La Vague de Chaleur (Aug. 2003)
A Blue Flag Adventure (Aug. 2002)
Patio Talk (Aug. 2002)
Decoder Rings (Sept. 2002)
Eeyore and Tigger (Oct. 2002)
Wonder Woman Hangs from a Wire (Dec. 2002)
Serves Two (June 2003)
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Wonder Woman Hangs from a Wire
December 2002
No longer call me "visitor" for I am "resident". After four months I have finally secured the most coveted of passport stickers, "le carte de séjour". "Is that a big deal?" you ask. To that I blink my eyes twice while shaking my head at a slight tilt to demonstrate the agony that I have just experienced in order to secure the aforementioned sticker.
The French word for sticker is "autocollant", which also means self-adhesive, or sticky. "Sticky" appeals to me because there is no way of getting away from it. You need it, they have it, you want it, and voilà you have the equivalent of an index finger and thumb rubbing against each other trying to rid themselves of an unwanted sticky substance. Admittedly, there is no "self" involved either. The procurement of the residents permit requires an entire team to offer advice, psyche you up, talk you down, and interpret government protocol. No matter that every year in France thousands of foreigners apply for residence permits. You would think that over time "they" would find an efficient process to expedite the pain for "us". Did I put "they" in quotes?
I believe that Bureaucracy can be defined in a few different ways. The dictionary defines it as "An administrative system in which the need or inclination to follow rigid or complex procedures impedes effective action." I would like to add, "a system which requires one to stretch, duck, and roll while making multiple copies as well as keeping your entire life paper clipped and organized, eventually resulting in a very long detailed email to friends." Finally, please consider this last view on bureaucracy http://eric.thelin.org/mail/jokes/msg00465.html
The process goes something like this: after months of compiling your dossier with passports, visas, birth certificates, translations, photos, contracts, assignment letter, social security forms, etc, you make an appointment and appear in person at the Préfecture. There you will wait in a glass walled waiting room filled with disturbing posters illustrating the results of not following French laws. (Non-carte-séjour-holding foreigners behind bars, high-speed car accidents resulting in mangled teenagers, and handcuffed American's caught eating lunch after the designated hours.) Rest assured that you will be waiting long enough to realize the plants and flowers are plastic and that the bench is made of a laminate that doesn't stain, peel, chip, or fade.
At the Préfecture in Annecy there are two women qualified to assist you in this process. It is your lucky day. You are assigned to Madame S. You immediately find her to be a woman of great wide-shouldered staunchness, a fortress, an enigma, and unfortunately the gatekeeper of your files. Madame S uses her lips for smirking but not smiling. Short curly black hair frame a square emotionless face accented by dark brown eyes. Her clothes are non-descript and shapeless in a style befitting a career civil servant. She listens impatiently and speaks rapidly. She knows enough English to eavesdrop, but it seems, not enough to converse.
The relationship is odd. She demands parts of your dossier and you eagerly hand them over. It's not long before you realize that you are merely an assistant to her every whim, ashamedly wanting to please her at any cost. She stares blankly into the computer screen as if she has just discovered that you are wanted for espionage, terrorism and unpaid parking tickets in your hometown. She pauses for effect and then raises her eyes to see you but you know better and look down at your ten-pound dossier that is weighing heavily on your lap. Your hands start sweating as you notice, while glancing out of the corner of your eye, that her lip is slightly upturned in what looks like the beginning of a smirk.
To prevent yourself from crying your eyes set to browsing the room in the hopes of uncovering the soft side of Madame S. You notice that her chair is higher and yours is lower. Hers swivels, yours doesn't. Her desk is not adorned with personal knick knacks nor photographs and from the landscape of her throne it is clear that she is paid to stack files, pound and remove staples, rearrange paperclips, sign on dotted lines, erase other's penciled mistakes, tap dates and names into a far away government file server, and finally, adhere stickers to foreign passport pages.
Oddly enough there are three-inch high replicas of Wonder woman and Cat woman swinging from the wire of her government issued white metal desk lamp. At first this feels incongruous to her personality and you are instantly intrigued. Could it be that Madame S sees a little bit of herself in these heroines? (We all played "Freeze S.W.A.T!" when we were young.) Or, were they gifts from her manager to symbolize the daily battles of her post? As you start to visualize Madame S combating the forces of evil while dressed in a bright and tight bustier your spouse breaks in and asks, "Didn't Nicole Kidman play Cat woman?" You shrug your shoulders at him and answer with silence for the simple reason that you fear Madame. S will judge you on your lack of cinematic trivia and immediately revoke your request for residence. She looks up to see if you will answer. You look away.
On the table behind her is another computer. The monitor has a slide show screensaver featuring Sean Connery. His career flashes by in a minute or two; at once smooth skinned youth to confident debonair forty-something and finally handsome graying gentleman. You are not sure what to make of this but you start daydreaming again and now see Sean in a Batman costume sweeping file-clutching Cat woman off her feet. The shrill ringing of her office phone ends the dream as she blurts into the mouthpiece with a French Scottish Brogue, "Speak, I'm listening!"
On the wall behind her is a calendar of Martinique. You remind yourself to take note of the month, it's August, because you anticipate that next time you are here the photograph will undoubtedly appear to have the same white sand beach ringed by leaning palm trees over an aqua marine ocean. You can't honestly say you are familiar with Martinique but you do know (after researching it on the web) that it was "...Colonized by France in 1635 and has subsequently remained a French possession except for three brief periods of foreign occupation." You also learn that the terrain is mountainous with an indented coastline and is dominated by a dormant volcano called Mount Pelee, which on 8 May 1902 erupted and completely destroyed the city of Saint Pierre, killing 30,000 inhabitants. Today the population is 422,277." You wonder if Mrs. S is like a dormant volcano.
For now she's not spewing ash, but instead announces that all you are missing in your file is the health certificate. You are overly nice and say "Merci" too many times, and even throw in a "beaucoup". You don't know whether to shake her hand or do the double cheek kisses. You choose to back out of the office slowly dragging your dossier along in a little wagon careful not to chip the bench as you maneuver the waiting room.
A health certificate sounds reasonable and you feel giddy with hope. Your government appointed physician is Dr. Tapponnier. You call her to make an appointment for a physical exam and find the earliest time is one month from today. In addition you are required to have a lung x-ray. You are required to take the x-ray on the same day as the exam. Apparently a lot of tuberculosis can show up in-between a week old x-ray and an exam!
The radiology department is across from the train station on the second floor above a men's shoe store. White medical coats purposely march across the dimly lit mint green office as we sit in uncomfortable plastic chairs awaiting the announcement of our names. Your spouse is called first and disappears behind a heavy steel door for what seems too long. He returns with a story of torture and abuse evidently stemming from his inability to hold his breath for the needed time. I suggest that the reason he was requested to take more than one x-ray was because the woman technician liked his bare chest set against the cold camera. You are next and follow the white coat and spongy rubber soled shoes back to the room. The room is dark and suspiciously cold. The equipment looks like it's been used far past its expiration date. You stand topless against the cold machine and try not to breathe. She's staring at you from behind the protective glass and probably accidentally leans too long on the button. You are fried. You dress and leave with your x-rays. You hope you don't contract T.B. on the short drive, past the cemetery, to Dr. Tapponier's office.
The office of Dr. Tapponier is like every other physician's office in France. There is no receptionist, welcome desk, insurance specialist, appointment maker, nor nurse. Most doctors operate their practice in converted two bedroom apartments using one room for examining, the other for the storage of banal and expired reading material. The waiting room is a small box. There are eight chairs lined up, two on each wall, and a table in the middle. The eight chairs are occupied and everyone's knees are practically touching the center table, yet, no one's eyes ever meet. The window is shut and the air is stuffy with impatience, a screaming baby, a hacking teenager, and four potentially tuberculosis carrying foreigners.
Ninety minutes later the doctor is finally ready for you. She sits behind her desk finishing a chewy bon-bon while nonchalantly asking a series of yes or no health related questions. She never asks you to undress, nor does she lift her stethoscope to your homesick heart. At one point she leaves her desk to weigh and measure you, as converting inches to meters or pounds to kilograms is far too complex. Once that is done she stamps, signs and waves au revoir. That is it. She makes a quick Euro from the government and you are one step closer to the elusive carte de séjour. The x-ray and the medical exam took a total of four hours.
After the health exam papers have routed themselves from here to there and back, (stamp, staple, and copy) the Préfecture eventually sends you the coveted yellow postcard announcing that you have no more than eight days to pick up your carte de séjour in person from Madame S. After eight days the offer expires, the sale is off, no more promotions and the process must repeat itself from the beginning. As you have just now arrived from seven days in Paris you focus immediately on the postmarked date and notice that today is the eighth day! Like sands through the hourglass so is your silver diesel Renault Espace Minivan through the myriad of round-abouts and yellowy-orange traffic lights. Tick tock tick tock.
It is now four months into the process and you are once again sitting on a laminate bench. You are ashamed that you are afraid of this woman, and resent her for the power she yields. Your upper lip begins to sweat as your slow one-language brain tries to prepare a statement in French. She waves you in through the glass wall. You enter, sit, and freeze. She glares. You clutch your passport and wave the yellow postcard in what should feel like victory. She feigns ignorance. No one budges. Finally your stiff American lips push out "cahhhhrte dh sayjhhhuuuuhhhhr". She smiles in victory. Once outside in the fresh air you check your passport to run your fingers along the sticker. The adhesive seems strong, at least until next year, when you are obliged to renew.
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