Chapter 3: Day 2: Dawn (Continued)

Zita was great at taking care of Mom. Most of her work had dried up due to the pandemic so she put her heart and soul into taking care of our mother. A strong affection had developed between the two. Not that there had not been a little friction. Due to school closures, spotty day care and her husband’s work schedule there had been a number of occasions where she was forced to bring her four-year-old daughter, Maria, with her. This had not pleased Mom. It was not that she was anti children but with all that was going on in the world she saw kids as walking Petry dishes full of disease and pestilence. Long-distance negotiations were conducted amongst sturm and drang on both sides, and a compromise reached. Marie could come but would be restricted to the finished basement Mom never entered.

Then Zita caught Covid.

It was late May, and I was sitting at my desk in the small office Nadine, and I shared on the first floor of our home. It had old school dark wood and glass paneled bookcases on one wall, two large windows opposite them and desks for each of us on the remaining walls so we sat back-to-back albeit six feet apart. I was deep into writing. Or better said, deep into the idea of writing. There was a Toucan visiting a mango tree just outside the wall to our home. The difference between wildlife in New Jersey and here never ceased to amaze me and make me grateful for where I was. However, I was not thinking about that. I was wondering whether they sold Fruit Loops in Brazil. And if they did, was Sam the Toucan still their mascot? Deep thoughts for the writer.

My phone chirped and I saw it was Mom, I didn’t think much of it. She called me when she could not figure out how to change the font on her computer or to walk her through resetting the Wi-Fi router. Over the last few months, I fielded a number of these calls. It was all part of what the media was calling the new normal. I clicked the answer symbol on my phone and before I could even say hello I heard through my phone’s speaker Mom shouting, panic in her voice “You need to come home right now. I don’t care what it costs. I will pay for it. But you must come to my home. Now!”

Stunned by her tone, her demand and lack of introduction I replied “Hold on. Hold on. What is going on? Why are you so upset?”

“Zita has Covid. She just called. She won’t be coming in and she exposed me. You need to come home. I can’t be here by myself. What if I get sick? What will I do.” she said in a fearful voice. .

“Okay. Okay. I get it. And I will see what I can do about getting a flight, but I don’t think they have resumed flights from Rio to the US yet. Let me call Zita and find out what is going on, but you always wore a mask when she was there, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you maintained a safe distance when you could.”

“Yes. But that little girl of hers was always taking off her mask.”

“Okay. But Mom, I don’t think you would have caught Covid from her. I know her, she was very careful around you. Let me call her. Find out what is going on. Then I will call the airlines and call you back. We will figure this out. You are not going to get sick. I promise. Okay?”

“Okay. But enough of this nonsense of you staying in Brazil. Book a flight home today.” And she hung up.

My mother’s panicked tone was completely out of character. She had not loved that my trip back to the United States kept getting postponed. But she understood. You couldn’t watch MSNBC all day long and not understand. Besides, between my sister and I we had arranged a very comfortable, if lonely, life for her in the time of Covid. I knew from talking to her she was grateful for that especially considering that old age homes had seen horrific death tolls. But I also knew what was scaring her. Mom was among the most vulnerable for Covid. A decade ago, she had undergone treatment for lung cancer. They had caught it early and between chemo and radiation therapy she had been cancer free ever since. But they had warned her that her lungs were irrevocably altered and were now especially vulnerable to disease.

I called Zita. She was sick. Very sick. She could barely speak to me as she had difficulty breathing.. She told me that the only reason she was not in the hospital is there were no beds available. She had caught the disease in a side job she had picked up at a grocery store packing groceries for delivery. One of her coworkers had contracted the disease and generously shared it with her and a dozen others. She was now sleeping in the basement of their home while her husband and daughter lived upstairs and left meals for her at the top of the basement stairs. I felt so bad for her I didn’t have the heart to tell her how angry I was at her. I knew she had taken on the side job to help feed her family, but she didn’t give me heads up about it which would have allowed me to decide about Mom’s care. Now my mother was in danger of catching the disease because of it and I couldn’t forgive her for that. I did not trust myself to say anything. I just hung up the phone.

I called American Airlines. All flights to Brazil were suspended. They suggested that I call United Airlines. They thought they were still operating out Sao Paulo but were not sure. United did have two flights a week from Sao Paulo to Houston. Their next flight left tomorrow. Was I interested in reserving a seat?” I told them I would call them back.

I found Nadine sitting on the couch in our living room. It is the most stunning room of our house with floor to ceiling glass doors it allowed the outside in. It had a granite floor with oriental rugs, a bar and even a sunken section for listening to music. It is where my wife loved to read the ink off “O Globo” Rio’s largest newspaper Today she in a half lotus position, Alice, our Siamese cat, in her lap, reading glasses halfway down her nose, with the front section held in front of her like a shield. I sat on the love seat opposite her without saying anything. She looked up and I must have looked very troubled because when she looked up, she immediately said “What’s wrong?” I told her.

“What do you want to do, my darling.”

“I don’t know. It is a Siberian dilemma. Do you know what that is?”

She shook her head. “It is when the only choices you have are bad and worse.” I paused hoping she would volunteer the solution I had already settled on. She didn’t. I continued   If I go, I leave you by yourself. If I don’t go and my mother gets sick, I will never forgive myself. She can’t be alone.” Nadine got up, much to the dismay of the  cat, who meowed in displeasure at being displaced. She sat next to me and held my hand. “Do not worry about me my darling. I am fine here. You must go.”

I looked at my feet. They were tan and clad in a pair of yellow and green Havianna’s. I had rarely worn anything else on my feet in months. In the moment, I wondered what it would be like to wear shoes again. Funny, the things you think about when you are in crisis mode. I looked up and asked, knowing the answer before the words left my mouth “Come with me?”

“You must go my darling, but I cannot leave. I have too much to do here. Who would take care of our home? Who would take care of Romeow? I promise I will come when there are direct flights to the US from Rio.”

I looked at her with distressed eyes. She grabbed both of my hands and holding my gaze said. “Va com Deus, meu amor. Trust me I will be fine.” 

Twenty-six hours later I found myself in the nearly empty international terminal of São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport. A year earlier this hall would have transited a hundred thousand people in a single day. Today it was so empty you could hear a mouse fart.

I had taken a cab from our home in Rio De Janiero because flights were crowded, difficult to book and considering the state of pandemic precautions put in place by the Bolosonaro (Trump of the tropics) government not safe. . Marcus, a driver that Nadine frequently used, had agreed to drive me the two hundred and seventy miles for twenty-five-hundred Reals, or five hundred dollars. Getting into that cab, saying goodbye to Nadine is among the most difficult things I have ever done. I was leaving the person I cherished and loved above all others with no expectation of when or even if I would see her again. That type of goodbye belonged in movies. Not in my life. I managed to put on a brave face through our final embrace. I told her all the lies that one tells someone you love when the future is uncertain. It won’t be long. I will see you before you know it. You are tired of me anyway. We have Zoom. We were both remarkably stoic. Until we were out of sight of each other and then I let the tears flow.

The ride from to Sao Paulo took just under six hours and took place mostly in silence. Both Marcus and I were double masked to protect each other but kept the windows open despite the heat. . Three months into the pandemic wearing a mask is a part of daily life but it makes conversation difficult. Besides my Portuguese is limited as was his English. The view out the window helped make up for the silence. The countryside, once you leave the factories and favellas of Rio behind, is remarkable. First through the mountains of the Serra Do Mar, the tallest along the entire Atlantic seaboard, then the lush Paraiba Valley home to Brazil’s original coffee industry.

At one point, we pass a desiccated field that is studded with two-meter-tall termite mounds. I have read that before there were people in Brazil there were termites. So many in fact scientists have recently discovered an ancient Termite city in the northeast of the country that is as large as Great Britain. It is so large to see it all they had to use satellite imaging. It is hard to imagine a world run by terminates, unless you are science fiction author, but they did here. And then they didn’t. Evolution is relentless. Nothing is permanent. Everything has its time.

When we get to the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, Marcus pulls off the highway to refuel the car and give both of us the opportunity for a bio break. We pass a hospital. I don’t catch its name. But I can see they have sent up tents in the parking lot and there is a long line of masked people waiting to be seen by a physician. It terrifies me. It reminds me of the sleepless hours I had early in the pandemic. I was marooned in a country where I did not speak the language and. It seemed that all Globo and CNN broadcast were scenes from hospitals where people were dying, separated from the comfort family provides. What if I got sick and had to go to the hospital? Nadine would not be there to translate what the Dr’s and nurses were saying to me. I would be in a permanent state of fear and confusion. I would not know if I was getting better or worse. There would be no encouraging words to hear. It would be just the hot winds of my imagination blowing on the embers of fear. Flames of panic would no doubt erupt. And what if I got worse? What if they could not stop the spread of the disease? What if I became terminal? Who would be there to comfort me? Who would let me know that I was loved. The idea of facing eternity alone terrified me.

I must have whimpered audibly at this point as Marcus said “Senhor Paul, tudo bem?” I reply
Tudo bom, I am fine. “

As we get back on the highway It is easy to imagine the terror my mother is feeling right now. With her addiction to MSNBC, she has seen the same news reports I have. She is also doubly vunerable as an octogenarian and lung cancer survivor. If she catches the disease, it would be a miracle for her to survive. And now she is alone. Which is my fault. This is not gratuitous self-pity. Or a messiah conflict. I had freely taken on the responsibility of her care. I had promised her she would never be alone. Yet even though it was beyond my control, I had abrogated that responsibility. I know in my heart of hearts that I could have made it home sooner. It would have required a long circuitous route and exposed me to the disease at every turn. But it could have been done.

I have broken a promise to her. I told her she would not be alone. And I left her alone. And because I left it to others to care for her, she has been exposed to an illness that could kill her. Her fear, her panic is on me.

We reach Guarulhos at around three pm. I have eight hours to kill before I can board my flight. I had purposely chosen to get to the airport early as I did not know what trouble we might find on the road, and I could not miss this flight. I had hoped to spend time in the Admiral’s Club lounge at the airport. But it is closed. I find refuge in American Express Centurion Lounge. Other than me there are only four other travelers. The emptiness has an end of the word feel to it. As if we are the only ones left after a great disaster has struck. And so, it has. None of us want any contact with each other so we arrange ourselves at opposite ends of the club and keep to ourselves.

I settled into a banquette near the bar. It is isolated and separated from other areas by plexiglass partitions.  I call Mom. She answers on the second ring. Not with hello but with “Where are you?” I tell her I have made it to Sao Paulo and that the flight is leaving on time. That with any luck at all I should be back in New Jersey by 1pm tomorrow and she should not worry. I consider telling her how odd it is at the airport when it is devoid of people, but I decide that will only invoke fear. instead, I share how pretty a drive it was to get here. She is not listening and seems distracted. This is unlike her. She is usually very present and engaged. I assume that it is her mom’s nerves working overtime. Worried about me and the journey I have undertaken. I assure her all is well and tell her I will call her when I reach Houston.

Just as I am about to board the flight my phone rings. I answer without looking at the screen assuming it is Nadine, Lotte or my mother. It isn’t. It is Marcus. He asks me in English “You leave now?” I reply “Sim. Yes. The plane is leaving.” He has been waiting in the parking lot of the airport not wanting to leave me stranded should be flight be cancelled. It is an act of kindness I will never forget.

As the flight is boarding that due to Covid protocols they will strictly enforce boarding by row number. That we must maintain our distance and masks must be always worn except when eating or drinking. That violations of these rules can result in a fine and or being put on the FAA no fly list. I look around. I can see that most of the people are taking the pandemic very seriously. There is even one woman who, in addition to wearing a mask and a shield is wearing a white disposable hazmat suit. I think that this is a little over the top, but I understand. What I find harder to understand is the few who insist on wearing their masks without them covering their noses or worse around their chin. They piss me off. I know they know how to wear a mask. Their disregard for other people’s safety is a political statement. A symbolic middle figure to those wearing their masks correctly. That they are a supporter of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro who has famously said Brazilians don’t need to worry about the virus because they are tough…. They can even swim through sewage and not get sick. Or, they believe in Bolsonaro’s mentor, Donald Trump who not only refuses to wear a mask but suggests that drinking bleach, taking an animal anti-fungal drug, or exposing yourself to massive doses of ultra-violet light will rid of you of the disease. These men disgust me and are for all intent and purposes mass murderers.

I settled into my seat in first class. Nadine and I decided that it was worth a couple of hundred extra dollars for the additional separation from other passengers. I do this despite knowing that airplanes in flights are safer than anywhere else from disease transmission as they cycle the entire air supply every three minutes through HEPA filters. I rationalize that eliminating as much risk as I can from this trip is important as arriving home ill would defeat the purpose of coming home to take care of my mother. I also don’t hate the extra comfort. It is not a normal first-class service. Instead of cocktails, followed by progressive courses and concluding with ice cream sundaes and after dinner drinks, we are presented with a single tray crowded with each element individually wrapped. I am glad that United is taking hygiene so seriously even though the crowded tray makes maneuvering a bit of a challenge. The food is as delicious as airplane food can be from the bits of peach in the salad to the mushroom sauce on the Filet Mignon. I miss my sundae, but the chocolate truffles are more than an adequate sweet note to end the meal.

I recline my seat to almost horizontal. I am very tired from the long drive and the sleepless night leading up to it. I am hoping that sleep will overcome me quickly. But of course, it does not. My thoughts turn to Nadine. I cannot justify leaving her behind. She has her reasons for staying. Both said and unsaid. She has told me that she feels safe in our home. I know that this goes well beyond the isolation of our house and our neighborhood. Beyond the fact we have developed a system to get food and supplies with minimal chance of exposure to the disease. Since long before I met her eight years ago, this home has been her castle, her protection from an often-hostile world, a lifeboat on an unfriendly sea. Leaving it now, when Brazil is on fire from disease, political corruption, and travel with me through the belly of the beast is an act of faith she cannot muster. I understand this. My guilt remains. Will she be, okay? What kind of a person leaves his wife to face the pandemic alone.

When eventually I do fall asleep it only to be awakened a few hours later by the flight attendant yelling at the man seating behind me. She is telling him to put on his mask. That he can do whatever he wants when he leaves the airplane but for now if he doesn’t put on the mask, he will be arrested upon arrival for disrupting a flight. My fellow passenger puts on his mask as the steward departs shortly thereafter. I expend some mental energy trying to figure out why the inoffensive act of putting on a mask to protect yourself and others is such trouble for some. Why does kindness seem to be in such short supply these days when it should be just the opposite. Why is it that the Trumps and Bolsonaro’s of the world seem more plentiful than the Marcu’s. It is a quandary that has no answer but acts as a soporific. I fall back to sleep.

Shortly before 7am, thirty minutes behind schedule, my flight lands in Houston. There is no playing of the Star-Spangled Banner. They didn’t put Bruce Springsteen’s “Born In The USA” on the PA system. There are no fire trucks creating an arc of water to taxi under. There is not even the cheering you occasionally hear when a plane lands after a particularly difficult flight. However, for me it is a deeply emotional moment. One of the few moments in my life that despite the erosion of time on memory, I will never forget. After three months of being marooned I am home.

For 91 days I have wondered whether I would ever make it back. I have been a castaway on a desert island wondering whether I would ever escape. The island I escaped from could not have been more welcoming. It was beautiful if not spectacular. I was as safe as any place can be in a pandemic. I have been with Nadine, the one person required for me to be whole. But I was stranded. As well fed as I had been, it did not have the flavors of home that comfort and cajole. Worse, I knew that my mother had been by herself, I had failed in my obligation to her and promises I had made to myself.

An announcement is made about deboarding the aircraft. We are told that Custom’s and Border Patrol have instituted measures to help ensure social distancing. Only six rows will be allowed off the airplane at a time and only those rows who are called may claim their luggage and other belongings from overhead bins. Deplaning will start with the business class section and work its way from front to back. We are reminded that masks are required on board the aircraft and while in the terminals of George Bush International Airport.

My section is the first to be called on to deplane. This is good news for me as our late arrival is making me doubt my ability to catch my connecting flight to Newark which departs in just over one hour. I collect my bag from the overhead bin and follow the passenger who had been chastised by the flight attendant off the plane. Normally, when an international flight arrives there is a mad dash of passengers to immigration. Nobody, even those, like me, who use Global Entry Kiosks to enter, wants to be caught in the long lines that are the hallmark of entering the country. There is no need to rush today with only 20 of us exiting at the same time. But I do. I am late. I cannot miss this connection as the next flight does not leave for six hours.

When I reach the kiosks, I begin the familiar process. First, I slip my passport into the reader and remember just in time to lower my mask so the device can take my picture. I place my fingers on a touch plate so it can read my fingerprints. When they are accepted, I prepare to go through the standard series of questions such as purchases made abroad, have you visited a farm, what flight you were on, etc. But the machine asks me none of those questions, just printing out the standard form to hand to the CBP officer. I am not sure why things have changed but I am grateful as it speeds my journey.

I leave immigration and follow the signs to security. During normal times, even with TSA Pre, this is a choke point due to long lines and the extra scrutiny given to international travelers. Today, it is empty. The maze leading up to the identification check point has been reconfigured into a single line and it has no one in it. This fills me with hope as a quick glance at my watch tells me I have only forty-five minutes before they shut the doors to my flight. I place my bags, computer, iPad, jacket, shoes, and belt on the conveyor belt. I am scanned without a beep, but my bags need to be run through twice to ensure my CPAP machine is not an instrument of mass destruction. Normally, I would not be annoyed at this inconvenience, it just the TSA doing their job, but today I am impatient. I need to make that flight.

As I leave security and begin the journey to my gate at a jog, I see my mask averse seat mate once more. He is having a booming argument with some of the security people. Apparently, he did not hear the announcement or get the email which had been sent to all passengers on our flight ordinance that all people at George Bush International Airport are required to wear masks at all times. Nor did he listen to the post landing announcement on the plane. He is arguing loudly that he does not need to wear a mask. I shake my head. I will never understand why people cannot do the simplest least intrusive thing to protect themselves and others. Whether they remembered the golden rule. An axiom that connects virtually every faith practiced by man. It is a concept taught in Sunday schools, public schools and by teachers and parents alike. I have no doubt, that if I asked “Tex” what the Golden Rule was he would have no problem reciting its words. Why then does he have such trouble living it? Doesn’t he understand that he has been in Brazil a country that has the second largest infection rate in the world without doing any significant testing and he could be infected or a carrier and not know it? Unmasked carriers had spread the infection and brought our country and the world to its knees.? Wearing a mask is an act of kindness to your neighbor and your community and would help prevent needless disease and death. His not wearing a mask would encourage others not to wear a mask and that could result in him or someone he cares for getting the disease.

My mother could be a victim of someone like him. Someone who chose not to wear a mask because it offended them in some unknown way and now my mother may be sick. It enrages me. It is more than just people not wearing masks. They are just a symbol of a different type of virus that is running rampant through the cultures of both Brazil and the United States, if not the world. The mental defect that allows science and facts to be discounted by unproven theories and conjectures. The social disease where memes are given equal weight to historical fact. The infection that allows people to express vileness and hatred with a sense of impunity. My anger doubles my pace.

My father used to love the quote by Dorothy Parker who when asked to use the word horticulture in sentence quipped “You can lead a whore to culture, but you cannot make her think.”

It is not easy to run with a backpack, roll-a-board, and mask but I make it to the gate, sweaty and out of breath with about five minutes to spare. I take my seat, a single in business class, and it hits me. I am on the final leg of my journey. Home, and all it represents, is just a few hours away. It is only after they close the door that I realize in all my rush and rage against ignorance I have forgotten to call my mother. Idiot.

Frequent flyers are familiar with a phenomenon. When a plane’s doors are sealed a large percentage of passengers either doze off or feel very sleepy. It is a biological response to a sudden drop in oxygen levels. I have never needed an excuse to nap. It is one of my favorite activities and no more so than on airplanes where snoozing cuts perceived travel time. Combine this phenomenon with additional factors such as length of travel, lack of sleep and stress and is a near certainty that my chin will assume a resting position against my chest. I am asleep before the plane leaves the gate and do not wake up until the flight is on final approach to Newark.

When the cabin door is opened, and we are given permission to deplane, it is as if I am shot from a rifle. I move at speed walker pace down the concourse C at Newark. I pay no notice to the closed shops, restaurants nor even to the very few people have made a choice not to wear a mask. I am focused only on getting to baggage claim where my brother has arranged for a well-regarded car service to pick me up and take me home in as safe and as Covid free environment as possible. I scramble past security and negotiate my bags down two sets of escalators to baggage claim. It is empty. None of the carousels turn. No patient passengers waiting for bags. Most importantly no car service person holding a sign with my name on it.

I surveyed the whole area. I walk down to the carousel where the bags from my flight will be deposited. Still no one. I am annoyed and angry. I almost never ask my brother for favors and the one time I do he drops the ball like a little league outfielder. As I survey baggage claim for my driver, I consider calling my brother Levi and asking him what is up with his car service or digging through my phone to find the number of the service and finding out about my ride. I reject both ideas. Home is only 15 miles away by the time I resolve the issue I can be at Moms front door. I dash to the taxi rank.

The hack at the head of the cue reluctantly ends his phone conversation when I approach the taxicab. I see that his mask is dangling off one ear. I ask him, probably too firmly, to please put on his mask. He shoots me the stink eye. I feel bad for my tone but not my message. As we pull away from the curve, I apologize to him, telling him that I have been traveling for the past twenty-four hours and am tired. It is not an excuse, but an explanation and I hope he understands. He tells me he understands. I let him know that we will be making two stops. That we are going to make a brief stop at my mothers’ home as she is elderly and has not seen me in four months. I explain that I want to wave at her before I go into the fourteen-day isolation the CDC is recommending for international travelers. That it will only last a minute or two and I hope that he understands. Then we will proceed to our destination which is only a few minutes from there.

Route 78 between Newark and the Short Hills Mall is not scenic. Mostly shopping malls, light industry, and sound barriers. But with every mile passed, my anticipation grows. When I was I kid growing up and I did something that my mother thought was special she would proclaim me “Hero of the western World” as if I were a hero returning from battle. I feel that way now. I had, against all odds, by plane and taxi, through pandemic and ignorance, at great risk to myself, managed to travel 6,000 miles from Rio De Janiero to Summit, New Jersey in less than forty-eight hours from when Mom called and told me she needed me. I was unduly proud of myself and thought of the videos I had seen on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube and families who had been reunited after being separated by Covid. The bear hugs. The joyous tears mixed with laughter born of relief. I knew I would not get a hug as Covid protocols were to self-isolate for fourteen days, after travel but I knew Mom would be happy to see me through closed glass doors. A tear would be shed. I would be her “hero of the western world” yet again. I can’t wait to knock at her door.