Renga Summer 2020

Abstract

Renga Summer 2020 Marilyn Hacker (bio) and Karthika Naïr (bio) From around the world,Lebanese expats are flownback to al-watan— Moscow, Rio, Montreal,Paris—bringing the virus to their homecomingsin Beirut or the Beka'a.Numbers leap. Katia wrote to me a month ago"Our epidemic's over." I know she followsthe news … Cafés reopenedanyway, and crèches. As for the money-changers,were their counters ever closed? —MH, 10 June 2020 ________ Close encounters, let'scall them, of the fifth or sixthkind: in Bareilly, returnee migrants get sousedwith liquid bleach—yes, the kind bottled with dangerto eyes and skin—as cure,by the State, no less, while Delhi shuts hospitaldoors on its nonresidents. —KN, 12 June 2020 ________ Resident of acity, body, state of mindI shrug off under shadows and sun on the QuaiSaint-Bernard. A yoga class salutes the river;a portly couple tangoesto their own cassette. I walk without a mask, asfar as the Jardin des Plantes. —MH, 13 June 2020 [End Page 10] ________ Assemblage, as faras the eye can feed: litchi,melon, mint, mango, moka, peach … corps de sorbet(and ice) glimmer and curtsy, preen, swirl in their traysto carouse with me, Isa,and Nico—plotters of my first sortie outsidehome and hospital. Lambent this dusk, like our blithereunion at Berthillon,Île-Saint-Louis, still Mecca for bon vivants, eachpalate worshipful in queue. —KN, 15 June 2020 ________ In a queue for breadoutside the bakery onthe boulevard: it's almost normal. An almostnormal Sunday market with hand santizerdispensers at entrance points.Almost no distrust of the masked person next inline for cherries, shrimp, courgettes, hummus, samosas.Which merchants have disappeared?Which shoppers I knew vaguely by sight won't I seeagain? It's chilly for June. —MH, 21 June 2020 ________ June, now, is the monthof solstitial nights, roses,and two presidents convinced the grandeur of theirnations—flanking, from north and south, the Atlantic—resides in statues of dead,all too fallible men, to be safeguarded farmore than the breath of today's denizens; convincednaming evils of the pastwould be a crime (mine christened it separatism).How frail must they find our lands? —KN, 27 June 2020 [End Page 11] ________ Old, frail, nonethelessI walked home from Montparnasse,invulnerable for the moment, pink K-wayagainst the drizzle. Almost-midnight streets full ofmostly local mostly youngdrinkers and flâneurs as if nothing had happened.I kept my mask on, except on the Pont de Sullywhere there was no one, onlyreverberations of music on the quais, nextDecamerons, next clusters? —MH, 29 June 2020 ________ Clusters of color—reign of aestival blossoms—caper on Philippe's third- floor balcony. They join usand a madcap even breeze to celebrate this,my first visit in manymonths; first touch of drink (organic) outside home andhospital since early March. —KN, 4 July 2020 ________ "Since we want to marchfrom the hospital to theBDL and set up our tent, we should wear scrubsand masks," Rachid said. Interns, medical studentswere planning one more sit-in."We'll be wearing masks anyway," said Nour. "They foundforty new cases last night." —MH, 6 July 2020 ________ Another new case,in our land: Martine Landry,all of seventy- six, Amnesty activist,acquitted after three years of legal nightmaresfor her solidarityto teen refugees who'd have been wrongly expelled.Oh, we take pride in being playwrights of the greatdeclaration of humanrights—but, it's a show we'd rather tour or licenseabroad than produce at home. —KN, 10 July 2020 [End Page 12] ________ At home, my brain ormy blood churns out symptoms: stress,swellings, dizziness, unhinged by solitude andanxiety. Telephone calls replace dinners,long walks down known, unknown streetsWe're free, but who's "we"? It was a challenge in March.Is it perpetuity? —MH, 11 July 2020 ________ Is it alreadythe end? That was from Nurse D,distractedly, while...