grew up. That seems like a very wise move. I called my sister to see how she’s doing. She says Barcelona has temporarily suspended subway travel. You can only ride the bus if you’re wearing a mask. I bought a plane ticket to visit her this weekend. I hope I can convince her to come home for a little vacation.
Something will happen soon, but I don’t know what. Fear travels faster than a dust cloud… and it’s already in the wind.
ENTRY 14: …AND THE RIVERS WILL RUN RED WITH BLOOD
The lights went out. It’s the first time this week. I phoned the damn electric company. They told me the power will be back on in a couple of hours, tops.
It’s pouring down rain. The streets are totally dark, lit up only by lightning. The patio walls are dripping with water, but Lucullus and I are sitting comfortably on the couch watching TV, thanks to the batteries. If I turn on a lot of lights, the batteries will run down really fast. I don’t feel like going down to the basement to hook up the second line of batteries.
The crisis team began issuing its official statements at three this afternoon, Spanish time. Apparently what’s responsible for the epidemic is a mutated filovirus, or several filoviruses at once, that’s still not clear. On Channel 3 they’re now calling it the Marburg virus, whatever that is. Since seven this evening cases have been confirmed in Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, France, Holland, Poland, Greece, Turkey… and Spain. At a press conference, the minister of health, with dark circles under his eyes that drooped all the way to his ankles, announced that three members of the troops sent to Dagestan were in the ICU at Zaragoza with symptoms of this disease. They showed pictures of the hospital. It’s surrounded by fucking rioters and military police.
Worst of all is that the patients go through an acute traumatic phase and have paranoid, aggressive tendencies. There’ve been several attacks on medical personnel. More than one patient has run out of the hospital. I’m glad my mother’s retired.
The disease seems to be highly contagious. They don’t know exactly how it’s transmitted. A hospital in Sussex, England, was quarantined after two patients ran around the facility for nearly an hour, attacking anyone in the halls. This was online a couple of hours ago. So far, no one has refuted it.
There’s been absolutely no news out of Dagestan for twenty-four hours. There doesn’t seem to be anyone there. The last report from Russia stated that Putin and his government have taken refuge in a Cold War nuclear bunker and the army is occupying the streets of major cities. Ukraine has declared a state of siege, but towns and cities on its borders haven’t been heard from for hours.
A Russian blogger from a small town in North Ossetia–Alania, living in Moscow, reported on russiskaya.ru that he called his parents’ number for hours but got no answer. Then he started calling all the neighbors listed in the phone book. Nobody answered. It’s as if no one in a town of five thousand is still alive. A little while ago someone closed down that website. Russian censorship is relentless.
What the hell’s going on? Why aren’t they telling us anything?
ENTRY 15
This morning as I got out of the shower, I sneezed really hard a couple of times. Normally I wouldn’t give it a second thought, but with the psychosis spreading all over Spain, my hypochondriac side trembled in fear. Will the epidemic reach Galicia? Have I caught it, and this is the first symptom? Or is it just a cold?
During breakfast, I turned on the news. For the last few days, I’ve been glued day and night to the TV, the radio, or the Internet, along with three-quarters of Europe. We’re all hoping the news will report that the epidemic is subsiding. It’s just been one huge scare. But reality is ghoulishly stubborn.
Nothing from Dagestan for forty-eight hours. As impossible as it seems, there’s been no news, official or unofficial, for two days. The republic’s millions of inhabitants either left…or died. The southern Caucasus region (Georgia, Chechnya, Ossetia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and so on) is as silent as the grave. Their TV and radio stations haven’t broadcast for hours, and their websites haven’t been updated for two days. Refugees from those countries en route to Russia, Iran, and Turkey are being held in huge “Safe Zones” guarded by the army, more prisoners than refugees. Censorship is ironclad.
In Europe, things are getting more complicated by the minute. In Italy, the army and special units of the carabinieri cordoned off the city of Cremona. No one can enter or leave, except doctors with escorts. They’ve quarantined the city; anyone who manages to get there is forced to turn back. France has declared a state of emergency. They set up roadblocks at major transportation hubs, and you need a special permit to travel from one province to another. In England the situation is more dramatic. Parliament decreed the Isolation Act, closing borders indefinitely. No one can enter or leave Britain, not legally, anyway. I have friends living in London. There must be tons of Spanish kids, students, living there. What’ll happen to them? The epidemic is out of control in South Wales and parts of Essex. The
In Germany, the situation in some provinces is sketchy. In the north and along the border with Poland, they’ve militarized health and communication facilities, transportation, and nuclear power plants. In Japan there’ve been several mass suicides. Murders and disappearances have reached record numbers. It’s as if their society has just crumbled.
In the United States, the situation is different, if you listen to speeches by the nation’s secretary of state or watch satellite broadcasts from CNN or Fox News via satellite. It’s a huge country. In some areas life goes on as usual; in others madness has been unleashed. The government claims to have everything under control. But Fifth Avenue in New York cordoned off by military trucks doesn’t look as if they’ve “got it all under control.” CNN has reported riots, murders, and a wave of kidnappings and disappearances all over the country. A revolution is brewing. Because of that, this morning they started withdrawing US troops from abroad. Not just hundreds of soldiers or a few units—all of them. Every last soldier.
A few weeks ago, that would have generated rivers of ink in the press. Now all it rates is a brief summary on the inside pages of newspapers. Things have changed a lot in the last two weeks.
Here in Spain, not counting the quarantine in Zaragoza, the changes are small, subtle, but clearly perceptible. Churches are packed. Supermarkets are running out of some items, especially anything imported and food that spoils quickly. Automobile factories have shut down their assembly lines due to a shortage of parts from abroad. This morning, as I was leaving for work, I saw my neighbors across the street, the retirees, loading up their Pathfinder. They told me they’re going to a small town in Orense “until things calm down a little.” I shut Lucullus up in the house so he doesn’t knock up half the cats in the neighborhood. Then I drove to the office. The streets are strangely deserted. People hurry along with a furtive air, not stopping to talk. The vast majority are wearing surgical masks. At the office, our secretary handed me a mask. Boss’s orders, she said. So here I sit in my office, in a paper mask, like a surgeon, helping my clients. I feel like a dickhead wearing it. Damn, what’s next?
ENTRY 16
I write this in the smoking lounge at the Santiago de Compostela airport. My flight leaves for Barcelona in half an hour. I hope to bring my sister back with me. The situation is deteriorating by the hour. New cases of the epidemic have been reported in Toledo and Madrid. It so happens that the army unit just back from Dagestan is
