This is the third of a series of pieces written earlier in the pandemic by Portuguese writer Gabriela Ruivo Trindade. They appear here in my translation. Both original and translation can be found together on the author's blog.
5 April 2020
Today the sun is bright and hot. Warmth. At Tesco there are queues out the door, but not round the car park. It seems the wipes to clean the trolleys have run out, as in their place there is a bottle of spray and some disposable cloths. Don’t they see they might as well not bother? Instead of catching the virus from the trolley handle, people will catch it from the spray bottle, unless they are wearing gloves. Security measures are being relaxed. We are definitely not at the level of Brazil, or perhaps not even United States, but we are a long way from Germany, France or Portugal. My own country being a model of efficiency in containing the virus. Here, in England, we are still half asleep. Perhaps because the sun is shining and people refuse to believe it. It’s hard for me too. The kids are at home, and that’s the most unusual bit. They are at home the whole time. It’s been great, of course, so far; we’re not yet fed up with each other. I need to reinstate a long-forgotten discipline, because cooking for four is not the same as cooking for two or three. My husband goes out to work. Luckily there’s still work. And when there isn’t? We’ll be better off then, because we’ll be more protected. His work involves risk, but so does the lack of work. There is risk in everything but we get used to not thinking about that. We don’t think about the thousands of deaths every day. Not even just those from this illness. How can we? The urgency, however, changes the course of my thoughts. I find myself imagining catastrophic scenarios. Domestic-scale disasters. Like the boy who died alone in hospital. He was thirteen. And so many other children, and so many other adults. And what if I fall ill? What if he falls ill? Or both of us? What if the kids are left alone, without news of us, awaiting our return or a tragic phone call? Our kids aren’t kids anymore, one is a young adult and the other an adolescent, but at times like these they become kids again and I, mother. Thinking only about the practicalities. When will it be the right time to sit them down and say, look, if this happens, here are the passwords for all the bank accounts, the instructions for paying the rent, the council tax, water, electricity and gas. If the worst happens… What do you say then? Our practical self is cautious. That moment hasn’t arrived yet. One step at a time. Although in my head all the steps are drawn outside their lines. I must focus my vision on today, only glimpsing the shadow of the unknown beyond the horizon. The shade is there. It always is. A mother’s mind sees all the pitfalls, negotiates them like an obstacle course, sometimes she falls, picks herself up as if it was nothing, holds back the tears and carries on. Deluded, she believes she can always protect her children. Yes, because the worst scenario, the one that really gives me chills, is they themselves falling seriously ill, being hospitalised, and me here at home. Waiting. Nature might be daft, but it always speaks loudest. And today the sun is shining, and nothing else could bring this warmth of something very much like hope.
Translated from the Portuguese by Andrew McDougall
Gabriela Ruivo Trindade (Lisbon, 1970) graduated in psychology and has lived in London since 2004. She was the winner of the Prémio LeYa in 2013 for her first novel, Uma Outra Voz, which was also awarded with the Prémio PEN Clube Português Primeira Obra (ex-aequo) in 2015 and published in Brazil in 2018 (LeYa – Casa da Palavra). Her other works include the children’s book A Vaca Leitora (D. Quixote, 2016). Between 2016 and 2020 she contributed to a number of poetry and short story anthologies, and her first poetry collection, Aves Migratórias, was published in 2019 (On y va). She manages Miúda Children’s Books in Portuguese, an online bookshop specialising in children’s literature written in Portuguese.