Monday, July 13, 2020

They’ve changed the big sign in the city square. Last week, it had a cartoon of the coronavirus, with text in large letters: “Remember me? I’m still here!” The cartoon is gone. Words in the same colors now say “What to do? Cover up!” In Hebrew, the slogan is catchy. It rhymes. At a nearby bus stop, the neighborhood graffitist has been scribbling again. What I can read has the usual reference to thirteen commandments. A phrase I can’t make out is under it, followed by “corona is because of this.” A couple walks by me as I read the graffiti. The woman says, in a dramatic voice, “Corona corona corona. Corona? Corona. Corooooooona!” The man laughs. I take my mask off for a moment so that I can clearly give directions to a woman in a car several meters away. I’m not good at directions in any language, but she’s looking for my office building, which is right down the street and easy to describe: It’s big and white and has a Freshmarket on the ground floor. It’s at the second traffic circle, but I forget how to say “traffic circle.” Words that pop into my head randomly when I don’t need them disappear when I do. A breeze blows the mask off my ear. It lands on a box of children’s books on a rubbish heap. It’s a good collection, including what might be a complete set of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” in Hebrew. I don’t take any, but I hope that someone who can use them finds them. A large dog wanders by and stops to sniff my hand. I smile at the dog and at the woman walking with it. I think she smiles back. Behind the masks, we can’t be sure.