The End of Men(49)

The first Russian case was reported in mid-December, although everyone says it was here before then. It felt like everyone had been holding their breath, waiting and waiting for the first one and once it had happened, we could all breathe and cry and wail and exhale again. I felt relief that it might reach us soon and terror at what the world would look like.

There has been a surge of domestic violence throughout the spring as the disease ravages Moscow. Not everyone’s husbands are terrible though. My friend Sonya’s husband stayed home with her all the time. He loved her so much. Then he ran away to Siberia to try and escape it. She told me he was crying when he was left but they agreed it was the safest thing to do. She has not heard from him since. Maybe these men think the cold will protect them, the ones who go north. But it doesn’t. The Plague doesn’t care where you go. It will find you.

Mikhail never considered going anywhere. He doesn’t love us enough to want to live. He has stayed and drunk vodka like it’s his dying day, every day.

At first, I was excited. Any day now he will catch it. Any day now he will die. But the days are passing. I am praying and nothing is changing. I can’t leave. He owns the apartment. I don’t earn enough. He would kill me and keep Katya.

Now I am bored of the pain, bored of the bruises, but more than anything I am scared. He must be immune. Almost every man in Moscow has died but Mikhail. He spends every day outside of the house in bars. He is reckless. He touches people, accepts drinks, takes public transportation.

He arrives home, late as always, drunker than usual. I make sure to be in the kitchen when he arrives. It’s worse if I’m in bed. I try to give him a glass of water but he doesn’t like that. I never know what he will accept as help or interpret as an insult. He swipes at me but can’t be bothered to put any weight into it. It probably won’t bruise. He stumbles through to our bedroom, passes out, smelling metallic.

I feel his forehead, praying it will be feverish, but it is cool. He is immune. He is immune. This can’t go on. I have a plan for Katya and me to be safe and leave him behind. I take the thermometer out of the bathroom and some tissues and put them by his bed. What else does a sick person need? A cold washcloth. That too.

I change into my pajamas and lie down next to him. It is time. I take the spare pillow he has abandoned and hold it firmly. I cover his face and push down as hard as I can. He starts to stir and move his arms but I am straddling him now, my knees digging into his sides. Pressing down, down I keep holding it. He stops moving after a while but I don’t know if he’s playing dead. If he’s still alive he will kill me. Hold down for longer. Keep holding.

I stay with the pillow pressed down until the clock shows it is 4 a.m. His chest has not moved for a long time. I do not think he could be pretending now. I take the pillow off and spring away from him just in case. His head lolls to one side. His eyes are unblinking. I let out a whoop and then clasp my hand over my mouth. My neighbor must not hear that kind of thing.

I leave my dead husband—I am now a widow. I prefer that word to “wife.” I will sleep in Katya’s room tonight. My baby and I are safe.

“Come into my bed, Mama,” she says to me sleepily when I open the door to her room. Beside my soft, sleepy girl I lie down and she snuggles into me as I curl up under her covers. For the first time in years I sleep like I did when I was child, knowing I am safe.

I wake up when Katya starts to stir. I tell her to go to the kitchen and make breakfast, everything as it usually is, keep it the same, stay calm. I go through to the bedroom. He is definitely dead. I have thought about this before but now that I must do it, it feels riskier than I had thought. I call the phone number they gave out on the news. The Body Snatchers, everyone calls them. The women employed by the government to take the bodies away and burn them.

I try to sound sad and shocked. They arrive a few hours later. I have made sure to cry a little to make it believable. I assumed they would ask me some questions about the illness and when he died but they just ask for his name and SNILS number. I recite them and watch in disbelief as they pick up his body, put it in a bag and leave with only a short sentence: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

If I had known it would be this easy, I would have killed him months ago.





ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON POST ON JUNE 30, 2026



“Women at War: The Chinese Civil War Unmasked”


by Maria Ferreira

I wish I could take credit for an extraordinary feat of journalistic talent, and say I painstakingly researched the Chinese Civil War, carefully built up relationships with its key actors and managed to convince one of its rebel leaders to trust me enough to be interviewed.

It didn’t happen like that. Fei Hong, the rebel leader based in Chengdu, e-mailed me. I replied to her e-mail and set up a FaceTime call fully expecting it to be a prank. It wasn’t. What can I tell you, sometimes Chinese rebel commanders make this job really easy.

I can see the accusations that I’m being used as a mouthpiece for a villainous woman, intent on violence, from a mile away. To that, I answer, I might not have had to fight hard for this interview but I’m still a journalist. I have, to the extent possible, researched Fei’s claims and where they are impossible to confirm or rebut, I’ll say so.

When she appears on my screen—the picture startlingly clear—I’m assessed coolly. It’s clear, before Fei Hong has said a word, that she’s a powerful woman.