Stoke Newington, London, March 29, 2020
Ever since a lockdown was imposed, the skies of London are blue.
Two months ago, there was one day in which the rain wouldn't stop. That day, an 85-year-old neighbor waiting in line with me at the local clinic told me that the sun shined strong during the Blitz. He also said that when World War I broke out, the skies suddenly cleared with magnificent cyan. "That's life," he said with his head moving. "The weather in Britain is always great when the situation is sh**y."
The skies are indeed blue and the situation is indeed sh***y. People living in the same household can leave once a day to exercise. When Ravid and I go on our daily walk, I peruse the windows of the various buildings that have been opened to welcome the newly emerged sun, hoping to catch a glimpse of that old neighbor.
I hope he is ok; I hope he is not one of the ever-rising statistics of dead and sick. As the poet Chaim Nachman Bialik wrote: "The acacia tree blossomed and the sun shone bright, and shochet slaughtered."
Taking walks provides some relief. The grass in the parks is dense and soft; the cherry trees, and the magnolias, with their silver, pink and white leaves blossom against the stone walls of the old houses, and the weeping willow trees let their limping branches fall into the canal's water. Only a handful of people walk, either alone or as a couple. Few and far between.
Recently, we ran into one of our friends. He stood two meters away and shouted, as he was the town crier: "London has never been quieter and more pleasant. Its beauty is particularly beaming in this special light."
But its beauty is also terrifying: The digital billboards on the giant screens at a deserted Piccadilly Circus; the high-end stores in Regent Street showcasing their clothes, jewelry and perfumes suddenly look like archeological artifacts in a museum, relics of an extinct civilization; the flowers that had adorned Bond Street, where Mrs. Dalloway walked, are nowhere to be seen, and in David Copperfield's The Strand, the pudding is no longer sold. We walk alone in streets of London, as it closes in on us: shining, silent, and empty, having lost its humanity.
T.S. Eliot's words reverberate in my mind: "This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but with a whimper."
Such words would normally have a majestic effect on me. Their melancholy, their bitter finality, their rolling scream in its surprising whimper.
But in these days, surrender to the abyss of darkness that they have created is a tempting option. Spring has arrived nonetheless, and Ravid triumphantly declared that he has managed to secure a food delivery, and the sun is out, its rays reflects on the windows and flickers from his blue eyes. I remind myself that time goes by whether we like or not, and that life has a final end.
Just like literature – life takes on a new meaning if you give it another read. And thus, in this very moment, I got a picture from a good friend of her new baby, who had just been born. This is how the world begins, not in a bang but in a whimper.
Yonatan Sagiv was born in Herzliya. He completed his PhD in New York and currently lives and teaches in London. He has written three detective novels.
