Welcome to Surreality — B. Michael Rubin

Every time I leave my apartment here in Brazil, my wife insists I wear a mask. If I mention that two weeks ago they were telling us masks were pointless, she says, “Everything's changed.” Generally she's right, especially when it comes to knowing what's best for me, so I put the mask on and venture into the great outdoors, i.e. one step out of my apartment into the hallway.

A few weeks ago when I saw people wearing masks, I thought, “Folks are overreacting. It's foolish. It's only a flu virus.” Now I'm thinking, “Who are these idiots not wearing masks? Do they want the pandemic to last forever?”

Yesterday, I read a directive from the Centers for Disease Control saying “facial coverings are not predominantly a measure to protect the wearer but rather to protect others from the wearer.” Many with virus symptoms have yet to be tested. Others have been tested but not received the results. Still others are asymptomatic. Therefore, by wearing a mask I'm a martyr to the cause, a corona Superman, preventing contagion through uncomfortable self-sacrifice. After all, superheroes prefer wearing masks.

I haven't yet succumbed to coronavirus paranoia, but I'm afraid others have. They're circulating theories that it's better to get the virus and develop antibodies, and they're looking for ways to infect themselves. They also believe cellphone towers are weakening our immune systems and creating the ideal environment for the spread of the virus. In England, this idea has caught on, and 50 cellphone towers have been destroyed. As Joseph Heller reminded us in Catch-22, “Insanity is contagious.”

My wife is right. Everything has changed. It's a surreal nightmare. I could never have imagined going for a stroll and seeing people wearing masks. I'm not a fan of dystopia. The stories harbor all the worst elements of science fiction. Strangers wielding masks are scary, especially white masks combined with dark sunglasses. My neighbors have metamorphosed into vampire hunters and apprentice invisible men.

Am I the only person who finds a mask bizarre? It's uncomfortable, chafing behind my ears and pulling them outward so I look like a demented Prince Charles. If I'm wearing glasses or sunglasses, breathing through the mask fogs them up. My cloudy vision adds to the eerie atmosphere, reminding me of movie scenes with a young lady in misty 19th century London rushing home from the smelting factory before it gets to be Jack the Ripper o'clock.

I stop at the local pharmacy and the cashier is wearing a mask plus an impenetrably- stiff face shield. I want to ask her where she got it, but I don't know how to say “face shield” in Portuguese. Coping with the quarantine in a foreign land presents challenges besides translation. Social distancing in Latin America is extraordinarily difficult like in Spain or Italy. Suggesting to someone that he's standing too close will be taken as a personal insult. Asking a Brazilian to converse six feet away is Skype distance.

It will be weeks or maybe months before Brazil reaches its corona peak, by which time the economy will be in chilling collapse. I have trouble understanding the cultural craving for group get-togethers, but I sympathize with the small business owners facing bankruptcy who are re-opening their shops too soon. The pharmacies sold out of masks but small shops are selling them in various flowery designs, like the ones my wife ordered from the seamstress who does our clothing alterations. An enormous segment of Brazil's workforce is self-employed. The informal economy may represent one third of the country's GDP. With the quarantine only one month old, half of the entire working population has lost some or all of its income.

Desperate for a brighter view, I'm wondering if the new corona fashions have some allure. The face shields remind me of riot police. I'm not anticipating imminent riotous anarchy or tear gas control at the supermarket, but having an authority present in times of stress is comforting even if she's only the cashier. Additionally, if the crisis continues into the summer months in the US, you'll be seeing what women are wearing in Brazil now – crop-tops with denim cutoffs no larger than swimsuits combined with masks and gloves. Exposed midriffs and legs coupled with masks and gloves is reminiscent of the unexpected imagination of the first Surrealists, or the 1970s feminists who insisted a fish doesn't need a bicycle.

Delivery guys, who are now a pillar of the corona community, aren't having any trouble adjusting to the new attire either. In Brazil they deliver on motorcycles and are known as motoboys. They are accustomed to obeying the helmet laws while overlooking the traffic laws; working with hardshell helmets and facial visors isn't a distraction. I watch them weave among cars while holding a phone in one hand checking their GPS for the next delivery.

This week I spotted a homeless woman who had obviously been camped out in the same location for a while. She had food and water and was propped up against some boxes, sitting on a fat foam mattress and knitting. While I suspect less pedestrian traffic will decrease the number of her donations, middle-class folks are feeling more generous these days, and the tally of contributions may not be much reduced for these unfortunate souls.

I wondered if people living on the streets are less disturbed by the quarantine than we are. No one chooses to be homeless, but at least they are spared the dilemma of being trapped thousands of miles away from home. The agonizing stories of tourists and exchange students attempting to get home in this crisis are numerous. They demand their governments send private jets to pick them up because there are no international commercial flights.

Unlike the homeless who have nowhere to go or travelers who are trapped far from home, I'm content in my expat apartment, a home away from home. I have no appointments, and the internet is working well. In the British newspaper The Spectator, Tom Stoppard wrote, “This is the life I’ve always wanted — social distancing without social disapproval.”

I lie on the couch all day binge-eating while binge-viewing Netflix. For entertainment, I'm reading Camus's The Plague. I'm taking an indoor vacation, and my lethargy is praised as exemplary behavior. The license for laziness keeps me safe inside away from the surreal, invisible men.

Claude Rains as the original Invisible Man, 1933

This essay appeared under a different title and in slightly different form on Brazzil.com.