No more trolley bus. No more metro adventures. If I can walk there, then I can go there. It is Sunday, and a surprise blanket of snow is kicking around the streets, hard flakes slapping my face as I squint at the sidewalk stretching ahead that blends into a white nothingness. It is damn cold. The wind howls. Cars slosh past me. A foul smell swirls up from the river, like methane gas. My hands are shoved deep in warm pockets. I am going to the ATM. We need cash on hand. Anything can happen now. I promise to go quickly, not to wander or buy any gifts as I normally do on these walks. But I will go to
rinok, the market where real Pecorino hides behind the counter. Most of the cheese here is just wood chips and palm oil. I am dead serious when I say that. For legal reasons it is often called "parmesan" - whatever that means.
I know that as long as we have spaghetti and a big chunk of Pecorino in the fridge we will be just fine.
The counter is working. They know my face, and that I do not want a slice but the whole damn thing. I tuck it in my bag, and visit the fish mongers. They are from Azerbaijan, all thick black hair and stubble in their horizontal striped shirts, a nutty mix of Soviet chic and a pirate costume. I ask for a bag of frozen shrimp, the good stuff from Bangladesh. They send someone running to the back to get it for me. Last, the Georgian woman we buy cheese from -
sulgini, a sour and giant wheel of milky succulence. She whispers to me in her hoarse alto.
"It is all the government I tell you. " She explains.
I nod, and smile. There is nothing else I can do.
"Best to drink
cha cha." She adds, describing a Georgian grappa that cures all of the world's ills.
I nod again. It is the very best diplomacy.
People here are used to these strange days. They lived through far worse, so they joke and sigh, or they hoard and squander. A woman was infected with the virus but left the hospital where she was quarantined, and the police had to go find her. A father and daughter returned from a trip to Italy, fully sick but went to work and school. She even shared a vape pipe with her friends.
I think about all of this on the way home, with good cheese tucked in my bag, with cash in my pocket. A line from the new script I am writing tumbles around my head. "God takes care of fools and children."
I wonder if this is all of us.
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