium in its own right. He started a Listserv
~ substantial. and playfullypenonal. A handful of for like-minded thinkers and named it Rhizome, a botanical term (then in
Z
w Hollywood Communists kidnap Baird Whitlock vogue with semiologists) that describes an unpredictable, always expanding
:I: (GeoigeClooncy), thehunkystarofaNewTes-
~ tament epic; Eddie Mannllt Qosh Brolin), the network. Over the years, Rhizome has grown from an upstart into a stal-
Q studio fixer, needs to bring Baird back. Eddie, wart nonprofit based in New York and affiliated with the New Museum.
~ a devout Catholic in a Jewish-run business, has It oommissi.ons and preserves digital art, and cxlu'bits it, too, notably in
~ many other troublea to deal with, includin_g
;;! a pregnant aquatic star (Scarlett Johansson), the continuing series "Fll!it Look: New Art Online" (at rhizome.org and
~ a Western linger (Alden Ehremeicb.) cast in a newmuseum..org). The contents are as multifarious as the medium. Curious
Qi chawing-room comedy, a pair of prowling gossip howpixds stack up to paint? Scroll through the eight-person show"Brushes,"
~ columnists (both playal byTilda Swinton), and
~ a quartet of clergymen who vet the Christian which ranges in tone from airy and calligraphic (Laura Brothers's "Deux
~ drama's script. With looee-limbed performanca Blue") to memelike and manic (Jacob Ciocci's animated GIFs). Binge-watch-
~ ~ i~ "riaual rhythms, the Coen brothen ers can catch a three-part musical episode ofShana Moulton's surreal pseudo
gleefully riffon the easenceofHollywood and
~ the idiosyncratic personalities that find sur- soap opera,"Whispering Pines,nwhose housebound heroine indulges in self-
o priaingly free ~sion there. They contnst care routines that--spoiler a1ert--tum her into a goddess.-Andrea K. &qtf
anowbanb. Inevitably, they age. A few pi.ctut'ol, tional portraiture to one ofartful photojournal- in patience and space, is an ideal interpreter of
cropped to include the car's interior, convey ism.-Htlm 'RDmel' (~onbut4plm.) such beguilingly mocleat music, and thi1 seuitive
the parallel progress of Dikeman11 own life. m:onling letJ every clemil resowul.---Stftie Smith
Early images show the blurred W:e of a baby,
who, in later ahot1, as a young man, takes the
wheel while Dikeman photographs her elderly MUSIC Ellen Reid: "p r i s mn
earents from the passenger seai:.-Ertn OtbeJ
(~.com.)
Sekaiom to linen "° online. OPERA Ellen Reid won a Pulitzer Prize, in 2019,
for her first opera, "p r i a m," an ezploration of
the shattered pieces of a saual-asaault survivor'•
Hannah La Follette Ryan Anastassis Philippak.opoulos: world. The work opens with a cryptic spoken
chant-misremembered words from the night of
Since moving to New York City, in 2015, "piano works" the attack-followed bya game called Rescue, in
La Follette Ry.an has photographed the hands of CONTDflOUln'Cl..USIC.\l. With tension DD the rise, which the survivor, Bibi, and her mother, I.wnee,
subway commuters: filtJ gripping bags, phones, "piano works," a mesmerizing new collection n:playthe incident and give it a fairy-tale ending.
and cash; W:quered nails and bitten cuticles; of a dozen brief pieces by the Greek compDKr These paasage1 trigger momentary fantasies of
fingers curled around straps and splayed out Anaswsis Philippakopoulos, offers a needed intoncating melody, but the comfort is short-
protei::tively against another body. The images, refuge &om wrmoil andauiety. Phili akopou- lived, and the tone plungea again into paralping
which the artist pos!B to an In1tagram account los is a member of the Wandelweiser ~llective, despair. This recording, from the Decca Gold
(@subwayhanda), are not staged; she shoots a loosely knit internatimial aggregate whose label, tells the story as vividly as James Darrah's
the series prinwily (and stealthily) with her members are bound by their fa.cimtion with the 1aging did at New York's Prototype Festival,
iPhone. Id one scrolls through the river of pho- philosophkal weight and dramatuJgical potential last yur. Reid's music is specific-the sound of
tos and videos-there are more than a thousand of silence. Each of his compositions, ranging bruised innocence struggling tD heal-and the
in all-the hands become alien and abstracted, from two to four minutes in length, reflects condw:turJulianWachrier, leading NOVUS NY
assuming the air of UDCaDDY sculptures. Re- long months of labor and notes selected with and the Choir of Trinity Wall Street, renders
cently, as the coronavirus pandemic has accel- a jeweller's aaetitude. The album begins with it incisively. Anna Schubert (a delicate Bibi)
ented in New York, La Follette Ry.an has begun llCVCll worb written between 2013 and 2018, in and Rebecca Jo Loeb (a mOllJtroua Lumee) are
to share emerging pattenl$: hands squeezing which single notes~ like pearls in monodic reaponsive to the trauma swirling beneath the
small plastic bottles of aanitizer, vigorousfy strands; in the lint of"five piano pieces" (2005- music's surW:e~Ouumna: 7.a1rr
wiping down phones, wearing 1.ate:r: gloves, and 2011), stark, dissonant clusters register with
clutching tissues. The urgency of the moment an almost shocking impact. Melaine Dalibert.
has shifted her aeries from a work of unconven- himself a composer whose worb similarly deal Four Tet: "Sixteen Oceansn
ELECT110N1C Kieran Hebden, the prolific En-
glish producer known u FourTet, recently ex-
HIP-HOP tended his already prodigious catalogue with
"Si:zteen Oceans," a record that plunges deep
into a weightless space between ambient radi-
ance and minimal dance groovea. Songs such
u "'Baby," molded from the spliced vocals of
the singer Ellie Goulding, drift into gleaming
pop, a sound Hebden has alWll}'ll treated with
tencleme11, but the album 1oon careens into
wistful, meditative abstractions that prove him
to be electronic music's most deliberate day-
dreamer. Hia closing soundscapea are sparse
and hypnotic, woven from lulling vocal samples
and spangled synths that pnctically slow down
time-a temporary sedation in thia moment of
sheer panic.-J'41= Lopu
Howard Merritt:
"Live at the Flamingo"
DISCO Under the name San Francisco Disco
Preservation Society, the d.j. Jim Hopkins
has spent the put scvcral years digitally ar-
chiving club, radio, and promo nmes going back
to the seventies-including, in some cases, a
full night's audio. DJ Howard Merritt's "Live
at the Flamingo (NY), New Year's Eve 1979-
1980" ii a prime cnmple. Merritt playal at
several legendary gay venues, including the
Lil Uzi V.rt'1 otherworldly new album, "Eternal A.take." (and its deluxe ver- Flamingo, New York City'• first ~usively
gay disco, and, at more than five hours long,
sion, "LUVvs. the World 2j crash-landed onto Earth, much to the delight this set is as ta.cinating as documentary as it is
ofanxious fans, and immediately sucked up all the oxygen.The breathless- as music. In the en bc:fon: automation, lengthy ~
ness ofits reception-almost as ebullient as Uzi's raps themselves-cap- overlapping eegues between records were rare, ~
but he esecute• several with aplomb here. His :::i
tures the energy ofa moment that some had begun to believe would never handoffs are smooth and surpriaing-Prince's ~
come. Label trouble had beset the Phil2delphia rapper fur nearly three years, quic:kailver "SayDancer" morphs into Michael _,
making "Eternal Atake"feel like a freedom song and a well-earned victory Jackson's equally slippery "Off the Wall." It'1 a :l:!
disco smorgaabord that helps make up for the ~
lap. One ofmusic's most intriguing figures, Uzi both absorbs and creates Brooklyn Museum's Studio 54 ell:bibit being ~
trends and spits them out as magic: his melodics are more syrupy, his flows unavailable~Midiaelangrlo Mato1
more slippery, his beat sdcctions more im:sistJ.ble.. Above all, it sounds as if
U7.i is having more fun than anyone else, and, in the midst ofactual con- For mor. NYl.ws, visit
tagion, his is the kind ofinfectiousness we could all use..-Briana Younger 11~.comlpingi-on-abour-tftlln
6 THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020

post in February. "#Supportchinatown." cover the labor it would take to fulfill

This wasn't the .first time the fate ofthe them, but it was a way to use up inven-
restaurant had been uncertain. Tang's tory and "to wind down slowly and stop
uncle Wally started working there in the bleeding."
1950, as a sixteen-year-old Chinese Norn Wah has seen an uptick in sales
immigrant, and bought it in 1974, But of merchandise and gift certificates
by the time Wilson, a telegenic former since the shutdown, but that woift help
TABLES FOi\ lWO investment banker, took over, in 2010, it much, either. Still,Tang is better poised
had fallen into decline. to weather the current moment than
Nom Wah and the Coronavirus Wilson upgraded the kitchen and many others in the restaurant industry,
transitioned from cart service to a which is in a state ofpanic and despair. In
Restaurant Shutdown made-to-order a-la-carte menu, but he New York, restaurants arc often forced to
A few Saturdays ago, I was surprised also preserved the dining room's dated operate on razor-thin margins; without
to .find at least a dozen people milling diner decor and the once red awnillg, government assistance, many of th.em
around outside Nom Wah Tea Parlw-, which had faded to a dusty pink. Norn may never reopen. Tang's wide awns the
taking pictures and waiting for tables. Wah became retro-chic-the perfect building on Doyers Street, so he doesn't
On any other weekend, I wouldn't have location for a Met Gala pre-party, in have to worry about getting kicked out
~ batted an eye. Norn Wah, which a:l.e- 2015 (the theme was China), and an for failing to mab: rent. Taking his lead
., brates its hundredth anniversary this lnstagrarn darling. In the past four fiom "the big dogs," like David Chang,
~ year, has bragging rights as the oldest years, Tang has opened two outposts he planned to pay his salaried employees
~ restaurant in Manhattan's Chinatown. in Manhattan, one in Philadelphia, and at least through April, and his hourly
ti Situated on Doyers Street-a boo- three in Shenzhen, China. employees at least through the end ofthe
~ merang-shaped block once known as On Sunday, March 15th, Mayor Bill week. After that, he said,"we'll play it by
::::i the Bloody Angle, for its history of de Blasio ordered all New York City ear. We're in survival mode."
~ gang killings-the dim-sum parlor is restaurants to cease service, with the Asked about his neighbors in Chi-
"'
~ one ofthe neighborhood's most popular cxception of takeout and delivery. By natown, he sounded surprisingly opti.-
~ destinations, especially among tourists, that po.int, several ofthe city's dim-sum mistic. Small immigrant-run businesses
~ who line up for dumplings and "OG" parlon had closed of their own accord. tend to be "very resourceful and resil-
~ eggrolls. But I was there just as the When I spoke to Wilson the following ient," he said. "They don't have debt
~ COVID-19 pandemic was taking over morning, he told me that he would offer and they're living within their means."
j the news, and Sinophobic paranoia takeout and delivery from the Nolita Nom Wah has survived for a century.
"'
~ was threatening Chinatown businesses location but not &run Chinatown; many The outposts in Shenzhen, which were
~ across the country. of his employees there, he explained, closed for six weeks as the Chinese gov-
" The persistence of the crowd was are Chinese-Americans who live in emment fought COVID-19, reopened
~i;; likely due to the media savvy ofWilson intergenerational households and are recently, and, so far, business hasn't been
~ Tang, Norn Wah's forty-one-year-o1d fearful ofspreading the virus to relatives. bad. "Confidence in dining out is slowly
~ proprietor, who had been drumming In Nolita, his staffis much smaller and building there,"Tang said. '"Things are
5 up attention on lnstagram. "'There is no skews younger and more diverse. The improving week by week."
i!: coronavirus bs here,"Tang captioned a revenue from to-go orders wouldn't even -Hannah Goldfield
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NE_W
THE TALK OF THE lOWN

COMMENT pear."Was he doing a good job? He gave all the compromised immune systems."
OPPOR.TIJNl.fllC INFECllONS himself"a ten."Those who raised con- On"Fax &Friends,"Ainsley Earlwdt
cerns about the .Administration's cuts in dismissed any cautions against ttavcl-
arl:ylastwcek, theTrump era-whic:h emergency preparedness or the outra- "It's actually the safest time to fly"-and
E defined itselfby alurid celebration of
"alternative facts,"a contempt for science,
geous failure to supply testing kits were
promu1gating "a hoax."
her sidekick Pete Hegseth mentioned
that he was starting to think that the
and an assault on global institutions and This blithe unconcern for the looming Democrats "WCie "rooting for the corona-
the "adntlnistrative state"-came to an crisis was hardly limited to Trump. His virus to spread." Over on Fax Business,
end. Regrettably, DonaldTrump remains satraps in the ..alternative fact" industry Trish Regan accused the liberal media
in office, but, at least for the moment, he took their cues from him to rest easy in and Democrats of trying to manipulate
appears to have ceded the argument he a warm bubble bath of denialism. Rush the news of the cororuwirus as "yet an-
cannot bend the harshest realities ofthe Limbaugh, who received a Presidential other attempt to impeach the President."
world to his f.mtasies. The aggressive and. Medal ofFreedom atTrump's latest State Sean Hannity, who has the biggest
deadly corona.virus is unimpressed and of the Union address, told his immense ratings on cahle news, invited Dr. An-
unimpeded by the bluster of a oon. Yet radio audience that the virus was "the thony Fauci, the most visible public-
the prolonged process ofTrump's hum- common oold, folks." And, by the way, health official on the White House
bling, the time it took him to recognize "Keep in mind where the coronavirus coronavirus task furce, to appear on his
the power of the global pandemic that came from. It came from a country that show. But, in Hannity's world, as in
has emptied our streets, has put untold Bernie Sanders wants to tum the Unital Trump's, bloviation precedes fact. And
numbers of Americans at risk. States into a mirror image of. Commu- so Hannitywent first. "The standard flu
The disease now known as COVID-19 nist China." Mark Steyn, filling in for every single year kills tens of thousands
was first identified three months ago, Limbaugh one day, said that a shelte:r- ofAmericans. Now, does truth matter?
in the Chinese city ofWuhan. Much in-place order had been issued in the Does perspective matter?" Fauci. just as
like SARS, which flared eighteen years Bay Area because "it's a big gay town, he docs when standing beside the Pres-
ago, the likeliest breeding ground for San Francisco, and they're the ones with ident, betrayed no sign ofdisdain, as he
the new coronavirus was a live-animal politely corrected the misinformation.
market. Like SARS, H.l.V., and Ebob, "Sean, to make sure your viewers get
COVID-19, scientists believe, is a zoonotic an accurate idea about what goes on,"
disease, one that "jumps" from mam- he said, COVID-19 is "ten times more le-
malian animal hosts to human beings. thal than the seasonal flu."
The ooronavirus that causes COVID-19 Fake news and conspiracy theories are
soon made its way to nearly every cor- opportunistic:viruses, and for manywa:ks
ner and crevice of the planet. there was no end to their spread.JerryFal-
<1 For many weeks, the President re- wdl,Jr., one ofTrump's leading evangeli-
z sisted understmding the magnitude of cal supporters, repeated a theory suggi:snxl
~ the problems and the responsibilities of to him by a restaurant owner he knows:
~ his office. In late January, he declared, "You remember the North Korean leader
~ "We have it totally under control •.. It's promised'a Chrisbnas present for Amer-
g going to be just fine." A month later, he ica back in December'? Could it be they
~ told attendees at a White House cele- got together with China and this is that
~ bration of Black History Month, "One present?" Ron Paul, a former Republican
= day-it's like a miracl.e--it will disap- Presidential candidate and a physician,
wrote, "People should ask themselves advance the argument for strict social- recently as Friday, however,the President
whether this coronavirus 'pandemic'could distancing measures. And, because this is spent much of his briefing berating a re-
be a big hoax, with the actual danger Trump World, the President listened at- porter and further alarming the public. It
of the disease massively exaggerated by tentivelywhen he received a visit at Mar- is better to be lucky than good, the old
those who seek to profit-financially a-Lago from Tucker Carlson,who broke saw has it. Trump is not good; we must
or politically--from the ensuing panic." ranks with his Fox News colleagues and hope that he will be lucky.
During this danpus period, a range urged serious action. Right now, as we sit in our homes,
ofpolls revealed that Republicans, in pu- Trump cannot be forgiven for bis washing our hands yet again, as we try
ticuW; trust Trump's infurmation on the preening and his belatedness. And yet to read the qucru1ous expressions ofour
virus more than that ofthe "lame-stream this least trustworthy of Commandeis- children, scientists and pharmaceutical
media."AMaristCallrge-NPR-PBS poll in-Chiefis entrusted bythe authority of companies are racing to develop anti-
found that more than half of this group his office to make a series of critical de- viral treatments and--what will be our
thought the risk was being "blown out cisions. In order to "flatten the curve,"we most valuable weapon-a vaccine. But no
of proportion."The Trumpian efforts to have rightly set in motion a set of edicts such deliverance is 1ikc1y to arrive in this
downplay the thn:at to public health held that, while necessary to control the pan- calendar year. In the meantime, another
fast among "the base." demic, will continue to batter the econ- form ofprotection has become more ur-
What finally shatteredTrump's serene omy, create deep atomiution, and cause g-ent than ever. Misinformation and cant,
confidence and the consensus ofhis fol- all manner ofsuffering.The human need along with a kindred scorn for science
lowers? Fauci and other oflicials on the for solidarityis frustrated by the need for and professional expertise: these things
White House task force certainly began social distancing.An economythat sci7.es arc pathogens, too. Counterfeit facts can
to cut through his dismissals in their up entirelycould, in thco()S produce nearly polarize, alienate, disaffect, rouse misdi-
briefing sessions. An analysis from epi- as much suffering as the virus itself; par- rected rage, and fument social division.
dcmiologim at Imperial College Lon- ticularly fur the most vulnerable among They have long oome at a cost to our ci-
don, forecasting as many as :2..2 million us.A host ofwell-judged policydecisions vility; at a time of pandemic, cspccially,
American fat2lities and a health-care must be made and cxeruted effectively if they also come at a cost in human lives.
system under siege, reportedly hdped the country is to be spared the worst. AB -Dtwid &mnick
LOCAL HEROES Then I take a shower at night and in the collar,like a nightclub bouncer.Then
HUNGR.YTOWN the morning. I disinfect the bathroom. he hopped on his bike and zipped to
I try to be as clean as possible." In his the first drop-off. After an elevator tap
deliverybag, he<l stashed plastic gloves. with a gloved :finger, he used the side of
Hand-saniti7.er bottles were ready in a his cell phone to knock.on the custom-
pouch on his vest. "You can never use er's door. He set down the bag and
enough," he said. Earlier in the morn- stepped back a safe distance. The door
ing, he'd bought a box ofmasks from a opened: Brandon,human-ICSOurces pro-
he new coronavirus has made all purported ninety-nine-cents store in fessional; spicy chicken, Cajun fries.
T the easy stuff hard. The rules are Chinatown. "Fifty dollars!" he said.
shifting. Subways? Bad. Cabs? Murky.
Brandon was "a little weirded out," he
It was the :first night of the ban on said, when Ceron offered him a spritz
Mayor de Blasio says use them if you eating in restaurants. Ceron,who is titlr- of sanitizer. "But it showed he cared."
must and ifyou're alone, but he banned ty-four and originally from Guerrero, Next: c.hida:n fuigen; downtown, Per-
shared rides for everyone but families Mcx:ico,hadcommuted from the Bronx
and what he, strangely; called "real cou- to Union Square with his electric bike.
ples."Takeout? The RD.A. thinks the He is a recent vegetarian, and a frequent
virus doesn't spread through food. Other smiler, under the mask. He uses the
experts say maybe make some ramen. word"O.K."to describe the many things
"'New Yorkers are hungry," Lenin he feels fondly toward: people, the city,
Ceron said last week. Someone has to the pride he takes after a day's work.
get them their food. Cer6n is one of "I'm very lucky," he said. "I still have
those people. He is a courier for Relay, one job. I have two beautiful daughters.
a delivery company that has instituted And rm healthy. I have to be extra care-
a "contactlcss delivery" system, a vital ful. for them. But I adt be stuck.at hoIIlf:.
real-time experiment in safely .fi:eding I have too many responsibilities."
the shut-in city. "I take this very seri- The night's fuwt pickup was at Sticky's
ously;" Ceron said. "When I get home, Finger Joint, nearby. Two paper bags
I have a buclcet with soap and water, so were waiting on the counter. "I try not
I can step right into the bucket, and to take the bags by the handle,"he said.
throw everything in. I wash my hands, That's where customers a.re most likely
take offmyclothes. I clean all the knobs. to touch. Instead, he grabbed them by Lenin Cer6n
IO THE NEY ~ MAl\CH 30, 2020
sian dinner uptown. Outside a teriyaki collated the scores for his county's high-
EXTl\AOJJ\RIQJLAR.
place, a man blew his nose loudly. Ceron school sports games, aggregated. news
flinched. Even on a good day, delivery
TEEN Tl\ACKEI\ of global protests, and displayed the
is a tough job. "I heard this mornllig that weather forecast on Mars. "His brain is
de Blasio is going to go easy on us," he constantly going from one thing to an-
said. "I have three tickets.They want me other, which is good, but I also try to
to pay a thousand dollars!" He has also focus him in," his mother, Nathalie
been in three accidents--scrapes, a Acher, said. "I'm not techy at all mysel£
cracked collarbone."It's much easier now I see it as just really boring. He sees it
that the streets are empty." ast week. as cities across the coun- as an art form."
The virus has added new complica-
tions. At around eight o'clock, Ccr6n
L
try shut down in an effort to slow Schiffinann created the virus project
thespreadofCOVID-19,PresidentTrump during a family ski weekend in Sno-
cradled an order ofDallas BBQnear a said, "We have a problem that, a month qualmie Pass. Acher, who is a prima-
housingprojectoffAvenueD. "We don'.t ago, nobody thought about.'Well, some- ry-care doctor, said that, when he had
body did. On December 29th, as Trump finished building it (he'd skipped a ski
usually go upstairs at this building," he
said. •But in this situation, we need to."
vacationed with his family at Mar-a- day), "he was beaming as though he'd
Lago,Avi Schiffinann, a sevcntccn-ycar- discovered the cure for cancer." Flatten-
On the fuurtec:nth 8ooi; more bad news:
for this order, Ceron needed the cus- old from Washington State, lawu:hcd a ing the curve has been an isolating ex-
tomer's signature.. He slathered his phone
homemade Web site to track the move- perience for many, but Schiffinann has
and her hands with sanifu.er.The womanment ofthe coronavirus. Since then, the
wiggled a hesitant pinkie and signed. site, ncov2019.live, has had more than a
The deJivery yielded six dollars, fifty-
hundred million visitors. "I wanted to
nine cenu----worth it. just make the data easily accessible, but
The night was slower than normal. I never thought it would end up being
Tippers were skimping. "The city that this big," the high-school junior said last
never sleeps is sleeping," Ceron said.week over FaceT'une. Schiffinann,gap-
He had thirty-five dollars. By this time
toothed and bespectacled, was sitting
on a regular night, he'd have sixty oron his bed wearing a blue T-shirt and
seventy. "People are scared. Delivery baggy pajama bottoms. ltwas late morn-
guys touch too many things," he said. ing. He was at his mother's house, on
"I understand." Mercer Island, outside Seattle. Some-
Three pizu orders came in.The hastwhere in the room his cat, Louic,m.cvvcd.
customer wanted to pay in C2Sh. "I don't
Behind him hung a Ferrari poster.
w.mt to talcc cash right now, but I gottaUsing a coding tactic known as
"web-scraping," Schiffinamis site col-
take it," Ceron said. In the lobby was a
dispenser of sanitizer. Ceron took a lates dat-a from different sources around
squirt, and then another. On the eighth
the globe-the W.H.O., the C.D.C.,
Yonhap News Agency in South Korea-- Avi Schiffmann
floor was George, retired photographer,
former "dogmatic commie"; plain pie and displays the Jatest number ofCOVlD-
with tomatoes.They exchanged the cash 19 cases. It features simple graphics and never had so much attention. "I'm get-
easy-to-read tables divided by nation, ting e-mail after e-mail,"he said. "Every
without touching fingers. Ou1slde, Ccr6n
put on new gloves. continent, and state. Data automatically couple ofseconds it's a new one." Some
He stopped for a final pickup, at a
updates every minute. In a politicized people suggest changes to the site.
kebab joint. Emerging, he was excited.pandemic, where rumor and panic run "They're,like, 'Great Web site!'"he said.
"Sec,my people are running NewYork!" amok, the site has become a reputable, "And then they send a massive list of
he said. Delivery guys? "No," he said,ifunlikely, watchdog. rm
demands, and just,like,'O.K., later.'"
pointjng to the store."Mexicans! Thq1re Schiffmann goes to Mercer Island While his twelfth-grade mends woay
making the food!" High School (Its mascot Herbert the about whether the prom will be can-
Snail.) He began teaching himself to celled, Sc.hiffinann is navigating global
The last delivery arrived safely, in
NoHo, conveyed with no ekin contact, code when he was seven, mainly by fame."! literally see myself on, like, Af-
but with a slight scent of rubbing alco-
watching YauTube videos, and has made rican news Web sites, Thailand, Tai-
hol CenSn hopped back on his bike. He more than thirty Web sites. "Program- wan-like, everywhere,"he said. He had
had made seventy dollars and seven- ming is a great creative medium," he two pod.cast interviews scheduled for
ty-one cents. It was almost an hour's said. "Instead of using a paintbrush or that day. Then he was o:ff to a photo
ride home through empty streets back something,you can just type a bunch of shoot. "I want more professional pho-
to the Bronx. "In one of the most hum-funky words and make a coronavirus tos, because I don't like the ones that the
site." One of his first projects, in ele- news places use."("I look weird,"he said.)
ble jobs, I'm helping," he said, as he set
o:ff. "I feel 0.1(." mentary school, was what he calls "a A few days earlier, his school had shut
-Zach He!fand stick-figure animation hub." Later sites down. But he had already skipped the
last week ofclasses to focus on the site, ers ("'Run out ofloo paper?"the tabloid ia."jesus' corporal acts of mercy in-
he said, "when it kind of blew up." His asked. "The NT News cares"); deter- clude caring for sick people. Wiping
mother, whose medical colleagues use mining your fair share of Cottonelle at someone's bottom is not specifically
the site, had given up coaxing him to your local Costco can now feel likeYalta. mentioned, but when you think oftend-
return."Maybelearning algebra can come What's fuelling all this obsessive-coming to infants or old people who caiit
later,"she said. (Her son is a C student.) pulsi.ve shopping? RandyO. Frost, a pro- control their fecal production •.. "Mor-
Schiffinann took the virus threat se- fessor of psycliology at Smith College, rison said, trailing off with a delicacy
riously before many others did. "I've who has written widely about hoarding, befitting the subject matter. "Ifwe don't
been kind ofconc:cmed for a while, be- said that most hoarders are motivated have toilet paper, will we revile our fun-
cause I watched it spread very fast, and by a combination ofthree .f.actois: emo- ily members who aren't clean in the way
around the entire world. I mean, it just tional or sentimental attachment, aes- we expect them to be?"
kind ofwent everywhere." He took his thetic appreciation, and utility. But According to one anthropologist, an
own precautions. "I got masks a while hoanlers of toilet paper, Frost said, are outer-directed motivation for toilet-pa-
ago. I got, like, fifteen for seventeen dol- compelled by only the third motivation. per hoarding might even skew political.
lars. Now you can't even buy a single "One of the underlying characteristics "The places we see toilet paper men-
mask for, like, leH than forty." His ofutility is an intolerance ofuncertainty," tioned are often tied up with politics,
mother chimed in. "I wish I had listened he said over the phone. "The individual especially in the movies," GrantJun Ot-
to him," she said. "But, in his teen-ager needs to feel absolutely and perfectly suki, a lecturer in cultural anthropology
way, he'Cl come down the stairs with his certain that some kind ofnegative out- at Victoria University ofWellington,
eyes huge and be, like, 'There are fifty come won't occur." New Zealand, said. "The turning point
thousand more cases!' and I'd be, like, But let's dig deeper; let us ask the of the movie 'V for Vendetta' is when
'Yeah, but they're over there, not here."' toil.et-paper-stockpiling patient (in a Evey discovers a letter written on toilet
Now that the grownups ofthe wmld calm voice), '%tees trohhlingyou?" paper by someone oppressed under the
arc finally, and appropriately, freaking "Controlling cleanliness around totalitarian regime. Evey bc:oomes po-
out, it is hard for Sc:hiflinann not to feel B.M.s is the earliest way the child as- litically awakened."
righteous vindication.."Ifyou told some- serts contro~" Andrea Greenman, the In a recent blog post subtit:lOO "A Cul-
one three months ago that we should president ofthe Contemporary Freud- tural Analysis ofToilet Paper," Otsuki
spend, like, ten billion dollars in upgrad- ian Society, said. "The fact that now we teases out a hierarchy ofhousehold paper
ing the United States' health care, they are all presumablylosing control creates goods, from Bibles and diaries, at the
would have been, like, 'Nab,"' he said. a regressive push to a very early time. top, to old newspapers, to paper towels
"Now, everyone's, like, 'Oh, my God, So, I guess that translates in the uncon- and plates, down to toilet paper; noting
~·Buttb.isisthekindofstuffweshould scious to 'If I have a lifelong supply of that this lowest item on the chain could
have done a long time ago." toilet paper, I'll never be out ofcontrol. fairly smoothly perform many of the
-Brent Crane never be a helpless, dirty child again.'" functions ofitems higher up on the list,
Freud believed that human beings but not vice versa. He concludes,"While
DEPT. OF l\EGl\ESSION subconsciously equate feces with gold we may use fancy paper and pens to
INTEl\R.OGAllNG THE T.P. PANIC 01' money. In "On Transformations of write the basic laws ofa nation, in some
Instinct as Exemplified in Anal Ero- way those words have no meaning un-
tism,"the &ther ofpsychoanalysis wrote, less they could also be written on toilet
"Since his faeces are his first gift, the paper and potentially carry the same
child easily transfers his interest from force. Without the poiw.'bility ofa con-
that substance to the new one which he stitution written on Charmin, modern
comes across a.s the most valuable gift democracy would be unthinkable."
ecauseyour Faa:book.fecd leads you in life." The turning point in a child's -HenryA!furd
B belie\'lethatit'sacommoditymore
to
precious than gold. Because you use the
so-called anal phase is when he learns
to relinquish his "gift"--which, in tum, 11-IEl\E'S AN APP FOi\ THAT
cardboard tubes for crafting. Because occasions a loss of self. Toilet paper is TALKING TO STl\ANGERS
you like to wet it and then hurl it in a inextricably bound in our minds with
wad at annoying people in your corona- defecation, and is one of our few pub-
virus bunker. lic acknowledgments of it. Perhaps it
The possible explanations for toi- makes sense, then, that a cafC in Aus-
let-paper hoarding are myriad. Unlike tralia recently decided to accept toilet
hand sanitizer and test kits, toilet paper paper as aun:nc:y (thn:c rolls for a coffu:,
is not a commodity subject to increased thirty-six rolls for a kilo of beans). anielle Baskin and Max Hawkins
need in the current crisis. Nevcrthdess,
shoppers continue to express a panic
Is the panic-buying of toilet paper
primarily egoistic? Not according to
D are multimedia
a Halloween partyin
who
artists
Francisco,
San
at
met
in
mentality over bathroom tissue. The Susan Signe Morrison, the author of 2016. Baskin was dressed as a lion with
fallout a newspaper inAustralia recently "Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: skeleton arms. Hawkins, who does "soft-
ran eight mostlyblank pages for its read- Sacred Filth and Chaucer's Fecopoet- ware-based performance work," was
ll THE NEY ~MARCH 30, 2020
dressed as the John Mayer song "Your
Body Is a Wonderland," a costume ran-
domly assigned to him by a computer
algorithm that he designed. He hadjust
returned from a two-year trip abroad,
during which his algorithm dictated
where he lived, taking him to Dubai,
Taipei, and rural Slovenia. At the party,
Baskin ~ Hawkins a tarot reading,
and they hit it o:fl: "We were both very
interested in phone stuff," Baskin re-
called recently.
Hawkins told her about Call in the
Night, a short-lived project he had
started a few years earlier. "You signed
up with your phone number, and once
a week; between 2 and 5A.M.,you would
get this phone call that wakes you from
sleep and connects you with a random
stranger,"he explained.. Baskin was in-
trigued. She works from a garage stu-
dio--she specializes in "joke objects," "I'd say my number-one issue is getting offthe island,
such as bananas imprinted with the and then, after that, probably health care."
Nike Jogo--and liked the idea ofspon-
taneous conversations during the day. • •
Soon after, Hawkins moved to New
York, and they used the app to stay in on the plane it feels more like a place of think rm nuts anymore!" She described
touch. Friends joined, and then friends prayer"). Baskin said, "I've been trying what was out the window: bird feeders,
of friends. Last year, they released the to create projects that are sort of funny a lake. "And we have some moles who
app publidy, under the name DialUp, and dystopian." She also created a res- have taken over my yard. They make a
with subgroups for people who wanted pirator mask with the user's mouth and raised line in the grass, so you can see
to talk to strangers about breakfast, pol-
nose printed on it, to help people unlock exactlywhere thc:fve been, and they are
itics, or the full moon. their phones using facial recognition. so annoying."
Then covm-19,and widespreadquar- Both have been making mends on <l!.iar- Susan had X2nax and a plan to re-
antllring, came along."Mygirlfriend was antineChat. Baskin was connected to a organize her closets. "I had decided that
telling me about her family in China, fumily in L.A. that was rationing pasta this was going to be my year, you lmow
who'd been doing this for months, and sauce. Hawkins had talked to a Colom- what I'm saying? rm going to be sixty
all the stories ofpeople who are just to-bian woman studying in Paris, whose this year, which is freaking me out. And
tally bored and stuck at home," Haw- roommate had tested positive. "They'd I thought, f m going to hit sixty being
kins, who now lives in Los Angeles, said.just thrown a party the night before, and one hot chick. I was going to get my
On March 1st, he and Baskin launched so everyone who was at the party had to cataracts fixed, my shoulder replaced.
a new DialUp application, called Quar- go into self-quarantine," he said. Of course, I'm cancelling everything."
antineChat, that connects sheltering Early Wt: week, a housebound New Her husband is a cardiovascular perfu-
strangers at arbitrary points of the day.Yorker joined the app. The next after- sionist at a hospital three and a half
There's no swiping right; the app de- noon, the phone rang. "Welcome to hows away. (Theywonicd that the hos-
cides who talks to whom, and when. QuarantineChat," a recorded voice: said. pital would be short on masks, so Susan
"Something that's missing from your life "We're about to put you on hold and lent him one from her gardening su~
when you're in isolation is that you don't
connect you to someone else anywhere plies.) Their plan w:as for him to stay
have these random CCJM:ISatioos,"Baskin in the world. Your prompt today is to at an apartment near work if he got
said. "You don't have that serendipity." go look out the wind.ow and describe exposed. "When he leaves tomorrow;
Usage spiked in Iran, then spread to what you see to your partner." Some I might not see him for a long time,"
Hong Kong, Portugal, and London. plinkymusic played, and then a woman Susan said, glumly. '1 made his favorite
While self-quarantining, Hawkins answered. She introduced herself as black-bean burgers and his cupcakes
has been busy fixing technical bugs, to Susan. a fifty-nine-year-old mother of and stuff, to remember me. But it's a
keep up with demand, and Baskin has three, who was hunkering down at her lonely thought. I will literally be alone.
been making virus-inspired art objects, house in Missouri. '1 have asthma, so Just me, in this big, rambling house. So
such as cling-on faux stained glass for I've been paying very close attention," I will probably look forward to these
nervous airline passengers to stick to she said. "I was very far ahead of this. calls more as time goes on."
their plane windows ("So when you're My kids thought I was nuts. They don't -Micl;ael Schulman
Inauguration only a shrinking group
THE POLmCAL SCENE has persisted. in publicly taking him on.
To Donald Trump, the members of
this small but highly visible resistance
HOPE DIES LAST are his real enemy, even more than the
opposition party. He often tweets his
The trials efa Never Trump &puhiican. contempt; one day last~ he described
them as politically weakened and "on
BY SUSAN B. Gl.A.SJER. respirators,"but nonethdess "worse and
more dangerous for our country" than
the Democrats.Trump concluded with
a furious flourish: "Watch out for thCIIl.,
they are human scum!"
Longwell embodiesTrump's darkest
anxieties. Relentless in her loathing of
the forty-fifth President, she has turned
her Never Trump-ism from a passion
project into a full-time profession. Stmt-
ing last September, as Trump faced im-
peachment by the House ofRepresen-
tatives and a trial in the Senate,Longwell
raised and spent millions of dollars on
ads advocating bis removal from office.
After his acquittal, she launched a new
effort, raising sevenl million dollars in
a matter ofweeks 1D tum out "disaffi:cb:d
Republicans"in the Democratic prima-
ries, a .first step toward building a "co-
alition ofthe center"to defeat the Pres-
ident in November.
Longwell sees Trump's failure to re-
spond early and decisively to the corona-
virus as a case study in "'the crisis of
leadershipn that she has warned fellaw-
Republicans about. She believes the new
political reality ofthe pandemic moment
is deeply problematic for Trump and for
the Party leaders who have so fervently
embraced him. AB Trump was denying
that the virus would afBict the country,
or four yeus, Sarah Longwell has the previous few weeks claiming to have millions of suburban vot:er&-including
F been hoping for Donald Trump's c.ompletdy under c.ontroL Pundits were many Republican women like Long-
downfall. But nothing has triggered it. already calling Trump's botched initial well--were helping former Vice-Presi-
Not the Mueller investigation into his handling ofthe crisls "the end ofhis Pn:s- dent Joe Biden take a commanding lead
dealings with Russia. Not his coverup idency." Longwell, a forty-year-old con- in the Democratic primaries over Ber-
ofhush-money payments to a porn• servative Republican who has spent the nie Sanders. She hopes now that Biden
or the profiting from his office to benefit Trump years in an increasingly isolated can be the instrument offrump's defeat,
his personal businesses. Not even a fight within her party to end his Pn:si- enabling a "restoration" of the America
Ukraine extortion scheme that resulted dency,was notyt:t convinced."Haw many she still believes in. Longwell told me
in just the third impeachment and trial times have we seen that headline before?" that, for the Republican establishment,
of a President in history. He has proved she asked. which has for all intents and purposes
imnum.e to every scandal.Will the corona- Longwell is a Never Trumper, one fully sold out to Trump, "this is their
virus pandemic be any different? of the stubborn tribe of Republicans worst-case scenario."
I spoke to Longwdl on March i3th, who have refused to accept the Presi-
barely an hour after Trump declared a dent as their leader. In 201.6, virtually lifdong conservati:re, Longwdl
"national emergency" to c.ombat a onc.e- the entire Republican Party opposed A grew up in a Republican family
in--a-ccntury outbreak that he had spent Trump in the primaries, but since his and town in central Pennsylvania and
began following politics in high schooL
"For me, the world changed in 2016," Sarah Longwell says. during the impeachment, in 1998, ofBill
THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020
https://t.me/WorldAndNews ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIAN NORTHEAST
Clinton. In her eyes, Clintonwas a "dirt- well put it in a 2014 presentation, "de- Longwell said. That summer, her :first
bag" for having an affair with a former fense over time loses." He devised an son was born. "My wife's water broke
intern who was not much older than aaonym for the .firm's approach to "man- the night ofMclania's speech at the Con-
she was. After graduating from Kenyon aging" public opinion: FLAGS, for fear, vention," and a few nights later, after
College, in Ohio, in 2002, she went to love, anger, greed, and sympathy. Of their son's birth, she watched on televi-
work for a conservative group, the In- those, he told me, fear and anger are the sion at the hospital as Trump accepted
tercollegiate Studies Institute, in Dela- most effective: "Nobody likes neg-ative the Republican nomination. "I remem-
ware. She soon found herself promot- ads, but everybody remembers them. I ber just how bad he made me feel,n she
ing a book for "intellectuals who find absolutely believe it." said."That's what I remembei: I remem-
Darwinism unconvincing" and went on Longwell readily acknowledged that ber holding a new baby and feeling like
tour with Senator Rick Santorum to Berman was "almost like a bogeyman" this can't be what's happening."On Elec-
hdp sdl his book "'It Takes a Family," ID opponents. But she admired hlln."Rick tion Night, she was at a party in Wash-
whose retrograde views led a reviewer is the kind of person who is, like, 'I will ington, textingwith another anti-Trump
for the Philade.lphialnquirerto describe stand up, I will say what I think, and I operative,Tim Miller, the former spokes-
it as the product of"one of the finest will defend my positions.'I believe that, person fur Jeb Bush's short-lived Presi-
minds ofthe thirteenth century."At the too,,. she said. "I bclievc that, ifyou are dential. campaign. "He's going to win,"
time, Longwell was coming out to her opposed to this President, there arc so Miller wrote to her. As the news sank
friends and family as a lesbian. She de- many people in this town, so many peo- in, she went outside and bummed a cig-
cided that she could no longer work at ple in Congress,theywant to say,'I think arette, although she no longer smoked..
such an o.rganization with someone she he's terrible,' whatever. They won't say it Many people who opposedTrump in
considered "the most visibly anti-gay out loud. I think that Rick helped me 2016 have their version ofthis story: the
politician in the country," and she quit.understand how to have the courage not Election Night disbdief and shock, the
Still deeply conservative, she moved just to saywhat I bdieve but, when peo- litany ofoutrages that followed. But, un-
to Washington in 2005, and was hired ple come at you for that, to say, 'Wdl, like many others in Republican Wash-
by Richard Berman as a junior staffer this is who I am, this is what I believe.'" ington, Longwell did not make her ac-
at his communications furn. Berm~ a The experience ofbeing a lesbian in commodations, political. and moral,with
legendary Republican lobbyist turned conservative circles also taught Long- the new President.When, on his second
P.R. man, specialized in helping food wdl the virtues of plain speaking. An weekend in office, Trump issued an ex-
and beverage companies by setting up advocate for marriage equality despite ecutive order banning entry into the U.S.
industry front groups to .fight regula- the Republican Party's stance against for citizens of seven majority-Muslim
tory efforts. Longwdl loved the work, it, she married her girlfriend in 201J. "'I nations, Longwell decided that Trump
and in the course of .fifteen years she got comfortable with everyone being really was a danger to the country. "I
rose to become senior vice-president mad at you," she said. "To be a gay Re- started thinking about What can I do?"
and was in line to run the company.To- publican was to reoogniu that Repub- she recalled. "How can I get involved?"
gether, they opposed everything from licans were going to dislike you because
raising the minimum wage to stricter you were gay, and Democrats were going n thefall of 2007, Longwell was in-
drunk-driving laws. "Sarah always had to dislike you for being Republican, and
a knife in her teeth." Berman told me. you had to walk your path because you
Ithevited to a session of theMeeting
Concerned, a semi-secret group of
of
Early in her time at the firm, Long- felt like it was the right thing to do." disaffected Republicans that had started
well persuaded Berman to agree to be In 2016, Longwell opposed Trump in gathering every otherTuesday in a base-
interviewed by "60 Minutes."The story the Republican primaries but recognized ment conference room near Capitol Hill
portrayed Berman as the "Dr. Evil" of the potency of his fear-and-anger plat- The NeverTrurnpers were hardly a real
the Washington influence game, will- form. How could she not? It was as ifhe movement, less an organized cabal than
ing, on behalfofa range ofurulisclosed were working from Berman's playbook. a cable-news-savvy alliance. Among
corporate clients, to attack workers, During the campaign, Longwell hap- them were longtime Party operatives,
healthy-eating proponents, and even pened to be the incoming board clWr of such as Steve Schmidt and Rick Wil-
activists for Mothers Against Drunk the Log Cabin Republicans; she was the son,who became regulan; on libcral-lean-
Driving. Berman still has a link to the first woman to hold the post since the ing TV shows, and public intellectuals,
"6o Minutes"episode on the firm's Web group was founded, in the late seventies, such as Eliot Cohen, a former Bush Ad-
site, accompanied by a quote calling him to advocate for gay and lesbian Repub- m.irllstration official who now reaches at
"the industry's weapon ofmass destruc- licans.The board felt intensc pressure to Johns Hopkins University, and Max
tion." He keeps a "Dr. Evir nameplate endorse Trump, despite his selection of Boot, of the Council on Foreign Rela-
on his desk. "If they call you Mr. Nice Mike Pence, an openly homophobic wan- tions, who stopped writing for the Wall
Guy.would that be better?"Bennan told gelical Christian, as his running mate. Street journal} increasingly pro-Trump
me. "I don't think so." Longwdl told me that she "basically lay editorial. page and went to the Wash-
Berman ta.ught Longwell to discredit on the tracks" to stop the group from ington Post. With the exception ofSen-
the opposition before it discredits you; backing Trump. Mostly, though, she ator John McCain, most Republican
to be edgy. memorable, and funny; and watched the election unfoldwith dismay. elected officials already either supported
to always play offense,because; as Long- "For me, the world changed in 20lh," Trump or kept their mouths shut about
him. Inside the Administration, some publicans furthe Rule ofLaw, was born. House counsellor Kcllyanne Conway.
had qualms about the President, but they Trump's firing of the F.B.I. director A prominent conservative attorney; he
soon were fired or marginali7.ed, or quit. James Corney, in the spring of 2017, had accepted, then declined, a senior
The official Party apparatus had been had set off the first major crisis of his position inTrump'sJustice Department.
taken over by the President, and Re- Presidency, leading to the appointment Earlier that year, Conway had started
publican lobbyists, consultants, political of Robert Mueller as special counsel. tweeting his dismay about Trump, thus
operatives, congressional staffers, right- Longwell and Kristo! decided that their setting off a marital-political drama
wing media commentaton, and govcm- group would try to insure that Trump worthy ofa reality-TV Presidency. Like
martjob sa:kcrs quicklyidc:ntifu:d where did not fire Mueller or block the inves- Longwell, Conway was invited.into the
their interests lay. tigation; to do this they would pressure capital's NeverTrump cin:le, but he, too,
Jerry Taylor, who helped found the Republican officials in the capital. "I decided that the meetings were often
Meeting of the Coru:erru:d and the Ni- did think someone ru:eded to fight the frustrating exercises in "therapy." He
skanen Center, the think fight within the Republican craved action. ("Look, there's a lot of
tank that hosts it, told me Party,that)Ull can'tjustgive benefit just to catharsis," Jerry Taylor
about the first time Long- up even though it's a long joked to me, "especially given that the
well showed up. "Sarah shot against a Republican alternative is to become an alcoholic,
didn't know anyone in the President,"Kristol told me. which is easy to do in this town now.j
group," he said. "She had "Sarah agteed." In November,1.018, as Trump attacked
never really travelled in In February,2018, as Justice Department norms and practices,
those circles before." Many Trump was publicly attack- Longwdl helped Conway.file the paper-
ofthe attendees were well- ingMuellei;~ setup work to start Checks and Balances, an
known denizens ofWash- Defending DemocracyTo- anti-Trump group for conservative-
ington's TV greenrooms, gether, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit minded lawyers, to counter the influen-
who bonded ovttthcir disil- that could aa:ept donations tial Federalist Society. It debuted. with a
lusionment with the Party and saw "the without having to disclose donon. De- splash, given the Conways' public split
election of Donald Trump as just the fending Democracy Together became over Trump. Longwell was fast becom-
thin blue line betwa:n us and the abyss," the umbrella organization fur Republi- ing the organizational heft behind the
as Taylor put it. Longwell wanted more cans for the Rule ofLaw and other likc- Never Trump movement. "Basically, if
than this talky self-styled n:sistance. She minded projects that sought to combat you want to set up a group," Conway
told me, "Everybodywas sitting around Trump's policies. Longwell and Kris- told me,"she's the person who makes it."
having a conversation that I had heard to! worked his contacts and raised sub- Although Conway was constantlyin
lots of versions of at that point, which stantial sums of money, including from the news with his tweets whacking his
is: What happened to the Republican liberal donon such as P'ierre Omi.dyar, wife's boss, more and more ofl..ongwell's
Party?"When Bill Kristo!, a Republican the tech billionaire who funds the left-- Republican connectionswcre being con-
pundit and the founder of The ~ek.{y wing Web site the Intercept. verted to Trumpism--dcle1i oldTwit-
Stmuiard, spoke up, Longwell recalled, StllrtingtfurtMarch,~Trump ter posts critical ofthe President, mak-
she interrupted him: "'Why don't we threatened. Mueller or opened a new ing discreetjob inquiries. By the second
do something about it?'And he was kind front in his fight against the Russia year ofthe Administr.ation, she saw two
of, like, Well, what would we do?' And "hoax," the group ran TV ads defend- kinds of Republicans in Washington:
I W2S, like, 'I don't know, but you're .fa- ing the investigation, many ofthem fea- "the people who becameAlwaysTrump-
mous. You're Bill Kristel'" turing quickly produced clips of news ers"and the group she called "the Anti-
Kristo] has been a leader ofthe hawk- footage or Trump's latest twt:et, with Anti-Trumpers, the people who were,
ish neoconservative wing of the Party urgent pleas to members of Congress like, Well, I'm not for Trump, but you
since arriving inWashington, as a mem- to stop the President. All told, before guys an:: ridiculous, you guys have Trump
ber of the Reagan Administration. In the Mueller investigation was over, Re- Derangement Syndrome.'"Republicans
2016, he made a well-publicized attempt publicans for the Rule ofLaw had run she had been friendlywith for years and
to recruit a last-ditch independent can- more than a hundred ads, aimed at a who had been '\rociferously"anti-Trump
didate to run against Trump. Having narrow but important segment of"per- in 2016 now bashed her and other Never
failed to find anyone of stature, Kristol suadahle Republicans"in key states, see.k- Trampers on Twitter.
settledon an obscure former CJA officer ing to convince Party leaden that even Kristol's Week.{y Standard remained
and congressional staffer named Evan Trump's base would not go along with strongly anti-Trump, and by late 201.8
McMullin, whose candidacy never rose his firing ofthe special counsel In the he was struggling to keep it alive. When
above the levd of obscurity. After their hope of getting directly to the Prcsi- the magazine's owner, the conservative
initial meeting, Kristel and Longwell dent,Longwdl also ran the ads inWash- billionaire Philip Anschutz, threatened
went out fur coffue, and she urged him ington on Fox News, which Trump to shut it dawn, James Murdoch, the
to take action again. They started brain- watt.hes addict:i.vdy. estranged son ofits initial backer, Ru-
stormingregularly at the Madison Hotel In 201.8, at a session of the Meeting pert Murdoch, approached Anschutz
"Then Mueller happened,"Longwell ofthe Concerned, Longwell met George about buying it. But Anschutz refused
said, and the idea for their group, Re- Conway,the husband of Trump's White to sell, and abruptly forced the Standard
16 THE NEY ~MARCH 30, 2020
to cease operations, transferring its as- was at odds with the majority of the in the Republican-controlled Senate.
sets to another property he owned, the board, and in August she resigned as There were not twenty Republican votes
Washington &taminer. Kristol assem- chair.& soon as she did, the board voted to convict, and likely never would be.
bled a small new team to run a Never to preemptively endorseTrump fur 2020. Still, on September 30th, less than a
Trumper Web site, called the Bulwark, A half-dozen other board members ul- week after the House inquiry ~.she
which launched a month later. Long- timately quit in the rift over Trump, as wrote an opinion piece for NBC com-
well, with no previous experience in the did the group's fust female executive di- paring the moment to Watergate, titled
media bwin~s, became its publisher. rector. Jennifer Hom, the former chair "Republicans Who Back Impeachment
Jam~ Murdoch was not able to save of the New Hampshire Republican Can Save the Country--and the GOP."
the Standard, but Kristol introduced Party, who had been recruited to the Tut day, she got an e-mail from Rick
Longwell to Murdoch's wife, Kathryn. board by Longwell, told me, "We just Berman,herboss,asking where she stood
and she became a major, six-figure could not remain." on impeachment. She replied that it was
donor to Republicans for the Rule of time for them to 1:2lk.
Law. Kathryn Murdoch told me, "Sarah ythis point, Longwell had become They met in his sunny comer office,
gives me hope that there is going to be
a post-Trump Republican Party that is
B all too .familiar with what she often
called "the soft bigotry oflow expecta-
and Berman made it clear that Long-
well would haw: to choose between sup-
principled and focussed on getting tions": the assumption that her fellow- portingTrump's impeachment and stay-
things done."Murdoch, who described Republicans would give in to Trump, ing on at his company. Berman had
herselfas an independent, added, "Un- whatever his latest outrage, and yet es- allowed her to devote increasing time to
fortunatdy, one ofthe most :frustrating cape censure, since their capitulation anti-Trump causes during the previous
things right now is there's a big differ- was now merely the expected outcome. few years, to the point of even raising
ence between the way Republican lead- The impeachment drama, ignited by money and working to recruit a primary
ers speak behind closed doors and the the disclosure, in September, ofTrump's candidate against him. But Berman could
way they speak in public." fateful call to the Ukrainian President, not abide her using his firm to run a
Longwell and Kristo! spent much of seemed as ifit would provide yet more aunpaign to remove a President oftheir
2018 and the first half of2019 trying to proofofthis frustrating new Washing- party. "My red line was impeachment,"
recruit a Republican to run against ton reality. he told me. They agreed that by the end
Trump in the upcoming primaries. At Despite the revelations aboutTrump's of the year she would leave Berman's
first, Longwell hoped for a big-name scheme to withhold U.S. military aid to company and starther own political. con-
candidate: "I was, like, 'Maybe Mitt Ukraine as he demanded politically sulting firm, Longwell Partners.
Romney'll do it, maybe Condoleezza beneficial investigations into Biden, Longwell said that her views had
Rice will do it.' And I subsequently re- Longwcll lmcw that impeachment was "changed a lot" since she :first began
ali7.Cd that there really was a very nar- almost cerniliJ. to end with an acquittal working with Berman, but she still
row universe ofpoople who were going
to legitimately consider it. At the end
of the day, none of them saw a path."
John Kasich, the former Ohio governor,
who ran againstTrump in 2016, was in-
~ but even longtime financial sup-
porters wouldn't back him. Longwell's
"personal favorite"was Larry Hogan, the
governor ofMaryland,whose father had
been the first Republican member ofthe
House Judiciary Committee to call for
Richard Nixon's impeachment. But, last
spring, Hogan said that he wouldn't
mount a "suicide mission" against the
President."Nobodywanted to cross this
guy," Longwell recalled. "This Ameri-
can Life" compared her effort to that of
the workers who tried to stop the mdt-
down at Chernobyl. And yet, Longwdl
noted, "it was easier to get three guys to
go into Chernobyl than it was to get
somebody to run against Trump."
By the summer of2019, not even the
Log Cabin Republicans wanted to op- \II~
pose Trump anymore. Longwell .found
that her activism against the President •F()1' health and safety reasons, we'll he transitioning to cyber crime. "
shared his hard-edged approach to po- ment hearings wrapped up, just before ident,n said that Trump was "just so
litical combat. "Rick really taught me Thanksgiving, we drove two and a half full of hate," and bemoaned his "flam-
everything," she told me. '1fyou don't hours from Washington to a storefront boyant obnoxiousness." Everyone said
engage people and try to pemwle them, in New Cwnberland, to find out ifthe Trump's Twitter feed was a problem.
the other side will.n base was fazed by the Ukraine scandal. Two staKers from Longwell's team
As. the impeachment proceedings Longwell grew up nearby, just outside who watched with us were encouraged,
began, Republicans for the Rule ofLaw Dillsburg, a small town of fewer than but she warned them to wait for "the
rolled out video ads that detailed with three thousand people. Her parents are turn." It soon became clear what she
biting humor the latest dc:vdopments retired lawyers and still live there. Dills- meant The women didn't like Trump,
in the Ukraine saga. One ofLongwcll's burg is conservative and Republican, but they didn't like anyone else, either.
st2ff members, Barry Rubin, started a the kind of place where the local ele- They didn't trust the media, and they
Twitter account, fucussing on the Sen- mentary school closes for the first day thought other politicians werejust as bad
ateJudiciaryCommittx:e clmrman.called of deer-hunting season. It went over- as the President. Although they could
Lindsey Graham's Fake Conscience. whelmingly for Trump in 2016. not explain the details of the Ukraine
Every day, he tweeted out old footage Since the swt of the Trump Presi- scandal---except for one woman who
ofGraham, now arguablyTrump's most dency, Longwell has conducted regular had become an obsessive MSNBC
re1i2b1e Senate cheerleader, from his pre- focus groups ofhis voters from the area, watcher-they thought impeachment
vious incarnations as a Trump basher trying to figure out what might move WllB costly and pointless.
(in 2016) and as a House impeachment them to vote against him in 2020. The Still, Longwell was not entirely dis-
manager against Bill Clinton (in 1999). groups almost always comprise middle- couraged. Trump had won Pennsylva-
In one clip that went viral,Gmham talked class Republican women from the sub- nia by only about forty thousand votes
with great emotion about how much he urbs and exurbs-the most Trump- in 2016; he would need these women to
admired Joe Bidcn, the "nicest person" skcptical remaining part ofthe G.O.P., vote for him again, and it was hard to
in politics. Rubin posted it on Novem- and the voters who may well decide the imagine that all of them would do so.
ber 21st, the day Graham's committee President's fate in November. One Re- Before we left, the moderator asked the
began investigating Biden's dealings with publican who has been in many meet- second group whether they would con-
Ukraine, just as Trump had demanded. ings with Longwell was struck by the sider voting for a Democrat in 20.20.
The tweet said, 'WHATEVER YOU DO, personal nature of her project. Long- Fm: ofthe nine said yes. "I'd vote for a
DO NOT WATCH THE VIDEO BELOW!! well has often joked that she was se- dog over Trump," one said. Then the
IT WILL MAKE ME LOOK LIKE A MON- cretly doing this to convince her "par- moderator asked who they thought
STER." It has been viewed more than ents that they shouldn't be supporting would win ifBiden was the Democratic
one and a half million ti.mes. Trump,"the Republican told me. (Long- nominee. They all said Biden.
Still, it proved impossi"ble to persuade well was reluctant to discuss her par-
hree weeks later, when the Dem-
Republicans to vote for impeachment. ents, except to say that she didn't ask
Longwell started outwith a list ofa few her father ifhe had voted for Trump in
do-am House members who she thought 2016, "because I didn't want to know.")
T ocratic majority in the House im-
peached Trump, all of Longwell's ini-
might be persuaded to break with At first, the two focus groups that tial targets-among them Adam
Trump. Afu:r one week. ofhearings, the Longwell had convened for our visit Kinzinger, of Illinois; Will Hurd, of
list rapidly shrank. First to go was Elise seemed to suggest that the President Tex25; and Francis Rooney, ofFlorida-
Stefanik, a Harvard-educated junior was in more political trouble than we voted no, along with every member of
memberofthe House Intclligmce Com- had realized. The groups-all women, the Republican caucus.
mittee, who sarcastically questioned all Trump voters with varying degrees Longwell nevertheless kept her con-
witnesses and ranted about the Demo- ofregret about him-started out iden- trarian optimism, hoping that some new
cratic-controlled process. "They just tically: when the moderator asked how rcvclation could shift the political mo-
Trumpify themselves immediately," many thought the country was going mentum in the upcoming Senate trial.
Longwell said. Stefanikwas soon doing in the right direction, not a single hand "To me, the only thing that seemed like
prime-time interviews on Fox News went up. The reason was their con- it could would be witnesses, hearing
with Sean Hannity and tweeting nasty cern about the President. In the sec- from people directly," she said. In the
nicknames at her 2020 opponent, a ond group, a retired nurse said, "He fucus groups in Pccnsyiwnia,thcwmnen
Democrat she disparaged as "Taxing has ability, but he's a1&o a narcissistic had been shown a series of impeach-
Tedra." Longwell likened the sudden sociopath. And I voted for him! We ment-related ads, and panned all ofthem,
shifts ofStefanik and others to "the In- all did." (When she said this, Long- except for one pressing Trump to agree
vasion of the Body Snatchers." well exclaimed from where we were to witnesses. ("What isTrump hi.ding?"
observing, behind a two-way mirror, it asked, showing pictures of his advis-
or as long as she had been fighting "We have a George!"-as in George ers with duct tape over their mouths.)
F Trump, Longwell had been travel- Conway, who had recently argued in
ling home to central Pennsylvania, The.AtlantitthatTrump has narcissistic
Longwell planned to pressure Sen-
ate Republicans to summon witnesses
hoping to understand his appeal to Re- personality disorder.) Others spoke of whom Trump had blocked from testi-
publicans. After the public impeach- the "degradation of the office of Pres- fying in the House. She was aware that
18 THE NEY ~MARCH 30, 2020
others might consider her "naive and
quixotic," or at least "annoyingly ear-
nest," but she was not ready to give up.
'Tm like Charlie Brown with the foot-
ball, right?-me thinking that these
guys are going to stand up."
As the House was conducting its im-
peachmentvote, which Kellyanne Con-
way dismissed as the result of Demo-
crats' "get-Donald-Trump obsession,"
her husband and other Never Trump-
ers announced the creation of the Lin-
coln Project, a group aimed at punish-
ing Trump's "Republican enablers" in
the Senate in the 2020 election. "There
has to be some political price for put-
ting party over country," George Con-
way told me. Earlier in the fall, he had
talked with.Anthony Scaramucci-who
had :Barned out as Trump's White House
communications director after only
eleven days and eventually became a
biting critic of the President-about Longwell. right. doesn't need the whole Party to abandon 'Ihlmp,just Mt- slice.
'\w;ys to get underTrump's skin."Con-
way wanted to run TV ads targeted at vote for a Democrat. She a.heady knew been a Republican my entire life."Then
the President that would feature an actor who they were: the audience of her she launched into a speech. "I've be-
playing Trump's disapproving fat:her- NeverTrump groups; the readers ofthe come persuaded that President Trump
an idea from the political strategist Rick Bulwark,which receives about two mil- is very bad for the Republican Party, in-
Wilson. Scaramucci wanted them to lion unique visitors a month and has cluding the fuct that he should be im-
start a political-action committee. In- had eleven million downloads of its peached," she said. She t:alkcd about the
stead, they created the Lincoln Project podcast in the past year; and the more dangers ofan out-of-control executive,
with an array of consultants who had than three hundred thousand people the future ofthe Republican Party, and
wmkcd on .Republican Presidential cam- who had signed petitions circulated by the hypocrisy of senators who claimed
paigns, including Wilson and Steve Republicans for the Rule of Law. to believe in the rule of Jaw for every-
Schmidt, as well as Jennifer Hom, who But as she watched the Democratic one except Trump.
had served on the Log Cabin board Presidential race unfold, with its falter- Longwell seemed to want to con-
with Longwell. ing front-runner and disjointed debates, vince someone, anyone, even a dozen
The new group ran scorching im- Longwell became increasingly discour- suburban moms munching chips in a
peachment-related ads against Repub- aged. For Republicans like her, the 2020 focus group on a Wednesday night. '1
lican senators seeking reel.ection in key Democrats ranged from uninspiring :really believe character counts in a Pres-
swing states. It also touted, on its Web (Biden) to terrifying (Sanders). Repub- ident," she said, "and I can tell you do
site, a comment byTrump's former strat- lican elected oflicials,mea.nwhile, seemed as well"But, while most of the women
egist Steve Bannon, which underscored to be even more vocally pro-Trump than did not love Trump, they did not really
Trump's vulnerability."We need the Re- before impeachment. When Longwell ca.re about him, either, and Longwell
~ publican establishment on board,"Ban- and I returned to Pennsylvania in Jan- did. The last word went to the Presi-
~ non told the Associated Press inJanu- uary for more focus groups, the women dent's most ardent backer. "I think
~ ary, noting Trump's narrow victories in were still leery oITrump and the direc- Trump is the one who could bring us
~ Pennsylvania, Michigan. and Wiscon- tion of the country, but this time the togt:ther ifDemocrats would stop £ght-
~ sin, the states that sealed his Electoral ~n was dominated by the most ing him so hard," she told Longwell
~ College win. "Ifthese guys can peel off pro-Trump woman in the room. Sound- "He has to have been one of the most
if three or four per cent, that's going to ing like a Fox News host on a roll, she influential politicians of all time. n
~ be serious." said, "I think they hate him so bad be-
~ cause he threatens their liberal agenda. few weeks later, on Friday, Janu-
i
~
This was also Longwell's theory
about 2020,and the reason for her focus
groups. She dichit need to convert every
They want to get rid of him any way
they can."
A aryJl,8t, Longwell and I met in her
brightnew office, overlooking McPher-
~ Republican in the room, just a few of At this point, Longwell abruptly son Square, in Washington. The night
~ them. Longwell planned to assembk a stepped out from behind the mirror and before, Senator Lamar Alexander had
; database ofdisafiCcted Republicans and interrupted the focus group. "I'm from put an end to the infuriating charade
... give them "permission structures" to Dillsburg," Longwell told them. "I've of a Senate trial, announcing that he
would oppose the Democrats' effort at least Mitt Romney, the one Repub- to swing them to.n After four years of
to force the Senate to hear testimony lican senator who had consistently setbacks, this looked increasingly like
from new witnesses. It was only a mat- sounded a publicly skeptical note about one :final unwelcome turn."It's like being
ter of days witil the President's preor- the President sinceJohn McCain's death. shot or poisoned," she said.
dained acquittal. in 2018, might vote to convict Trump. But Longwell was not conceding de-
Despite Longwell's months ofwork, "I do have a thought that he will," she feat. A few days after the Senate trial
the President was emerging from im- said. "I think he may." I joked with her ended, she launched an ambitious new
peachment emboldened and Wl.Checked. that she was a living example of the get-out-the-primary-vote effort,which
Republicans for the Rule of Law had Russian saying "Hope dies last." she called Center Action Now. Work-
run about two million doll2l's' worth of Five days later, on February 5th, ing with Tim Miller, the Never Trump
impeachment-related ads in thirty-nine Romney announced that he would vote activist from the failed Bush 2016 cam-
states and congressional districts, six- to convict Trump on one of the two paign, Longwdl raised more than three
teen ads nationally, and twenty-eight counts, abuse of power. It was a long million dolhrs and contacted her lists
digital billboards targeting Republican way &om the doun or so Senate Re- ofTnunp-dubious Republicans in states
members ofCongress in nineteen states. publicans who were once Longwell's that allowed them to participate in
But they had been up against what targets. Still,Trump did not get a unan- Democratic primaries, among them
Longwell's team estimated was almost imous Republican acquittal, which Michigan,TCXllS,and Vuginia.All told,
certainly more than forty million dol- at that point cowited as a victory for Center Action Now logged eight hun-
lars in ad spendingby pro-Trump furces. his opponents. "Mitt comes through!" dred thousand phone calls and text mes-
Her mantra in politics was all about Longwell e-mailed me. "Hope is not sages as Longwell turned her new office
managing public opinion, yet public entirely in vain." into an impromptu call center and she
opinion about Trump remained essen- and her staffactivated the NeverTrump
tiallyuncbangcd."On an objc:ctivc scale," ut new disappointments loomed. network they had spent the past few
she said that morning, ofher impeach-
ment campaign, "it was a failure."
B "Everything's bad," Longwell
me the morning the Senate came
trial
told years building.
In late February, Biden won a huge
She was also frustrated with the to an end. Bernie Sanders was leading victory in the South Carolina primary,
Democrats. "It has really started to in the polls heading into the New followed by a remarkable forty-eight
fed like they decided to impeach but Hampshire primary,just days away. E-vcn hams in which he amsolidatedthe Party's
they never really invested in impeach- for a diehard Never Trumper, the Ver- fragmented center behind him. Turnout
ing,n she said. In key swing states, the mont socialist, who promised aa revo- surged in the Republican-leaning sub-
ads from Republicans for the Rule of lution" with trillions of dollars in new urbs, and Biden, so recently written off
Law had been the only ones counter- government spending, was a reach. as politically dead, won ten of fourteen
ing the Trump barrage. She pointed Longwell was still, at least nominally, a states on Super Tuesday. Longwell and
out that public support for impeach- Republican. "Ifyou end up with a Ber- the NeverTrumpcrs cheered Bic:len's res-
ment shot up over fifty per cent after nie-Trump showdown, we're in such a urrection---and their awn.
the Ukraine allegations emerged, but fundamentally different place as a coun- Soon, the coronavirus pandemic and
never moved after that. "Public opin- try, and I'll tell you that place is really Trump's disastrously slow and dishon-
ion is like cement-it's soft at first and far from where I am1" she said. est initial response to it seemed to
you can move it, and then it hardens," Last April, Longwell wrote a piece threaten his Presidency more than im-
she said. ByDecember, it had hardened. for the Bulwark, warning Democrats, peaclunent ever had. The inside game
"The Democrats played no offense and "Do NOT IGNORE BERNIE SANDERS. in Washington was still over and lost.
the Republicans pla:ycd a ton ofoffense, HE IS GOING TO WIN THE NOMINA- The Republicans on Capitol Hill had
ultimately putting the Democralll on de- TION.AND HE IS NOT GOING TO BEAT made their choice to stickwith Trump.
fense," Longwell said. For a disciple of DONALD TRUMP."When I asked that But the election is another matter. Long-
Berman, that was unforgivable. When morning if she would vote for Sanders well does not need the entire Party to
you are on defense, you lose. against Trump, she hesitated. '1 don't abandon the President, just her slice of
She had mist:ilkenly believed, she ad- know. I don't think so,"she replied. She it. At her most optimistic, she dreams
mitted,"that there were elected Repub- considered Sanders essentially a Trump ofa "blowout defeat" to end Trumpism
licans who want to do the right thing, of the left. "All of the things I hate once and for all But she would settle
to act as a course correction. That has about Trump I hate about Bernie, too," for persuading enough suburban Re-
not happened." Her allies agreed. "The she said. publican moms in places like Dillsburg,
capitulation has been amazing," Kris- She had dedicated her careerto :fight- Pennsylvania, to vote against him this
to! told me. Conway said, when we met ing Trump's takeover of her party, but time. It might just be enough. In some
after the Senate trial; "The institutions her plan rested on the premise that Republican-leaning districts, turnout in
ofthe Republican Party are completely Democrats would offer a centrist alter- the Democr.a.tic primaries was up a hun-
at his beck and call There's no erring native. She was willing to vote for Bickn, dred per cent over 2016. "Hope renewal,"
whatsoever. No dissent is tolerated and but not Sanders. Longwell worried that Longwell wrote, when I e-mailed her
it is absolute and complete." she had built "a data machine to figure after Biden's comeback on SuperTues-
I asked Longwell ifshe thought that out how to swing voters, with no one day. "We're back in the game."•
20 THE NEY~ MARCH 30, 2020
The good news is that ifyou continue
SHOl!fS & MURMURS worrying you can avoid contracting the
virus entirely by dying of a premature
heart attack.
These few smallish changes to your
daily life-hand washing, wearing latex
gloves, not going out of doors, never
touching another living being--don't
have to be painful. Also, where possi-
ble, avoid surfaces of any kind, Trader
Joe's products, and the earth's atmo-
sphere, since all of those things might
have been exposed to the virus.
1 2 4 Don't touch your face, which is now
the most dangerous place in the world.
Ifthere are four words to use as a guide
GUIDELINES to remaining alive during this pandemic,
it's these: don't touch your face. Add
BY JOI-IN KENNEY them to our list of other words. Don't
panic wash your hands a lot never leave
on't panic. or bleed profusely. That's fine. There's your home don't touch your face. Sim-
Dwords
tant
These are the most impor-
two
remember.There no cause
to is
no law that says you can't walk around
with bloody hands.
ple. Ifyou do that, you will have, at best,
a fifty-per-cent chance ofliving through
for alarm. The chances of you or some- This isn't complicated. Some ~ the night. And that's great news.
one you know contracting the virus remade it sound complicated, but it's not. Question: Is my mouth part of my
main c:xtremdy smalLThough you prob- Except for the complication ofus hav- face, and can I brush my teeth ifl have
ably will contract the virus at some point. ing no idea where the next breakout washed my hands, donned surgical
Wash your hands. These are the three area will be. Butyou don't have to worry. gloves, unwrapped a new toothbrush,
most important words to remember. It's a big country. Though it does look and managed to rinse without touch-
We know we just said that don't panic like the next major outbreak. will be ing my lips?
were the two most important words. very close to where you are right now. The answer is yes. If you have a
But, ifthere were five words to remem- If you follow these seven simple death wish.
ber, it would be those five. words-don't panic wash your hands a What if someone shakes my hand
While you are not panicking, t:3ke lot never leave your home (let's add against my will?
the time to wash your hands again. It's those four)----you will in all probability Don't worry. That happens. It's im-
a simple thing we all do every day. And be fine, even though you will likely con- portant to go about your daily life and
that doesn't have to change. Except for tract the virus but will have little mem- do the things you normally do. As long
the number of times you do it. Ifyou oryofcontracting it owing to your fever, as those things involve not leaving your
wash your hands, say, an average offive loss ofconsciousness, and complete in- home.Ever. Somebodyshookyour hand,
times a day, keep doing that. But add ability to use any part of your body. you say? You're fine. Wash your hands.
an additional thirty to forty times a day. How much should you not feel the But scratch the person :first. Hard. On
It's that simple.There's no magic num- need to pank?This much: you don't need the neck. Then scream. You could say
ber. But close to fifty is a good place to a facc mask. Think about that. Think something like "You prick!" Or "What
be. And don't worry if you do it less about how safe you are if you can walk the fuck is wrong with you?!" Some-
than that. Though chances arc good around without a face mask. And the thing like that. In fact, it mlgh.t be good
that ifyou do it .less than that you will reason is that a fucc mask does absolutely to add those words to the most impor-
contract the most serious strain of the nothing but make you look silly. And by tant words you need to remember during
virus, which can result in death. "walk around" we mean walk around this crisis.Then run and wash )tXll'hands
Again. What are the two to five your home, not outdoors, which with- and then wash them again and then
words we must remember? Don't panic out a mask would be akin to suicide. pray to whichever god. you pray to. But
wash your hands. That's really all you But there's no need to panic. Yet. don't panic. These things happen.
need to know. Low-level stress and anxiety are per- When we said crisis just then, we
A lot. Let's add the words "a lot." fectly normal during a global crisis, certainly didn't mean a global emer-
Wash your hands more than you ever which this is not. Stress is so normal gency. We merely meant that the world,
thought a person could wash his or her that most Americans are feeling it right as you knew it, is over. But, again, there's
i hands. Ew:n ifyour hands start to bleed. now. Which is a perfectly healthy re- no need for panic. Ifthere are roughly
~ Which they will. It is perfectly normal sponse mechanism. And by "healthy" nine words you should remember, it's
il and not a cause for concern ifthe backs we mean incredibly dangerous, since these: This will all be over soon. Or pos-
g
_, ofyour hands begin to get diy or crack stress is a leading cause ofheart disease. sibly never. +
and, in the event, the gates had been
ANNALS OF CULTUl\E shut, and all were trapped. Everyone
behaved badly, though the rich behaved
the worst having failed to heed warn-
DON'T COME ANY CLOSER. ings to provision, they sent their poor
servants out for supplies. "This Neces-
What} at stake in ourfables ofcontagion? sity ofgoing out ofour Houses to buy
Provisions, was in a great Measure the
BY Jill. LEPORE Ruin of the whole City," Defoe wrote.
One in five Londoners died, notwith-
standing the precautions taken by mer-
chants.The butt:hcr refused to hand the
cook a cut of meat; she had to take it
off the hook herse1£ And he wouldn't
touch her money; she had to drop her
coins into a bucket ofvinegar. Bear that
in mind when you run out of Purell.
"Sorrow and sadness sat upon every
Face,"Defoe wrote. The government's
stricture on the publication of terrify-
ing books proved pointless, there being
plenty ofterror to be read on the streets.
You could read the weekly bills ofmor-
tality, or count the bodies as they piled
up in the lanes. You could read the or-
ders published by the mayor: "If any
Pason shall havt: visital anyMan known
to be infected of the Plague, or entered
willingly into any lmown~ House,
being not allowed: The House wherein
he inhabiteth shall be shut up."And you
could read the signs on the doors ofthose
infected houses, guarded by watchmen,
each door marked by a foot-long red
cross, above which was to be printed, in
letters big enough to be read at a dis-
tance, "Lord, Have Mercy Upon Us."
Reading is an infection, a burrowing
into the brain: books contaminate, met-
aphorically, and even mkrobiologi.cally.
't 'l Then the pkgw: came to London an advice manual called "Due Prepara- In the eighteenth century, ships'captrins
V V in 1665,Londoners lost thcirwit:s. tions for the Plague,"in 1{22, a year when arriving at port pledged that they had
They consulted astrologers, quacks, the people feared that the disease might leap disinfected their ships by swearing on
Bible. They searched thcir bodies for across the English Channd again, after Bibles that had been dipped in seawa-
signs, tokens of the disease: lumps, havingjoumeyedfiom the Middle East ter. During tuberculosis scares, public li-
blisters, black spots. They begged for to Marseille and points north on a mer- braries fumigated books by sealing them
prophecies; they paid for predictions; chant ship. Defoe hoped that his books in steel vats filled with formaldehyde gas.
they prayed; they yowled. They closed would be useful "both to us and to pos- These days, you can find out how to dis-
their eyes; they covered their ears. They terity, though we should be spared from infect books on a librarians' thread on
wept in the street. They read alarming that portion of this bitter cup." That Reddit. Your best bet appears to be ei-
almanacs: "Certain it is, books frighted bitter cup has come out ofits rupboard. ther denatumd-alrohol swipes or kitchen
them terribly."The government, keen In t.665, the skittish fled to the coun- disinfectant in a mist-spray bottle, al-
to contain the panic, attempted "to sup- try, and alike the wise, and those who though ifyou stick books in a little oven
press the Printing ofsuch Books as ter- tarried had reason for remorse: by the and heat them to a hundred and sixty
rify'd the People," according to Danid time they decided to leave, "there was degrees Fahrenheit there's a bonus: you
De.foe, in "AJournal ofthe PlagueYear," hardly a Horse to be bought or hired also kill bedbugs. ("Doesn't harm the
a history that he wrote in tandem with in the whole City," Defoe recounted, books!") Or, as has happened during the
coronavirus closures, libraries can shut
Sturies ofepidemics are stories oflanguage made powerless and man made brute. their doors, and bookstores, too.
THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020
https://t.me/WorldAndNews ILLUSTRATION BY KARO LIS STRAUTNIEKAS
But, of course, books are also a salve put it,"the last rclic ofa beloved race, my Man" she imagined the dismemberment
and a consolation. In the long centuries companions, extinct before me." The ofcivili7ation. Death by death, country
during which the plague ravaged Eu- book's narrator begins as a poor and by country, the human race descends,
rope, the quarantined, iftheywere lucky uneducated English shepherd: primi- rung by rung.down a ladder it had once
enough to have books, read them. Ifnot, tive man,violent and lawless, C\'t:Il mon- built, and climbed. Shelley's narrator,
and ifthey were well enough, they told strous. Cultivated by a nobleman and the erstwhile shepherd, bears witness to
stories. In Giovanni Boccaccio's De- awakened to 1eaming---"'An earnest love the destruction and abandonment ofall
cameron, from the fourteenth century, ofknowledge ... caused me to pass days the "adornments ofhumanity" that had
seven women and three men take turns and nights in reading and study"-he adorned his own naked self: law, religion,
telling stories for ten days while hiding is elevated by the Enlightenment and the arts, science, liberal government
from the Black Death-that "last Pes- becomes a scholar, a defender ofliberty, ("The nations are no longer!"),fi:eedom,
tilentiall mortalityunivmally hurtfull to a republican, and a citizen ofthe world. commerce, literature, music, theatre,
all that beheld it"---a plague so infa- Then, in the year 2092, the plague industry, transportation, communica-
mous that Boccaccio begged his read- arrives, ravaging first Constantinople. tion, agrirulture."Our minds, late spread
ers not to put down his book as too hid- Year after year, the pestilence dies away abroad through countless spheres and
eous to hold: "I desire it may not be so evcrywintcr ("a general and nevcr-&iling endless combinations of thought, now
dreadfull to you, to hinder your further physicianj,and returns everyspring,more retreru:hed themselves behind this wall
proceeding in reading... virulent, more widespread. It reaches offlesh, eager to preserve its well-being
The literature ofcontagion is vile. A across mountains,it spreads over oceans. only."As the pestilence lays waste to the
plague is like a lobotomy. It cuts away The sun rises, black: a sign of doom. planet, those few who survive are re-
the higher realms, the loftiest capaci- "Through Asia, &om the banks of the duced to warring tribes, until only one
ties of humanity, and leaves only the N'tle to the shores ofthe Caspian, from man, our narrator, is left, shepherd once
animal "Farewell to the giant powers the Hellespont everi to the sea ofOman, more. Wandering amid the ruins of
of man," Mary Shelley wrote in "The a sudden panic was driven," Shelley Rome, he enters the home of a writer
Last Man." in 1826, after a disease has wrote."The men filled the mosques; the and finds a manuscript on his writing
ravaged the world. "Farewell to the women, veiled, hastened to the tombs, table: "It contained a learned disquisi-
arts,-to eloquence."Every story ofep- and carried offerings to the dead, thus tion on the Italian language."Th.e last
idemic is a story of illiteracy, language to preserve the living." The nature of book is a study oflanguage, humanity's
made powerless, man made brute. the pestilence remains mysterious. "It :first adornment. And what docs our
But, then, the existence ofbooks, no was called an epidemic. But the grand narrator do, alone in the world? "I also
matter how grim the 12le,is itselfa sign, question was still unsettled of how this will write a book, I cried-for whom to
evidence that humanity endures, in the epidemic was generated and .increased." read?" He calls it "The History of the
very contagion ofreading. Reading may Not understanding its operation and Last Man," and dedicates it to the dead.
be an infection, the mind of the writer full of :fulse confidence, legislators hes- It will have no readers. Except, ofcourse,
seeping, unstoppable, into the mind of itate to act. "England was still secure. the readers of Shelley's book.
the reader.And yet it is also-in its bid- France, Germany, Italy and Spain,were
he great dream of the Enlighten-
den intimacy, an intimacy in all other
ways banned in times ofp1ag'ue---1m an-
tidote, proven, unfailing, and exquisite.
interposed, walls yet without a breach,
between us and the plague."Then come
reports ofentire nations, destroyed and
T ment was progress; the great dread
of epidemic is regress. But in Ameri-
depopulated. "The vast cities ofAmer- can literature such destruction often
tories about plagues run the gamut ica, the fertile plains ofHindostan, the comes with a democratic twist: conta-
S &om "Oedipus Rex" to "Angels in
America.'"'You are the plague," a blind
crowded abodes ofthe Chinese, are men-
aced with utter ruin." The fearful turn
gion is the last leveller. Edgar Allan
Poe's 1842 tale "The Masque ofthe Red
man tells Oedipus. "It's 1986 and there's to history too late, and find in its pages, Death"is set in a medieval. worldplagued
a plague, friends younger than me are even in the pages of the Decameron1 by a contagious disease that kills nearly
dead, and f m mily thirty," a Tony Kush- the wrong lesson: "We called to mind instantly. "There were sharp pains, and
ner character says. There are plagues the plague of 1348, when it was calcu- sudden dizziness, and then profuse
here and plagues there, from Thebes to lated that a third of mankind had been bleeding at the pores, with dissolution,"
New York, horrible and ghastly, but destroyed. As yet western Europe was Poe wrote. "The scarlet stains upon the
~one plague everywhere, until Mary uninfected; would it always be so?" It body and especially upon the face of
Shelley decided to write a follow-up to would not always be so. Inevitably, the the victim, were the pest ban which
'"Frankenstein." plague comes, at last, to England, but shut him out from the aid and from the
"The Last Man," which is set in the by then the healthy have nowhere left sympathy of his fellow-men." In par-
twenty-first century, is the first major to go, because, in the .final terror ofpan- ticular, the rich have no sympathy for
novd to imagine the c:xtinction of the demic, there is "no refuge on earth": "All the poor. (Not irrelewntly, Poe's rich
human race by way of a global pan- the world has the plague!" stepfather had entirely cut him oft; leav-
demic. Shelley published it at the age If, in "Frankenstein," Shelley imag- ing Poe penniless, and his wife was dying
of twenty-nine, after nearly everyone ined the creation ofa man bythe stitch- ofconsumption.) A haughty prince and
she loved had died, leaving her, as she ing together ofbody para, in "The Last his noblemen and women retire "to the
deep seclusion of one ofhis castellated Shelleis. "The human race is doomed "The Scarlet Plague,"published right
abbC)'ll,"where they live in depraved to sink back farther and farther into the before the Great War, also contains a
luxury until, one night, at a masked ball, primitive night ere again it begins its warning about the cost of world war,
a figure arrives wearing a mask "made bloody climb upward to civili7.ation,"the the cost, even, ofliving in a world. "Long
so nearly to resemble the countenance professor explains. For London. it's in- and long and long ago, when there were
of a stiffened corpse that the closest dustrial capitalism and imperialism, not only a few men in the world, there were
scrutiny must have difficulty in detect- the Enlightenment's engine of moral few diseases," the professor explains.
ing the cheat." The visitor is the Red progress, that drive the climb from sav- "But as men increased and lived closely
Death itsd£ Everyone in the abbey di.cs agery to civilization and from scarcity together in great cities and civilizations,
that night. The nobility cannot escape to abundance. London's descent of man new diseases arose, new kinds ofgerms
what the poor must endure. is a descent into a very particular age- entered their bodies.Thus were count-
Poe's red death becomes a pandemic of-cmpire heart ofdarkness: the profes- less millions and billions ofhuman be-
in Jack London's novel "The Scarlet sor's grandsons have "brown skin." Be- ings killed. And the more thickly men
Plague," serialized in 1912. (The dis- fore the plague came, capitalists and packed together, the more terrible were
ease is the very same; "The whole face imperialists amassed staggeringfortunes. the new diseases that came to be.n His
and body turned scarlet in an hour's "What is money?" the boys ask their grandsons cannot fathom any of this.
time.") The plague had come in the grandfather, when he uses that word to "'The census of2010 gave eight billions
year 201,3, and wiped out nearly every- descn"be a coin they find, minted in 2012. for the whole world," he tells them.
one, the high and the low, the powerful ("The old man's eyes glistened, as he They can hardly believe him, and have
nations and the powerless, in all comers held the coin.") All this-the white skin, no idea what a billion could be, or a
ofthe globe, and left the survivors equal the fortunes-was lost! The professor's census, or a world.
in theirwretchedness, and statelessness. greatest distress concerns the onetime "Ten thousand years of culture and
One ofthe handful ofsurvivors hadbeen chauffeur's having wed,byfura; the for- civilization passed in the twinkling of
a scholar at the University ofCalifornia, mer wife ofa magnate: "There she was, an eye,"the professor says. He has made
Bcrkcl.eJi a professor of English litera- Vesta Van Warden, the young wife of it his life's wmk to become a librarian,
ture. When the disease hit, he hid out John Van Warden, dad in rags, with to archive those ten thousand years. In
in the chemistry building, and turned marred and scarred and toil-calloused a cave on Telegraph Hill, he has stored
out to be immune to the virulence. For hands, bending over the campfire and alt the books he could .find, even though
years, he lived alone in an old hotel at doing scullion work-she, Vesta, who he is the only man living who knows
Yosemite, availing himself of its stores had been born to the purple ofthe great- how to read. "In them is great wisdom,"
ofcanned food, until, emerging,hejoined est baronage of wealth the world had he tells his grandsons, in the novel's final
a tiny band-the Chauffeurs, led by a ever known." Equally distressing, hav- chapter, explaining that he has left, as
brute who had once been a chauifeur- ing conquered the continent, the white well, a key to the alphabet. "'Some day
and even found a wife. When the novel man has, in the end, lost the West, and men will read again,"he promises them.
opens, in the year 2073, the professor is the East, too. The professor attempts to They have no idea what he is talking
a very old man, a shepherd, dressed in describe to his savage grandsons the fill about. s~ the reader does.
animal bide-"abouthis chest and shoul- ofAmerican cities,whose fate he learned
dcts hung a single, mangy garment of
goat-skin"-and living like an animal.
He tells the story ofthe scarlet plague
of in the earliest days ofthe pandemic,
when news could still reach California T he structure of the modem plague
novcl, all the way to Stephen King's
fiom other parts of the country, before "The Stand" and beyond, is a series of
to his grandsons, boys who "spoke in the last telegraph operators died: variations on "A Journal of the Plague
monosylbbles and shortjerky sentences Year" (a story set within the walls of a
New York City and Chicago were in quarantine) and"The Last Man" (a story
that was more a gibberish than a lan-
chaoll•.•. A third of the New York police were
guage," but who are very handy with a dead. Their chief wu also dead. likewise the set among a ragged band of survivors).
bow and arrow. Their primitivism dis- mayor. All law and order had ceased. The bod- Within those two structures, though,
tresses the professor, who sighs, as he k.I ~lying in the stn=cta un-buried. All rail- the scope for storytelling is vast, and so
looks out across what was once San roads and nsacls carrying food and such things is the scope for moralism, historical ar-
Francisco: "Where four million people into the great city had ceased running. and gument, and philosophical reflection.
mobs of the hungry poor were pillaging the
disported themsdves, the wild wolves stores and warehouses. Murder and robbery Every plague novel is a parable.
roam to-day, and the savage progeny of and drunkenness were everywhere. Already Albert Camus once defined the novel
our loins, with prehistoric weapons, de- the people had fled from the city by millions- as the place where the human being is
fend themsdvcs against the fanged de- at first the rich. in their private motor-cars and abandoned to other hUIIWl beings.The
spoilers.Think ofit! And all because of dirigibles, and then the gn:at mass of the pop- plague novel is the place where all
ulation, on fuot, carrying the plague: with them,
the Scarlet Death." thcmsclv=i st.arving and pilaging the fa.rmcn human beings abandon all other human
London stole the red death fiom Poe and all the towns and villages on the way. beings. Unlike other species of apoca-
and took the plot of"The Scarlet Phigue" lyptic fiction, where the enemy can be
from "The LastMan"-ar.ept that Lon- All the cities burned. Even the dirigi- chemicals or volcanoes or earthquakes
don's argument, about the decline and bles of the rich exploded into flames, or alien invaders, the enemy here is other
fall ofhumankind, is far less subtle than the world a Hindenburg. humans: the touch of other humans,
U THE NEY~ MARCH 30, 2020
the breath of other humans, and, very attention to the rats even after it's too incapacity ofevery man truly to share in
often-in the competition for dimin- late. This is their folly: "They fancied suffering that he cannot sec" is the sub-
ishing resources-the mere existence themselves free, and no one will ever ject ofJose Saramago's brilliant and dev-
of other humans. be free so long as there are pestilences." astating reimagining of the plague tale,
Camus, in his 1947 novel, "The "The Plague" does not chronicle a "Blindness,"from 1995, in which the De-
Plague," sets the story within the walls pandemic, in the sense that the plague foe-like doctor is an ophthalmologist
ofa quarantined French-Algerian town never escapes the town, and yet Camus's and the disease that reduces humans
during the Second World War (the year plague is a plague without end But Rieux to animals is the inability to see. As his-
is given as "194-"). With all its omens, learns, from reading history; that there torical parable, "Blindness" indicts the
prophecies, and scapegoats, it might as really is only one plague, twentieth-century authori-
well have been London in 1665. Dr. Ber- across all of human history, tarian state: the institution-
nard Rieux, along with everyone else, travelling from place to alization of the vulnerable,
at first fails to read the signs. ('The novel place, through the passage the ruthlessness of mili-
purports to be written from Rieux's note- oftime,from "Chinese towns tary rulers. When the dis-
books, his joumal. ofa plague year.) He cluttcml up with victims si- ease strikes, the government
watches a rat stumble, at his doorstep: lent in their agony to "the rounds up all the blind and
damp, putrefying pallets locks them up in a mental
It moved uncertainly, and its fur was sop-
ping wet. The a.nimal stopped and seemed to stuck to the mud floor at the asylum, where, blindly, they
be trying to get its balance, moved fcmvard Conmntinoplc lazar-house, go to war with one another.
again toward the doctor, b.alted again, then where the patients were They steal, they rape. "The
spun round on iuelf with a little squeal and hauled up from their beds blind are always at war, al-
fell on its side. Its mouth was slightly open
with hooks," to "cartloads of dead bod- ways have been atwar," Saramago writes,
and blood was spurting from it. After gazing
at it for a moment, the doctor went upstairs. ies rumbling through London's ghoul- in the novel's darkest observation.
haunted datk:ness-1lightB and days filled But "Blindness"is far darker than any
Rats come out .from cellars and die on always, everywhere, with the eternal historylesson. For Saramago, blindness
the streets, in heaps.And yet neither the cry of human pain." Next on the list? isn't a disease; blindness is the human
doctor nor anyone else does anything at Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald. The condition. There is, in the novel, only
all, until after the first human death, of plague is man. one person left with sight. She reads to
a concierge.Then remorse dawns: "Re- Haunted by this knowledge, Rieux, the blind, which, for them, is both a par-
viewing that first phase in the light of locked in an unwanted asylum, suffers adise and an exasperation: •Th.is is all
subsequent events, our townsfolk real- from an extremity of solitude and from we arc good for, listening to someone
ized that they had never dreamed it pos- the alienation and brutalityofmodernity: reading us the story of a human man-
sible that our little town should be cho- kind that existed before us." And that,
sen out for the scene of such grotesque Sometimc:s at midnight, in the great silence in the modem plague novel, is the final
of the sleep-bound town, the doctor turned on
happenings as the wholesale death of his ndi.o before going to bed fur the few hours' terror ofevcryworld-ending plague, the
rats in broad daylight or the decease of sleep he allowed himself. And from the ends loss of lmowledge, for which reading
concierges through exotic maladies.n of the earth, across thousands of miles of land itself is the only cure. It is this realiza-
Soon, we learn, "the whole town was and sea, kindly, well-meaning 1peaken tried tion that grips Saramago's ophthalmol-
running a temperature."The number to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did ogist, at the very moment that he loses
so, but at the same time proved the utter in-
of cases rises, and then it leaps. Eleven capacity of every man truly to share in suffer- his sight, before the disease is known:
deaths in forty-eight hours, then more. ing that he cannot see. the understanding of the preciousness,
The government health committee beauty, and fragility ofknowledge. Puz-
wishes to avoid using the word "phgue," For those in isolation, there is no world: zled by a patient who has come to his
but unless it is used emetgency measuics "the plague had swallowed up every- office after being stricken suddenly and
cannot be putin plaa:. Notices are posted, thing and everyone."They arc saved, at inexplicably blind-he secs not black.
but oaly in obscure places, and in very the last minute, by a serum, and the but only a milky whiteness-the eye
small type, and, as the doctor observes, town erupts in joyful celebration. In the doctor goes home and, after dinner,
"it wiis hanl to find in these notices any novel's dosing words, the doctor thinks consults the books in his library. "Late
indication that the authorities were fu:- of his reading. "He knew what those that night, he laid aside the books he
ing the situation squarefy."Fmally,in des- jubilant crowds did not know but could had been studying, rubbed his weary
peration, the government adopts a pol- have learned fiom books: that the plague eyes and leaned backin his chair," Sa.ra-
icy of"deratization" and, when thirty bacillus never dies or disappears for m.ago writes. He decides to go, at last,
people die in a single day,closes the town. good ..• and that perhaps the daywould to bed. "It happened a minute later as
The plague is, ofcourse, the virus of come when, for the bane and the en- he was gathering up the books to re-
Fascism. No one in the town gives much lightening of men, it would rouse up turn them to the bookshel£ Fll'St he per-
thought t.o the rats until it's t.oo late-- its rats again and send them forth to ceived that he could no longer sec his
even though the plague "rules out any die in a happy city." Men will always hands, then he knew he was blind."
future, cancels journeys, silences the ex- become, again, rats. Eve.rytbing went white.As white as
change ofvicws"--and few pay sufficient Camus's observation about "the utter a blank page. t
LETTER. Fl\OM CHENGDU
LIFE ON LOCKDOWN
Forty-five days ofawiding the corona'Dirus in China.
BY Prn.R. Hf.£5LEI\.
n the twenty-seventh day of uatedbeside a pleasant,tree-lined stretch
0 the coronavirus lockd.own in

Chengdu, in southwestern
China, five masked men appeared in
of the Fu River, and there's a subway
stop outside one ofthe side gates. But,
after the quarantine began, the subway
the lobby of my apartment building in was deserted and both side entrances
order to deliver a hundred-inch TCL were chained shut. Anybody who ar-
Xclusive television. It was late morn- rived at the main gate was greeted by
ing, and I was taking my nine-year-old an infrared temperature gun to the fore-
twin daughters, Arid and Natasha, out- head. The gun was wielded by a gov-
side to get some air. The three of us emment-asslgned volunteer in a white
also were wearing surgical masks, and hazma.t suit, and, behind him, a turn-
we stopped to watch the deliverymen. stile led to a thick plastic: mat soaked
I had never seen such an enormous1V; with a bleach solution.A sign read"Shoe
it arrived in an eight-fuot-long box that Sole Disinfecting Asea,"' and there was
weighed more than three hundred alWll}'B a trail ofwet prints leading away
pounds. Two ofthe deliverymen stood from the mat, like a footbath at a pub-
inside an devator with a tape measure, lic swimming pool
trying to figure out whether the box: Compared with other places, our
would fit. Otherwise, itwas going to be compound's restrictions were relatively
a long haul up the stairs to the twenty- light. We could leave and return as oftm
eighth floor. as we pleased, provided that we carried
By that point, the country was deep passes that had been issuedbythe neigh-
into the most ambitious quarantine in borhood committee,the most local level
history, with at least seven hundred and ofthe Communist Party. The majority
sixty million people confined la.rgely to of my friends in other parts of China
their homes.The legal groundwork had were restricted to one individual per
been established onJanuary 20th, when household going out every two days,
the National Health Commission des- and often that person had to tell the
ignated the highest levcl. of treatment authorities where she was headed. Even
and control to fight the new c:orona- at our complex, which has few foreign
virus, which eventually became known residents, it was rare for people to go
as COVID-19. After that, provinces and outside. All restaurants, government
municipalities issued their own regu- offices, and most shops had been closed,
lations, and the Chengdu government and, after the Lunar New Year holiday
passed its first measures onJamw:y 24th. ended, in February, all schools would
They were tightened seven days later, be suspended indefinitely. One of the
when it became clear that the epidemic: new Chengdu measures even banned
had reached a point ofcrisis: during that "every sort of group dinner party."
week, the number of reported deaths Most ofmy rn:ighbois ordered things
in China had increased more than six- on Taobao, one of the world's biggest
fold. By the end ofJanuary, there were e-commerce sites, and they got their
a total of n,791 c:onfumed cases, with food delivered ti:om Fresh Hema, a na-
two hundred and fifty-nine deaths. tionwide grocerychain that has a branch
My family rents an apartment in a nearby. (Both Taobao and Hema are
nine-building complex not far from the owned by the Alibaba Group, a Chi-
center ofChengdu, where I teach writ- nese technology company.) All day, mo-
ing at a local university. We chose the torcycle deliverymen handed offitems
place, last September, primarily fur its to the security guards, who trundled
location: the apartment blocks are sit- through the compound's grounds with Mash were required, and they made it easier
for people to ignore rme another. The costumes ofthe quarantine, along with other restrictions, turnedpeople inward.
ILLUSTRATION BY ANUJ SHRESTHA
dollies and shopping carts, dropping off the place was silent except for a public- After the epidemic began, though, I
boxes and bags. In my lobby, the most service message, played on an endless saw that recurring phrase-"I'm going
packages I counted at any time was a loop, that warned nonexistent passen- to the hospital!"-in a new light. The
hundred and twenty-five, all of them gers to watch their step. Ariel and Na- textbook was accurate: if somebody's
marked with apartment numbers in tasha ran up and down all the escala- ear hurts, often her only option is to go
black ink. Sometimes it was posSJ'ble to tors in the wrong direction, laughing. straight to the hospital. In China,there's
see what was inside. On the morning This was our usual morning routine no comprehensive primary-care system,
that the Xcl.usivc1Vwas delivered, the during the lockdown.They hadiit seen which is one ICaSOn that the coronavirus
contents ofother packages another child their age for spiralled out of control so quickly in
reinforced the impression nearly a month. Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province,
that people had settled in After we returned to the where the epidemic started. Some ofthe
for the long haul: two elec- compound, and had the in- most awful images from the early days
tric power strips for Apart- frared gun pointed at our were videos of mob scenes at hospitals,
ment 1101, three bottles of foreheads, and crossed the where terrified citizens, many of them
Omo laundry detagent for bleach footbath, the deliv- sick, clamoml to be tested and treated.
3003, a huge box of fresh erymen were retumingwith Contact in these crowds undoubtedly
ginger for 3704- the empty box on a dolly. accelerated the rate of infection.
I tried to strike up a con- The man wearing the hol- A number of the earliest cases oc-
versation with one of the ster explained that once curred in people who worked at the Hua-
TV deliverymen. He was theyd removed the top half nan Seafood Wholesale Market, which
standing near the elevator door, and he ofthe box and stood the TV on its end sold live :6.sh and animals. Epidemiolo-
wore his surgical mask in the position theyd been able to fit it in the elevator. gists told me that they still don't know
that I call "the holster."'Ibis is when a He still diddt seem very cager to talk. the nature of the spillover event-the
man keeps the straps around his cars moment when the disease leaped from
but pulls the mask down beneath his ast September, my wife, Leslie, and animals to hwnans. Scientists believe that
chin, usually so that he can spit or
smoke a cigarette. Another Chengdu
L I enrolled the girls in the third grade
at a local public schoo~ in part so they
the virus began in bats and likely passed
through an intermediate host; some spa:-
measure demanded that citizens stop would leam Chinese. Like the other stu- ulate that this may have been pangolins,
spitting, but I still occasionally saw dents, they also took English, and Unit 2 scaly anteaters that are sometimes con-
people holstering their masks and in their reittbook was titled "My Body." sumed as a delicacy in China.
hawking loogies. I asked the delivery- All anatomical vocabuWywas taught in ByDecember, the disease had started
man what he would do if the TV the context ofinjuries, illnesses, or mis- to spread among people. Some early
wouldn't fit inside the elevator. haps. There were cartoons of children victims included medical staffwho, un-
"It'll :6.t," he said. "No problem." lying in hospital beds, with labels that aware that they were dealingwith a new
He pulled the mask back over his identified the patient, the age, and the strain of virus, lacked appropriate pro-
fu.ce. People were much warier ofstrang- symptom: "Bill--8years old-foot hurts"; tective gear. In Wuhan, a small num-
ers than usual, and sometimes if I got "Ben--10 years old-leg hurts"; "Lily--9 ber ofdoctors tried to report what they
in the dcvator with another resident years old~ar hurts." One lesson read: were seeing, but officials suppressed
he turned his back to me. Most people In the morning. I play with Lucky. He bita
their comments. Li Wenliang, an oph-
were aware that our compound was, at my hand! It really hurt1. thalmologist, warned his colleagues via
least by local standards, a hot spot. On At Lunchtime, I bite my tongue. It really WeChat. Li was subsequently sum-
the various apps that mapped the gov- huru. moned by the police, who forced him
ernment-issued statistics for corona- In the afternoon, I play football with Andy. to sign a confession saying that he had
He kicks my leg. It really hurts.
virus cases, our compound lit up bright This is ll very bad day!
"seriously disturbed the social order."
red. There had been a positive test for Li became seen as a martyr after his
a resident somewhere in the complex-- Forweeks, Ariel and Natasha returned death from the disease was announced,
the only one in our neighborhood. home imilllting the class& taped dialogues, on February7th, and local officials even-
The deliverymen weren't making which invariably ended with the phrase tually issued an apology to his family.
fast progress with the TV, and Ariel 'Tm going to the hospital!" It seemed to The covcrup gave the virus more
and Natasha were eager to leave, so we confirm an unscientific impression that time to spread unabated. But, in early
went out the gate. Next to the river, I've long held of the Chinese view of January. once Chinese health officials
a long row of ride-share bikes had health: namely, that people are even more grasped the seriousness ofthe situation,
hardly been touched for weeks, and fearful about children's safety here than they moved quickly. "Within three days,
I used my phone to unlock one. The they are in other places I've lived. My they had scientists who were able to se-
twins liked the challenge ofriding the daughters often complained that at re- quence and characterize the structure
adult-size b.ikes---they took turns wob- cess the simple jungle-gym equipment ofthe virus,which is unheard of,"Wafaa
bling along the empty riverside path. attheir school was strictlylimited to sixth El-Sadr, the director ofICAP, a global-
After that, we visited the zombie sub- graders, because teachers believed that health center at Columbia University,
way station. It was still operating, but younger childrenwould injure themselves. told me. She said that recent advances
in technologymade the sequencing pos- treatment was improving, but also be- old daughter at home. He had consid-
sible, a crucial step that allowed scien- cause the early testing didn't include ered checking into a hotel to isoJate him-
tists to develop ways to diagnose the many people who were mildly sick or self from family; but the few places that
disease and to start to identify meth- asymptomatic. (The percentage of in- remained open required special approval;
ods of treatment. fections that are asymptomatic is one the city had been shut down more com-
But for Wuhan it was already too of the major unanswered questions pletcly than anypW:e else in China. Fear-
late, because the first wave ofinfections about the virus.) ing a run on necessary goods, the gov-
overburdened hospitals. With many The reaction of medical staffin Wu- ernment had stepped in. Like Chengdu,
health-care workers falling sick, and han was sometimes angry. I frequently Wuhan is the capital. ofa populous inland
with an urgent need for more support, exchanged messages with a Wuhan h011- province, but now the two cities seemed
reinforcements were sent from other pital pharmacist whom rn call Zhang, to belong to different worlds, different
parts ofChlna. During the quarantine, who had seen a dozen colleagues fall eras. A few days after the hundred-inch
I sometimes talked on the phone with sick. One remained in critical care. "We TV passed through my lobby, Zhang de-
an I.C.U. physician from Huaxi, a didn't have enough protective devices scribed howWuharis neighborhood com-
Chengdu hospital that is recognized as and we weren't cautious enough," he mittees had taken charge ofall purchas-
the best fu:ility in southwcstcrn China. wrote.When I asked about the root cause ing and delivery arrangements:
After volunteering to go to Wuhan, ofthe epidemic, he was blunt
seven hundred miles east of Chengdu, Our basic needs are met (at least food and
My personal opinion is that the govc:rn- clothing are enough). It feels like the era of
the LC.U. physician was assigned to mcnt hu alwaya been careless and they sup- planned economy when I was little. ... There
the Red Cross hospital, which is less pressed dissent. Those are two of the direct are barely any cigarctta, alcohol, tea, snacks,
than a mile from the seafood market causes. Because of thi11 they lost the golden drink., or pet food available. Maybe things
opportunity to control the virus.... I don't will get better later, who !mows~
where the virus first took hold.
believe the state-run media or read their re-
'"It was like the epicenter," he told ports. On the contrary, I pay more attention
n the thirty-ninth day ofthe lock-
me, during one of our conversations.
"There are a little more than four hun-
dred beds, but they were getting two
to what my friends say. You asked about my
fint reaction~ In fad:, even now I am not very
frightened by this diseue. I jwt take ncte11-
0 down, the packages in my lobby
included a box of houseplants for 370,3
thousand patients a day.They were add- sary precautions. But rm worried sick that if
and some flowers for 290,3. It was now
I get it I might infect my family.
ing beds, and some sick people just March, and sometimes I saw people on
found places to lie down." Zhang was still working long hows, their balconies, tending plants. But it
Like other people in Wuhan with and he had a wife and an eleven-year- still seemed rare for residents to leave
whom I communicated,the doctor askr.d
me not to use his name. Since the ini-
tial covcrup, the Chlnese government
has seemed determined to report num-
bers openly, but it still attempts to con-
trol the human narrative. aKeep your-
self politically disciplined," an internal
notice from Xiangya Hospital, an in-
stitution in Hunan Province, informed
staffwho had gone to Wuhan. "Do not
talk to outsiders in private."
The I.C.U. physician was one of
about two hundred Huaxi staff who
had been sent to Wuhan, and when I
talked to him on February 22nd he said
that none of his colleagues had been
infected. He seemed c.onfident that they
would stay healthy, and he attributed
the high death rate in Wuhan to the
time it took to recogniu a new disease.
The difference from the rest of Chlna
was striking: on February 29th, when
the government issued an analysis of
more than fifty-five thousand confirmed
cases, 5.8 per cent in Wuhan had re- "Set O'lJe1Z tojiw hundred degrees. While preheating. get stepladder
sulted in death, compared with 0.7 per and turn offsmoke alarm. Then season brisket, chop herb
cent in other parts of China. The lat- medley, and turn offsmolte alarm again. Resume chopping herb medley,
ter number seemed likely to decline peelpotatoes, slip offstepladder while angrily trying to remove
significantly over time-in part because the batteryfrom the smoh alarm ... "
I WON'T LIVE LONG
enough to see any of the new

dreams the hundreds of new kinds of suffering and weeds birds animals shouldering their
demise without possibility of re-
generation the heart in your tiny chest opening its new unimaginable ways of
opening and to what might it still
open. Will there still be
such opening. Will you dare. I will not be there
to surround you withe past w/my ways of
knowing-to save
you-shall you be saved-from what-
home from fighting are you, remembering how he or she or they looked at you
while you both fed the machine or built the trough in dirt
where it will be necessary to
plant again-will it open-will the earth open-will the seeds that remain-will you know to
find them in
time-will those who have their lock on you
let the openings which are
chance unknowing loneliness the unrelenting arms of
funn, which knows not yet the form
it will in the end
be, open and
form? Will there be islands. Will there be a day where you can affwd to think back far
enough to the way we loved you. Words you said
for the first time
as we said them. Mystery your grandfather said one day, after saying rhhh listen to the
birds & you sat so still,
all your being arcing out to hear,
and the bird in its hiding place gave us this future, this moment today when you can recall-
can you-bis saying, there,
that's a m.ysmy.
And you said the word as if it were new ground to stand on,
you uttered it to stand on it--
mystery. Yes, mystery he said. Yes mystery you said
talking to it now as it
took its step out of the shadow into the clearing and there you
saw it in the so-called in-
visible. Then when the wave broke the first time on what had seemed
the compound. When women went sion. On my floor, residents wore them the low-rider-this is when you pre-
downstaU:s to pick up packages, itwasn't even if they were merely dropping off tend that you are obeying the rules but
unusual for them to be dressed in pa- gubage, ten feet fi:om their door. Mask.- actually tug the mask down so that your
jamas, even in the afternoon. In the wearing, after all, w.as required by the nostrils are uncovered.
lobby, management provided a spray new measures, and people were dili- Health-care professionals told me
bottle of seventy-five-per-cent-alcohol gent I often saw motorcycle delivery- that masks have no value in uncrowded
solution, and sometimes I saw a masked, men helmetless and fiddling with their outdoor settings, where infection isn't
pajama-clad resident standing in a pud- phones at thirty miles an hour, their a risk. and most people wore them im-
dle ofthe stuff; spraying her hands, pack- masks safelyin place.When I went run- properly even when they weren't hol-
ages, shopping b~ whatever. ning along the river at dawn, the few stering or low-riding. The notion of
People rarely spoke in these situa- other people who were out sometimes these things playing a talismanic role
tions. There were no greetings, no jokes, shouted at me for being bare-faced. isn't new. In "The Plague," published
no moments ofcommiseration. Part of Ariel and Natasha despised the things, in 1947, Albert Camus described two
it was the masks, which were an obses- and I gave them permission to go with characters in a hospitlll:
terra 6rma and you knew as he held your hand

insisting you hold your ground
that there was foreclosure,
there was oldness of a kind you couldn't fathom, and there was the terrifying
suddenness of the
now. Your mind felt for it. It felt the reach from an elsewhere and a dip which cannot hold.
Splash went the wave.
Your fi:et stood fast.
Your hem was touched.
We saw you watch.
We felt your hand grip
but not to move back..
Can you find that now now, wherever you are, even a candle would be a gift I know
from there. Shhh he said so you could hear it. Pity he said
not knowing to whom.
Pity you said, laughing, pity pity, and that was the day of
your being carried out
in spite of your cold, wrapped tight, to see the evening star. And he pointed. And you
looked up. And you took a breath I hear even now as I go
out-the inhalation of dark secrecy fear distance the reach into an almost-touching
of silence, of the thing that has no ncighbors and never will, in you,
the center of which is noise,
the outermost a freezing you can travel his arm to with your gaze
till it's there. The real. A star. The earth is your
home. No matter what they tell you now and what program you input via your chip or port
or faster yet, no, no, in that now I am not there
in, to point, to take your now large hand and say
look, look through these fronds,
hold your breath,
the deer hiding from the hunter is right here in our field,
it knows we are too,
it does not fear us.
Be still. Wait. And we, we
will be left behind.
Except just now. Ifyou still once.
That you might remember.
Now. Remember now.
-Jorie Graham
He opened one and took two gauze masks whatever space was left to them.Among healthy. Ifquarantined Americans were
out of a sterilizer, offered one to Rambert and the packages in my lobby, I notia.d many forced to survive on delivery fuod, health
asked him to put it on. The journalist asked if home furnishings and cleaning imple- officials would want to track theX curvt:
it sCIVCd any purpose and Tarrou maid no, but
that it inspired confidence in others. ments: a P.incai-brand storage cabinet ofbody-mass iru:l.cx: rising across the drop
for 602, a Deema vacuum cleaner for in mronavirus cases.In Chengdu,though.
Masks also make it easier for people 2304, a giant carpet, wrapped in tape my neighbors were obviouslyc:ooking: lots
to ignore one another. Ifresidents passed and plastic, for 303. There was home- offresh vegetables and fruit. I never saw
me in the courtyard, they avoided eye office equipment (wireless mouse, 4201; evidence ofalcohol going anywhere other
contact; some wore see-through plastic file cabinets, 301). By the forty-fowth than 1901: my apartment. The govern-
gloves and surgical booties in addition day, somebodyin3704 had felt the need ment had strategically allowed cigarette
to the masks. These costumes of the to buy an dectric footbath machine and alcohol shops to remain open-these
quarantine, along with all the other re- from Kosaka. ("Powerful by Dreams.") were among the very few phces of bus-
strictions, helped turn citizens inward, From what I could tell, the lockdown iness that never shut down. But, when I
and people directed their energytoward diet of my neighbors was remarkably talked to store ownm in myneighborhood,
ing in Wuhan and Chengdu. In a subse-
quent report, the WH.O.announced,"In
the face of a previously unknown virus,
China has rolled out perhaps the most
ambitious, agile, and aggressive disease
co.ntWunent effort in history."One mem-
ber ofthe delegation, Dale F'ISh.ei; a pro-
fessor of medicine who specializes in
infectious disease at the National Uni-
vemty of Singapore, told me that Chi-
na's actions prevented hundreds ofthou-
sands of cases and thousands of deaths.
"I can look at the epidemic cwvt:," he
said, citing the government-issued sta-
tistics. "I can look at the trajectory it had
and the trajectory that appeared afterJan-
uary ZJrd, and there's no doubt."
But other scientists wondered about
the sustainability of the effort. Wafaa
El-Sadr, the epidemiologist at Colum-
bia, told me that drastic measures had
been necessary in Wuhan, because the
health-care system had been so over-
burdened. But she wasn't certain that
the same approach made sense in a pW:c
like Chengdu, which had a population
ofsixteen million and had seen a hun-
dred and forty-three cases and three
deaths bythe beginning ofMarch. "You
don't need to have a complete shutdown
ofa city like Chengdu,"she said "What
you need is very focussed intervention.
"I think my dad is lo.ring his memory-he keeps Identify cases early, and manage them
forgetting to say hes proud ofme.,. and their contacts appropriately."
Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist
at theJohns Hopkins Center for Heal.th
• • Security, believed that China's quaran-
tine would inevitably be a temporary
they said that sales were terrible. There with our trips to the bikes and the sub- solution. "As soon as schools open, and
are many types ofloneliDcss in this world, way station, I usually put my daughters as soon as people get back to work, and
but it's a unique sensation to fed that on our treadmill every three days or so. as soon as people start cin:ulating in the
you are the only individual in a forty- In Wuhan, Zhang the pharmacist was world-China is a global rountry-the
three-story building who is drinking his also doing the best he could: virus will be back," she told me. "I don't
way through a quarantine. fully understand what the endgame is
People who spend a lot of time in a confined
I seldom saw children. I knew they space tend to become lazy and depressed. It's in terms of these measures."
were up there: a Mini Table Football not easy to motivate them. I'm now teaching my Marc Llpsitch, an epidemiologist
game to 2703, a Huanqi toybox to 1804. daughter to practice Ping-Pong against the liv- who directs the Center for Communi-
The compound printed out documents ing-room wall. My childhood Khool didn't have cable Disease Dynamics, at Harvard
on request, and sometimes the lobby '°many Ping-Pong table.. We u.ed to do that a University, was more positive about
lot. Now she is quite skilled at it. Other times,
contained homework assignments for I encourage her to ablJld up and play the guitar, China's strategy. But he noted that the
kids who were attending school on- moving to the beat, like a real band guitarist. next step was difficult-he compared
line: for 2102, a chapter on chemistry; it to letting the air out of a balloon
for 3802, a handout on poems :&om the t was widely acknowledged that Chi- slowly. "I think it will bounce back,"he
Northern and Southern dynasties. But, I
na's measures had been remarkably
in the early weeks of the lockdown, dfectivc at haltingthe advance ofthe dis-
said, of the virus. "But you will have
delayed things, and, if you don't let it
children didn't even venture into the ease. In mid-February, the World Health bounce back too much before you put
courtyard, because parents were so Organization sent twenty-five Chinese the clamps on again, then you may
frightened of the disease. I had no idea and international expertJI to visit medi- spare the hospitals from getting over-
what they were doing for exercise. Even cal facilities around the country, includ- whelmed. But it's a really painful process,
3l THE NEY~ MARCH 30, 2020
and people are going to get tired ofit." them think about fear or claustropho- to stop by his office the following morn-
In the meantime, there were no an- bia: "Chernobyl,"•Parasite,"and another ing, which was a Saturday.
~ts ofhowlongschoolswould South Korean movie, called "Flu." Our convmationwas masked on both
be closed, or when the lockdown might For the fust week ofclass, I assigned sides. He was middle-aged, a serious man
be lifted.Many measures seemed likely John Cheever's "The Enormous Radio." in a blue bLm:rwith a safety-pinned arm-
to continue inddinitcly. Every day be- In the story; a couple acquire a radio that band that said "Party Member Service
fore noon, like many workers across the allows them to listen to the conveniations Team." He had grown up in the neigh-
country,I was required to take my tem- in other apartments in their building. borhood,where his father had also wmbd
perature and submit it in a standard- After reading it, my students mentioned for the government. The old man had
ized form to my employer. The form things that they had noticed around their come out ofretirement to don a hazmat
also required me to testify that I'd had homes: how people cringed ifyou hap- suit during the epidemic--he was one of
no personal. contact with people from pened to cough in the elevator, or how, the volunteers who checked temperatures
Wuhm or elsewhere in Hubei in the when there was a report that a family in front of apartment buildings.
past fourteen days. was under observation for the virus, they The office contained a narrow vinyl-
That part was easy, because it was were shunned by neighbon. Th.ere were covcred couch.and the Party secretarytold
rare to have an old-fushiorn:d mask.-tn- also moments ofbrightness: one student me that he had slept there for the first
mask. conversation with anybody. Apart described how the rooftop of his apart-- two weeks of the quarantine, when he
from home life, my interactions were ment block had become a communal WllS working from 8 A.M. to midnight
mostly by e-mail, phone, or WeChat, space for people to relax and socialize, every day. His home was in a distant
and often the subject ofthese c:xchanga; because they were restricted from leav- northern suburb, and he couldn't afford
was the isolation itsel£ A former stu- ing the building. Some students reported the time to commute. In Chengdu, there
dent of mine wrote, after her husband that the experience of the past month arc 1,685 neighborhood committees, and
returned to his factory job, "When it's had brought them closer to their parents. each had prepared a quarantine team lilce
time to work. he needs to wear a gas Any complaints tended to be leavened the one near my home. Most details of
mask that covers the whole head." She with humor. One student began a paper: our local lock.down-the information
described the scene during lunch break: boards, the hazmat thermometer work-
Thia i.s a really special time. Almost all the ers-had been managed by the team,
[He] tabs a seat alone at a table, which is people in Chinahave ID lock themselwl al: home,
set far apart from another one. And he ha& to ju1t because of a tiny coronavirw. People hate which consisted of thirty-eight people,
face the same way as other workers. No talking. this coronavirus, hate bats carrying this corona- mostly volunteers. In a jurisdiction of
People say OD lntemet that the way they eat virus, and hate other people who eat these bats. nearly six thousand residents, there had
reminds them of the way they took the Col- been exactly one case ofcoronavirus: the
lege Entrance Eiramination.
t the entrance to my compound, the person in my compound.
I taught all my writing classes online.
I had met only one of the students be-
A Communist Party's neighborhood The Party secretary explained that
c.ommittee erected a series of informa- the resident had travdlcd tn his home
fore, and I never saw any of their &a:s. tion boards.They displayed the new ep- town, in Hubei, during the Lunar New
We interacted over audio and text:. I tried idemic measures, along with an organi- Year holiday. In the early days of the
to have discussions, but it was time-con- zational chart for an entity called the epidemic,the government tracked such
sumingto switch back and forth between CornmunistPartyServiceTeamforHome links so intensively that locals became
different microphones; the classes were Quarantine. Head shots and cell-phone terrified bythe sight ofa car with Hubei
too large to have everybody on at once. numbers ofseven officials we.re included. plates. Many Chengdu hotels turned
Last semester, the students had lived in away guests from Wuhan, so the gov-
donnitories in Chengdu, but now they ernment finally designated twelve lodg-
were scattered across the country, in their ings to accept them. A friend of mine
home towns. The most distant was in in another part ofthe city passed along
Jilin, not far from Siberia. Of my six- a WeChat conversation that had oc-
ty-plus students, nobody personallyknew curred among people in her compound:
someone who had oontracred the virus.
A number of them told me that they Resident 1: Yesterday somebody said there
bad not set foot outside their apartments was a. car with Hnbei plates at the undcground
car park of Building 2.
for more than a month. Property Management: O.K., I will 1end
Qyite a few hadleamed to cook. One I had neycr lived anywhere in Chinawhere somebody immediately to check it out.
boy happily reported that, because his such information was posted in public. Raident 2: Whattbe fuck?This is not funny!
home had a treadmill and some dumb- One afternoon, I dialled the number Raident 1: Please have the door guard pay
bells, he had lost twenty pounds. An- at the top ofthe chart.The quarantine- attention ...
Resident 2: I think that now we should
other described a day when he and his team leader picked up immediately, and, show our I.D. card to go in and outlll
father, after a month ofbeing restricted after I introduced myself, she promised Resident 3: Quickly, call 110 [police] or
to their building, took turns cutting each to arrange an interview; within an hour, 120 [emcgency ambulance].
other's hair. Some had been~ books I received a call from the neighborhood
orwatching movies and shows that nw:le committee's Party secretary. He told me In my neighborhood, the Party team
organiud periodic door-to-door sur- Everyone grumble• a lot, but everyone adult writing a book and another teach-
veys, which was how they learned ofthe obeys the mies strictly. It's very contradictory, ing full time, none of this seemed sus-
but it's Chim.. Our cultural traditions dictate
resident's Hubei trip. Thus fa.r, people tainable, but we had made the decision
our thinking. We will 1.11e the word "victory"
had come to my apartment three times, to describe the final end of the epidemic, al- to stay.The girls' foreign friends had all
and they always asked about Hubei and though I pcnonally don't like that description. been evacuated at the beginning of the
Wuhan. Their policy was to call the quarantine, and the families of their
community's Health Service Center if It was comm.on for Chinese lead- Chinese classmates weren't meeting
anybody had visited those places. ers to speak in such terms-President with anybody. All over the city, children
"They came and checked his tcm- Xi Jinping had declared that the coun- remained isolated.
petature---it was 37.l;" the Party sec:re- try would "defeat the virus." Eventu- I suspected that this wu particularly
tary told me, using the Celsius figure. ally, President Trump's Twitter feed hard on middle- and high-school stu-
(The temperature was normal.) "He would adopt a similar tone. ("wE WlLL dents. Young people in general suffer
didn't feel sick, but the health officials WIN!j I asked Zhang to explain what significant stress in China, where sui-
tested him for the coronavirus, and it he meant. cide is the leading cause ofdeath among
was positive." Later, the man showed There is a bad tendency in China right DDW
those aged between fifteen and thirty-
mild symptoms, which meant that the for the state propaganda department to tum five. In the nineteen-nineties, I was an
team had caught him at a critical time: what should be n:mcmbcrcd u a aad incident instructor at a teachers' college in Fu-
he'd appeared normal but may have into a comforting one. They are acc1.11tomed ling, a small city less than three hun-
been contagious. He spent ten days to 1.11ing the word "vittoty• toward everythlng, dred miles east of Chengdu, and most
the 1<>-called man can conquer nature. I don't
under observation in the hospinil, and think there is joy in such an incident. So many
of my students now teach in middle
then he was quarantined at home for people died, and their familie1 won't think this and high schools. They often live in
fourteen days. is a victory whatsoever. third- and fourth-tier cities, where the
I asked the Party secretary when we shift to remote education seemed prob-
would be allowed to enter our com- uring the lockdown, the Minis- lematic. "As for the classes online, it
pound without the passes, and he said,
"I think it will be two fourteen-day
D try of Education estimated that
more than two hundred and twenty
couldiit be much worse," a high-school
teacher wrote me. "The students can't
periods." He seemed to think in this million children and adolescents had control themselves."He said that all his
unit oftime, which is the standard span been confined to their homes. At our students followed lessons on mobile
ofa stringent quarantine. He estimated daughters' school, for the first three phones,which seems common in smaller
that my daughters' school wouldn't re- weeks of the semester there were no cities,where families often don't believe
sume until mid- or late April-three online classes for the younger grades, that a spare laptop or tablet is neces-
more fourteen-day units. When I asked although they were given some mate- sary. And it requires significant disci-
if there had been much resistance to rials, including a school project titled pline to focus on online lessons. My
the new policies, he shook his head. "The Coronavirus and Everybody's current students seemed to handle the
"Ninety per cent of the population Battle Against the Epidemic."Then adjustment well, but they arc at one of
agrees," he said. "We have some peo- the school started holding short les- China's better universities, and all of
ple who think it's not convenient, and sons online, but Leslie and I thought them have c.omputers.
t:lu:ywant to go out and playmah-jongg that children of that age shouldn't be As March progressed, certrin aspecti;
or something. But most people follow engaged in remote learning. of the lockdown eased, and many peo-
the rules." We mgani7.ed thmgs as bestwe could, ple began to return to work. Itwas sim-
From what I had seen, he wasn't ex- using the school's assignments and .find- ilar to the idea that Marc Lipsitch had
aggerating.The overwhelming compli- ing other projects. Ariel and Natasha described: letting the air out ofthe bal-
ance was one of the most impressive usually worked well in the morning, loon slowly. But schools weren't part of
features of the lockdown, along with and then, around ten or eleven oClock, this process, which meant that many
the dedication ofgrassroots officials. In when we started to hear sounds of children remained at home alone after
'Wuhan, the government had sent eigh- roughhousing, I took them out for our their parents went to work. Willy, a for-
teen hundred teams ofepidemiologists, morning walk.In the afternoon. we sent mer student who now teaches in Zhe-
each consisting of at least five people, them to play in the compound court- jiang Province, estimated that eighty
to trace the contacts of infected citi- yard, where it was common for pass- per cent ofhis ninth-grade pupils were
zens. The W.H.O. report noted that ersby to lecture them about the dan- unaccompanied during the day.
the containment effort had been pos- gers of being outdoors or of wearing Parents often called him to com-
sible because of"the deep commitment their masks improperly.The latter crit- plain. "People say their kids are shen-
of the Clrinese people to collective ac- icism probably should have been di- shou.,"he said, using a word that means,
tion." At the individual levd, though, rected at me, because I had made the roughly, "mystical beasts." "They say,
people occasionally expressed reserva- mistake of telling the twins about the 'We want the mystical beast to go back
tions. During one ofmy exchanges with flapjack, in which you allow the mask to the cag-e.'The cages are the school"
Zhang, the pharmacist in Wuhan, I to dangle :&om one ear in order to an- He described the family situation of
mentioned that most people I knew swer a cell phone on the other side. one ofhis colleagues: "His son had been
were supportive. He wrote back: In a four-room apartment, with one good, and he was hardworking. But in
COMIC STl\IP 6Y CHl\IS WARE
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ANO ~OPENINGS'' TOO Mll\.11 TO QUALIFY AS TRUE. AUTHORITIES
the past forty or fifty days he has been cent of infections come from people Lunar New Year holiday. All three
doing online courses, and he spends so who don't yet seem sick. "They could places seem to have managed the sit-
much time online. His father said he's be spreading it through droplets, say uation effectively.The Centers for Dis-
very likely to lose his temper. He goes during eating or speaking," he said. ease Control in the United States has
crazy. He shouts. It's because of using "These droplets could contaminate sur- noted that countries that closed schools
the mobile phone too much."Willy's fac.es, and this is how it spreads." at an early stage have not necessarily
own two children also had classes on The role that children play in this handled the epidemic better than those
phones, and he had noticed a rapid de- process remains unclear. F'Jsher pointed which didn't, and such closures likely
terioration in his teen-age daughter's out that there's no evidence that they have to be longer than four weeks to
behavior. "We don't know exac:tl.ywhen have helped spread the disease in China have any benefit.
she is having class and when she is or elsewhere.The W.H.0.reportnoted In the short term, China's all-out
using the mobile phone to chat or play that, during the mission's nine-day trip, lockdown wasn't surprising after the
games," he said. "She is right now out none of the Chinese medical person- country caught a glimpse of the abyss
of control" nel who were interviewed could recall in Wuhan. But, as time passed, there
a case in which transmission occurred didn't seem to be much evolution in
ne ofthe most striking character- from a child to an adult. strategy. "We have to fully have a con-
0 istics of the new coronavirus is
the vastly different susceptibilities of
"My view on schools is that children
aren't at risk of severe disease," Fisher
versation about the cost," Nuzzo, the
epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins, told
<lliferent age groups. Over all, more said. "They don't amplify the spread, me. In her opinion, the extremely pos-
than eighty per cent of known cases they don't amplify the transmission. itive WH.O. report had missed an op-
show only mild to moderate symptoms; They are kind of bystanders while it portunity to point out some negative
older people are much more likely goes on.There's no good reason to keep impacts of the Chinese strategy.
to develop serious cases, especially if them out of school, wiless the society She noted that the virus can always
they suffer from other health problems. is in total lockdawn. I'd rather see just return, and that it will probably take
According to the W.H.O., by Febru- a modification of school activities." one or two years to develop a vaccine.
ary 20th, children under the age ofnine- But Leung cautioned that nothing In her opinion, instead of relying on
teen represented only 2.4 per cent of is definitive at this point. He was cur- overwhdming measures, the Chinese
the reported cases in China. Ofthe few rently analymig how the disease spreads should develop strategies that might
children who get sick, the cases tend within households, which could reveal be more :B.exi.ble and sustainable. The
to be mild. Last week, Pediatrics re- information aboutwhich ages are most effects of enforced seclusion, stressed
leased a study showing that, in a set of infectious, but he wouldn't finish until children, and distrust ofneighbors can't
seven hunched and thirty-one confumed later this month. He thought that an be quantified as easily and as quickly
cases of coronavirus among children, ongoing Chinese analysis of serology, as cases of infection and death. Even
ninety-seven per cent were asymptom- or antibody patterns, couldprovide some many things that can be counted are
atic, or had mild or moderate symp- clearer answers to the question ofchil- simply not prioritized at such a time.
toms. Thus far, in all of China, there dren's role in the epidemic. But this re- I had a feeling that people would be
has been only one death in this age search would probably take at least a shocked if they knew how many Chi-
group, a fourteen-year-old boy. few more weeks. nese schoolchildren-many tens of
Fisher, the infectious-disease spe- Leung noted that, in the absence of millions, undoubtedly-are currently
cialist from Singapore who accompa- clear science, political pressures have a being educated entirely through mo-
nied the WHO. mission, told me that bile phones.
he opposes school closings. From the Some critical numbers remain un-
early case studies, Fisher predicts that known for other reasons. During the
children get infected at the same rate fourth week of online classes, a friend
as adults yet tend to show mild symp- in Fuling reported that a teen-ager in
toms or be asymptomatic.And although the northern part ofthe city had jumped
there is evidence ofasymptomatic trans- out of his :6.fth-.floor apartment. Ap-
mission, such events seem unusual and, parently, the middle-school student had
in the analysis of the W.H.O., have been .fighting with his father, who was
not played a major role in the spread trying to get him to focus on his on-
of the disease. large influence on school closures. line lessons. My friend sent me a cell-
But a more diffiru1t issue is presymp- Hong Kong closed schools, but Sin- phone video taken by somebody who
tomatic transmission. There seems to gapore did not, relying instead on mea- lived nearby.
be a brief window-perhaps two or sures that more carefully limited and In the video, two people crouch over
three days-when people are infectious screened arrivals, used targeted testing, a motionless form at the base ofa build-
but notyct showing symptoms. Gabrid isolated known cases, and protected ing. Police cars have arrived, alongwith
Leung, the dean ofmedicine at the Uni- high-risk groups. Taiwan followed a an ambulance; three men in masks ap-
versity ofHong Kong, told me that he similar strategy, allowing schools to re- proach with a stretcher. Bystanders en-
believes between twenty and forty per open after a two-week extension ofthe gage in a terse dialogue:
"The feet bit the ground first."
"How can the family take this? My God!
This jg 10 sad."
"Jumped from the fifth floor, right~·
"The fifth floor."
This single incident in one small 1 2 3

city equalled the nationwide death
total from the coronavirus in children
under the age of nineteen. Earlier this
month, there was at least one other
suicide, when an elementary-school
student in Hebei Province, having \>JI..-.+?
been scolded for using his phone to
watch videos instead of for remote
classes, jumped from a building. If
such things were happening elsewhere,
they were probably kept quiet. There
was no report in the Fuling press, and, • •
ifanythingwas posted on social media,
it was quickly taken down. "The on-
line classes are like a campaign that I tried to put him at ease, explain- China, there had been more than
we have to win, just like we must de- ing that I understood that the case had eighty thousand confirmed cases and
feat the virus," my friend explained. been mild, and that I just wanted to 3,119 deaths, but the rate of increase
"So this kind ofthing should not drag learn about the recovery process. in both figures had slowed dramati-
it down. This is why I can't find the "Of course," he said. "If I were a cally. Chengdu's last death-its third,
information about the incident online, neighbor, and if somebody had been total-had happened more than three
I think." sick, I'd want to know, too. But nobody weeks before. The three victims had
here has had it." been aged sixty-four, seventy-three,
n the neighborhood, a few people "So you've never heard of anybody and eighty, and all had suffered mul-
Inumber
told me the building and apartment
of the confirmed case in my
in this building getting infected.?"
"No,"hesaid.Hisfu:cwas1mmaskcd,
tiple chronic health problems before
becoming infected.
compound. Such details had a way of but I couldn't read anything in his ex- The rest:aurantwas trying hard.After
gettiDg out, and I observed people be- pression. He politely said goodbye and we ordered, a manager called me over
having in ways that seemed unusually closed the door. On the way dawn, the with what I believe to have been a
vigilant around the building in ques- elevatorreekedofseventy-:6.ve-per-cent- conspiratorial smile, although only his
tion. Once, a woman wearing a mask, alcohol disinfectant. eyes were visible. He handed me a sil-
plastic gloves, surgical booties, and pa- ver tray with a sprig offlowers, a bowl
jamas walked past me holding a pack- n the forty-fifth day of the lock- ofglutinous rice, and a red Valentine's-
age. a bottle of disinfectant, and a cot-
ton swab. I saw her enter the building
0 dawn,ourfamilywent out to din-
ner for the first time. Businesses had
style card.
"It's March 8th!" he said.
and gingerly use the swab to call the slowly started to open, according to the I had forgotten-International
elevator, so that even her gloved hand logic of the Party. Barbershops were Women's Day.
didn't touch the button. among the first, probably because there He pointed at the rice and the card.
One afternoon, I went up to the was no online alternative. Banks came "It's free,"he said. "Write a message to
apartment, whc:rc I heard voices behind later, and then a barbecue place across your wife!"
the numbered door. A rack of shoes the river opened its doors. My daugh- I stared at the red paper.Then I wrote
outside: at least one child lived here. I ters still hadn't interacted with another something to the effect that this was
knocked, and a man called out in a gruff child their age, and there had been no the most romantic period we had shared
voice, "Who is it?" announcement about school. since the 2013 coup in Cairo. I walked
I explained that I was a neighbor, At the restaurant, the hostess shot back to the table carrying the silver tray
and the man opened the door. He was Ariel and Natasha with an infrared while the masked manager took pic-
middle-aged, with the kind of paunch gun, and then Leslie and I took our tures with his cell phone. A waitress
that in China is often associated with tum. The hostess carried a clipboard brought the bottle of beer we had or-
business careers. He was wearing clear on which we wrote our names, cell- dered, and I filled Leslie's and my
plastic gloves and smoking a cigarette. phone numbers, and temperatures: glasses. Soon, the waitress reappeared
I introduced myselfand said that I had Arid,36.5; Natasha,36.2; Leslie,36.2; with another Tsingtao. "It's free," she
been told a resident had had the virus. me, 36.0. We sat down and unmasked. said. "Because of the epidemic!" She
"Nobody here has had it," the man This place had always been popular, opened the bottle and we shared that
said. but tonight it was half full. Across one,tuo.t
1l£ NEY )()MfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 37
OUI\ LOCAL COl\l\E.SPONDENTJ
ABUNDANCE OF CAUTION
Entering a time ofcontainment, New Yor.k is at ii! hest and its worst.
8Y ADAM GOPNIK
Pl-IOTOGl\APHS BY PHIL.JP MONR:iOMER.Y
lagues happen only to people.An- New Yorkers began to adopt a grim si1houette, repeated: dogs straining to-
P imals can suffer from mass info:-

ti.ons, of course, but they experi-
ence them as one more bad blow from
new dance of"social distancing." On a
sparsely peopled 5 train, heading down
to Grand Central Terminal on Satur-
ward dogs on long-stretched leashes,
held by watchful owners keeping their
distance, a nightly choreography ofan-
an unpredictable and predatory nanaral day morning, passengers warily tried imal need and human caution.
environment. Only people put mental to achieve an even, strategic spacing,
brackets around a phenomenon like the
coronavirus pandemic and attempt to
give it a name and some historical. per-
like chess pieces during an endgame:
the rook all the way down here, but
tlucatening the king from the back.row.
A J.F.K.,
t in Queens, during that
strange weekend, people huddled
and waited anxiously for the home-
spectm; some sense of pn:cedencc and Then, when the doors opened, they got coming of family members who had
possibility. The coronavirus, indifferent off the train one by one, in single, hes- been stranded abroad, with the under-
to individuals, has no creed or moral pur- itant file, unlearning in a minute New standing that homecoming now comes
pose; but it becomes human when it hiu York habits ingrained over lifetimes, at a cost arriving passengers have been
UB----ncither microscopic nor historic,just the dbowed rush fur the door. asked to self-quarantine fur two weeks.
the si7.e we are as we cxperieru:e its dfects. In the relatively empty subway cars, J.F.K. had been spared some of the
AB Albert Camus wrote in "The Plague," one can focus on the human details of nightmarish lines and confusion seen
the 1947 novel that's becoming to this the riders.A}. Liebling,in a piece pub- at Dulles, in Washington, and O'Hare,
disruption what W. H. Auden's "Sep- lished in these pages some sixty years in Chicago, following DonaldTrump's
tember 1, 1939" was to the aftermath of ago, recounted the tale of a once fa- abrupt decision the previous Wednes-
9/11, the microbe has no meaning; we mous New York murder, in which the day (re1ayed in a garbled announcement)
seek to create one in the chaos it brings. headless torso of a man was found to suspend most travel from Europe.
The final weekend of semi-ordinary wrapped in oilcloth, :B.oating in the East But no one is spared the emotional
life in NewYorluu:rived on Fridaythe 13th. River. The hero ofthe tale, as Liebling ambivalence ofthe moment every feel-
In the week that followed, New York be- chose to tell it, was a young reporter ing pulled out hard, like an attenuated
came a ghost town in a ghost nation on for the great New York World, who nerve. Parents are keenly aware that,
a ghost planet. The gravity and scale of identified the body by type before any- in bringing their children home to what
what is happening can overwhelm the one else did: he saw that the corpse's is meant to be safety, they are bring-
details ofdaily life, in which human be- fingertips were wrinkled in a way that ing them to an increasingly unsafe place.
ings seek a plateau of normalcy in ab- characterized "rubbers"-masseurs-- "Barren" was the word that Lisa
normal times, just as they always have inTurkish baths. Only someone whose Cleve1and,who lives in NewJersey; used
in blitzes and battles. Nobody has any hands were wet that often would have for the normally bustling airport. She
confidence at all about whether we are those fingertips. On the subway, in spent part of Saturday morning wait-
seeing the first phases of a new normal, the street, nearly everyone has rubbers' ing for her teen-age children Zoe and
the brief cll1m before a worse stonn, or hands now, with skin shrivelled from Xander, who had been staying in the
a wise reaction that may allow, not so excessive washing. Netherlands. Their father is a Dutch
horribly long from now, for a renewal of At the other end ofthe day, in Cen- citizen. "I'm still trying to understand
common life. Here are some notes on tral Park late at night, the only people the risks, but he's been tracking this for
things seen by one walker in the city, and out were the ones W21ki.ng their dogs. more than two months," Cleveland said.
some voices heard among New Yorkers Dogs are still allowed to have proxim- "He's that guy." Getting the kids back
bearing witness, on and off the streets. ity, if only to other dogs. They can't be to the U.S. before further barriers went
kept from it.The negotiations ofprox- up wasn't easy. "Xander and Zoe-she
happened slowly and then sud- iinity-the dogs demanding it, the CJWil- likes the double dot over her name, oth-
I denly.
t
spectre
On Monday, March 9th, the
of pandemic New York was
a in
ers trying to resist it without being ac-
tively rude-are newly arrived in the
erwise it becomes a Dutch word that
rhymes with'cow'--were in Amsterdam.
still off on the puzzling horizon. By city. Walking home down the almost We struggled and struggled to find them
Friday, it wa.s the dominant fact oflife. empty avenues, you could see the same tickets home. Someone told us that one
Friday, March 13th• A passenger on an uptown F train wears a malteshift mask.
Thursday, March 12th: An empty J train in the morning. near Manhattan'sfinancial district.
Thursday, March 12th; A cleaning-company employee sanitizes a handrailing at PortAuthority.
ofthe airlines was going to go bankrupt." flags for fear of being taken for ji- this one got off to an unsteady start,
When she saw Zoe and Xander at hadis. Now particular visibility falls like a plane in wartime trying to take
last, Cleveland said, "it was just such an on bicycle deliverymen, Mexicans and off with too large a load of refugees.
enormous relie£ And more emotion Indians, the emissaries of Seamless, He glanced up at a high-rise condo-
than you can easily imagin.c.1bis is the who modestly shoulder the burden of minium being built on Madison Av-
first day I've bc:cn able to smile in weeks. fcc:ding the middle cl.ass. On the East enue and Eighty-ninth Street. Con-
But now they have to do a mandatory Side, outside a Thai restaurant at struction work continues right through
self-quarantine for two weeks." 7 P.M. on Saturday, a single delivery- the closures-no letup in the noise
Zoe said, "Not that I'm not glad to man balanced five bags offood hang- and activity. even on the weekend. The
be home, but I'll miss schoolThe mood ing from his handlebars. His liveli- workmen, in their puffy vests and hard
on the plane was weird-half the plane hood hinges on his getting meals to hats, were side by side, though they
was wearing masks."Because safety masks people who are self-isolating, a lux- didn't seem particularly worried, or
were sold out in Amsterdam, she and ury he doesn't have. Although he was constrained. The exigencies of Man-
her brother decided to wear masks that grateful for the work, he said, he was hattan real estate and development are
their parents had bought them out ofan a little frightened about his own ex- evidently undeterred by the crisis.
abundance of caution. They were JM posure. Asked how many more sacks What's strange about this ener-
respirators, the kind an industrial worker he ferries during his shift these days, getic construction of more luxury
!Dlghtwear in the presence oftoxic aero- he shrugged and said at least ten times housing is that, in the existing apart-
sols. "I fcl.t people were judging us," Zoe the usual load. ment buildings nearby, on the impos-
said. "It's a crazy mask. No one else on Just as the medical system depends sibly wealthy blocks of Fifth Avenue,
the plane had on such a serious mask." on the lowest paid of the health work- scarcely a light can be seen. Nobody's
ers-the orderlies and custodians- home. Most of the truly wealthy have
rises take an X-ray ofa citfs da.ss the food system, now that restaurants gone, by helicopter or private jet, to
C structure. After 9/11, it was the
Middle Eastern and South.Asian taxi.-
have been limited to takeout and de-
livery, depends on a whole cadre of
the Hamptons or to an island some-
where. There can be something vex-
drivers who suddenly became visi- men pedalling bicycles. They are lit- ing about the thought that those
ble, lining their cabs with American enilly overburdened, and, that night, whose wealth relies on the intense,
4! THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020
Satvrclay, March 1"th1 Diminishing supplies at a I*stern Beefsupermarket in Queem.
close-ordered entanglement of the So we have a steady infl.ow of people worth offood, and we're sending staff
city abandon it in its hour of need, or coming home, even while we're try- to screen visitors at Rikcrs," he said.
dread, but they do. Still, who would ing to lock down the people we al- (City jails have since suspended in-
not decamp to a remote island if she ready have." person visits.) "But it's not a deadly
had one? uBoccaccio-ing," someone This is Rivera's second plague. In- virus for most people-it's not as
calls this business of fleeing the city, carcerated himselfwhen H.I.V.IAIDS deadly as AIDS. I think we'll get to the
in honor of the Italian author, who hit New York's state prisons, in the point where the next announcement
wrote of fleeing Florence during the nineteen-eighties, he still remernben will have to be, What are we doing for
Black Death, and telling stories with the shock of working in the isolated people who have to manage the elders
his companions for ten days up in the wards where those who fell ill with and those with compromised immune
hillside villas of Fiesole. the disease were sequestered: "Every- systems? I'm coping two ways. I'm not
one was so frightened that they pretty overthinking it. I expect to get it one
n West Harlem, Sam Rivera cer- much put on a hazmat suit to go into day. I'll feel sick, and I'll manage it,
I tainly can't leave. At a residential
&cility run by the Fortune Society and
those places. Except me." His cxperi-
eru:e led him, once he was out ofprison,
I'll come through it, and my body will
build immunities to it. And that will
known as the Castle; his job is to over- to join the AIDS-care movement, where be a blessing."
see the rooms and the souls of about he met and worked with Anthony Despite his brio in the face of the
eighty-five men and women, almost Fauci, the current director of the Na- virus, Rivera worries about the vul-
all released from prison not long ago, tional Institute of Allergy and Infec- nerable residents in his charge. "We
some as recently as this month. They tious Diseases. Now that Rivera is re- have a number of people in the Cas-
come in and out of his office all day, sponsible for the residents of the tle who are living with HJ.V., and
seeking help and solace. it's crazy, but Castle, he thinks hard about what to we're really monitoring where and
the system is still churning," Rivera do. His memories of the AIDS epi- how they are," he said. "The problem
said. He is a huge man, with a beam- demic are strong, and they give an is that they don't like following up.
ing, steady smile. uThey're still dis- oddly positive cast to his take on to- Most of them have had bad experi-
charging people from Rikers and else- day's crisis. ences with the medical system, or
where, even as we go through all this. "We've stockpiled three weeks' sometimes no experience with it. But,
1l£ NEY )()MfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 -4-3
Wednesday, March 18th: Nancy Landau-Gahres, an eighth-grade teacher in Sunset Park. in an empty scienr.e /ah.
Saturday, March 14th: Eri!ta and Gino Brian stocll up on groceries in Queens.
if anyone has .du-like symptoms, then college student who grew up in New wouldn't be repeat.ed. By contrast, the
we are able to get a t.est, right now, at York said, about the depredations of COVID-19 crisis involves worries about
Columbia Presbyt.erian. which is great. upscale shoppers. "It means they be- something we've been warned is on
All we can do is watch and move for- lieve that it's every man for himself. the way. The social remedy is the op-
ward, day by day." They don't really believe in commu- posite of the sort of coming together
nity or that people will or can share. that made the days and weeks after
P anic-buying has been in evidence

all over town, if unevenly cxecut.ed.
Many chain supermarkets and food
Their instinct, despite living in one
of the more aflluent spots in the
world, is that they're on their own."
9/11 endurable for so many, as they
shared dinners and embraced friends.
That basic human huddling is now
stores are stripped bare ofgroceries, in The plague, as Camus insisted, ex- forbidden, with the recommendations
a way that calls to mind the days just poses existing fractures in societies, for "distancing" bearing down ever
after 9fu. Back then, people gathered in class structure and individual char- tighter: no more than five hundred
"Armageddon baskets," filled with exact.er; under stress, we see who we re- people tog-ether, then two hundred and
pensive things---steak and Perrie& Now ally are. The secession ofthe~ rich, :fifty, then fifty, then ten.
they assemble survival kits. Toilet paper the isolation of the well-off, the deg- At the same time, the emphasis on
and canned beans are treasured. (There radation of social capital by inequal- social distancing and even isolation is
is no chance, the grocers assure the city, ity: these truths become sharply self- part of an epidemiological study in
ofrunning out ofeither.) Still, there's a evident now. statistical probability. If we delay the
pattern to the emptying of the super- communication of the virus :from pa-
he current crisis is, in some re-
markcts. Evcrypotato, evcrycmot,evcry
onion in a West Side Citarella is gone, T spects, the mirror image of the
as is every package of pasta and every post-9/11 moment. That turned out to
tient to patient, the curve of new cases
may flatten, so that fewer people at
any time will need hospitalization, re-
jar of tomatoes in an uptown Whole be a time ofretrospective anxiety about ducing the stress on the system and
Foods. Yet many ofthe less tony super- a tragedy unforeseen. The anticipatory keeping health services available for
markets, the nearby Key Foods and jitters weren't entirely unfounckd---an- all the other countless ailments that
Gristedes, have remained well stocked thrax killed a hospital worker in Man- strike a city of eight million. In a way,
and serene throughout the rush. hattan-but they arose from some- the self-seclusions are exhibits not of
"You realize what this means?" a thing that had already happened and personal panic but of public-minded
Monday, March 16th1 The last customer at a]acksrm Heights restaurant hefare citywide closures took effect.
prudence: we arc trying to save the in forever, the abatement in the roar beautiful day, a large space where they
lives, above all, of the most vulnera- and press of people allows couples' can mingle,n a thirty-one-year-old
ble. But, ofcourse, the plague-in-prog- murmured endearments, spoken into woman said, early on Saturday after-
ress may progress despite it all. one comer, to race up through the solid noon. "They sort of keep social dis-
Guastavino tile and carry all the way tance, but also connect."Many photo-
"Love in the Time of Cholera" is
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's great
over to the diagonally facing corner.
A pair of young friends encoun-
graphs, shared widdy on social media,
seemed to show the mil1ennials loung-
novel of another plague time-with tered there that Friday weren't out- ing thoughtlessly close, prompting a
cholera, we're told, referring to both of-towners; this was Kyle and Leah, Twitter uproar.
the name of the terrible disease and and they're New Yorkers through and The uproar did seem to reflect a
the condition of being col&U:o, angry through, who decided that this was determination on the part of young
and impassioned. Love in the time of the moment, finally, to really see people in New York to go on living
coronavirus was bound to happen- Grand Central. The appetite for the like young people in New York. "Last
in crisis and despair is born desire- joys of structured sightseeing is in- night I went out to a restaurant," the
and it already has. Kids forced to leave domitable. Another young woman, same woman said. "And the wait was
college and return home to the city Amaya-visiting from Durham, half an hour. So we went to a differ-
talked about long-sought last-minute North Carolina, and crushed. to find ent restaurant, and at that one, when
assignations on the night before the the city so inhospitable-stood in the the waitress was bringing out drinks,
general expulsion. comer, smiling and singing to a mend she got confused about where to go,
Sometirne6 desire in anxiety can be on the other side. since they had just changed their seat-
more delicate. In Grand Central Ter- But it was on Saturday, when the ing-I think to have more space be-
minal, what some call ..the tile tele- skywas blue and the temperature hov- tween tables. "
phone"-the whispering gallery in ered in the fifties, that the irresistible Like life-hardened Sam Rivera,
front ofthe Oyster Bar,underthe beau- wge to find pleasure brought out Hoc.ks these younger New Yorkers have
tiful basketweave ofarches-has never of young people to various outdoor touching if perhaps worrying faith
been so clear. The noise of the station spaces. "I've noticed that a lot of peo- in their own invulnerability. "I don't
is usually so intense that the tiled ceil- ple my age are headed to Prospect think people in my cohort are that
ing turns mute.Now, for the first time Park and are taking advantage of a terrified," the woman went on. "Most
Wednesday, March 18th: Freddy Ruiz holds his daughter while picking up <hnatedgroceries in Sunset Park.

people seem to believe that they will morning. "I've had some regulars send The young musical-theatre actress
get the virus and they will survive hav- me twenty bucks O\ICr Venmo. Last tips." Ahem. Mensah-Bonsu, cast in a signifi-
ing it. The vibe is pretty much one of The full weight of the shutdown cant role in a new show, "Nollywood
acceptance, even a little bit of excite- will fall most heavily on the Maggies Dreams,"had been commuting in from
ment. I hate to say this, but it's be- of the world, who have little or no New Jersey, feeling all the ancient ex-
come a distraction from the election. financial cushion. (Later, Bernie's set citement of a big break. Now she sits
Also, a lot of my friends are cooking. up a GoFundMe campaign for the at home and is eager to get back to
Like ambitious stockpot recipes- staff.) Hundreds of thousands of peo- the theatre. "Acting is the opposite of
soups and stews-and a lot ofbaking, ple in the service and entertainment social distancing," she said, echoing
too. Pies and cookies. I myself am cur- industries-from bartenders to the Levine...Even ifyou're introverted, as
rently deep-cleaning my apartment, "swing"theatre acton who pride them- I am. So, when we sit in place, we long
knowing that I'll be stuckin it."Mean- selves on leaping into whatever role to be engaged with someone." On
while, she said, "my family is from has been left open by an unwell lead.- Broadway, the theatres are empty, but
New York, and my father has been are out ofwork, for a time that has no the lights have still been on, as though
fearlessly going to the gym. I think known limit. the theatres were willing the shows
there's a bit of YOLO fear to it-he There are, as well, the small, crush- to continue:.
wants to make the most of his life. ing disappointments that, though
But I have pleaded with him to stop." reasonably lost in the larger life-and- ne irony of this pandemic is that,
death dam.or, are very real to the peo- 0 while it exposes the gaps in our
T hat same Saturday, Maggie Mc- ple they have happened to. The ac-
Glinchy, a bartend.er, worked all tress Ilana Levine had just opened in
evening at Bernie's Restaurant, on the a new play, "The Perplexed,"by Rich-
social and medical safety nets, it also
punishes people for behaving well.
Communities with the healthiest in-
border of Greenpoint and Williams- ard Greenberg-a comeback of sorts tergenerational relationships seem to
burg. "It was full," she said on Sun- for her--when all theatres, concert be at greater risk than those that se-
day. "But it doesn't take much to fill venues, and night clubs were closed. quester older people in nursing homes.
the restaurant. The actual volume was "You know, I had been on Broadway Italy, one study shows, has been so
low, and it seemed as though no one a lot when I was younger," she said. hard hit by the coronavirus because
wanted to be seen to be fully enjoy- "But then came L.A and children...• there the young and the old have the
ing themselves. I sold a lat of Marti- And out of the blue I got this call to beautiful habit of mingling together.
nis that night-mostly Martinis, or do this play ofRichard's, with the idea Grandparents are accustomed to being
Old-Fashioneds or Manhattans. No that, after all this time, I'd be back on with their grandchildren.
wine or artisanal ale. Everyone was the mge in New York, which I missed In the days before the shutdown,
trending the spirits. desperately. So all of these things I'd the Lubavitcher community in Crown
"At Bernie's, I'm on a first-name been dreaming of happened, and with Heights became a virus hot spot, per-
basis with possibly a third of the cus- it came so much fear and anxiety: haps because the Hasidic sects, too,
tomers-it's definitely a home base. 'Can I make it work?'" She laughed have kept at bay the alienation ofgen-
In the past two nights, a lot ofmy cus- at the idea of what fear and anxiety erations that is so much part ofAmer-
tomers are people who wanred to come meant a few days earlier--having too ican life. "Do you want to know how
in and support us. Most of my tips much to memorize. things appear, or how they are?" Mica
were over twenty per cent. That's the "The play is about family and strug- Soffer, the editor of a Jewish news
other thing about social distancing-- gle and old hurts and people having Web site, said that Sunday. "It's been
so much of what it means to be com- to be, in this sort of Sartre way, per- extremely hectic. As far as the com-
forted is to be ..• not distant. Stay petually closed o:ffin the space ofone munity itself, I guess we weren't so
positive, I'd say-we're feeling well room with each other," she continued. much prepared. It's in China, it's in
right now and let's hope it stays pos- "So now the play and the reality are Europe-e didn't rcall2e how quickly
itive and do you want another drink?" one, in ways I could never have imag- it would get here. Our community is
But by Sunday night all the bars and ined. Except I don't get to do it in this so connected. We live in an urban
restaurants in the city had been or- world, with an audience."The evoca- area-you're always around people.
dered to stop table service in the next tive set, designed by Santo Loquasto, It's Brooklyn, after all! Late last week,
few days, an unimaginable act a week of a New York town house, has not I had a shiva call, a wedding, and an
earlier, as strange as if the island of yet been struck from the Manhattan engagement party. Everyone has a
Manhattan had :8.oated out to sea. Theatre Club stage, she said. "So all million things they need to go to--
McGlinchy said that she is look- of us keep thinking of that set, and families are large.n
ing for a new job, but there are no how we want to get to it, be on it- She went on, "'Most families here
newjobs for bartenders, because there the company, even without an audi- have elderly parents and grandpar-
are no bars."What do I have going ence, just to work together on it. Ac- ents-it's a big part oflife. Purim was
forward? I have a month's rent and a tors are not people who know how to last weekend-you're talking about
warm e-mail from my former em- isolate. We are suddenly physically people being exposed. We didn't re-
ployer," she said dryly on Tuesday frozen at this moment." alize at first We didn't know. There
Saturday, March 14th: An American Airlines employee returnsfrom a break atj.RK Airport.
Thursday, March 12th1 Outside the New York Stock E:echange, on one ofthe worst days on Wall Street since 1<)87.
1l£ NEY )()MfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 51
Thursday, March 19th: Gail Sirignano being testedfar COVID-19 in a parking lot in Jerieho, New York.
was a lot of contact. Very much part "Now," So:ffer said, "many people are the .flu for me. I stayed in bed, had my
ofour day-to-day life--especiallywith praying outdoors, six feet away from moments of panic, but I was fortunate
the men going to shul three times a each other." to be paired with Rick, who was posi-
day, and Torah classes every single tive but asymptomatic. And I was well
day. One ofthe things that's so amaz- he self-exile of the very wealthy enough to stay in touch with the Con-
ing is that everybody kidccd into high
gear to put up ycshivu onli.ne within
T from the city that made them rich servancy and find out how cvcryoru: was
is hardly uniform. A feeling of social fui.ng-the morale and the health of
two days. responsibility, ofsolidarity, is embodied the staff---2Ild the Park it:sel£ too. It has
"In Crown Heights, davcning still by Elizabeth Smith, who is the head of the tremendous power ofoffering peace
goes on, it always has to be there, within the Central Park Conservancy. She and and respite to people.The a.ma7.ing peo-
the realm of whatever number the her husband, Rick Cotton, the head of ple are the city workers.They keep show-
health department says. No more than the Port Authority of New York and ing up. They show up at work and they
ten people in Israel. A rabbi told me, NewJersey.became among the first pub- do the right thing. There are lots of
'Faith is not the absence of reason.' lic officials in New York known to have selfless people, lots of people who take
We don't give up on the interventions. COVID-19. Now all she wants is to get public service seriously."
God blessed us with doctors, not as back to the Parle. Even if she hadn't fallen ill, Smith
something apart from us but as some- "I've never been in the tabloids be- said, she would have wanted to stay in
thing there to help us. My father told fore," Smith, who is in her late six.tics, the city. "We have a big responsibility
me this: God is in charge, and God said from her Manhattan apartment, to the public,"she said."You know, when
watches over us. Every time I get re- where she was convalescing, and in her Frederick Law Olmsted made the Park,
ally panicky, there's that sense that second week of seclusion. "In my fam- it was just with that in mind: most peo-
God is taking care of us. I'm an amc- ily, you're in the paper when you're born ple dont even have a chance ofleaving
ious person and it's not easy. But I have and again when you many.And the fact New York. It's for all those people who
to access that. Rabbi Nachum said, of the matter is that the virus gets ... couldiit leave the city, to get to the Ad-
'Gam zu l'tovah'-'This, too, shall very virulent. I wasn't feeling wcll on irondacks."Smith is the chair ofthe Li-
be for the good."' On Tuesday, rabbis Saturday--all the typical flu symptoms, brary of America, which published a
closed the Crown Heights synagogues. like a fever, but a relatively mild case of collection of Olmsted's essays, letters,
Tuesday. March l7th1 Elizabeth Smith has been quarantined in her Upper East Side home sinreJailing ill with COYID-19.
and other reflections in 2015. "Believe it tween the raucous and argumentative our common character to the surface.
or not, I never quire got through Olm- world of the lnb:met and the silence of This plague has proved an equal-
sted's writings," she admitted. "He was the streets. Outside, new patterns of opportunity evil, striking theocratic
a genius and a beautiful writer." She is wider spacing and greater caution assert states 1ike Iran and authoritarian ones
now immersed in the volume: "I'm not themselves: Is that masked man conta- like China, and more open ones like our
in the Parle but I can my in the Parle." gious and to be avoided by crossing the own and those in Europe. Some hard
street? Did we forget to sanitize after balance ofauthority and openness is ob-
mptiness and absence contradict the touching the gate to the park? And, with viously essential to going on at all, but
E very concept of the city. The point them, the terrible self-monitoring of
of a city is social proximity; to see peo- plague times: Do I feel normal? Is my
this is not news. We have always lmown
that having the confidence to act, and
ple deliberately spaced out, like the walk- temperature high? Feel my forehead. the clarity to see if the way we act is
ing but never intersecting :figures in a Until last week, no one ever thought good, is vital to our continued existence.
Giacometti, is to sec what cities aren't. that Camus's "The Plague" was about Our continued cxistcnce! It used to be
In a historical sense, cities are always or- the plague. It was the text through a kind ofmetaphor, really meaning "the
ganisms ofa kind, llke coral reefs, where which generations of high schoolers easy perpetuation of our .familiar way
a lot of people come together to barter were taught how not to read literally. oflife."No more.
spices and exchange ideas and find matr.s, It was always taken as a fable or an al- Bymidweek,cven the daru:cofwari-
and endure the recurrent damage ofin- legory, specifically of the German oc- ness was muted: New Yorkers, largely
fectious disease. cupation of France. The people in shelrering in place, still allowed them-
The question is whether the current Camus's plague town of Oran did not selves to walk their dogs, but walked
upheavals could somehow alter New in any way deserve to suffer from the them alone on each street, with the
York forever. Some beloved places may disease, but the crisis revealed all the next dog and owner at least a stoplight
stay closed. Some new practices may be various human responses of coward- away. The dogs, puzzled not to have
perpetuated. The digital trends toward ice, denial, and courage.The point was the greetings ofothers of their animal
disaggregation of experience may get a not that actual plagues tell us much, kind, sniffed doggedly in the dark,
boost, at a cost to everything we love but that the pressure of extreme and though now only at the scent of their
about the city. There's an eerie gap be- unexpected events forces the flaws in solitary owners.•
1l£ NEY )()MfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 53
Saturday, March 14th: ].RK Airport, three days after Donald Trump's deciswn to suspend 11Wst trawlfrom Europe.
1l£ NEY )OMEI\, MM01 30, 2020 55

FICTION
56
THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020 ILLUSTRATION BY LEONIE BOS
id you check. his phone? him from trying to get into the pants OnewaythatTobybondswith the
D I told you, I'm not gonna

do that!
But it's so easy.
ofone ofthe event sponsors),Apichat,
Albert from Canada {which was how
Toby's father, riffing on the way the
visiting players is by betraying his fa-
ther-as when, with Pratcsh,he spied
on his father, dressed in nothing but
They are not talking about Martin. young man had introduced himself, boxers, making circuits around the pe-
Toby pronounces it Mahr-fem. Be- referred to him behind his back), the rimeter of the pool, a full tumbler of
cause that's how Martin himself pro- three Chinese guys in a row-Wu- Scotch attached to his hand. His fa-
nounced it, being from Chile. It was yang, Zuhan, and Louie--or, rechnically, ther would take a sip, walk a few steps,
only last year that Martin stayul with four, since Albert was Chinese-Cana- then stop and say, to no one, to the
them, and Toby's father was crazy about dian, and, of course, most eventfully air, to an antagonist in the air, Ifyou're
the young tennis player. Since then, {though not at the time), Martin, just looking for trouble, you've come to
disillusionment has spoiled his father's last year. the right place. He repeated this rou-
gaze, and every tennis player after Mar- It was Apichat who taught Toby to tine for nearly half an hour, until there
tin can only be a reminder of him, and drive when he was thirteen. Apichat, was nothing left in the tumbler and
an object of suspicion. with electric-blue hair that he claimed he let his hand drop. He'd forgotten
I don't think I could live through nobody in the streets ofBangkok gave that he'd had the enfue place, includ-
that again, Toby's father says, and a second glance to, was originally going ing the pool area, .fitted with cam-
switches back to the subject ofthe new to drive Toby to the mall, as a distrac- eras--or maybe he didn't care-and
guy: How difficult could it be? Just ask tion from his second-round loss, but Toby and Pratesh sat in Toby's bed-
to borrow his phone. Say you want to instead they circled the family com- room cackling over the sad-comic
play a game. Say I don't allow you to pound over and over again, Toby in spectacle on Toby's laptop.
on your own phone. Then take a look the driver's seat being instructed by It was worse when they had the
at his messages for anything iffy. Head Apichat. They wound up sitting on swans, who, for two years, owned the
things off at the pass. the beach, people-watching, commis- pool. His father would taunt the birds,
He'll know I went through his erating over the unfairness of life, pitching ice cubes into their habitat,
messages! Apichat sharing a joint. Two firsts on making them honk and flutter their
Tell him you touched it by accident! that day: his first drive and the first of insane wings, goading them to come
Do I have to feed you everything? many tokes. after him, which they did less and less
Toby has only his father, and his fa- Although the tournament admin- as time passed. They were supposed to
ther has only Toby. Plus their palatial istrators told him that they couldn't mate, but, when a guy from the zoo
estate in La Jolla. Many months out accommodate the request, his father came to collect them, it was discov-
of the year, Toby is left alone with a had insisted on hosting any Asian ered that Toby's father had been har-
groundskeeper and a companion-all players in the tournament, on the no- boring two males-imagine his peeve.
right, a nanny-while his father is in need-to-speak-it assumption that Faggots, he told Toby. All this time!
Macao tending to his casinos and his Toby would benefit from exposure to Which is among the reasons that Toby
other businesses. But this is the part an older-brother figure, to make up has not told-and probably will never
of the year that they always spend to- for his lack of a mother. Though, to tell-his father about his own possi-
gether-roughly from the beginning be honest, it was also to compensate bly irreversible gay tendencies.
of March to late April. for his having a ghost as a father, since It was Apichatwho, intuiting those
For as far back as Toby can remem- Toby's father, even when in residence tendencies, had jacked him offby the
ber---sincc he was six or so-his father at the family manse, is always out pool very late at night, before flying
has signed them up to host a visiting making his deals, driving from meet- to Florida to compete at another Chal-
player at the local event, the Diamond ing to meeting, and, when he's home, lenger event. Where was his father
Club Challenger, in which Toby's fa- holing up in the game room in front then, that Toby could be so brazen?
ther is an investor, ofsorts.Toby is now of his wide-screen TV, on which he Probably knocked out in his bedroom,
eighteen and taking a year off before can monitor the .floor action at his on the other side of the property. Or
deciding on college, maybe longer. Of Macao casinos, as well as his cashiers' induJging one ofhis club jaunts.Toby
cotme, he'll go-he's Chinese, and who- booths, his office with the two safes, remembers being so wrapped up in
ever heard ofa Chinese without a col- and, most important, his general man- 420 and lust, it was as ifhe were swad-
lege degree? And, besides, he does not agers' quarters. dled in blankets even when he was
have the option of becoming a tennis Besides, Toby's father is an alco- naked. The lights were off, and he was
player. He simply is not good enough. holic, and by noon on most days, if being pleasured by a ghost made of
There's been,let's see, Pratesh,Llam, he notices Toby at all, he does so white eyeballs and electric-blue hair.
Manolo, Manuel, that Indian guy (the through a scrim ofwooze, on wobbly Thinking of that night now never
one after Pratesh, with the compli- feet. When operatic-drunk, his father fails to give Toby an erection. Apichat
cated ruune that you couldn't shorten), likes to quote a line he says comes rested his wireless speakers on a
the Moroccan guy who wanted to be from his favorite movie star, Steve lounger, and the same song kept play-
left alone because he was in a mid- McQ.ueen: "Ifyou're looking for trou- ing over and over: "Abracadabra,"
divorce funk (though that didn't stop ble, you've come to the right place." by the Steve Miller Band, a tune that
1l£ NEY )()MfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 57
haunts Toby still; when he wants to who sought training abroad, away from understand. It takes Toby several beats
get into a mood, he puts it on repeat the government minders, styled his to realize that Pavel is entirely serious,
on bis iPod. game on Laver, Sampras, aimmg to be and then he gives up on that, too.
part of the new-old wave resurrecting Pavel's diagnosis of Toby's game:
hat everting, he brings the fruits a serve-and-volley M.O. the young man doesn't have the legs.
T ofbis research to his father as they
eat one ofthe cook's fancy, unappreci-
You wait and see,Toby's father says. He needs a lower-body boost to fun-
Sec what? nel power into his weak serve, and he
ated creations-chicken done with This guy? He will disappoint us, too. has to improve his speed if he wants
= y extra touchcs---but it's the plain Toby doesn't say, He already has. to retrieve balls hit into the comers.
rice that is actually :finished by both Because, as soon as Toby picked Pavel Let's do drills, Pavel says. After thirty
father and son. up at the airport, he knew there would minutes, Toby's heart rate is out ofthis
There's this app called Viber. Peo- be no late-night toking sessions, no world, his fu:e crazy. He has to lie down
ple can text each other and it disap- drives around town, no practice games, by the baseline, looking up at the sky,
pears without a trace. So even ifI check and, most disappointing of all, no ex- which takes a longtime to resolve. Am
hisphone- tended discussions about the meaning I working you too hard? Pavel asks, not
You don't even try! of life. really interested in the answer. He apol-
Not everyone is like Martin, O.I<.? ogizes, sits down by Toby. It's O.K..-
Also, this guy's been climbing the rank- avel wins his first round, as Toby this is a good start, Pavel says. You want
ings-he's not going to risk everything.
You don't lmow that!
P and his father watch from the to be professional, right? It takes a mo-
stands. It's an uncomplicated affair, two ment for Pavel to realiu that Toby has
Maybe we should stop hosting them, straight sets, a break of serve in each. been outside his body for a while.
then, Toby says. The opponent, from Colombia, is a So the two are silent. They can
Is that what you want? tbrcc-stroke guy; getting him into a hardly hear the cars on the road that
Not me. But it seems like you don't rally, Pavel consistently cams an error skirts the beach. The din is absorbed
want to anymore. on the fourth or fifth shot. by the trees and shrubs that shield the
I do this for you. Everything I do is Toby is pretty subdued with his ap- property from view. A row of giant
for you. Toby's father punctures the plause. But &:vd, meeting them after- green Q:tips.
space between them with a fork----each ward, acts as if he hadn't noticed. He Toby sits up to signal that he has
you a thrust, as if he means to dig the envelops each ofthem in a hug, asking reentered this life. He blinks, smiles.
tines into his son's flesh. if it's all right that he wants a ham- Sorry, Pavel repeats.
Stop saying that! burger and a milkshake to celebrate, After a while, Toby says, I can't be
Doesn't matter ifyou don't want to and do they know where to go? After- professional.
hear-is still true. ward, he adds, he would be happy to I thought your father sai.d-
Let's stop hosting them, then,Toby practice with Toby on the family hard We tried,Toby says. He enrolled me
repeats. After Pavel-goodbye to court-to assess the boy's game and at the Nick Bollettieri Academy.
everything. offer adjustments and tips. Sorry he Pavel whistles.That's a lot of money,
After a moment, Toby's father says, has waited till now, but he's been too he declares. And then, all at once, he
again, Is that what you want? understands his stupidity. But, of
No! Of course not! But that's what course ... His hands, gesturing at the
you're forcing me to say! court, at the La Jol1a air, complete his
Frankly,Toby doesn't like this year's sentence. This is how recent? he asks.
visitor, the Czech Pavcl, who is either When I was fourteen. And :fifteen.
being served his own meal in the vis- So what happened?
itors' wing of the house or is outside, Toby considers his reply. I coulcbft
returning balls from one or both of stand the instructors, he says, after some
their ball machines on the hard court, thought. And also the other students.
to train for his first-round match.Tough And also Florida.
to get away from the stereotypes that nervous; part of his pre-tournament But Florida is like here, Pavel says.
arc a by-product ofbeing a United Na- superstition involves keeping himself Same weather, same cars. And then he
tions over the years: the Eastern Euro- to himsel£ adds, I hate Florida, too. And then he
peans are prickly, moody; the Canadi- tells Toby about his visits to the state:
ans are super friendly; the Indians are
open, a smile in their speaking voices; T oby tells Pavel about the swans, a handful of Challengers, and before
about spoiling them with gour- that, when his rankings were "in the
the Africans and South Americans are met croutons. sewer," a handful ofFutures; the grind
full of swagger, and they tend to stand What are croutons? ofchasing the sun at its height world-
far behind the baseline when playing. Toby tries to explain a few times wide, scrambling fur the meagre points
The Chinese who came up in the na- before giving up. on offer, for the small pots that the
tional academiee-they are tradition- Toby makes the universal sign for winners take home.Toby has heard the
alists, counterpunchers, while the one toking, and Pavel says that he does not Indian, the Chinese, the Canadian, the
Chilean, the Mozambi.quan, the Mo-
roccan, the Thai, and the Brazilian ver-
sions of this story, the proportions of
joy and desperation and grit different
in each. These tennis hopefuls have to
rely on the largesse of people like To-
by's father, and often the plane tickets
to the events cost more than they can
hope to win. PlU8 there are the meals.
Plus the expense of maintaining their
equipment, their bodies. An injury?
Forget about it-learn. to play hobbled
or go back home and sell insurance,
daydreaming about a life of sturdier
luck and televised glory. Because these
events at the Challenger level-you
rarely get many spectaton, much less
a broadcast camera.
You ready for more? Pavel asks.
They do new drills. The goal is to not
hit the ball the same way twice in a row:
vary the spin, the speed, the strength.
First, both men stand at the baseline,
goingback and forth, playing the plush
metronome ofthe game. Good, Pavel
judges. And then it's Toby's turn to
move up to the service box, to get used
to taking control at the net. Good,
Pavel says again. Not bad. Toby asks
if Pavel's routine allows for drinks. "I've got a bullet-pointed list ofthe ways I'd like you to surprise me. "
He leads the Czech to the bar cart in
the billiards room. Puts two tumblers
down on the cart top and drops in ice
• •
from a mini-fridge by the sink. For
Pavel, it's whiskey. Toby makes him- greatest. Of all time. Ifyou say Nadal pating, anticipating-what is going to
self a gin-and-tonic. Cheers, they say, is greatest, I beat you with this stick. be the next ball? Radar, sonar-so pre-
clinking glasses. It's not clear whether or not Pavel is cise, so beautiful.
Your dad, he makes his money from joking. He chases balls around the table Toby won't say so, but this Czech
gambling? Pavel says, while staring at until he misses. guy is paying back his free room and
a limited-edition Damien Hirst print But Nadal owns Federer! How can board in spades. Conversation like this
on the wall. you be the greatest if someone has so raises Toby's temperature. Even ifPavel
What? Toby's shoulders go up. many wins over you? And, besides, is a bully. For the first time since Toby
He has casino, no? Nadal is the best competitor. picked him up from the airport, he is
Oh. Yes. Yes. Pavd's tone gets nasal; his words, evincing passion: Mozart, Beethoven,
What do you think I mean? though gibberish, are just clear enough radar, beautiful Not even winning ear-
I forget about the casinos some- for Toby to understand that his last lier in the day hastened his pace to the
times, Toby says. mtement is being mimicked satirically. net to shake hands with his opponent.
Shall we play? Pavd indicates the Federer is once-in-lifetime event, Pavel The requested hamburger and milk-
billiards table. says. Like Mozart. Like Beethoven. shah: did not produce a smile. But now?
Pavel gets to break. When he plays, there is music. Well, Through talk of Federer, he's revealing
Who is your favorite player? he asks. of course, there is big silence. Because his heart: he loves tennis; it's the only
Toby turns the question back on no one wants to miss anything. But the ww;y oflife for him. It is not enough to
Pavel. Who is yours? ball-it waits for his racket. I wish I tire your body with play; away from the
Of course, Federer, Pavel replies. could play like that! And your body- court, the discipline has to be kept alive
Don't tell me yours. I can guess. your body is just an illusion. You are through ardent discussion. But most of
Djokovic. here on this part of the court, but is the time Pavel won't cop to it. Com-
No! It's Nadal. Why do you say, Fed- that really true, because how can you plaint comes easier, is more sporting.
erer, ofcourse? be in that other part ofthe court in the By listing his grievances, he is partici-
Are you shitting me? Federer is the wink of the eye? All the time, anticipating in the gcu:ral. fdlowship ofthose
who toil in the Challenger levels. If
tennis were a cosmology, the regular
tour would be heaven, and Futures, the AU6ADE
lowest level, its hell, where all matches
are one endless slog ofenergy and spir- Good morning to what's left and what has gone.
itual depletion, an exquisite torture you No more of my dense cries and heavy songs
must pay to be allowed to suffer. In be- about time's hardships, my mood, gunfights in schools,
tween, with the higher levd perpetu- our murderous American sunshine.
ally out of reach and the lower fur too I want a looser grip, a sweeter lightness
close for comfort, is where the La Jolla and grace and mercy around us, plainer talk
event and hundreds ofothers like it sit:
Challengers.And when you play in the while my neighborhood's wild parrots squawk
Challenger ranb-i;chlepping yourself and :Bash their smart immigrant finery
economy, relying on local aficionados and acute green wings over treetops and roofs,
tu provide housing in exchange fur prox:- and Jimmy starts his Tuesday picking through
ilnity to the tennis "life style"or check- trash bins, fifteen years now, set your watch.
ing into cheapo lodgings on the far out- Buongiomo, too, you kestrel in the blue,
skirts ofthe competition locations and
splitting the cost offood and cars with ignorant of tech genius and real estate.
other players-what is challenged most It's a happy day to begin happy days
is your continuing devotion to the game. to come. My friends won't have to remind me
to say thank you, excuse me, please, how nice.
ix months ago, men Toby did not The glory of the casual and destined,
Sknow came to the front gate and
wouldn't leave the buzzer alone. He
last month's blue moon, the orbed orange shade
delayed them fur as long as he could,

but the f.unily lawyer's phone was going
to voice mail, and the nanny, a Portu-
guese woman who'd been lured State- cations.Yes, he understands how it could ofthe profession and keep a struggling
side byToby's father with the promise appear that he and the guest playerwould dream alive for another halfyear or so?
ofan independent life she did not have have had plenty of time to collude, see- So he admits to having written Mr.
the temperament to indulge, was even ing as his home was open to the guest. Lemebel a check?
more frightened than he was. Most of But had they taken a look inside, and He admits to having written each
all, he was intimidated by the I.D.s and would it be so far-fetched to assume, ofhis tennis players a check,goingback
badges that he couldn't-on the tiny given the size ofthe property, that he and ten-plus years! Could they produce
security screen-read. the player had barely seen each other the the texts from him to Lemebel asking
He took a deep breath before meet- entire time? And, most important, didn't the player to throw a set, or the whole
ing the men at the top ofthe driveway. the guest, Mahr-teen Lemcbd, of Chile, match, with a corresponding dollar
He was prepared to bar entry into the ranked three-hundred-and-fifty-eighth payment for each lousy eventuality? Of
house. It helped that he was a head in the world, have a prior history? Why course they couldn't! Because no such
taller than all but one of them. My fa- else would they have been keeping an eye communication existed!
ther isn't home, he told them. He's in on him, .flagging in particular his poor
performance at the Diamond Club? orced to alter his routine and to
Macao. He has businesses there.
We need to speak to him, they said.
To a man, none ofthem had eyes, only
Don't think that Toby's father is un-
aware of the industry's need to save
F spend even more time with a son
helmewto be a dud,Toby'sfatherupped
dark glasses. face: tennis bigwigs, under pressure to his rages.The drinkingbecame a twenty-
Three weeks later, they got their confront the sport's slack oversight of four-hour phenomenon. On the plus
wish. By then, his father was lawyered illegal gambling, had finally rounded side: the Steve McQueen line, being a
up, and it was the suited representative up culprits---1ln.d, ofcourse, the names little too close to home, was retired. In-
who answered all the questions, his fa- named, the athletes sacrificed, would stead, it was Martin-this and Martin-
ther contributing only whispered curses come from the lower rungs, easy scape- that. Faggot Chilean, fucking cheat. I
in Cantonese. goats, and the disgraceful authorities knew there was something fishy about
Yes, he makes his living from gam- would get to grandstand in front ofan that third-round loss. Martin had been
blers and gambling, but he has nothing assembled gallery. pretending that the in total control (up by a set and on the
to do with any of these accusations. No, problem had been adequatdy addressed. verge ofconverting a break point in the
actually, he would have more respect for And where was the digital trail that second, pivotal set) and Toby's father
them if they came right out with accu- linked Lemebel to his hapless La Jolla was supposed to swallow the Chilean's
sations,instead ofconfu:mting him with-- host, who even wrote checks to his guests sudden inability to serve, believe that
what are these, hints? Hints and impli- to hdp them cover the costly overhead his swinging arm mistimed the hair-
hardship. One setback and immediately
want to quit. Should have sent you to
the old country, live with my father and
mother--see if they let you sleep all
of last wed(s eclipse. Good morning in day with that marijuana-marijuana!
the afternoon to the cranked-up cockatoo You don't have to worry-I'm going
outside my cafe, on my neighbor's shoulder, to college, and you won't have to see
my constant strangers, each day at 4 P .M. me for years!
I love morning's unmenacing purpled beauty, What college will take you, tell me
its silvered cxtn:mities, how it tamps beginnings that!
With your money? Every one of
but cheers us through sunrise's slow ascending them!
flannel blue. Say this, say that, this fair hour Heyl Where you going! Don't tum
we want to feel as hope, as I write now your back on me. You think you can
past midnight: I'm not waiting for day but know pay your way for everything, and ev-
it's here, a California sun rising on erything will be all right?
our Americas, on school.kids, gun nuts, nomads, Why not? Toby said. It's the lesson
you taught me.
and megachurch and gospel choirs that sing O.K.. From now on-no allowance!
to heal the hearts of shopkeepers and cops, Of course Toby had had to slink
poets, snowplow drivers, unionists. back, like a wet cat. Licking his paws
I shout morning blessings on them, 0 world and blinking, before finally rubbing
of chronic pain and tenderness. Dear day, himself against the old man. Sorry,
protect me and our common. Sponsor us. Dad. I'll try again with tennis, ifthat's
what you want.
-W. s. Di Piero Toby's father tender, too. Not im-
portantwhatl want--what doyou want?
You don't want to hear it, but I will
breadth differeru:e between in and out, ing the groundwork for cause, as well never be good enough. It's not about
over and over again? Of course, it's so as affecting a soulfuln.css that loosened laziness. Talk to the physio: my quick-
clear now: for a privately negotiated fee, his sponsor's check-writing hand. Ai; twitch muscles, there aren't enough of
Martin had agreed to cede the match they say in Cltlnese business circles: them.And my hand-eye coOrdination:
to his lesser-ranked opponent, thereby win-win. you can't teach stuff like that.
enriching bettors who'd phced money, Toby's father had boasted to the Toby's father ignored the informa-
hundreds upon thousands, on the greater Chilean of his son's tennis glory, the tion. What's wrong with your body? Is
odds that the man across the net from private coaches, in addition to the fust- much better than mine. You skinny, I
Martin, so inexperienced in victory, rank instruction he was receiving from am fat. You still young, I am old-old.
would be the one to move on to the the taskmasters at Bollettieri. And Toby He waited a moment before repeating,
next round. And to think that the sup- had even won a score of matches, get- with great disgust: Old.
port checkToby's father had given him ting to the semifinals of a far-flung
was ten thousand more than usual- juniors and to the finals of another- avel wins the next round, and the
because Martin had moved him with nothingwas a fluke and now everything P round after that. He also claims
his tales of growing up on the wrong was wasted. Don't think Toby's father the quarter-finals, where he reveals
side of the Chilean economic divide! emit smell the marijuana wafting from himselfto be a nascent servc-and-vol-
No other boy ofMartin's class had even Toby's part of the housc--don't think lcyer. Finicky, though-having to hit
thought to pick up the game, having no he doem't know all about marijuana! more than one approach shot before
access to private courts or coaching fees. And Toby's reply, always: I could he finally gets to net, as if never trust-
How many yeais had he persisted with ne'CJeT In Nadal. ing that it's the right time to come in.
a racket held together with tape? Days Who's askingyou to be Rafud Nadal! Each of these is a mere two-set fight,
spent skulking around the public courts His father's voice was booming, his man- and, 1inally, Toby's father is again the
and even some of the exclusive ones, ner full ofthreat. He'd even put his tum- gregarious host of old. No more talk
hoping for turned backs so that he could bler ofScotch down on the dining table. of cheating, ofMartin the Sequel.
make awaywith rogue tennis balls. Play- You don't understand! Ifl can't play After the second-round match,To-
ing either in the early mornings or late as beautiful, I'd rather not play at all! by's father took them to the Empire
at night, when everyone else was gone, Stupid high ideas! All my fault, be- Dragon at the mall, inaugurating a cus-
hitting ceaselessly into the void. cause I raise you in this environment. tom: a hearty Chinese banquet to cel-
This was probably all true-a way Give you everything I don't have when ebrate victory. With many courses and
for Martin to deflectjudgment for what I was growing up. Only son, raised like much talk of tennis. Tennis dreams.
he was later caught doing, a way oflay- a prince, don't know how to cope with Luckily, Pavel loves Chinese.The grease
for their green-tea ice cream at the end
JDISGUKSCS ofdinner, Toby's father slides an enve-

lope to Pavel's side ofthe table. A we.11-
wom ritual. What is this? Pavcl asks.
Toby's father just raises his chin, mean-
ing, Go on, open it. He smiles.
Discovering the check-as always,
made out to Cash-Pavel.looks at Toby,
then at Toby's father. I don't under-
stand. This is also the prize?
This is extra, Toby's father says.
I don't understand.
Consider it a gift. For your travels.
Your equipment. Ifyou're holding back
CLEAN-5'HA'4 cN from hiring a coach, now you can. Go
up even higher in the rankings!
No, no. Pavcl puts the check back
in the envelope and hands it to Toby's
father, whose mouth is open. Who has
to make a concerted effort to put his
face back in place. I don't need this,
Pavcl says. Between his first and sec-
I NQOOR I ~EADlNG ond utterances, Pavel has switched
tones. He's become conciliatory, po-
lite, talcing into account Toby's father's
hurt feelings. And then he offers this
explanation: Thank you, but my fa-
ther, he works in Paris in a pharma-
ceutical company. I would not be doing
this without him. He gives me every-
thing I need. and we have an agree-
P05f-L.ASER E'{E Posr - L.~s E'~ ment that I try my very best. I am
SURGERY NOSe SVRGe'R't lucky that I have this father: his dream
and mine arc the same.
This is the complete opposite of
Martin, with his patched-together
racket and that hangdog look. Pavcl is
someone, if not ofToby's and Toby's
• • father's class then very dose to it.Toby
has a cousin in the pharmaceutical in-
and the salt-who cares? He'll wake and rise through the ranks. The dream dustry, who lives in NewYork and Lon-
up with heavy legs, but they will bum of qualifying for one of the big-time don and owns a place in each city.The
for only the first ten minutes of his tournaments known as a Grand Slam cousin's Instagram is a wet dream of
five-mile run to and along the beach is never far away. Even to qualify for exotic locations: Abu Dhabi, Phuket,
and back. Then it's drills with Toby the pre-tournament qualifying, where Capri-all with the same sunset, the
on the family hard court, a near-exact a field of a hundred and twenty-eight same tedious vista of jewelled water
replica of the surface at the Diamond is narrowed down to sixteen lucky and pristine beach. I mean, why not
Club. And, for the hour before the day's entrants, who, having already made just save yourself the hassle and stand
match, it's Survivor's "Eye ofthe Tiger" it through three rounds before the in front of a revolving painted back-
over and over, then, once the match main Grand Slam began, arc expected drop, with an ever-replenishing blunt
has started, nothing but his head in- simply to be chum for the fresher, between your :fingers? Toby thinks.
side a towel between games, though seeded players. No wonder Pavcl loves Federer. His
there is not much of a crowd to block Pavel does win the Diamond Club. love for Federer, in light of this reve-
out-Toby and Toby's father, the other It's a first for Toby and his father: no- lation, is pure class allegiance. Federer,
La Jolla grandees who are hosting his body they're ever hosted has won; the the silky Swiss spokesman for Moet &
opponents, plus scattered dub mem- closest they came was a semi.finalist, Chandon, for Rolex.
bers and loitering U.C.S.D. students. Pratesh, who had to retire with a hob- If that is true, then how does Toby
If he wins the tournament, there are a bled ankle. They have sushi in honor account for his own Nadal mania? It's
hundred points on offer. Rise and rise of the triumph. While they're waiting not for the off-court Nadal, who is a
6.! THE NEY ~ MAl\CH 30, 2020
millionaire many times over, but for at a return, with a cry of futility that The only good thing about being
the player who has the press writing masks the admiration he must certainly stuck here is the weather, Martin says.
about the tennis court as a bullring in feel for having been dispatched with It's hot. I don't like the cold. I don't
which he's not a minimalist matador such subdued poetry. think I can live in a cold place. Mar-
of a few decisive moves but the low- tin smiles. It's hot where I am, and it's
s before, Toby takes the precau- hot where you are. Why don't we make
liest of the low-the bull, with his
grunts and his flexed eyebrows. For
Nadal, as for no other player, victory
A tion of closing the curtains, and
he sits facing the door, in case his fa-
it the same hot?
Toby should not have blabbed about
is hard work. How does lazy Toby ex- ther should decide to walk in, though being in love with Nadal. Both the stel-
plain his fervent admiration for somehow could he, since Toby has locked lar athlete and Nadal the Torso. Should
body who, as the press notes, "fights himself in? not have given the Chilean another
for every point"? But isn't that the es- Martin looks terrible. Well, it's 4 A.M. item in the drop-down menu of dis-
sence of dreaming-wanting to be in Santiago. He has stayM up to be able advantages to capitalize on. He sighs.
somebody you're not? to make this assignation. I already told you. My father doesn't
How are you? Martin says. You look want you here.
he
T following morning, Toby drops
Pavel off at the airport, from where
he flying Florida, fur
is tD the next event
good. Becoming more of a man every
day.
Toby asks him about Pavel. Does
But after he goes back to Macao. He
doesn't have to know. Just you and me.
He's staying put this year.
The Czech is as much ofa stranger as Martin know the Czech player? You are lying to me, Toby. I thought
he was on the day that Toby picked I don't think I ever played that guy. we were friends.
him up. Toby notices that Pavel is His ranking sounds way higher than I'm not lying.
headed directly to the boarding gate, mine. O.I<., O.K.Martin is nodding. I will
with a pre-screened ticket. Also, when He won. keep apologizing until your father ac-
the plane boards, he'll have priority IfI had a beer I would be making cepts. You are telling him my apolo-
over other passengers,which costs extra. a toast. gies, right?
Pavd didn't need the tournament- How is your case going? Toby asks. Yes.
winner check the way Martin did. He He would not normally go straight into Are you sure?
would never have conspired, as the business, but he doesn't know what else Whenever I can,I'm repeating what
Chilean had, to earn the equivalent-- to say. This is his third and, he hopes, you say.
or maybe more-through extracurri.c- last encounter with Martin, though he's I don't WllD.t to keep trying and he
ularwranglings, which have cost Mar- sure that Martin wants their sessions hangs up on me. So it has to be through
tin fu more than he anticipated or is to dragon. you. Are you trying?
capable of paying. How unfair life is. Martin is appealing his lifetime sus- I already told you.
Another unfair fart oflife: although pension from the game. He tells Toby OJ(., it's late, and I do not want to
he nabbed the champion's trophy at his lawyer is confident that they can be a drag. You say you're telling, and I
the Diamond Club, Pavel is not even get the ban down to two years-maybe have to believe you.
half as talented as Martin, who, if he one year with community service, which Behind Martin,Toby can't make out
had not hooked up with crirnina1 col- much ofanything.Is that a bed frame?
leagues, might have gone all the way Are there windows, or could that be a
in La Jolla. trick of the video grain? Did Martin
One shot in particular tD illustrate turn out all the lights to save on elec-
Martin's skill, something he hit over tricity? Or so as not to spoil the :fic-
and over during his two rounds ofgen- tion of his poverty?
uine play: he is in the service box by I swear, I'm not lying, Toby says.
this point, having sent a shot deep, You are no longer my friend. I un-
barely allowing his opponent to get the derstand. I disappoint you. This is my
ball over the net, and the ball meets life: I disappoint so many people. But
his racket not at the center, where the would involve being the South Amer- you have to understand-
logo is, but on the outer rim, the racket ican face of an advertorial about the ! do, Martin.
held nearly vertically, as if he were ills of tennis gambling and match-:fix- -you have to believe me, I would
using it to shield himself, and with the ing. The Chilean has already given up not do that thing if I do not have to.
softest-the softest:--grip, so soft that his underworld contacts to the tennis I need the money. So I was blinded
the handle is nearly unclasped, tap- authorities, so he has to produce other because the money is quick. Who
ping, kissing the ball, which obliges bargaining chips. Not so smart, but this wouldn't be, in my situation? This is
by swooning just onto the other side, is retrospective wisdom. as much as Martin has talked about
where, once it greets the court, it falls How is the weather there? A dead his cheating. Frankly~ Toby does not
away with the slightest postcoital shiver. conversational. gambit that Toby hopes have the heart to press him on the de-
No opponent, regardless how speedy will signal to Martin that he has fullen tails. He has the most important part
his legs, can do anything but gesture out of love. the impossibility of Martin's making
1l£ NEY )OMfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 63
a living from the thing he loves most. What is wrong with you? Martin mostly, because ofl'oby, who is girding
Did I tell you I had to sell my gui- moves closer to the camera, all eyeball. himselffor a slate offuture houseguests
tar to be able to buy a new racket? Mar- Nothing. who skew more Pavel than otherwise:
tin asks. When I was sixteen, seventeen? I can put lotion on it ifI was there! Pavcls Two through Ten. Not so much
Yes. Toby has dreams that he won't con- in their wealth but in their diffidence.
I can tell from your voice-you are fess to Martin. Because to talk about AD. irritating self-sufficiency. Martin is
tired of my stories. You think they are dn:ams is to pour dousing sunlight on all Toby has. Martin is the proverbial
bullshit. them.He and Martin go to the zoo and bird in the hand.
That's not true. I'm here, aren't I? kidnap the swans: that is one dream. The money-it is all for the dream,
Just as I promised. Have I ever not Although he understands that, in this Martin says. To play again. To be on
shown up? instance, Martin is a proxy for Apichat the court. Befitting the subject, his voice
It's O.K. I deserve it. I exaggerate and for Albert from Canada, although is dreamy, far away. A 4 A.M. tone. Do
many things, but this I do not exagger- Toby and Albert never fooled around, you know what they are telling me? If
ate: my life here is poor. Do you know just flirted. At least, Toby thinks they I come back? I will have to start at the
how much they are paying me at the flirted. Also, and most wincingly, Mar- very bottom. That's right-Futures.
club to teach the rich people tennis? tin could never be more than a pale Tashkent-do you know where that
Only a little more than the waiters. I stand-in for Romiro, the only boyToby is? Do you know they have an event in
can payfor my apartment and food, and got close to atBollettieri. He and Romiro Tashkent? Camels and yaks watching
that's it. At least when I'm competing would often wander offthe trails in one you sweat fur pointli. It's like a joke to
I am travelling-I am outside my life of the local parks. Amid trees and na- call it Futures when you are going into
and outside my head. They say that my ture, they would take turns going down the past. My previous ranking I will
life-myfarmer1ife-.-is like being a ma- on each other, hesitantly at first, and give up and I have to start at zero. I
chine: youjust keep hitting the ball, over then with studious lasciviousness. will do it, too. Happy fur me that day.
and over. I lll.eailt I used to agree. But I have to go, Toby says. I lie alone, and I can't wait for the next
now I realize: yes, it is like being a ma- So soon? What you have to do? day to come, and the next. Time will
chine, but a machine with soul. You are I have to let you go. move. And soon my problem will be
always fighting to keep the ball alive. You are my only friend, Martin says. fixed. Everyone in Santiago-my fa-
To never let the ball die on your side-- Thank.you. ther, my brothers and sisters, the peo-
that is the spirit. Always this fighting, Maybe tomorrow we can talk again? ple at the club--they tell me to give
sweating, the breathing of your mouth, Maybe. What he doesn't say: Let up. Martin, you are twenty-five, it is
like you are singing a song of air. And me go. time to grow up. Maybe this cheating
the two, three people watching--1n my Wait. Don't say goodbye yet. I have is actually a blessing. It is right at the
imagination. it is two thousand, one half one request. center of the "X" that is your life: in
ofthem cheering my name: Mahr-am! What. one direction, growing up; in the other,
Mahr-teen!Mahr--teen!So that my name Don't think I am taking advantage, staying the same. What will you choose?
isn't even my name anymore, but like Martin says. Because you are the only That is my father. Also my older
the title on a poster. Like "Evita." Or one I can ask. Can you PayPal me five brother. Sometimes I get so lonely I
"Paddington."And evcryone--the peo- hundred? talk to people waiting for the bus. I tell
ple watching and myself-we all want O.K. Toby do~n't even ask about them my situation---not everything but
the same result: not just that I win but his father's check.The lawyer gobbling close to it.They are quiet, but I can see
that I deserve to win because ifI play so it all up. He feels his resolve to be done in their eyes: this is all a dream, and it
beautiful how is it possible that I don't with Martin growing smaller-a dot is time to grow up. Everywhere I turn,
win? Every day I wait for the decision on the horizon. there are the same words: grow up. I
of those motherfucker officers. That You'll do it? You're the best. never answer them, because I am hum-
they will say, You make a mistake, but This is the last time. My dad is cut- bled. It is my own fault that I cannot
we give you another chance. Everyone ting me off. defend myself, because after what I
deserves a second chance. That is all I Wait. One thousand, then. have done who will listen to me? But
am asking. And then it doesn't matter I don't have that much! What he'd ifl could answer them I would say, Not
ifI am poot. I can stand to be poor then, really like to say: How much for you yet to gmwup. I need more time. Please.
so long as I am doing the thing I love. never to contact me again? He pictures More time. The dream is not dead.
.& usual, Martin is saying all the the check that Pavel rejected, which his There is still hope. Only after hope
right things. Either he has his act down father ripped up in disgust. dies, then I will agree: yes, I can grow
or he is genuine. Most likely both. You have everything! Martin says. up. But not before. Only till then. Please.
I can promise you this, Martin says. 0.K. Seven hundred. And fifty. Sev- And, once more, he plays the word for
If I was in La Jolla, it would be the en-fifty. Please. Please? the most forlom--and to Toby--heart-
summer of your life! 0.1(. But that's it. Yet again, he un- sore beat: Please. •
Toby's face and shoulders suddenly derstands that this will not be the last
start to itch. His nails find the spot, ofMartin. And not just because of the MEWYORKER.COM
only for the spot to move. Chilean's persistence but also, and Han Ong on the language of tennis.
64- THE NEY ~MARCH 30, 2020

THE CRITICS
ON TELEVISION
WHAT WE'l\E WATCHING

In our self-isolation, video has replat:ed social lift, and TV is grappling with a new reality.
8Y 001\EEN .IT. FELIX
n the evening ofMm:h 6th,I went David Muir was hosting a special edi- squares in Italy, and the Grand Princess
0lyn. out to eat with friends in Brook- ti.on of "20/20." Analysts were seated
The restaurant was a no-nonsense around a curved desk, typing on tablets.
cruise ship, still stranded somewhere in
the Pacific, miles from the PortofOak-
family-run spot.There was a :Bat-screen ABC had transformed the show's stu- land. On the floor of the studio was
television mounted on the wall,consid- dio into a sloping, L.E.D.-striped pan- what looked like an illuminated elec-
erately out of the sight lines of most optic lair for the election-which was, ti.on map that had been repurposed to
diners.As we got up to leave after finish- just days after Super Tuesday, the story highlight the states with confirmed cases
ing, a flash ofred colonized my periph- of the year. Walls doubled as screens, ofthe coronavirus, which were shaded
eral vision. I turned to get a better look. but the images were of empty town blood red. Outside the restaurant, we
Live streaming, which once seemed Jo presage the dissolution ofhuman intimacy, nO'W looks like its preservation.
ILLUSTRATION BY WENKAI MAO 65
dlscussed the aesthetics ofbreaking news, delivering an opening monologue to a monologue reamled in his bathtub.
the almost-camp spectacle apparently his husband, Chasten, and a handful of Immersed in bubbles, fully suited, he
required for the circulation ofinforma- "Kimmerteam members. He roasted the provided his signature mix of acid cri-
tion in dire times. Trumps, implored vigilance in the &cc tique and avuncular reassurance. The
The entire coWltry is now red. The of the pandemic, and interviewed Pat- segment-which was followed by a
pandemic has jammed the chum ofso- rick Stewart, sharing a photo of himself rerun-looked like it was filmed with
cial life, pausing hum.an interaction in as a child in a Sta.rfleet uniform. But, as an iPhone. "Hey, everybody! Hi!" Col-
medias res. Theatres, con.c:ert'YC!lUCS, and the week went on, resilience seemed to bert said. "Welcome to my bathroom."
cinemas have closed. Rcsmurant!i in New waver.Joy Behar, who is seventy-seven, These days, theatrics make public
York are open only fut takeout and de- announced that she would stop coming :figures seem untrustworthy; the real he-
livery.What else is there to do butwatcli to tapings of"The View." roes have no need fut laurels. At press
TV? Friends ask fut recorrunendati.ons. I am not the fust person to find that oonferences, govanors and mayors have
("High Maintenance" ifyou're missing the most innocuous aspects of TV mostly abandoned speechifying in f.avor
your neighbors; "The Leftovers"ifyou're watching now induce a rdlcxive unease. of :8.at statements. Andrew Cuomo, the
a masochist.) I quite liked "DCVB,"a bru- On "American Ido~" the hosts' displays guvernor ofNcw York, in a brown leather
tally elegant work ofscience fiction, set of consolation toward eliminated con- jacket and a white baseball cap, is a steady-
in a jaundiced San Francisco in the near testants, conveyed through the rubbing ing figure. But even President Trump
future, and would have reviewed it, had ofthe singers' shoulders, made me ner- has dialled down the bombast. Sweat-
the world not changed. vous. Earlier this month, watclllng"The ing and breathing heavily as he pro-
It has been a long time since "tele- Bachelor," I had been annoyed by Pe- nounced from the Oval Office that
vision" conjured the box around which ter's disrespect of Hannah Ann; two America would beat the coronavirus, he
families once gathered to watch "The weeks ago, I couldn't stand the inces- appeared to represent the ailing global
Ed Sullivan Show" or to first glimpse sant stroking offaces. Commercials ad- gerontocracy. "I will always put the well-
the surfu:e of the moon; in this cen- vertising &st food are otgiastic displays being of America first," he said earlier
tury, it encompasses whatever can be of careless skin contact. In the U.K., this month. Last week, he seemed to
streamed via a Rok:u, a PlayStati.on, or KFC's "finger-lickin' good" ads have have ceded the role of steward to An-
an iPhone. But this crisis has already been pulled. thony Fauci, the director ofthe National
created a culture. & we self-isolate, the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Dis-
Internet has become host to an ambi- n Sunday, after the Diocese of eases. Fauci has appeared on SWldaytalk
ent, crowd.sourced documentary of the
time, and video is the anxious medium
0 Brooklyn annoWlced the suspen-
sion ofMass,I watcheda service streamed
shows and CNN panels, and is now a
comforting presence at Trump pressers,
of social life. On lnstagram, a friend from the St. James Cathedral Basilica, standing to the side, taking questions
has shared communiqu.Cs from a young on the New Evangelization Television from reporters after Trump and Mike
doctor telling New Yorkers what to do channel. At any other time, the empty Pence rattle offtheir false promises.The
if they experience shortness of breath. pews would have offered further proof President claimed that the pandemic was
The illustrator Wendy MacNaughton of the institution's decline. Later that under "tremendous control,.; on CNN's
begins her daily drawing classes on In- day, driving up Flatbush Avenue for "State of the Union," Fauci straightfor-
stagram Live by stretching to Madness's last-minute provisions, I watched a wardly contradicted him."People some-
"Our House"; John Legend streamed woman run across the street to a store- times think that you're overreacting,"
a live concert from his living room with front black church, where members of Fauci said. "I like it when people are
his wife, Chrissy Teigen, perched on the congregation were dancing and thinking I'm overreacting, because that
the piano. The migration of social ac- sweating in close quarters. In the eve- means we're doing it just right."
tivities to the Internet predates our cur- ning, the Democratic Presidential de- A small, seventy-nine-year-old pub-
rent emergency by decades, but live bate fClt like a consummation ofthe in- lic servantwho barely clears the lectern,
streaming, which once seemed to pres- evitable.The podiums were six feet apart; Fauci has a distaste for drama, and em-
age the dissolution of human intimacy, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders greeted anates authority. The President, who
now looks like its preservation. each other with an elbow bump. After initially told the public that the coro-
I've also watched many hours ofac- Sanders challenged Biden on his health- navirus would go away, "like a miracle,"
tual. TY. Days before the general pub- care policy, Biden said that he didn't seemed, lastTuesday, temporarily cow00
lic seemed to understand how social dis- want to get into a "back-and-forth, in byFauci's preience.The next day,Trump
tancing could help "Hatten the curve," terms of our politics," and exploited a told the reporter YamicheAlcindo.r that
shows made a display ofrcsponsibk: cit- hWlger fut stirring rhetoric. "We are at it was correct to call the coronavirus
izenship. The sudden absence of live war with a virus,"he said. "kung flu" and the "Chinese virus."The
in-studio audiences was pleasingly ab- On March uth, "The Late Show racism is tactical, a diversion from the
surd."Wdoome to 'The View'!"Whoopi with Stephen Colbert"annOWlced that Administration's failures. More embar-
Goldberg shouted, eight times, to no it would stop production altogether. rassingly, it is also a way of shifting at-
one, during a live taping. Subbing for Four days later, when New York State tention from Fauci, who, Trump was
Jimmy Kimmel, Pete Buttigieg was a banned gatherings of more than fifty forced to concede, had become "a major
shy but game entertainer-politician, people, Colbert surprised viewers with television star."•
In St. Louis, Houdini and his assis-
A CRlllC AT LAR.GE tanti; dragged onto the stage a sixty-gal-
lon milk can, a Wgc:rvcrsion ofthe ones
delivered to grocery stores. They filled
CHAIN ME UP it with water, the excess slopping over
the sides as Houdini climbed in.There
Harry Houdini and the art ofescape. is a photograph of the act in which
Houdini's unsmiling face sticks out
BY Dbl.YID DENBY above the can (his knees were pulled
up to his chest). Members of the local
police-with helmets reaching down
around their ears and impressively ugly
mustaches--stand to the side, looking
like nothing so much as the baffit:d cops
who harassed Charlie Chaplin a few
years later.The top ofthe can was pad-
locked, with Houdini submerged in the
water--in later versions, done as pro-
motional stunts, it was milk or beer.
The curtain was drawn, and, after a
minute or two, the crowd would be-
come fretful. He was holding his breath
as he tried to get out. What ifhe didn't?
"Failure means a drowning death," as
posters advertising the event warned.
Magic challenges our sense ofwhat's
real; Houdini wanted to challenge the
ultimate reality of death, by risking it
over and over.That risk, he later wrote,
is what "attracts us to the man who
paints the flagstaffon the tall building,
or to the 'human :fly,' who scales the
walls ofthe same building. Ifwe knew
that there was no possibility of either
one of them falling or, if they did fall,
that theywouldn't injure themselves in
any way, we wouldn't pay any more at-
tention to them than we do a nurse-
maid wheeling a baby carriage. There-
fore, I said to myself; why not give the
n 1908, Harry Houdini-"The Semitism in Russia, and Houdini, who public a real thrill?" He depended on
I World's Handcuff King and Prison
Breaker'-needed a new act. He was
was Jewish, wanted to flummox the tsa-
rist politsiya. Indeed, he was an affront
tricks, but the possibility ofan accident
or a miscalculation or a clumsy assis-
thirty-four and had worked in show to authorities everywhere. He had con- tant was tangible enough.
business for fifteen years. He had toured qw:n:d inspectors from Berlin and Scot- Even befure the milk-can stunt,Hou-
all over the United States, playing cir- land Yard, who chained him up and dini had gone :further than other ma-
cus sideshows, vaudeville houses, and then watched, bewildered, as he broke gicians. Starting in San Francisco, in
packed theatres of the OIJ>hewn Cir- free.. But now, having spent most ofthe 1899, he often stripped naked in his
cuit. & a beginner, he had performed previous five years in Europe, he had handcuff routines. He was short but
with trained monkeys and fat ladies; a to conquer America all over again. Never handsome, beautiful, even, with a wide
few years later, he did his tricks in a a great illusionist, he lacked mystery brow, glittering dark eyes, and muscu-
tuxedo with a boutonniere. In Europe, and atmosphere; his stagecraft was or- lar arms, shoulders, and thighs. Hewould
he had pulled off such stunts as escap- dinary. & a mentalist, he would have appear at some grim local jail or state
ing (in 1903) from the "Siberian Trans- been shamed by today's master,Derren prison, take off his clothes, and, to es-
port Cell," a metal safe on wheels that Brown. With a pack of cards in his tablish that he wasn't hiding something
was used to haul political renegades off hands, Houdini couldn't kiss the hem on his person, undergo an intrusive in-
to prison. It was a time ofintense anti- of the late Ricky Jay's rolled-up sleeve. spection by a local medical examiner or
police surgeon. He would then have
Houdini challenged the ultimate reality ofdeath, rislt.ing it over and OfleT'. himself locked in a cell, encumbered
1l£ NEY )()MfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 67
manyjust cult:ists---who gather in clubs
and at conventions, rendering homage,
J
repeating stunts, exchanging the tini-
est details of Houdini's life. In "Hou-
dini: The ElusiveAmerican"(Yale), the
biographer Adam Begley tries to say,
with good-humored seriousness, what
kind ofman Houdini was, and what he
represented. It is not an easy task. In
the familiar style of American popular
artists, Houdini refused all interpreta-
tion. {John Ford: "I make Westerns."
Md Brooks: 'Tm just an entertainer.j
It is impoeStole, however, not to make
a symbol out ofa man hanging upside
down in a straitjacket, sixty feet above
T'l.ffies Square.Almost from the begin-
ning, Harry Houdini suggested some
larger principle of being.
e\WS born ErikWea Oater Amer-

H icanlzed, sort of; to Ehrich Weiss)
in Budapest on March 24, '1.874- When
he was four, he immigrated to this coun-
try with his mother and his brothers.
"Look, I'm sorry to cut you off-it's just that I His father had left Hungary two years
really can't stand listening to otherpeO'Jle's dreams." earlier and settled in Appleton, Wis-
consin, a mill town near Lake Win-
• • nebago, where he found a job as a rabbi.
He was no longer young, though, and
he didn't speak much English. The
with shacldes, and would emerge a short stuntmen retire into knobby oblivion. :fifteen German Jewish families ofAp-
time later, holding them in his hand. Houdini's strangeness and ambition- pleton fired him after a few years, and
Yet these simple escapes weren't enough; the nakedness, the liberationist tri- the family moved to Milwaukee, where
he needed to outdo himselfand astound umph&--still fascinate us. A little guy they were often hungry, and then to
his audience. In a later version of the who always escaped, he flourished in a Manhattan-to a cold-water :Oat on
milk-can act,callcd "The ChineseWater century that saw mass incarceration, East Seventy-fifth Street (at the time
Torture Cell,"he was lowttcd,head fust, mass murder, the humiliation and de- a slum) and to jobs in the garment in-
into a laige glass-fronted box .filled with struction of entire populations. A few dustry, cutting the lining ofneckties. In
watei: Sometimes knowingly, sometimes people, in his own time and in ours, New York, Ehrich, watching his father
not, Houdini evoked actual crudties- have been convinced that his escapes slide into despair and ill health, vowed,
slavcry and imprisonment, people cast were literal miracles. Edmund Wilson, like many immigrant children, never to
into filthy cells and tormented for years. more soberly, praised him in 1928 as a be poor-and, even more important to
Ofthe glass box, he said, "It smacks of disciplined professional, "an audacious him, never to allow his mother, Cecilia,
the Dark Ages." He burrowul into the and independent being." At the height whom he adored, to want for anything.
unconscious of the human race, evok- of his career, he was almost as famous Like Al Jolson and Irving Berlin, who
ing types ofpublic sadism that had been as Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino, both were also children ofJewish clergymen,
suppressed, only to reemerge in later of them immigrants who re-created he launched into shaw business as the t
eras: his stunts looked backward to the themselves in a new country eager for way out of ghetto jobs like stitching ~
ducking stools of the witch t:rWs and fantasy. Of the three, only Houdini garments and rolling cigars. It was the ~
forward to such pmctices as watcrboard- risked killing himselfon the job. :first of his escapes. ~
z
ing and "enhanced interrogation" under Two recent books havt: explored and There is a photo of him as a skinny, B
the George W. Bush Administration. enlarged the spell of his dominion. In angry-looking teen-age& LikeTModore 0
There are daredevils who scale the "The Life and .Afterlife ofHarry Hou- Roosevelt, the contemporary avatar of ~
Eiffd Tower, or leap across the Great dini" (Avid Reader), the sportswriter self-transformation, he built himselfup; ~
Wall ofChina on a skateboard,or plunge Joe Posnanski. recounts his time delv- he ran, boxed, swam (in the East River), ~
over Niagara Falls in a barrel, but they ing into today's "Houdini World," the lifted weights, and became both strong ~
don't provoke endless interpretation peculiar existence of Houdini obses- and astoundingly flexible. There's no ~
years after their exploits; most movie sives--some professional magicians, record that he was aware ofthe Zionist ii:
agitation in Europe at the time, but he tasi.es, and eventuallybun.died her, along World War. For Doctorow, Houdini
came to represent Max Nordau's ideal with Bess, into a Harlem town house was a key player in the history of sen-
of Mushljudentum, or muscular Juda- just north of Central Park. It's as if he sation. Sex scandals, advertising, radio,
ism, with its rejection ofmale bodies en- wanted to be a better husband to his moving pictures, flying machines, con-
feebled by endless study. He spent little mother than his father had been. As vulsive newspapers, exploding toys--
time in school and worked at odd jobs; Kenneth Silverman detailed, in his 1996 America was going electric, approach-
he may have learned the secrets oflocks biography, Houdini did have one se- ing the goal of full-time, full-circuit
while employed at a locksmith shop.As cret affair, with Jack London's widow, excitement. Mass culture defined the
a child, he had played at conjuring and Charmian, but he appears to have run aspirations ofdemocratic man.The pub-
had dreamed ofbecoming a trapeu art- away from it. He was a driven, restless lic was avid; Houdini was avid. As Beg-
ist. When he was in his late teens, he man in his career but not in his roman- ley says, he was more interested in ac-
acquired a used copy ofthe memoirs of tic life. Indeed, it's not clear whether claim than in money.
Jean-Eugene Robcrt-Houdin, the Freru:h he was sexual at all-his imprisonments He taught himself to speak in ad-
watchmake.r who became the great ma- and escapes, his purposeful exhibition- vanced elocutionary English, and to
gician ofthe nineteenth century. Ehri.ch ism, may have been all he needed, the write in the ornate tones ofperiod bal-
was so excited about Houdin that he ultimate act of sublimation. lyhoo; sometimes he used a ghostwrita;
changed his name to Houdini. He During a burlesque tour ofNew En- but he also composed or dictated sto-
thought, Begley says, that the .final "i" gland with Bess, in l.895. he wore hand- ries about himself, proclaiming his
signified that he was "Howlin-like." cuffs under the eyes of the police for greatness in leaflets, flyers, books, and
In the eighteen-nineties, small cities the first time. For thirty years, he was pamphlets. He appeared in a few silent
and towns had little in the way of live cuffed and chained in shows, in police movies in the nineteen-tens and twen-
entertainment (burlesque and vaude- stations, in penitentiaries. The police ties, although he was a terrible actor.
ville were mostly confined to the big evidently pulled out their strongest In "Houdini," a large-scale Hollywood
cities), so the arriwl. of a travelling cir- equipment for him; locksmiths designed version of his life from 1953, the an-
cus, with its animals, its high-wire acts, special restraints with multiple locks. gel-faced Tony Curtis-who was al.so
its "attractions," was a major event. By By 1906, he was throwing himself, ofHungarian Jewish parentage--gave
1893, Houdini and his brother Dash,two chained, into inhospitable bodies of him a quick-moving grace and an in-
years younger,were touring as the Broth- water, dropping twenty-five feet offthe genuous charm. But the movie is square,
ers Houdini, performing with "freaks," Belle Isle Bridge, for instance, into the dishonest, and distinctly unmagical For
snake charmers, and belly dancers; they freezing Detroit River. In 1915 and afu:r, all his self-promotion, Houdini man-
shuffied can:ls, did sleight-of-hand tricks, thousands ofonlookers saw him strait- aged to dude the projections ofothers.
read the minds of people in the audi- jacketed and hanging upside down :6:om In 1920, he became mends with Sir
ence.That year, at the World's Colum- a scaffold above the streets of Kansas Arthur Conan Doyle. The creator of
bian Exposition, in Chicago, they first City, Minneapolis, and many other cit- the most logical man in popular liter-
performed an act known as "Metamor- ies. He'd pull himself up, wriggle free, ature was, paradoxically,devoted to Spir-
phosis." Harry was trussed and tied in drop the straitjacket, and spread his itualism. Doyle was convinced that he
a sack, then locked in a trunk, which arms. The reference to Jesus did not had communicated, in seances,with his
Dash bound with rope. A curtain con- go unnoticed. son Kingsley, who was wounded in the
cealed them briefly; when it was with- The aerial escapades were often Great War and died in the influenza
drawn, Dash was the one tied up in the staged near a newspaper office. From epidemic of 191.8. In between writing
trunk, and Harry was at liberty. The stories about Sherlock Holmes, Doyle
speed of the transfer--mere seconds-- wrote books announcing that human-
was what people marvelled at. ity had entered into "new relations with
In 1.894, Dash was replaced in the the Unseen"; he believed that Harry
trunk byWilhelmina Beatrice Rabner, Houdini, for one, possessed supernat-
or Bess, a pretty, diminutive eighteen- ural powers. Houdini was flattered but
ycar-old from Brooklyn. Within three disavowed any special help. The friend-
~ of meeting, Harry and she had ship proceeded in an amiable manner
married, over the objections ofher Ger- untilJune of1922, when Doyle and Lady
man Catholic mother. The two worked. Doyle, who was a practicing medium,
together onstage, on and off, for three the beginning, the excitement about invited Houdini to their suite at the
decades. Their romantic life, however, magic shows and outlandish feats was Ambassador Hotel in Atlantic City.
remains a mystery: they never had chil- amplified by newspapers that, in this Lady Doyle seated the party around a
dren, and Houdini, in truth, seemed matter, barely observed the distinction table, rapped three times, and began
more devoted to his mother. He wrote between reporting and press-agent copy. communicating with Houdini's adored
Bess cloying billets-doux, but he wrote In the novel "Ragtime" (1974), in which mother, who had been dead fur nine
Cecilia passionate letters; he also sent Houdini appears as a character, E. L. years. (Hearing of the death while in
his mother a part of his earnings from Doctorow re-created the lurid public Europe, Houdini had fainted.) She
Europe, indulged her whims and Un.- llfe of the period just before the F'll'lit wrote out fifu:en pages of messages in
1l£ NEY )OMfR, MAl\01 30, 1020 69
English, a language that Cecilia never tails ofhis schedule, estimating the truth How much ofthe chained-beauty act,
spoke.Houdini satthere quietly, thanked of this or that rumor about him. They with its bondage-and-discipline over-
his hosts, and departed. compare notes and try to top one an- tones, was a case of necessary stagecraft
He wanted to reach his mother, but other.They won't let go ofhim; they ap- stumbling innocently into perversion?
he knew that Spiritualism was a con. In pear to be conducting a seance that's per- And how much of it was a knowing
the eighteen-nineties, he and Bess had petually in session. lure? On the sw:race, innocence reigned:
dabbled in it themselves, researching women were barred from the naked
names at local graveyards the night be- he climber, it has been said, assaults performances in city jails and prisons
fore summoning the dead in public. In
the wake of the Atlantic City disaster,
T the mountain "because it's there." (men, ostensibly,would not have 1nst:ful
But for Houdini nothing was there, ex- thoughts). Houdini himself seems not
Houdini, now thoroughly enraged, de- cept the extinction that he teased and to have attached sexual meaning to any-
cided to expose the entire movement. eluded with more and more bizarre fuats. thing he did, and perhaps we shouldn't,
He took on.f.amous mediums and began For him, a failure of nerve might have either. The male torso is a common
lecturing on "Fraudulent Spiritualistic been worse than any calamity. Begley enough sight. What's c:xtnordinary in
Phenomena." He testified before Con- lays to rest the legend that Houdini's Houdini's case is that he presented a
gress about the Spiritualist menace. death, in October, 1926, resulted from a naked body bound. Looking at photo-
Travelling all over the country, he in- punch to the stomach,though there were graphs of these events, you inevitably
tem.tpted ~.sometimes in disguise punches that month, administered in think of Michelangelo's "Bound Slave"
(beard,hump),shouting,"I am Houdini!" a Montreal hotel room by a McGill and "Rebellious Slave" sculptures. The
He flipped over tables and demanded. student who (with Houdini's consent) figures, as many have said, appear to be
that the lights be turned on, trashing sought to test the popubr myth that the struggling to emerge from the stone they
the event for performers and hopeful great man could withstand any blow. But are carved. in. Houdini sculpted his own
listeners alila:..Why did he care so much? Begley convincingly argues that Hou- body, and reCnacted the annihilation and
He and the Spiritualists were both en- dini was ill beforehand. A couple ofdays renewal ofthat body.
gaged in show business. But the Spiritu- after the Montreal incident, he took the He was, for many, the ultimate immi-
alists, he thought, preyed on the emo- train to Detroit and, refusing to go to grant su.a:ess story--a sort ofdiminutive
tions of people in mourning. At the the hospi121, performed his opening-night Liberty holding aloft a pair of empty
same time, he may have seen Spiritualism show in feverish agony. He died, of a handcuffs as his torch. He was the out-
as a covert personal assault. Any sug- burst appendix and peritonitis, at the age sider who :fights his way out of obscure
gestion of miracles, of God interven- offifty-two, on October .]1st. and even sordid circumstances and finds
ing, of spirits getting into the act, took He left behind many unfulfilled long- distinction and public acclaim. He freed
away from the self-generated powers ings and a legion ofinteipxetets.In a 2001 theJewish body from immigrantrestraint,
of the Great Houdini. study, "Houdini,Tarzan, and the Perfect giving rise to forlorn hopes that he could
What he believed in was the art of Man," the cultural historian John F. have led another kind of exodus. In
magic. Starting when he was young, he Kasson noted that a man or a woman "Humboldt's Gift," Saul Bellow has his
assembled books, posters, leaflets, and held naked by uniformed police exists hero, Qmlie Citrine, remark about Hou-
artifacts from magic history, which he in a state ofabject humiliation, with only dini, "I once speculared whether he hadni
loaded into his Harlem town house-in punishment or death in store.. Houdini had an intimation of the holocaust and
effect, his own museum. He set himself not only escaped; on a couple of occa- was working out ways to escape from the
up as the arbiter of who mattered and sions, in penitentiaries, he moved pris- death camps.Ah! Ifooly European Jewry
who didn't. More than a half century oners tiom one locked cell to another. had learned what he knew."One can hear
later, RickyJay did the same thing, with He was a showoff, a tease, a provoca- in that remark a note of mordant disap-
equal fervor; magic, an art based on teur. "The people over here, especially pointment as well as awe.
ephemeral moments and illusion, needs Germany, France, Saxony, and Bohemia, Begley, countering Bellow, writes, a
its historians. But Harry Houdini was fear the Police so much, in fact the po- little 80UI'ly,"Houdini was not interestM
too egotistical to be fair to everyone. He lice are all mighty," he wrote home, when in the meaning of his stunts, and in a
attacked his progenitor, Robert-Howlin, he was twenty-seven, "and I am the first sense they were meaningless. They ac-
and hounded his own imitators, as ifhis man that has ever dared them, that is complished nothing. They advanced no
risk-taking earned him the right to be my success." As Kasson says, Houdini's cause, proved no point. .. •He h1>erated
the only man on the stage. Although he mockeryofthe police may not have been only himsel£"And yet Begiey's vivid ac-
was the president ofthe Societyof.Amer- political in its intent, but it remains stir- count can't help but invite us to see met-
ican Magicians for almost a decade, he ring as an anti-authoritarian flourish. In aphor, and meaning. "Out he popped,"
had no serious disciples-just people ob- Michel Foucault's inescapable tcxt"Dis- Begley says, describing the end of the
sessed with him, an obsession that, in re- cipline and Punish," the philosopher's water-torture act, "gasping, eyes blood-
cent decades, has taken in some reckless vision of modernity centers on the sub- shot, lips flecked with foam." At a cer-
kids who have died trying to do their jection of bodies to the protocols of vi- tain point ofdanger, the queasily erotic
own versions of his stunts. Less griev- olence and submission; Houdini, as if spectacle passes over into images ofre-
ously, the Houdini cultists, as Posnanski anticipating his future imprisonment by birth, a limitless freedom that neverthe-
chronicles, devote themselmi to the de- theory, defied those protocols. less has to be asserted again and again. •
Empire on the American Frontier"
BOOKS (Liveright).
Park's book is a compelling history,
built from contemponneous accounts
GOD'S COUNTRY and fiom the previously unreleased min-
utes of the Council of Fifty, a govern-
How Mormons came to terms with theftderal governm11nt. ing body of sorts that Smith convened
in Nauvoo, Illinois, when he was feel-
BY CASEY CEP ing besieged by his enemies and antic-
ipating the Second Coming of Christ.
Its minutes help clarify Smith's some-
times contradictory polit:i.cal theology,
and Park's explication ofthem elevates
"Kingdom of Nauvoo" from pure reli-
gious history to the realm of political
theory. Park, an ambidatrous thinker,
is equally sensitive to the danger the
state can pose to religious minorities
and to the danger that a religious in-
stitution can pose to the secular state.
In his account, the earlyMormons were
a rowdy band of neo-Puritans who
mounted a fundamental challenge to
the democratic experiment. The ten-
sions that they experienced-between
the right to niligi.ous freedom and the
limits of niligi.ous tolerance-still per-
sist today.
mith was twenty-one and afewycais

S into a floundering career as a trea-
sure hunter when, per his own account,
he unearthed a set ofgolden plates bur-
ied in upstate New York. This was in
l.827, during the Second Great Awak-
ening. when charismatic preachers were
stoking religious fires around the coun-
try. Smith's parents had been drawn
into this religious passion-especially
his father, who dabbled in divination
t was an unlikely candidacy: a thirty- on June 27th, a few months after an- until his dreams were :fillodwith proph-
I eight--year old mayor from the heart-
land who pitched himself as the solu-
nouncing his candidacy, the first Mor-
mon to run for President became the
ecies. Smith's own visions were of an
angel named Moroni, who appeared to
tion to partisan gridlock, played up his first Presidential candidate to be assas- him several times before finally instruct-
military cxpcriencc, talked often about sinated. Smith's death marked the end ing him to retrieve the plates buried in
his faith, and promised to end the wun- of a decisive period in Mormon his- Hill Cumorah. By then, Smith had
try's moral decline. He was fond of tory, one that is less familiar to most married a woman named Emma Hale,
quoting the Founding Fathers, had an outsiders than the Chun:h's founding, who hdped transcribe the words that
army ofgrassroots supporters, and came in New York State, or its eventual mOVt: Smith claimed to translate from the
from a swing state. But the year was to Utah, where, against considerable plates-engravings in a language that
1844. the state was Illinois, the parties odds, its members came to flourish. he called "rcfonned Egyptian."
were the Whigs and the Democrats, But the chaotic months ofSmith's Pres- Smith finished the transcription by
and the candidate was Joseph Smith, idential campaign and his effort to es- 1830 and found a printer who agreed
the founder of the Church of Jesus tablish a theocracy in Illinois are the to run off five thousand copies. The
Christ of Latter-day Saints. subject of the historian Benjamin E. result, the Book of Mormon, begins
Whether or not the country would Park's new book, "Kingdom of Nau- as the record of a Jewish family in Je-
have been with Joe, we'll never lmow: voo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious rusalem, who, around 600 B.C., build
a boat and sail to the Americas--where,
A new book, "Kingdom ofNau'IJOO," emmines]oseph Smith~ theocratic visions. six centuries later, the risen Christ
ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL ROGERS 71
preaches to their descendants. In an tence that other churches had fallen when, at Smith's command, Mormons
age when people were hungry for ev- away from Christ's true gospel. It wasn't voted as a bloc, upsetting the political
idence of God's continued involve- long before Smith was arrested for being order. In1B38,having alreadybeen evicted
ment in the world, and in a country a "disorderly person," one in a series of from one Missouri county, they went to
anxious to assert itself on the global charges byvarious authorities attempt- vote in the oounty seat ofanother,where
stage, Smith's scriptures offered ap- ing to stymie his religious movement a mob attempted to stop them. There
pealing assurances: not only was the banking fraud, illegal banking; fornica- were allegations of violence in what
United States a holy land where Jesus tion, threatening a public official, con- came to be known as the Gallatin
himself had ~d but God was still spiring to assassinate a public official, County Election Day Battle, and sub-
speaking to the men and women who incitement of a riot, perjury, polygamy, sequent vigilantism left more than
lived there. Smith attracted a circle and treason against two states. twenty people <kad. During this period,
of followers, mostly men of modest As grave as some of those charges the Missouri governor, Lilburn Boggs,
means-farmers, clerks, small-time were, they were the least of the prob- <kclared in an executive order that "the
pastors, and schoolteachers-from New lems &ced by members ofthe new faith. Mormons must be treated as enemies,
York and Pennsylvania at first, then Anti-Mormon mobs harassed known and must be exterminated or driven
from farther afield. believers and attacked their houses; they from the state ifnecessary for the pub-
But self-declared prophets seldom even tarred and feathered Smith one lic peace."Three days later, seventeen
sitwell with the political establishment. night in 1832-Hostilities like these grad- Mormons were murdered by soldiers
and, almost immediately, Smith and his ually pushed the Mormons farther and near Shoal Creek, in Caldwell County.
adherents got into trouble with the law. farther toward the frontier: they estlb- The next day, Smithwas arrested and
Some of their antagonists were moti- lished their fust newJerusalem in Kirt- imprisoned for four months, during
vated by personal animus toward Smith land, Ohio; then a newer new Jerusa- which time thousands ofMonnon ref-
dating to his pre-Prophet, huckstering, lem in Independence, Missouri; and ugees moved to Illinois, when:: they bad
t:rcaslll'C-hunting days; others were dis- their ru:m:st newJerusalem in FarWest, been promised protection by the state
mayed bythe unconventional nature of Missouri. In each place, local opposi- legislature, whose members included a
Mormonism, with its new scriptures, tion increased in tandem with the growth young Abraham Lincoln. Smith escaped
its occasional glossolalia, and its insis- ofthe Mormon population. It worsened fiom jail before standing trial-possibly
with the help of sympathetic guards-
and he and other Mormon leaders then
went to Washington, D.C., to plead their
case before the federal govmiment. Ag-
grieved but also entitled, they carried
four hundred and eighty-one individual
petitions for reparations from harm
suffered in state-sanctioned violence,de-
manding compensation for everything
from lost livestockto lost husbands. The
largest of the claims came from Smith
b.i.mself;who demanded a hundred thou-
sand dollars for loss ofproperty and what
he described as fulse imprisonment.
Those petitions represented a pecu-
liar understanding ofAmerican feder-
alism: predictably, the Mormons got
nowhere with their atgmnent that the
national government should compen-
sate them for the actions of a particu-
lar state. '"What can I do?" Presi<knt
Martin Van Buren asked incredulously.
before giving the same answer that Con-
gress offered when presented with the
petitions: "I can do nothing furyou."It
was the :first of many contradictory les-
sons the Mormons would learn about
howthe fedaal government adjudicates
between the will of the majority and
the rights of a minority. Disillusioned
"Honey, it~ Lornafrom next door. She wants and angered, Smith and the others
to ho"ow three hundred cups efsugar. " headed back to Illinois, where the Mor-
mons had already chosen a place to re-
settle.The town was called Commerce,
so they bought it. Smith changed the BR.IEFLY NOTED
name to Nauvoo, which he believed to
be the Hebrew word for "beautiful city.." R•nl C...d•Nlla, by.Adam H«hschild (Houghton Mifflin Har-
court). This vibrant biography portrays the riveting charisma
he city of Nauvoo took shape in of the socialist activist Rose Pastor Stokes. A Russian-Jew-
T an age when Ralph Waldo Emer-
son claimed that every intdlectual had
ish immigrant and a cigar-factory worker, Pastor Stokes be-
came an overnight celebrity when, in 1905, she married into
'"a draftofa new communityin his waist- one of the nation's wealthiest families. For the next :fifteen
coat pocket." But Smith's plans went ~ years, she was a tireless crusader for workers' and women's
far beyond the scribbling stage: within rights, fighting to decriminalize birth control. She also hosted
a do7.en years ofits founding, the Church a stream ofsocialist lumirwies, including W. E. B. Du Bois
of]esus Christ ofLatter-day Saints had and Maxim Gorky, on her private island. Moving between
more than twenty thousand members, glittering estates and squalid tenements, Hochschild cap-
and Nauvoo quickly grew to be more tures the improbability and idealism of both Pastor Stokes
populous than Chicago. But,un1ikc the and her era, a time when it seemed that stark divisions of
Windy City, Nauvoo, operating under class, race, and gender might be erased, in an instant, by love.
a permissive charter from the state of
Illinois, developed a distinctly theo- v.llow Bini, by Siem: Crane Murdoch (Random House). In.WU,
cratic character: its independent judi- at the height of the North Dakota oil boom, a young white
ciary could deny the validity of arrest truck driver working in the oil fields disappeared from the
warrants issued by neighboring authori- Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The case seemed fated to
ties in order to shield Church members languish unsolved, but it found a champion in Lissa Yellow
from prosecution,and its standing militia Bird, an obsessive amateur detective. Yell.ow Bird-a mem-
ofseveral hundred armed men, known ber of the Mandan, Hi.datsa, and Arikara Nati.on, a recover-
as the Nauvoo Legion, was empowered ing addict, a former prison guard, an ex-convict, and a mother
to protect citizens .from any threat. Smith offive--uncovered the truth with impressive persistence and
was made a Lieutenant General, a title guile. Murdoch's sprawling narrative explores the woman's
previously held in the United States past, the terrible history of America's treatment of indige-
only by George Washington, and orga- nous peoples, and the impact of sudden wealth on a place
nized parades to show off the legion's that has suffered decades ofdeprivation and mismanagement.
strength. (This was the military expe-
rience he would boast about during his Ltttle Gacia, hy Meng fin {Custom House). This debut novel
Presidential campaign; he later added begins on the eve ofthe T"iananmen crackdown, in 1989,with
to his rCsume a term as Nauvoo's mayor.) the birth of a baby girl. Her parents, a physicist and a doc-
The city's grandest feature was its tor in Shanghai, are upwardly mobile transplants from a
enormous tabernacle. Smith wanted the neighboring province, whose lives are soon tossed into chaos.
temple of Nauvoo to rival the one built Told from three perspectives, including that ofa young Amer-
by Solomon; when it was finished, thanks ican who travels to China to trace her mother's life, the book
to the tithe in time and muscle required is populated by stubborn characters who are balancing on
of every resident, it was twice as tall as thin wires of ambition or nostalgia. As the narratives merge,
the White House. Smith had continued tying together history and the present, J.i.c:'s richly textured,
to receive revelations about how the unsparing writing questions whether a self can exist un-
faithful were meant to serve God, so this marked by the past.
new sanctuary housed new religious rit-
uals. One ofthem called for posthumous Blue Flowers, hy Carola Sflll'lJUira, translatedfrom the Purtu-
baptism,through which Mormons could &LUE guese hy Daniel Hahn (!O'rJt!T'head). One winter day, a resent-
baptize a living person as a proxy for ful, recently divorced man receives a letter from a mysteri-
someone already deceased. Another-- FLOWERS ous woman, who signs the missive with "A." It's a mistake:
which would divide the Church, attract the intended recipient, A.'s cx:-lovei; was the previous tenant
the permanent suspicion of the state, of the man's apartment. Letters continue to arrive, and the
and forever taint the public perception CARO(-A man becomes fixated on A.'s passionate meditations about
ofthe faith-called for plural marriage. her relationship's end and the web of tenderness, hostility,
The origins ofthis rite are not well SAAVEDRA and submission in which it has left her. He halts his normal
known. As Park observes in "Kingdom life to find her, and Saavedra, a lauded Brazilian writer, twists
ofNauvoo," it is striking that a faith so this search deftly. As A's correspondence unfolds, it explores
devoted to record-keeping did not doc- language's insufficiencies, and its power: "This letter will be
ument the doctrine of polygamy. "As opened, and all the world that it contains will open, too."
practice of polygamy. Instead, some-
what shockingly, the Nauvoo city coun-
cil passed a law punishing adultery with
six months in jail and a fine of up to a
thousand dollars. (Because the city's
municipal leadership overlapped en-
tirelywith its spiritual. leadership, Smith
could choose to protect colli:agu.es fi:om
prosecution under this new law.) Even
\l..o more audaciously, Smith cursed "all
;~ll
Adulterers &. fornicators" in a speech,
then excommunicated two Church
leaders for attempting to expose his se-
cret marriages. The first, John C. Ben-
nett, had been the mayor of Nauvoo;
when his own polygamy became pub-
lic, he accused Smith of having sanc-
tioned it. The second, William Law,
had denounced plural marriage after
Smith propositioned his wife. After
being banished from the faith, Law
"I'd better not. The last time I traded a milll cow swted a breakaway movement called
far beans someone ended up dead."' the True Chun:h ofJesus Christ ofLat-
ter Day Saints.
• • uch two-.fuced dealing was charac-
committed as he was to the ritual's tripled: by then, he had taken more

S
the Nauvooyears,
leadership
tcristi.c ofSmith's
both withinand
during
be-
significance,"'Parkwrites, ofSmith, "he than thirtywives, the youngest ofwhom yond the bounds of the Mormon
was similarly committed to its secrecy, was thought to be fourteen, and the Church. Not only was he struggling to
knowing that its exposure would lead oldest of whom was fifty-six. mainmin control ofhis followers--sup-
to Nauvoo's downfall." Smith publicly Origjnally, only Smith had multiple pressing dissent over plural marriage
denied knowledge ofpolygamous mar- wives. But he gradually revealed the and quashing concerns about his own
riages, and the few records of those practice to other Mormon leaders, in- moral purity-he was also trying to ex-
unions which do exist refer to them as viting them, selectively, to witness his pand his secular power. Since arriving
"sealings"'--or, even more cryptically, p1wal marriages, then encouraging them in Illinois, Smith had, ahead of every
simply connect the names ofthe united to pursue their awn. Not everyone ap- dection, courted the favor of the two
with "was," an abbreviation for "wed proved: Smith's brother Hyrum initially major political parties, the Whigs and
and sealed."One ofthe only documents led the opposition, condemning polyg- the Democrats, dangling the Mormon
Smith ever recorded which attests to amy and calling for a moral revival in vote in exchange for political favors and
the practice is a blessing he wrote for Nauvoo. Hyrum was a widower, and personal protection. In a state where a
the family ofone ofhis teen-age wives, his hostility to the practice weakened few hundred votes could determine the
assuring her and her relatives of their after he learned of its supposed post- outcome of an election, particularly at
salvation. Another of Smith's plural humous benefits, through which he the county and congressional levels, the
wives-whose marriage to Smith was could be united in the afterlife with thousands of active and enfranchised
followed, within a few weeks, by that both his late wife and any future ones. Mormons became a sought-after con-
ofher sister-later explained that these Other Mormons remained unenthusi- stituency. After a few dection cycles,
marriages were "too sacred to be ta1ked astic. Emma tried to marshal resistance though, this courtship soured, partly
about." Such furtiveness makes it diffi- among women through the Church's because Smith did not reliably follow
cult to track the development of the all-female Relief Society; in response, through on his promised endorsements;
doctrine, much less Smith's theologi- Smith tried to stifle the organization. in one congressional. race, he supported
cal justification for it. Some historians, Emma then threatened him with di- the Whig candidate while instructing
including Park, believe that he took his vorce, at which point he promised to other Church leaders to support the
first plural wife in April, 1841, though take no additional wives and signed his Democratic opponent, dividing the
whenever it happened, he did not td1 property aver to her and their children, promised bloc vote. Moreover, he was
Emma, and it was some ti.me before in order to secure their financial wdl-be- becomingpoliticallytmcic.When Boggs,
she learned the truth. Ifhdibeen elected ing in case of rival claims. the Missouri governor;was shot, in 1842,
President, the nation's cumulative total It would be years before any Mor- rumors circulated that Smith had placed
of First Ladies would instantly have mon leader formally acknowledged the a bounty on his head. Missouri forced
Illinois into an extradition arra.cgement members, a policy that lasted for much The Sunday Archive Newsletter
for the Mormon leader, but the munic- of the twentieth century.)
ipal courts in Nauvoo thwarted it, in a Smith had queried the :five other
scandalous act ofdisregard for the rule Presidential candidates before decid-
oflaw. ing to run. Only three responded, and
Like the Quakers in the Massachu- none expressed a willingness to protect
sem Bay Colony before them, and the the Mormons ifelected. Smith's ensu-
Rajneeshees in Oregon after them, the ing campaign was not so much a van-
Mormons in Illinois came to be seen ity project as an attempt to advocate
as a danger to democracy: not a mini-
America, where the saints could tile
for a more assertive federal government
and a stronger executive branch, mak-
Dig into
refuge, but an anti-America, where so- ing the case that the Union should in-
cial deviance threatened the moul order,
and religious authorities sought too
tervene against the states whenever the
rights of minorities were threatened.
stories from
much power. In the case of the Mor-
mons, that pen:cption was not entirely
"Persecution has rolled upon our heads
from time to time, from portions ofthe our 95-year
inaccurate. This became clear in 2016, United States, like peals ofthunder, be-
when the sealed minutes ofthe Coun-
cil of Fifty were finally made public.
cause ofour rellgi.on,D Smith lamented,
after announcing his candidacy. "And
archive.
Smith .first convened the secret orga- no portion of the Govcrnment as yet
nization in the spring of 1844, and it has stepped forward for our relie£ And
immediately began drafting an alter- in view of these things, I feel it to be
native to the United States Constitu- my right and privilege to obtain what
tion, rejecting democracy as a failed influence and power I can, lawfully, in
political project and outlining a theo- the United States,forthe protection of
cratic kingdom to replace it. injured innocence."
Park's access to these minutes is part Nearly three hundred Mormon mis-
of what makes "Kingdom of Nauvoo" sionaries were sent into all twenty-six
so illuminating. The documents o:ffcr states to evangelize for Smith's candi-
new insights into Smith's decision to dacy. Political conventions were just be-
run for President, a campaign that ex- coming popular, and his newly created
asperated authorities in Illinois and in Reform Party planned to hold them in
Missouri.and drew criticism ofthe Mor- every state-and to hold a national one
mons from around the country. It was in Baltimore later in the summer. But,
the Council of Fifty that appointed not long before it was to take place,
Smith "Prophet, Priest & King," help- Smith was imprisoned in Illinois. The
ing him shape a political platform. while arrest stemmed not fiom forces outside
also making plans for what would hap- Nauvoo but from forces within it: Wil-
pen if he lost the election liam Law, the excommuni-
and the Mormons needed cated leader who founded a
to leave Nauvoo.1be Coun- rival church, had, with a Classic New Yorker pieces,
cil sent missionaries south group of other dissenters,
and west, to see about re- begun publishing a news- delivered to your in-box
settlement, and Smith, in paper, which accused Smith every weekend with the
his Presidential platform, of polygamy and detailed Sunday Archive newsletter.
called for the annexation of the ways in which he was
Texas from Mexico, sug- supposedly dangerous to Sign up at newyorker.com/
gesting that the sale of the American democracy. sundaynewsletter
nation's public lands could Smith and his Council
be used to buy the freedom of Fifty ordered the Nau-
ofenslaved persons around voo Legion to destroy the
the country, thereby ending slavery and press that printed Law's Nauvoo E~
promoting Manifest Destiny at the posittw. Smith then declared martial Jaw.
same time. {That suggests a stronger The st2te ofl1linois responded bythreat-
commitment to racial equality than ex- ening military retaliation against Nau-
isted. In the Book of Mormon, dark voo, and by adding a new charge to all THE
skin is depicted as a curse from God; the outstanding ones against Smith: at- NE.W YOllKfll
after Smith's death, the Church began tempting to incite a riot. Smith surren-
withholding the priesthood fium black dered himself at Carthage, the county
seat.Two days later, a mob ofmore than territory, then displeased to discover, federal government; by balancing reli-
two hundred men stormed thejailwhere after the Mexican-American War, that gious liberty with democratic authority,
the Prophet was being held and shot their foreign soil was suddenly domes- they survived persecution and persisted,
him as he tried to escape by jumping tic. In yet another example oftheir con- eventually coming to play a sjgnifica:nt
from a second-story window. He died tinually complicated relationship to the role in the political life of the nation.
not long after hitting the ground, ei- United States,the Monnons almost im- Although a Mormon was elected to
ther from the fall or from the bullets mediately petitioned for statehood, try- state office in Illinois in 1.8J8, it wasn't
the mob fired at him once he landed. ing to get federal recognition for the until 1896 that one was dected to the
Only five ofthe vigilantes were tried State ofDcseret. fuknllcgislaturc.That adrlcvcmcnt did
for Smith's murder, and none were con- Nearly halfa century1ata;Utah fuW1y not end the suspicion on both sides of
victed. Srrili:h's Fmt Counselor andVic.e- became a state, and the Mormons re- the church-state divide: when a mem-
Presidential running mate, Sidney Rig- joined the Union--but not before they ber ofthe Qyorum ofthe Twelve, Reed
don, tried to take control ofthe Mormon had mounted an armed resistma: against Smoot, won a United States Senare seat,
Church; then Brigham Young, a former the National Guard, in response to the in 1903. he endured. several years ofcon-
carpenter who'd been ordained to an American military entering the terri- gressional inquiries into whether his
advisory council called the Quorum of tory, in 1857. Five previous applications duties as a Mormon apostle would keep
the Twelve, made the more politic for statehood had been denied, on the him from exercising secular authority.
suggestion that the whole ~orum ground that the Mormon Church's po- Such was the uneasy evolution of the
should oversee the Church, with Young litical theology clashed with the coun- relationship between the faithful and
as its president; the congregation agreed. try's democratic values: the same conflict their government enmity and mistrust
(The Council eventually excommuni- that had forced the Mormons out of slowly gave way, on both sides, to ac-
cated Rigdon, who later established a Nauvoo was now playing out, over and commodation and alliance. So it was
competing church, which condemned over again, in their new home. Unlike that earlier tllls year, on the floor of the
polygamy, in Pittsburgh.) Young was a the separatist Shakers and Mennonites, Senate, another onetime Mormon Pres-
forceful figure-"a man ofmuch courage the Mormons wanted to participate in idential candidate, Mitt Romney, could
and superb equipment," per the weath- the democratic process, and they tried declare that he had sworn "an oath be-
ered stone that marks his birthplace, in to consolidate enough political power fore God to c:xercise impartial justice,"
Whitingham, Vermont. Ignoring the to bend the laws of the majority to pro- and become the :first politician in Amer-
criticisms of the surrounding secular tect their minority beliefs. But polyg- ican history to vote to impeach a mem-
authorities, he began to "marry for eter- amy, for the U.S. Congress, was a non- ber ofhis own party. In explainingwey
nity" more than a dozen women, seven starter; eventually, judicial debates over he would convict President Donald
ofwhom had also been "M.E."to Smith, its legality went all the way to the Su- Trumponthechargeofabuseofpower,
while also organi2.ing the Mormon vote preme Court. In Reynoldsv. U.S. (1879), Romney said,"I am profoundly religious.
for county elections. The state retali- the Justices ruled that the free-exercise My faith is at the heart of who I am."
ated by revoking Nauvoo's charter, and clause did not protect plural marriage, It was a remarkable gesture, the sort
the antagonism between the thcoaatic and that a federal law banning polyg- ofprofile in courage that so many peo-
city and its surrounding democratic amy was constitutional. Congress then ple had been waiting for during the im-
neighbors intensified until, finally, the passed more laws punishing the Church, peachment trial It was also a vote to
Mormons were forced out of Nauvoo. including one that called for the seizure constrain the power of the executive
of its property. Finally, Mormon lead- branch,whichJoseph Smith had wanted
T here was no reason to believe,

at that point, that the Mormon
Church would survive. Some support-
ers, who had previously called for open
defumce offederal laws, declared an end
to plural marriage. Six years after this
to strengthen, and to uphold traditional
democratic principles,which Smith and
his early followers had sought to un-
ers had proposed giving the religion its public capitulation, in 1896, Utah was dermine. And it was a vote at odds with
own sovereign reservation, like those recognized as the forty-fifth state. some of Romney's co-religionists in
that had recently been designated for Such compromises are the stuffthat Congress: ofthe three other Mormons
Native Americans; opponents of the democracy is made of-and, it seems, in the Senate, one,Tom Udall, a Dem-
faith advocated, outright, for the exter- the stuff that successful religions are ocrat,joined Romney in voting for im-
mination ofits adherents. Park suggests made of;too.Many denominations came peachment, while the other two, Mike
that the Mormons' migration to Utah and went during the proliferation of Crapo and Mike Lee, both Republi-
was a preview of the sorts ofsecession- faith and fanaticism that characterized cans, voted to protect the President.
ist tendencies that would play out two the Second Great Awakening. What That schism might have dismayed
dec.a.dcs later, when Southern states left kept Mormonism from joining their Smith: this time, th.ere was no Mor-
the Union, though the Mormons de- ranks was its willingness to change its mon bloc. But, nearly two hundred years
parted the country entirely--or tried to. political theology. Parle suggcm that part after the founding ofNauvoo, there was,
When the faithful settled in the Salt of what the Mormons learned at Nau- within his faith, something that Smith
Lake Valley; more than twelve hundred voo was the limits oftheocracy. Adapt- had demanded from his country, even
miles from Nauvoo, they were pleased ing their beliefs and practices in Utah ifhe had not always permitted it in his
to find themselves outside American strengthened their standing with the church: room for dissent. +
(1940) and "I Am Lazarus" (1945)--was
BOOKS "completely out." More than two de-
cades later, in an exchange with Peter
Owen, she defended the generic frame-
NIGHT SHIFTS work ofher novel in progress, an opaque
yet rollicking tale ofdystopian quest, on
The curious creation ofAnna Ka'lHln. the ground that "this kind ofadventure
story seems to be in the air just now."
BY LEO JlOBSON That manuscript became "Ice" (1967),
the last book to appear during Kavaris
lifetime. It was, as she seems to have an-
ticipated, a notable hit and remains her
best-known work; its admirers include
the singer Patti Smith and a range of
novelists associated with science fiction,
including]. G. Ballard,Brian Aldiss, Doris
Lessing, Christopher Priest, and Jona-
than Lethem, who contributed a fore-
word when it was republished as a Pen-
guin Classic, three years ago. Beyond the
"Ice" cult, Kawn has attracted only spo-
radic attention since her death, in 1968,
usually when her books have been reis-
sued, or a lost manuscript has resurfaced.
But,in :recentyears,conditions have begun
to shift in her favor. Herpn:occupations-
opioid addiction, extreme weather, fe-
male oppression, psychopathology-have
become topics of burning interest. And
a growing appetite for expressionist tech-
niques and hybrid forms--and for a sub-
meigedtradition ofpomwr English mod-
emWn---suggests that literary culture is
on her side. Her work dominates Fran-
cis Booth's newly reissued "Amongst
Those Left: The British Experimental
Novel 1940-198o"(DalkeyArchive),while
the most Kavanesque of current British
writers, Deborah Levy, is also among the
most celebrated. Now the London-based
otlong after being discharged from new name that she became lmown to academic Victoria Walker, one ofan cx:-
N
glish
a Swiss sanitarium, 1938, En-
writer
in
Helen Edmonds,
the
who was
the Home Office (as a registered her-
oin addict); to her most important pub-
panding group of Kavan specialists, has
gathered twenty-four ofher stories under
born Helen Woods and had published lisher, Peter Owen; and to a small but the title "Machines in the Head" (New
six novels as Helen Ferguson, replaced avid readership. York Review Books).
her long brown locks with a neat blond In life, Kavan came across as distant Kavan was born in Cannes in 1901.
bob and started calling herself Anna and ethereal-a temperamental leaning Her childhood was a picture of misery.
Kavan. The name was borrowed from intensified by daily drug use-but she At. an early age. she was sent to the fun
the protagonist of her most autobi- was surprisingly attuned to the dynam- ofa series ofboarding schools that suited
ographical novels,"LetMe Alone" (1930) ics of literary repumtion. In 1943. writ- her poorly. "All the old Victorian meth-
and "A Stranger Still" (1935), and cho- ing to a lover, she appeared to accept ods of bullying seem to have been re-
sen, at least in part, because it echoed that during the SecondWorld Wm; when vived for my benefit," she wrote, in a
the name ofthe writerwho inspired the English fiction was expected to be diary entry from her twenties. In 1911,
shifts in literary approach that accom- straight-talking, outward-looking, and her father killed himself by jumping
panied her change of identity: Franz even propagandistic, her sort of"ciq>er- from a ship. Several years later, when she
Kafka. It was in this new guise--born- imenta1 writing"-the portraits ofmania had just left school, her mother encour-
again avant-gardist-and under this and despair collected in"~ Piece" aged her to many Donald Ferguson, a
railway engineer based in Burma. The
Kavan'sfatitm features icy heroines, dystopian fj114Sfs, and gothicflourishes. m.aniage lasted barely two years, and, at
PHOTOGRAPH BY WALKER EVANS 77
twenty-one, Kavan returned, with their m and remote, an abstrac:t crut\IIe of fantuy, dations." It is believed that one of her
young son. to live in England. During scattely human. There could be no warmth or purgative acts, onbecoming Anna Kavan,
a stay in the South ofFrance, she met a pa.ion in her blood. was to destroy most ofher letters and di-
wealthy layabout named Stuart Ed- In the nineteen-thirties, Kavan and aries. From this point, there were to be
monds. She also smtcd using heroin. In Edmonds had a daughter, who died in no bulldogs or country houses or hus-
another diaryentry, she noted,"H makes infancy; the marriage then foundered, bands or children. (Her son was killed in
one's eyes beautiful ... I watched my- and Kavan made a number of suicide action during the WM.) For the next thirty
self in the glass fur a long time, which attempts. Eventually, her mother inter- ycan, she lived alone, mostly in Notting
gave me real pleasure.,. vened and paid fur her to go to an asy- Hill, inWest London, and supplemented
The addiction, she thought, allowed lum in Switzerland. This did not mark her meagre writing income with an al-
her to cope and even thriw--a view later the end of her troubles, but it symbol- lowmc:e from her stepfu.ther and a side-
supported by the German psydllatrist ized a moment of transition, both on line as a property developer.
Karl Bluth,her fiiend and enabler. During and off the page. Kav:m's biographers, D. A Calla.rd
her marriage to F.dmonds, she bred bull- During the early years of the war, andJeremy Reed, and the novelist Rhys
dogs at their house in the Chilterns, en- Kavan travdled to Norway, New Z-ea- Davies, one of her executors, have fol-
jo)'W moderate success as a painter, and land, and Bali, among other places. lowed Kavan's lead, promoting the idea
published all her Helen Ferguson nov- While visiting a snowbound New of an abrupt and total break in her life
els---a handful of bleakly astute realist York-the setting for her wonderfully and work.Just as her hair was shorn and
character studies, plus an eccentric mys- edgy story "Ice Storm"-she sold three bleached, and her contact with others
tery, "Goose Cross" (1936). Kavan de- stories from "Asylum Piece"to Harper's minimiud, so was her literary aesthetic
scnbed her own nature as "hopeless,"and, Ba:taarand was photographedbyWalker supplanted by something harder-edged.
from the start,herwritingwas concerned Evans. When she eventually returned Ai; Helen Ferguson, she wrote barely
with the formation and hardening of a to London, she worked with trauma- transmuted memoir, turning her narcis-
female personalitytype-the: unkM:d girl tized soldicr&--an experience depicted sistic mother into a narcissistic aunt, and
bound to become an unhappy woman. in several stories, including "The Black- her father's suicide by drowning into a
This figure appean; in various furms, but out," which ran in this magazine in bullet to the head. In the Kavan work,
she is almost always pale, oold, suspicious, 194,r-and then took a job as an assis- memory provided a route to elliptical
"shyly arrogant." "Let me alone" is her tant atthe literaryjournalHorizon,where fantasy and dark parable. An unevent-
motto, and the mirror her best friend. she soon became a regular contributor. ful dinner she had with Davies at a Lon-
Here is Karen, who dreads personal in- The brief outpouring of essays and don restaurant became the seed for the
teraction and envies the sea, in Fergu- reviews from this period, which are in- intensely, and typically, unconsoling story
son's trenchant-and forgotten second cluded in the U.K. edition of"Machines "The Summons," in which the narra-
novel, "The Dark Sisters" (1930): in the Head," provides a glimpse of her tor takes the advice ofa trusted friend,
Her face bad taken on its mildly inatten- thinking at the time. In one essay, she R, and turns herselfover to a :figure lin-
tive Look., which was like a curtain drawn in wrote, "I do not like at all the idea that gering nearby, who leads her off to be
front of her true self, hiding it. She looked pen- a new life can be built up on the old fuun- charged with an as yet unnamed crime.
The story ends with the narrator speak-
ing from some hopeless future point
When we ~t out into the hall and I saw
the neat, inconspicuous man still impassively, ~
impersonally waiting, I began to wonder, as I ~
ha.ve wondered ever since, whether the good J:
opinion of anybody in the whole world is worth ~
all that I have bad to suffer and must still go :E
on suffering-for how long; oh, for how long~ ~
Although Kavan was committed to 2~

her own narrative ofself-transfonnation, t;;
some ofthe hallmarks of her later writ- ~
~
ing had been present all along. For the ~
character Anna, in the third Helen Fer- ~
gusonnovel, "LetMeAlone,"theworld ~
appears to be a "vague and unconvinc- ~
ing place, minatory and yet unreal," "an iii
uneasy dream" that threatens to become i
a "nightmare in good earnest"; boarding e
school causes her to fed "like a stranger ~
in some fantastic country whose lan- [§
guage and mode of life were alike in- ~
comprehensible, surrounded by enemies II:
in an atmosphere ofsuspicious and per- Reality had always been something of an Who is really comforting whom? An-
petuallylurking, unimaginable dangers." unknown quantity to me. At times tbis could other suitor, confronted by the "ht:artless
This is the Slll'I'Calist alienation recog- be disturbing. Now, for instance, I had vis- and cold" Karen, in "The Dark Sisters,"
ited the girl and her husband before, and kept
nizable in Anna Kavan's writing; what ll vivid recollection of the peaceful, prosper-
finds that he is "tantalized against his
changed was not the underlying theme ous-looking countryside round their home. will," and desperate, on his own behal£
or impulse but the trappings. Kavan spe- But this memory was rapidly fading. losing to locate her "real scl£"The narrator of
cialized in the :first-person short story, a itlll reality, becoming increasingly unconvinc- "Ice" confesses that he found himself
form and a voice she never employt:d as ing and indistinct, as I passed no one on the "madly" attracted to the "victim's look"of
road, never came to a village, saw no lights
Ferguson. And she responded to what anywhere. The tkywu black, blacker untended. a woman he calls his "glass gir~" and pur-
she called "conditions outside,"or devel- hedges towering agaiut it; and when the head- sues her across the frozen wastes of a
opments in literary style and fashion- lights occasionally showed roadside buildings, dying world, propelled by the unshak-
notablythe emergence,via English trans- these too were always black, ap· able sense that she possesses
lations of"The Castle" and "The Trial," parcntly uninhabited and more something he is "missing."
or lus in ruins. It was just as
of a method and a world view later rec- if the entire district had been Kavan has been com-
ognized as Kafkaesque. laid wute during my absence. pared to Jean Rhys-the
There are occasions when Kavan, changes in style,the belated
whom Brian Aldiss dubbed "Kafka's sis- In an undated note, succcss-and to Anais Nin,
ter,D leans too heavily on the master's Kavan explained that she who tried in vain to estab-
tropes. Places are identified as "the other had wanted to "abandon re- lish a friendship with her,
country" or "the southland"; characters alistic writing insofar as it and who celebrated "Asy-
are referred to by single initials or om- describes exclusively events lum Piece" in "The Novel
inous titles or both. In Kavan's novel in the physical environment, of the Future" (1968). But
..Eagles' Nestn (1957). an artist working and to make the reader perhaps the most resonant
at a department store grows tired of his aware of the existence of the different, analogue is Sylvia Plath,whose personal
"sadistic" boss and answers a job listing though just as real, 'reality' which lies mythology shares a variety of symbols
aimed at "a man ofintegrity," placed by just beyond the surface ofordinary daily with Kavan's: drugs and dreams and dou-
"The Administrator" of a country es- life and the surface aspect of things." bles; leopards and Lazarus; bad mothers
tate in a nameless area. But,even at its most spectral or uncanny, and dead fathers and marital miseries.
But, between the early nineteen-for- her writing remained rooted in ques- Both Kavan and Plath initially feh a de-
ties and the late nineteen-sixties-in tions of human psychology. In a 1944 gree ofsuspicion about cocfcssi.onalwrit-
"Asylum Piece," "I Am Lazarus," "The essay, she argued that all stories,whether ing, then recognized self-scrutiny as their
House of Sleep" (a 1947 cxcn:isc in what using "realistic technique" or conducted natural mode. On November 24, 1968,
she called "night-time language"), and, in "a dream or fantasy medium," de- just over a year after "Ice" appeared, to
ofcourse,"Ire"-she was spurred by Kaf- pended on "an understanding of the general acclaim, Kavan wrote Peter Owen
ka's example to aeare a bare yet vibrant fundamentals of personality"-what, and expl2ined that she had been working
fictional universe and a series of stun- channelling the language ofpsyclwanal- on an "autobiographyin the form ofshort
ning,ifslightly melodramatic, nightmare ysis, she called "the interpretation of stories with a connecting thread."Barely
scenarios.The unanswered question is a compleires.n She never abandoned the a week later, she died, of heart failure.
worse fate than the dreaded reply. At the glazed and remote female figure that In 1'170, Owen put out the collection
stll.rt ofher story"Th.e Enemy,"the threat populates the Ferguson novels.The "ice" julia and the Bazooka." The title story
is not so much a nemesis as the idea of in Kavan's final novel is an emotional is perhaps the most haunting, mordant,
a nemesis. There is little reprieve from landscape, not a stand-in for heroin or and confident thing that Anna Kavan
these depths: the final stories in "Asy- nuclear full.out, as is often claimed. ever wrote. A miniature picaresque, at
lum Piece"are called "The End in Sight" Herwotlcunder both names reads like once unflappable and ticklingly faux-
and "There Is No End." variations on a case study, almost like a naif; it's an encapsulation ofJulia's--md
preparation for the more systematic de- her creator's--cntire life. Kavan slaloms
alker's sclcction, "Machines
in in livcranccs of modern psychology: Win- around in time, so we encounterJulia as
W
ncwfuund
Head,"
the
taste
highlights Kavan's
for gotb.ic flourishes and
nicott's writing on true and &lse selves,
the pitfalls ofcodependency. Kaw.n's icy
a little girl who loves picking poppies; an
adult analysand "dam.aged by no love in
for jagged or circular structures that en- heroines, or antiheroines, are DCVC" alone: childhood"; a heroin user liberated to
able a potent mixture ofimmersion and there's always someone else-usually a conduct "a normal existence"; a "young
analysis."A Bright Green F'iekl,"the title suito~sometimesasister---<letered bride" with a "sheaf of roses"; a rooftop
story ofthe last collection published when to ddiost them.In "Rich Get Rich."(1937), gardener surrounded by "pots of scarlet
she was alive, concerns a sloping meadow a suitor is visited by a powerful impulse geraniums."The story ends with Julia no
that follows the narrator around, and that to dry the tears on a woman's "white, dis- longer"anywhere,"replaced by"nothing."
seems to be "arrogant" and "aggressive" traught, child-like face." (At their first But whether she is alive or dead matters
in itsyear-round luminosity. And, in "Ice," meeting, the glacial air outside fills the less than the prevailing sense.so bracingly
the narrator is never anything but lucid room "as with a solid cube oftransparent represented in this writer's best work, that
in his efforts to evoke a sense ofdislocation: ice.") But what is really going on here? she is isolated, off-kilter, and doomed.•
a grandiose cover forToomer's encroach-
THE THEATl\E ing alcoholism. "I've been working very
hard." he wrote in a teasing letter to his
wifu,Marjorle Content."Dmityou think
DESER.T 01\EAMS fm deserving? Don't you think I might
stop at that tavern and put my head in
Jean Thomer's unproducedplay ~Drama ofthe Southwest.• just to see ifthey have any beer?"
During these virus-haunted days of
BY VINSON CUNNINGl-IAM padding around the house, anxiously
taking in news and "visiting"my friends
via video chat, I keep thinking about
Toome:r's afternoon ceremony. A Sab-
bath atmosphere not unlike the one at
Mill House has sprung up between my
wife and me: we sit around reading and
cooking and listening to music, con-
templating work more than doing it,
calling our moms, pushing each other
fiuitlesslyto extrapolate on figures (test-
ings and infections, hospitalizations
and deaths) that neither ofus fully un-
derstands. Cocktail hour starts a bit
earlier than usual, and ends a bit later.
One ofthe little tortures ofthe mo-
ment is the sudden disappearance of
live theatre, and the thought of all the
plays that had been scheduled to open,
some ofwhich, barring an economic or
logistical miracle, will go all but unseen
by large audiences. I've tried to console
myself by turning to plays that have
seldom--sometimes never--been seen,
but which I love nonetheless. Some are
intentional "closet plays," meant for
reading rather than seeing; others are
simply interesting attempts, still wait-
ing for their tum onstagc.
--· . -- - .......... __ One such strange but promising

specimen is Toomer's odd, keening
1935 play "A Drama ofthe Southwest,"
n late afternoons, after his work teacher had finished his writing and his written, I'm sure, between many "de-
0 was done, the mode.mist: poet, nov-
elist, religious omnivore, and occasional
charges had fullshed with their chores, serving times" but never completed. I'd
they'd gather in the main house, where love to see it staged someday, perhaps
playwright Jean Toomer observed a adults made drinks and children had clipped into a one-act and presented
ritual that he called ..deserving time." cookies and ginger ale. on a bill with Toomer's other little-
Much of the latter half of his life was The placid hour wasn't only for idle known plays. He was an earnest dra-
spent in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. fun.Toomer--a brutally int.ense, relent- matist; the knotty contradictions ofhis
north of Philadelphia, on his property, lessly abstract, comicallyvain man who life and his ideas seemed to rhyme with
Mill House. On the grounds, alongside took every quotidian moment as an op- the dialectical possibilities ofplaywrit-
his family, Toomer housed a revolving portunity to philosophize-would ask ing. Still, his attempts at having his
retinue of devotees who came to learn probmg, pointed questions, turning con- plays produced were failures--as were
his home-brewed adaptation ofthe spir- versation into a kind ofSocratic exten- many literary endeavors after his clas-
itualist George Gurdjicff's mysticalprac- sion of his tt:aching. (In 1937, he tried sic 1923 work, "Cane," a quilt of poems,
tices; the students also performed man- to sell a book of dialogues with one prose, and drama set in black Georgia.
ual labor, a classic-and, for Toomer, young student. "Talks with Peter" was Two versions of the manuscript of
quite convenient-aspect ofGurdjieff's rejected by several publishers.) Later in "A Drama ofthe Southwest"were skill-
"Work." At four o'clock, when the his life, "deserving time" devolved into fully collaged in a 2016 critical edition
by the scholar Carolyn Dekker. In her
TOfJmer yearned to birth "a new race in America" among artists in Taos. introductory essay, Dekker presents the
https://t.me/WorldAndNews ILLUSTRATION BY R. FRESSON
Toomer who, having firmly abandoned teacher who has come southward, to the use of being here," she says, "unless
his identifu:ation with the Hark:m Re- Georgia, his tourism the outer sign of you fcc1 you arc in the country and see
naissance, black Americans, and the an inner quest. Where "Kabnis" is po- the mountains and the sunsets?" Like
South, continued to rove the country, etic and mysterious, in places hard to glorified Airbnbers,Tom and Grace are
yearning to fuul a locale fit to birth what fallow at all cxa:pt by rhythm and deftly in constant contact with the owners of
he imagined as "a new race in Amer- enjambed nighttime images,"A Drama the house they've rented, who take pains
ica." The play, which is semi-autobi- ofthe Southwest"is unsubtle in its study to set rules and explain the situation
ographical, chronicles his attempt to of oppositions. with the keys.
manage this trick among the cacti and Before Tom and Grace show up in There's little in the way ofa plot.The
adobe houses at the Taos art colony, in Taos, after a lush stage description that play is, instead, a group portrait. All of
New Mexico. works better as a guide to Toomer's psy- Tom and Grace's friends are ostensibly
che than as an inducement to set design writers and artists, but none--exccpt the
om Elliot, the play's leading man, (try staging this: "Then silence again •..
T is not unlike Toomer: cruel, curi- and life becomes existence again .•• and
ous, naive, self-involved, cluelessly sex- existence, focused for a time in a group
sickfriend, a poet named Lillian Range--
are getting any work done. They trade
thoughts about art, politics, Communism,
ist, an essentialist obsessed with racial of singing men, expands to the moun- and the unremitting war between the
and regional admixture, a vague but ex- tain and the close stars"), we meet a pair sexes.The only available intrigue is a spat
pansive theorizer even when the mo- ofTaos locals named BucktcrT. Fact and bctwccn a couplo---a petty jealousy that
ment calls for concision. He and his Ubeam Riseling. They sit on a roof and seems to peter out.Tom is trying to write
wifi:, Grace, have arrived in Taos, where t2llc about all those art colonists descend- a book. He sets up plans for his "deserv-
they've rented a house. They've been to ing on their comer ofthe country. Rise- ing hour" and sits down at the typewriter
New Mexico before, "magnetized" by ling--whom Toomer describes, aypti- but can't think, and writes a meandering
its small but vibrant artistic scene; th~ cally, as being "above art"-is rhapsodic letter to a friend. He reads the missive
come to visit with friends and to :frack. about the visitors; Fact. a butcher who is aloud, at length--pages and pages, pre-
spiritual energies from a land that, to "'below art," is more cynical. Through cious few of which would make it into
them, feels fresh. Tom and Grace are their patter,Toomcr's own unmistakable my imagined one-act. "To motor across
mirror images ofToomer and Content, voice is sometimes awkwardly audible: the continent is to k:t the physical world
who were acquainted with the scene in UBEAM: The spirit of the Indian lltill livea
come into you," he writes. "In comes the
Taos thanks, in part, to their friendship in and dominates this land. Dilappearing else- world ofearth-and outgo your t:boughts
with the wealthy arts patron Mabel where, it is vital here, vital lib. these hills.... and feelings and even your ego."
Dodge Luhan (a fcl1ow Gurdjicff dis- To this little cluster of earth-built houses the Toomer's manuscript ends abruptly,
ciple who fell rapturously in thrall to entire world comes. in what looks like the dead middle of
BucK FACT: Comes and goe1 u fut as it
Toorner's high talking) and with Geor- a domestic scene. We don't get to see
can..•. And why~ What'• to be 1een here?
gia O'Keeffe. One bank, one newspaper, grocery and drug Tom's troubled ego dissolve. One sus-
The play is a tart: ofth.at group's guid- stores like you Q.tt sec anywhere, an annory, pects that it never does. Insread, maybe
ing, if often unspoken. principle: that, a baseball field, a :fish hatchery, bad roads, the he finishes the book but stubbornly
owing to a place's intrinsic, elemental plaza, and a dump heap. Why should anyone languishes, still unsatisfied with the
features-blue sky, red mud, brown come all this way to get dust in his eyes? As writing. He gets into his car again, for-
for me, it means a job.
folks-it might work as a symbol of getting Grace (I promise, he would)
the American future and as an enabler Toomer's travellers are gluttons for and heading farther west, into obscu-
for art. This was familiar territory for the sensual. After visiting a sick friend, rity, deserving little but claiming all,
Toomer. "Cane"ends with a play called Grace is crestfallen, k:ss by the disease attacking the landscape like a bad, un-
"Kabnis," which portrays a Northern than bywhat it docs to the vt°bcs."What's stoppable germ. •
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.. ,,
THE FINAU.ITS THE WINNING CAPTION
"I lmO'W I don't lookfamiliar, but. hefie.ue me.

I eat here allthe ti.me.•
Phil Walker, Fallston, Md.
•There'U he se<Uera! hundred ofw." ~nd how do you ftJ ahout how sheftels ahout how heftelsr'
David Powell, Rome, Ga. Liliya Jones, Los Angeles, Cali£
•'I'he last time I mas here, I swear they triuJ to poison me."
Tom Noone, Worcester, Mass.
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In The Age of Corona-Virus stay with Us!

+ GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

ChrisWare (Comic Sirip,p.,m is a writer Jorie Graham (Poem, p. 30) teaches at

Hosted by David Remnick.

ll-IE NEW 'rOl\KEI\

GOINGS ON ABOUT TOWN

6 THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020

post in February. "#Supportchinatown." cover the labor it would take to fulfill

GET YOURS AT GQ.COM/BESTSTIJFFBOX

THE TALK OF THE lOWN

LETTER. Fl\OM CHENGDU

n the twenty-seventh day of uatedbeside a pleasant,tree-lined stretch

0 the coronavirus lockd.own in

I WON'T LIVE LONG

enough to see any of the new

terra 6rma and you knew as he held your hand

flANDEm\C SPECIFU. ! ARmflGEDDON, 2010•.o.

HOLY cow,.;: THE-

BUT PEOPLE ARE CONFUSE'.D WORl<ltlG FROM 'rlOFl"f ANO

This single incident in one small 1 2 3

OUI\ LOCAL COl\l\E.SPONDENTJ

P imals can suffer from mass info:-

Friday, March 13th• A passenger on an uptown F train wears a malteshift mask.

Thursday, March 12th; A cleaning-company employee sanitizes a handrailing at PortAuthority.

Satvrclay, March 1"th1 Diminishing supplies at a I*stern Beefsupermarket in Queem.

P anic-buying has been in evidence

48 THE NEY~ MAl\CH 30, 2020

1l£ NEY )OMEI\, MM01 30, 2020 55

D I told you, I'm not gonna

delayed them fur as long as he could,

JDISGUKSCS ofdinner, Toby's father slides an enve-

64- THE NEY ~MARCH 30, 2020

WHAT WE'l\E WATCHING

8Y 001\EEN .IT. FELIX

e\WS born ErikWea Oater Amer-

mith was twenty-one and afewycais

committed as he was to the ritual's tripled: by then, he had taken more

T here was no reason to believe,

Although Kavan was committed to 2~

--· . -- - .......... __ One such strange but promising

CARroON CAPTION CONTEST

THIS WEEK'S CONTEST

THE FINAU.ITS THE WINNING CAPTION

"I lmO'W I don't lookfamiliar, but. hefie.ue me.

into red states into blue states

A NEW PODCAST HOSTED BY

' .., . o ~ Apple Podcast s

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