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By Vero Ferrari *

A week before the markets were identified as hotspots for infection, my girlfriend went to Chinatown, first to see if we could get an electric stove. We had a two-burner one, but one burner had burned out and the other was on its last legs and could break down at any moment. The other, more superficial reason was to find nori seaweed to make homemade maki rolls. Months before the quarantine began, I was a regular customer of the cheapest maki rolls in Lima, the kind you find in any ordinary shopping mall.

As is well known, after the presidential address announcing that the markets were hell, Ana Karina came back with a bonus. We prepared the makis and joked about who would start showing symptoms of the coronavirus in five days. On the fifth day, nothing happened, but on the sixth, at night, I started to feel a strange fever while working my new teleworking schedule, from 6 pm to 6 am, because of how late we were getting up, our lack of motivation, how late we were having lunch, and because the noise from the street, the reggaeton, and the constant fights between sex workers, pimps, drunks, and couples who hated each other wouldn't let us work during the day.

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First, there was a strange fever and a couple of sneezes. “I have a cold,” I thought. Change of weather, constant allergies, a house with large windows, lots of air, sleeping in the buff. Then the cough started, weak but persistent. I coughed up a few phlegm. “I have the flu,” I thought. All the information I had read about the coronavirus said fever, dry cough, sore throat, headache, fatigue. They didn't say anything about sneezing or phlegm. Lower back pain. Maybe a common urinary tract infection. Nothing women should be afraid of. I kept working.

Two metal plates crushing my skull

Four hours later, almost at midnight, I felt the steamroller hit me. Cold and intense shivering, high fever, persistent cough, pain when swallowing, muscle aches, exhaustion beyond belief (mental note: “don’t say death”). I wanted to stay seated, typing on the computer, but everything was pulling me toward the bed. As soon as I closed the open programs and decided to rest, my body, which had become that of an 80-year-old, began to drag itself toward what we had converted into a bedroom, half of the living room. Lying on the bed and covered by two blankets, my eyes filled with tears. She asked me if I was sad. “No,” I said, “my head is killing me.” The pain was drilling into me from both sides; usually, my few migraines had only affected one side—it could be one hemisphere, it could be my temple, like a hand hovering to give you a painful massage—nothing like this: two metal plates crushing my skull. How could I not cry? I had a daughter, but I hadn't planted the tree or written the book. Damn it.

“Take a paracetamol,” she told me. “No,” I replied, “a fever is a good thing; my body is fighting and protecting me.” “Vero, take the paracetamol, and tomorrow we’ll let your body continue fighting.” I took it, my fever went down, and I was able to sleep.

That's how we were, like all precarious LGBTI people

The next day she had to do the shopping. “I’ll buy enough for two weeks; maybe I’m asymptomatic and could be spreading it around.” What about people who live alone? Or in overcrowded conditions? Those without jobs or family? Those who can’t even afford two days’ worth of groceries? They have no choice but to infect each other and go out into the streets, perpetuating the chains of infection. That’s how we were, like all the precarious LGBTQ+ people, like the vast majority of Peruvians. We don’t have a refrigerator (yet; we had just moved), so we buy meat for the day, as it had spoiled several times when we left it for the next day. Without protein, no one recovers (I was already thinking about all the chickpea-based meals I would eat). She also brought the thermometer we had been planning to buy since the first day of quarantine. On day 54, we finally bought it and used it for the first time.

When she arrived with all the bags, and after showering, she came to me, looked at my face, and tried to hide a look of terror. “Okay, open your mouth, lift your tongue, close it.” Three minutes. 38.5°C. The terror was no longer hidden; she got out of bed and practically ran out. It was 4 p.m. “I’m going to the pharmacy,” I heard her say between deliriums. But she came back empty-handed. Seeing my face, my red eyes, my high fever, she panicked and rushed to buy me some painkillers before the pharmacies closed, but it was useless; she couldn’t find anything.

Now that I knew my temperature, I took the opportunity to call Line 113, the official number for suspected Covid cases. The first two times I dialed the wrong extension; "They're going to fine me," I thought, scared. On the third try, I pressed the correct one. Someone answered with a little girl's voice. I wanted to burst into tears, but I felt like her mother. I thought of Camila. I didn't want to cause her any more sadness; she'd already lost her grandfather, she wasn't going to lose her mother.

Hello, how can we help you? I think I have Covid symptoms. Please tell me your region, province, and district. Lima, Lima, Lima. Please tell me your symptoms. Fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue. If it is suspected Covid, have you been near anyone with the disease? No. Do you live with any elderly people or children? No. How old are you? 40. Do you have hypertension, diabetes…? No, nothing. How many people do you live with? Only one, my partner. Please tell me your ID number. xxxxxxx. Again, please. xxxxxxxx. Our system is malfunctioning; I'll write it down by hand. Okay. Your full name: xxxx. Your address: xxx. Please tell me the phone number of the person you live with. Xxxxxxxx. What is their name? Ana Karina. Do they have symptoms? No. Okay, we'll put you on the waiting list, and someone will contact you soon to check on you. Thank you.

All that was left for me to do was begin the long wait for someone to call me and decide I should get tested, even though I'm not famous, rich, or have run a criminal organization for years. I had told Ana Karina that I had already consulted a doctor and that they had recommended I bring down my fever manually with cloths, sleep covered with a sheet, not dress too warmly, and drink tea with ginger, garlic, and cinnamon. I intended to follow these instructions faithfully; I didn't want to ruin any future treatment by self-medicating, but she insisted I take a flu medication. "At least your headache should stop," she told me.

"You have coronavirus until proven otherwise."

I told my friends in the "Drunken Feminist" WhatsApp chat how things were going. Only one of them was still drunk; the other three of us had given up the good life. One of them, the drunk one, more alarmed than I was—because I usually take things as a joke, even my own death (mental note)—called a doctor friend. The doctor friend called me a few hours later. I told him what I'd been doing. If virtual slaps exist, his call was one. In short, he told me to stop playing the sadomasochistic martyr and start getting treatment: "You have coronavirus until proven otherwise. You're going to take one gram of paracetamol every eight hours for three days and stay hydrated all day. I'll be monitoring you. Let me know if anything happens." I was already listing the trivial things I would tell him about.

I told her what the doctor had said. “You see,” she said, looking annoyed. All that was missing was the slap: “What can I do if I’m right?” I kept thinking about everything I didn’t have: difficulty breathing, diarrhea, nausea, loss of taste and smell. I was constipated the first two days, I could still smell the cat’s poop, I was breathing normally. “It’s not coronavirus.” By the third day, I couldn’t smell anything, not poop, not food. Thinking about some dishes made me nauseous. “Could it be?” I could still taste the Gatorade. “It’s not.”

Saturday the 9th. First day of prescribed paracetamol. My 80-year-old body is already reacting better; I feel like I'm 60. I do a few things, wash the dishes to feel the cold on my warm hands. I read a little, but I get tired. My record for movies and series watched on Netflix has shrunk; I don't last more than 20 minutes, take a break, and come back for another 20 minutes, repeating this until I stubbornly finish them. I finish projects I left almost completed (thankfully). I abandon a couple more. It all started on a Thursday night. I gave myself a weekend off without pay or a full suspension of work. Although my worried mind thinks I won't have any money and that I should sit down to work again. That thought "miraculously" makes me feel better. Maybe I'll never know if I'm positive, but for the moment, death can wait.

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*This column was originally published on https://manoalzada.pe/