In 1785, Robert Burns,
the Scottish poet, was ploughing the fields and accidentally destroyed a
mouse’s nest. While still holding the plough, he composed the poem “To a Mouse
on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough”. The poor mouse had planned to
spend the winter in her comfortable little burrow, but now this was impossible
because the plough had eradicated it.
Since Burns could not
undo the damage, he thought a poem might compensate in some small way for the destruction
of her winter shelter. Since the mouse disappeared immediately afterward and
thus was never interviewed, we will never know whether the verses dedicated to
her by the poet were sufficient consolation for the loss of her home.
Though an anecdote at
the time, the poem later became famous because of one memorable line: “The
best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. This line was alluded to in the
famous John Steinbeck novel “Of Mice and Men”, in a Monte Python sketch, and
even in a Netflix Series, among others. When a line is so often quoted, this
signifies that it has struck a chord in the hearts of readers. It means that it
echoes in some way what they have felt at one time or another.
All of us have had
carefully devised plans that never worked out quite as we had expected. We have also designed and carried out projects
and thought that we knew how they would turn out, but instead, inexplicably, the
result was different. This is not always indicative of failure. As I have often
told my PhD students, even a bad result is a kind of result. Still, it is often unnerving when one’s plans unexpectedly shipwreck.
In Times of
Coronavirus, a lot of people redesigned their lives so that they would not risk
being infected by the coronavirus. These were people, who decided to do things
right and to follow all the rules of confinement. For three months, they never
set their foot outside the door. They put on clean clothes each morning. They
washed their hands ten times a day. They periodically disinfected the soles of
their shoes. They even washed fruit and vegetables with diluted bleach solution
as well as all household surfaces. Some even wore surgical masks in the privacy
of their own homes.
They believed that these
were the ingredients in the coronavirus recipe that would guarantee safety from
all harm. They thought that no evil would befall them in these difficult times
if they did all of these things. However, as the homeless mouse of Robert Burns
can assure you, life does not always go as planned.
This is what happened
to my neighbor, Mrs. Neanderthal. The Neanderthals, who are in their late 70s, belong to the
vulnerable age group. They are people who bent over backward to do everything
right. Mr. Neanderthal would only go out to buy what was strictly necessary.
His wife never went out at all, and would only talk to me from across the
hallway when she needed the confinement rules explained. She washed all household
surfaces with bleach, and miraculously survived the fumes, which were so strong
that they sometimes even wafted underneath my door.
However, she forgot one
important health requirement. She forgot that she needed to exercise enough to
remain agile. Like Mrs. Sitting Bull, she is somewhat overweight and has mostly
remained in her chair during confinement except when it was necessary to cook
and/or clean. She also has a long litany of aches and pains, both real and
imagined, which she has been telling everyone about for years. Ill health is
her normal state. (In the 40 years that I have known her, she has never felt
well.)
Given her
vulnerability, she decided that she would be easy prey for Covid-19 if she did
not follow all of the rules. So she decided that if she stayed put and did not
move, the coronavirus would leave her alone. The only walking that she did was
from her living room to the kitchen where each day she would fix lunch for Mr.
Neanderthal. Otherwise, she told me, he would die of hunger.
Apparently, when Mr.
Neanderthal was small, his mother had told him that a man’s place was not in the
kitchen, and that if he ever went inside, his penis would fall off. (No, I am
not exaggerating.) He has always remembered his mother’s words, and since he
greatly treasures said appendage, even now he rarely enters the kitchen. When
he does, he only remains there for very short periods of time. The kitchen is
the sole domain of Mrs. Neanderthal, who is an excellent cook and makes a paella
that a three-star Michelin restaurant would envy.
Nevertheless,
everything, even coronavirus confinement, finally comes to an end. Because Granada
is now in Phase 3 (which is really Phase 4), she decided that she could at long
last leave her apartment and visit one of her sons. Her legs, however, were a
bit rusty and decided not to cooperate. It had been a while since they had been
expected to carry her so far. She has a cane, but does not wish to use it
because it makes her look old.
And so the first time
that she ventured outside, she fell and broke her hip. Either that or her hip
broke and then she fell. No one knows what came first, the chicken or the egg.
An ambulance had to be called to take her to the hospital.
I learned about the
disaster when I saw her three grown children with glum faces in the hallway,
whispering among themselves. They were naturally worried because their mother
is now in the hospital, the last place that she ever wanted to be because there
is still danger of coronavirus infection. A few patients still remain.
Unfortunately, it seems
that she will be hospitalized for quite some time. The doctors have given her a
new hip, but now they will somehow have to convince her to move.
The children were also
concerned that their father would die of hunger because he is unfamiliar with
kitchen and cooking protocols. I told them the immortal words of my
pediatrician in Paris. As a young mother, I had consulted him because I was concerned
about the Pilot, who stubbornly refused to eat.
He said, “Madame, in all
medical history, there has never been a case of a child who has died of hunger
with food on the table in front of him.” I told the Neanderthal children that
these words of wisdom were also applicable to their father, who is 79 and a
retired master electrician. He thus should be smart enough to figure out how to
survive in a kitchen stocked with food.
So, the best-laid plans
of mice and the Neanderthals went awry. Mrs. Neanderthal will probably end up
in a walker, and Mr. Neanderthal may very well die of hunger in his own kitchen
because he has never learned how to turn on the stove. Although they have
escaped Covid-19, they have become collateral damage of confinement.
