“Back, back!” was all I understood. In the tense atmosphere of the pharmacy on Oberkampf Street, in the Bastille district, the clerk spoke so fast that I, with my “fluent” French (excellent accent, good vocabulary, poor grammar), could barely understand what he was shouting at. .
Basically he was fighting one of humanity’s most uncontrollable traits: our propensity to crowd together. It wasn’t a big pharmacy and maybe that’s why I chose it—the line for the test was short.
What test? The one that haunts me since the day I landed in Paris, a city that I love so much and that I hadn’t visited since January 2020. The one without which I couldn’t board back to Brazil. The one who would tell me if I had tested positive or negative for Covid-19.
Even before Christmas, the Parisian streets, so beautifully decorated for the holidays, were dotted with small white tents with a word I still didn’t know: “dépistage”. In the dictionary, “sorting”. In a personal and freer reading, “sentence”.
I exaggerate, I admit. But I walked away from these stalls, putting off the moment when I would finally have to face them. Queues were usually long and slow. Especially for Christmas and New Year’s family gatherings, the French were testing themselves in droves.
It wasn’t for less. Cases of Covid-19, especially those involving the most recently detected variant, the omicron, soared in the country. And, even knowing that this was less threatening (although more contagious), panic set in Paris, from the grand boulevards to the narrow passages.
The protocol was simple. On the streets, the vast majority did not wear a mask. But she was always in her pocket to get into anywhere, hotels, bars, restaurants, shops, museums. Along, by the way, with the sanitary pass, which was the (probable) proof that you didn’t have the virus.
Not being able to get a consulate in Brazil, I traveled with the print that confirmed that I had received the two doses of vaccine and, even in Portuguese, after a quick explanation, it was well accepted.
With him, I didn’t stop going anywhere I wanted to. To the new Samaritan. To the Gran Palais Éphémère (only the French can name an improvised building so beautifully) to see the German artist Anselm Kiefer. To the cinema, to the new Almodóvar. A two or three favorite restaurants.
I had to be extra careful because I was accompanied by my mother. And because he absolutely didn’t want to take the omicron. He didn’t deserve to have dribbled Covid for two years to, adapting the cliché, “die in the Seine”.
And so I wandered through Paris, less as a “flaneur” than as a vigilante. Orange alert for agglomerations in front of the Hôtel de Ville! Guilt-free (and mask-free) walk through the Quai Branly museum garden…
Until the day of departure arrived, or even 24 hours before departure, when you have to take the test to board back. And I was there trying to understand the instructions from the pharmacy clerk at Oberkampf.
Almost an hour after waiting, I was then sitting with my head slightly tilted back, waiting for my French swab. And two hours later, I was back at the same address to hear the verdict.
The suspense was suffocating, and when the druggist announced the result, he did so in such a charmingly French way that it defused my tension: “pas positif” (“not positive”).
For the day I had left before boarding, I could finally breathe Paris.
.
