A Quarantine Story

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

Shanghai was a vertical city, regardless if you’re in the center or the outskirts of it. Skyscrapers lined up by the Huangpu river in the heart of Shanghai. Compounds and malls replaced parks and lawns over the years. Most of Shanghai’s residents were stuck midair.

They lived on the 20th floor.

She scanned his room. The fully stocked bookshelves overflowed in the past year. Bottles of supplements lined up by the edge of his desk. His computer screen peeked through the myriad of sticky notes. She sat in his armchair and took a deep breath. The air filled with the scent of Clorox. Not a trace of him.

He was a man that didn’t care much for the screens but only the pages. He’d be bending down, hollering at her: “LaoPo*!” She winced as she turned around to face the disastrous shelves again. "Where’s my copy of Life and Death in Shanghai? I saw you thumbing through it once.” She’d rush in and pull out the book from right under his nose. She wiggled her body like a worm in his chair, then suddenly stood up. She sat down again, turned, and reached into the crack between the cushion and the back of the armchair. She pulled out a spiral notebook.

2/14/22 - We are spending Valentine’s day at home this year due to, well, obvious reasons. We used to go to Tian'ai** Road every year. The quaint street, the hundred-year-old sycamore trees, the winter breeze, her laugh. My favorite things.

China had three years of turmoil ever since the first case of Covid-19 was reported in the city of Wuhan on December 31, 2019. Even Shanghai, a well-known cosmopolitan and a major port city, couldn’t escape a city-wide lockdown in February 2022. While the lockdown incited anger from the public, she was relieved.

He was a history teacher at a high school in the Changning District only two subway stops away from their compound. Ever since early 2020, the mode of teaching had been alternating between in-person and online. With China’s reinforcement of their strict Zero-Covid policy, there had been no Covid cases reported in Changning for months. However, each morning she prayed to all the buddhas and gods.

“Please cast protection over him. He needs it more than the healthy ones. Give him more protection. The others will live.”

He had an acute lung failure right before Covid made its trip around the world. She happened to be a match, but not a perfect one. He needed long term post transplant immunosuppression, which put him in the same high-risk bracket as the elders.

It was such a stupid thing to be butt hurt over, but she was. A part of her was rejected by his body. She told him how defeated she felt while they were waiting in line to pick up his medication.

“Your body is a bad host. You are supposed to welcome every guest and pretend you like them even when you don’t. That’s basic Chinese etiquette.”

He bursted out laughing underneath his mask: “LaoPo! you simply can’t force it. You have to let nature run its course because she knows it better than us all.”

She was a woman of prescience. While the local news was still claiming the impending lockdown as a rumor to avoid mass panic, she had already set up his office space for long-term online teaching and filled their fridge with groceries. While she danced across the living room accompanied by a mop, he mourned the lost time with his students on his last commute home. He loved being in a classroom with them not just as an educator, but as a friend. Even when they tried to divert him away from his lesson plan; or when no hands were raised after his easy question; or when they peek over their shoulders during a pop quiz.

4/26/22 - from Plague to Influenza A, history has proven quarantine to be the most effective way to end a pandemic. But I’m suffocating. I breathe in the apartment air she breathes out.

She could always hear his muffled voice escaping his closed office door while she was aligning the titles in a deck or pivoting data in a spreadsheet. He talked slowly in a cheerful tone when he strayed away from his lesson plan and started telling his students about when bicycle was introduced to China as a luxury item during the late Qing dynasty.

The last day of the Shanghai lockdown was on May 31, 2022. Daily testing turned to 48-hour testing then 72-hour testing to ensure zero covid cases in the city. Once it was announced that in-person classes would soon resume, she asked if he’d be willing to quit his job at the high school and be an online tutor for students preparing for the college entrance exam. He answered with a firm hug and a whisper to her ear: “don’t worry too much, LaoPo. I know you’ve been working really hard to keep me healthy, but some fresh air wouldn't hurt.”

She saw him off with a bento box, a thermos of herbal tea, and a container filled with supplements and medications every morning. She always examined his mask before he left, tightening the straps till he winced. After he got back from work, they’d go to the testing booth together every other day to get tested and renew their travel log QR code.

He shook his head disapprovingly whenever he needed to dig up his phone, pull up the travel log app, and scan his green QR code before he could get on a bus, enter a subway station, or get seated at a restaurant. “This level of surveillance,” he stared at the indecipherable little square that dictated his life and said to her, “LaoPo, it’s suffocating.”

12/1/22 - There was silence, then there was a stir; followed by a vigil that broke into a protest. A movement is happening, ignited by the fire in Urumqi, led by our youth. My students were in that crowd. My students demanded freedom. I am so proud of them. They are the light at the end of the tunnel.

At least 10 people perished in the fire at an apartment in Urumqi, Xinjiang on November 24, 2022. Many suspected the lockdown measures hampered evacuation of the residents as well as the entering of the rescue services. People mourned and uproared. People paid respect to the dead and demanded a better life than this one under the Zero-Covid policy: confined and monitored.

All the Covid restrictions were dropped overnight in December, 2022. No more covid tests, no more QR codes, no more mask mandate, no more social distancing. Many who scoffed at Covid quickly succumbed. They forgot that without effective vaccines, the symptoms could still cause damages to their bodies. The department stores that just restocked the shelves, flicked on their lights, and re-opened their doors had to hang their “temporarily closed” sign up again because all the employees were home with a 39.5 celsius fever.

Her eyes followed his chopsticks, quivering as his right hand shook. His frown tied into a knot as she dished him an ultimatum during lunch. She knew that with the 180-degree shift away from the Zero-Covid policy, new variants would be rampant and the death toll would rise exponentially. Therefore, he either gave up teaching, at least for now, or she wouldn’t know how to live with the fear of losing him.

He never returned to school as Shanghai descended into chaos. The school was aware of his ongoing immunosuppression therapy and wanted to steer clear of liability issues. He was let go with a generous severance package.

3/20/23 - ChunFeng*** begins today. ChunFeng is my favorite out of the 24 solar terms. It’s been hard without my parents, but ChunFeng brings hope. It marks the beginning of spring, when days start to get longer and darkness retreats.

During China’s sudden reopening, many made trips to the hospitals, panicking over a common cold, and unknowingly brought Covid back home to their families. His parents fell victim to it, just like many other elders. With all over-the-counter pain medications sold out at pharmacies, his parents resorted to peppermint tea and yogurt. They decided to patiently wait it out.

His mother told him that even drinking water was like swallowing razors. She also said to him: “Don’t you dare visit me, or it’s us old folks with white hair sending you off, a strong young man with hair so dark and such a long life ahead. We don’t have much time left anyways” His mother asked to talk to her: “Please take good care of our son, make sure he takes his medications on time. His father doesn't even have any symptoms yet. Don’t worry about us.”

And they didn’t worry. They didn’t expect his parents to catch the Delta variant when the weaker Omicron strain permeated the streets.

She did all the funeral arrangements for him. On the day of his parents’ service, she ordered them a cab to the funeral home. She was able to sterilize the cab along with the driver by sending the driver a big red pocket of 200 yuan on Wechat. She put on a mask and a face shield for him and herself, and ushered him down the compound while holding him up by the waist.

He had a low fever the day after the service. She sat by him and mumbled to herself: “We shouldn’t have gone to the funeral. We shouldn’t have.” She swabbed his nostrils like a drill digging for oil. When she tried to do a third swab after two negative tests, he turned his head the other way.

“My dear, let me rest.”

She took another look at those single lines, and she was finally able to exhale. She vowed to keep him safe right here, in their apartment. Forever.

The Omega variant that emerged in the summer of 2023 was categorized as a variant of high consequence not because it was deadly, but due to its long Covid symptoms.

Six month prior, the consulates in Huangpu District reopened and resumed processing travel visas. China exported millions of middle aged empty nesters with their selfie sticks, visors, and packs of cup noodles to every corner of the world. Variants married, marinated, and new ones were taken home along with the souvenirs.

Incessant coughing, one of the symptoms of the Omega variant, had become a constant in this ever changing world. Many in China had stopped testing as the symptoms were tolerable. Those who still had leftover at-home test kits found them still seeing two scarlet lines well a month past their diagnosis. The government pushed back the vaccine release date from the first day of summer break to the first day of the fall semester. Even the taxpayers forgot about demanding an answer.

10/1/23 - She looks at me, yet she doesn’t see me.

“Come out and eat!” She knocked on the bathroom door. The water stopped running. She heard him grabbing a towel, clearing his throat. she tried to turn the doorknob gingerly, and it’s locked. He had been showering a lot more, and she found it to be reasonable. There’s not much to do in this apartment.

They had been cohabitating in this 650-square-foot apartment for almost a year. They both grew a year older. And a year wiser, she hoped.

He opened the bathroom door, shrugged his shoulders and fixed up his sleeves. He kept the temperature in the apartment chronically at 20 celcius degrees. She complained about it initially, but he said he had ReQi****. ReQi was usually caused by an unbalanced diet, yet she had been feeding him well. She decided not to ask too many questions, and soon learned to enjoy lounging around in a thin wool cardigan while he wore his long-sleeved sweats, reading in his armchair.

He took a small bowl out of the cabinet and took only one scoop of rice from the rice cooker. She glanced over at his bowl and scooped one more spoonful of rice into his bowl. After masterfully deboning the steamed yellow croaker, she balanced a big piece of the tender and glistening fish between her chopsticks till it made its safe landing in his bowl. The fish was delivered at 8am this morning, so were the baby bok choy. Spraying down the freshly delivered groceries each morning has become a part of her 5am to 9am routine before she logs on for work.

“Thank you, dear.”

She insisted on having dinner together every night, because dinner chat was never dull with a history manic. She’d ask him to regale her with something, anything, and he’d oblige by telling her why turkeys were once worshiped like gods by the Mayans.

He’s usually in bed by 9pm, after another hour spent in the bathroom. she rubbed his back as he faced away from her. She could feel the knots on his spine. He seemed to be getting weaker, paler ever since his parents’ departure. She’s all he had. She needed to protect him.

“YuPing,” he called her by her name, “let me sleep, would you?”

12/24/23 - It’s snowing on Christmas Eve. The snowflakes look so free while they fall.

Christmas gained popularity amongst Chinese youth with the western tradition of gift exchanges. She secretly ordered him a projector. He loved travel documentaries, and she figured that he’d be able to experience the outside world vicariously if the screen takes up a whole wall.

He was already up. She felt his side of the bed: ice cold. She heard water running in the bathroom, and reached for the surprise with a big red bow on top underneath their bed.

She tiptoed towards the bathroom and knocked out the melody riff of “Shave and a Haircut.” She waited for 10 seconds. Nothing. She knocked again, more rapidly. Only the sound of running water. She lightly turned the doorknob and was surprised to find it unlocked for once.

He lied still in the bathtub, paler than ever, more peaceful than ever.

She stood still, still holding the delicately wrapped present. She leaped towards him, rolled up his sleeves as high as possible, and saw worms of scars climbing all the way up to his biceps on both arms. She could tell he had perfected his skills over the past year, or however long he had been doing it. She saw faded scars of vertical cuts, scrupulously dodging each vein. She saw dense, hardened masses of scar tissues that seemed to be re-cut open multiple times. And lastly, she saw the fresh, precise slit deep into the veins across his wrist.

His body was colder than his side of the bed. She put his right hand between her palms. His fingers looked almost skeleton-like. She rubbed his knuckles, stared at his sunken cheeks

12/25/23 - it’s time for me to go, and for her to join the outside world again.

They didn’t have a single fight last year. She talked, he listened. She led, he followed. She didn’t know her love was suffocating to him. Maybe he didn’t know either, untill Christmas morning.

She closed his journal and looked out his window, the window his gaze traveled through millions of times in the past year, with the deepest yearning of flying a kite, riding a bike, and strolling up and down Tian'ai Road.

She joined the outside world briefly as she leaped out of his window. Then she went looking for him again.

*LaoPo is the most endearing way a husband can address his wife.

**Tian'ai directly translates to "sweet love."

***ChunFeng means the vernal equinox. It is one of the 24 solar terms in Chinese culture.

**** Reqi means heated energy. It's an imbalance of internal energy.