{"id":5383,"date":"2021-10-15T17:04:30","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T15:04:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/?p=5383"},"modified":"2023-11-23T10:56:14","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T08:56:14","slug":"house-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldsite\/house-arrest\/","title":{"rendered":"House Arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Untitled, acrylic and pencil on paper, 2016 (courtesy artist Randa Hijazi).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Claire Berlinski<\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

I knew this lockdown business was serious when they cancelled my convocation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I had a\u00a0convocation<\/em>\u2014a summons\u2014to\u00a0renew my\u00a0carte de s\u00e9jour<\/em>. I had been told to present myself at exactly 8:35 a.m. at the Pr\u00e9fecture de Police in the IVe arrondissement on March 16th, 2020.<\/p>\n

The annual convocation at the Pr\u00e9fecture is a grave ritual for every foreigner in France. The list of documents you must provide is long, strange, and very precise. There are infinitely many rumors about how the process really works. No one is exactly sure.<\/p>\n

I have been highly impressed by the French bureaucracy. Their paperwork requests are exacting and peculiar, but if you give them precisely<\/em> what\u00a0they\u00a0request, they are polite, competent, and professional. It\u2019s not a surreal and sadistic game, like the Turkish bureaucracy.\u00a0In its own way, it works very well.<\/p>\n

This time, though, I figured the convocation<\/em>\u00a0was a\u00a0death sentence.<\/p>\n

There would be hundreds of people on line to enter the Pr\u00e9fecture. No matter how early I got \u00a0there, I\u2019d end up standing with the coughers and nose-pickers. They\u2019d squeeze us in groups of about twenty into an enclosed antechamber, where we\u2019d wait to go through the security line to have our bags x-rayed. One of the baggage screeners, I was sure, would be named \u201cPatient X\u201d in the literature.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d wait for our convocation in a crowded room. No one would be sure who would be summoned next or why, so everyone would crowd together near the officials until they\u2019re called or shooed away, like seals at feeding time. We\u2019d sit on their ancient plastic chairs \u2014 a virus, I figured, could live on those things for weeks.<\/p>\n

It occurred to me that everyone else, just like me, was\u00a0obliged<\/em>\u00a0to\u00a0be there, even if they knew they were sick. Even if they were gasping for\u00a0oxygen\u00a0and dribbling with fever sweat. People would crawl right out of the ICU to make\u00a0sure they didn\u2019t miss their\u00a0convocation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I did it every year, so I knew the routine. You slowly pass your papers back and forth with an official who inevitably touches her nose as she studies them. She passes them back to you, telling you to re-order them. She licks her fingers to leaf through documents.<\/p>\n

My stomach turned thinking about it. I was good as dead.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

We had all been officially advised to stay at home. We were not supposed to go out unless our business was \u201cessential to the life of the nation.\u201d Was this appointment, I asked myself, essential to the life of the nation? What did\u00a0essential<\/em> mean,\u00a0precisely?<\/p>\n

I asked my friends. Without hesitation, they said, \u201cOf course it is.\u201d This was France. You do not miss your convocation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

They were right, I concluded. It was a paradox. A nation in which convocations<\/em> are inessential might still be a nation, but it would not be the nation of France. I resigned myself to my fate and put my papers in order.<\/p>\n

I rose early and set off for my appointment in Samarra. I wore gloves. I brought my own pen. I put a vial of rubbing alcohol in my handbag.There was a long line, as I expected. Everyone kept a meter\u2019s distance from each other, just as the government advised. The line stretched all the way to the Quai du Pont Neuf. We all carried certified translations of our birth certificates, two copies of our most recent electricity bill, four regulation-sized photographs, and signed certificates attesting to our commitment to the non-practice of polygamy.<\/p>\n

I waited with the rest of the supplicants. We watched each other uneasily. No one coughed.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, the doors of the Pr\u00e9fecture opened, and a phalanx of policewomen barged out. They looked at us like we were imbeciles. What part of \u201cessential to the nation\u201d had we failed to understand? They barked, \u201cRentrez\u00a0chez vous<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when it dawned on me \u2014 they were serious. If they were cancelling our convocations<\/em>, we were truly under house arrest. They were sending us home \u2014 and they weren\u2019t going to let us out again.<\/p>\n

\n

The government ordered us to stay inside our homes. It did not advise us, it ordered<\/em> us. We could not step outside without a permit. This had never happened before in peacetime France.<\/p>\n

President Macron addressed the nation. He used the words \u201cat war\u201d six times. The Decree of March 16, 2020, forbid all movement outside save to seek food or medical care. Dogs could relieve themselves, but there was to be no social dog-walking. One person per dog \u2014 and get it over with quickly.<\/p>\n

The permit was another exceedingly complex French form. You had to download it every time and sign it, indicating the precise time you set foot outdoors. At first, they gave us permission to exercise outside for an hour \u2014 prison yard privileges, so to speak \u2014 but they quickly cracked down even on that. Too many people, the Interior Minister Castener explained, were using it as an excuse to socialize.<\/p>\n

The exasperated Castener put 100,000 police and gendarmes on the\u00a0streets to enforce the decree. \u201cThe orders are clear,\u201d said\u00a0Castaner.\u00a0\u201cStay at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vehicular police were deployed in fixed and mobile positions on the main\u00a0and ancillary traffic axes. \u201cThere is no glory,\u201d Castener intoned, \u201cin\u00a0refusing\u00a0to submit to health measures and, through irresponsible behavior, becoming an\u00a0ally of the virus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government began flying helicopters and drones to ensure everyone stayed locked up.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m on a neighborhood mailing list, one we usually use to announce missing cats or impending construction. One neighbor wrote to the group to warn us:\u00a0Watch out. The police are being completely unreasonable.<\/em>\u00a0He had just gone out to get water, he reported, but he was stopped, scolded, and given a fine by the police. \u201cI guess,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthat water is not considered essential to life.\u201d The subject of his e-mail was ABUSE OF POWER!<\/p>\n

Some neighbors sympathized. Others pointed out that water comes out of our tap.<\/p>\n

This was all very strange.\u00a0I did not disapprove of the policy. Quarantine is an ancient remedy for pandemics, and it was all we had, at the time. But I had never experienced house arrest before. I wasn\u2019t sure, but I thought I\u2019d be okay. It wouldn\u2019t, if I was honest, be such a change. I work at home, normally. And I\u2019m highly introverted. I thought it over: I liked my apartment. It\u2019s cozy. I always feel guilty for not\u00a0going\u00a0out more and taking advantage of all that Paris has to offer, anyway. I like my own company. I was both pleased and embarrassed to realize I didn\u2019t much object to being imprisoned.<\/p>\n

But surely that couldn\u2019t be right, I thought. House arrest, after all, is a punishment<\/em>. It\u2019s been used as a punishment since antiquity. Surely it must be deeply disagreeable \u2014 because it has<\/em> to be. Otherwise, the threat of it wouldn\u2019t dissuade anyone from breaking the law. Was there something awful about it that I was about to discover? Perhaps I would go insane?<\/p>\n

Our conditions were, in fact, even more arduous than those of typical detainees under house arrest. Mine was \u201cthe most severe form of house arrest,\u201d according to my legal dictionary, for we weren\u2019t allowed outside even to go to work or religious services. There were no ankle bracelets, but apart from this, I was living the life of a non-violent first offender who had committed a crime for which jail would be too harsh, but probation too lenient. (Fraud, say, or embezzlement. Drunk driving, perhaps.)<\/p>\n

Within weeks, the entire world joined me in captivity. All normal social intercourse ceased. The State Department issued a Level Four travel advisory for the entire planet. Global tourism vanished. The world\u2019s borders, including the internal borders of the Schengen Zone, slammed shut. The education of 1.5 billion schoolchildren was suspended. The perished were sent to their repose without funerals. To prevent its citizens from starving, the American government passed a spending package larger than the GNP of the Soviet Union at its zenith.<\/p>\n

Not all of the news was bad. Prisoners who had been detained without trial or imprisoned on trivial charges were released.<\/p>\n

\n

But as the weeks passed, I realized my initial instinct was right. I was fine. In fact, I enjoyed it. This made me appreciate how real and significant the difference is between introverts and extroverts. As is the difference between being locked down by yourself and being locked down with your family. The people I knew who were locked down with their families went insane. Every one of them. They latched on to the Great Barrington Declaration and spent their days ranting on and on about Sweden.<\/p>\n

My extroverted friends were miserable. One of them shared an online tutorial on Facebook. It was titled, \u201cHow to keep yourself occupied during lockdown.\u201d I watched it in puzzlement: I couldn\u2019t fathom having so little idea how to entertain myself that I had to watch a tutorial for ideas. I had just amused myself all day long with a can of spray paint and a milk carton. I had several milk cartons left, too.<\/p>\n

I felt bad for my friends who were freaking out. Some started calling me all day long, saying they wanted \u201cto keep my spirits up.\u201d My spirits were fine, except when I was interrupted by the phone ringing. People claimed to be worried about me because I lived alone. I don\u2019t think they realized what a blessing it was. I don\u2019t fault them for worrying, though. It\u2019s true that I didn\u2019t leave my apartment or see another human being for months \u2014 and solitary confinement is reputed to be a torture <\/em>\u2014 so I can see why they worried. And I can\u2019t quite explain why I did so well.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s odd that I don\u2019t get lonely anymore. I know I did when I was younger. I remember that. But now, demonstrably, I don\u2019t. I can stay in my apartment, alone, for weeks and weeks, without another soul around, and barely notice it. Is this a sign I\u2019ve developed unusual mental strength? Or is it a sign that I\u2019ve turned into a weird hermit in middle age? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

I really didn\u2019t like the sound of Covid. I\u2019d survive it, almost certainly; I\u2019ve got none of the dread preexisting conditions. But my brother had caught it, early on. Long Covid is miserable, and he\u2019s still suffering from it. I really didn\u2019t want to share that experience with him. So even after the lockdown eased, I kept to myself. I took no unnecessary risks. And to my bewilderment, isolation continued to agree with me just fine. I didn\u2019t understand this. People go mad in solitary confinement, don\u2019t they? I wasn\u2019t going mad\u2014not even close. Could it be that email and Twitter really are an adequate replacement for friends and family?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m vaccinated now, and life in France has more or less returned to normal. I go grocery shopping. I meet my friends for coffee and dinner. But sometimes, when people call me to ask if I want to go out and do the sorts of things you really do have to do now and again, if you want to keep your friends, I secretly miss the lockdown.<\/p>\n

Certainly, the threat of house arrest would no longer deter me from committing a crime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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