In the Right Place, at the Right Time

by Pringle Franklin

After moving to Paris, I had an alarming problem: I had fallen into the crumb basket of “Le System”, and I was unable to get out!

Any U.S. citizen is welcome to stay in Europe for 90 days; to linger beyond that, you need a visa. Most ex-pats wind up here because they work for an international company, and Paris is the next leap in a hopscotching global career. Those corporate types receive plenty of legal advice to smooth out the bumpy immigration process. However, since we came here under the umbrella of adventure, we had to decipher the confusing requirements for our visas without support from the legal department.

Before leaving the Motherland, we laid the groundwork. Last April, we drove five hours to the French Consulate in Atlanta for interrogations, I mean, interviews. Besides completing beaucoup de paperwork, we had to supply an executed lease to establish that we would have a legal residence in Paris (Le Government did not want us sleeping on the Metro floor). Therefore, in March we traveled to Paris during spring break to meet our new landlord and preview the flat. So much advance work!

The trip to Atlanta was our first official interaction with French bureaucracy. Thank heavens we managed to check off every box in the visa paperwork category at the Consulate. After that, we counted out $800 in cash and gave it to the proxy French government. Rest assured, the French do not permit bribery or thievery. You can trust their sense of honor. Their outrageous fees are actually legitimate. The Consulate staff gave us a hand-written cash receipt along with a caveat: if Le Government should deny our visa applications for any reason, we would receive neither an explanation nor a penny in refund.

What could we do but agree to their terms? We wanted to move to the land of baguettes, fromage (entirely different from what we think of as cheese) and flowing red wine. So, okay, Frenchies, have it your way. At the end of the interview, they asked us to pose for mug shots.

“Stop smiling,” the Consulate woman barked at us, one after another, as we perched on a stool and stared at the mounted camera. Both she and the camera were separated from us by what resembled a bank teller’s booth enclosed in protective glass. Do they think we are dangerous, I wondered?

“Put your hair behind your ears,” she told me through her microphone, as I sat stiffly on the stool. It felt stressful, having this very serious woman dictate orders in her Frenchified English. I was relieved when the picture taking was over and the exacting bureaucrat was apparently satisfied.

Three weeks later, when we got our passports back in the mail, I was stunned by the visa picture that was now affixed to the pages. That unpleasant woman had taken the best government-issued photos in the world. If you need a promotional portrait taken before applying to “Dancing With the Stars”, go to the French Consulate. I am NOT kidding — they made me look like myself, only younger and cuter. Not a wrinkle or freckle in sight!

“I love the French already!” I declared.

A SERIES OF HURDLES

Within weeks of our arrival in Paris, we faced the next task: mail 15 pages of residency paperwork stamped by the French Consulate to the Office of French Immigration and Integration. At that point, I was so generally confused that figuring out how to use the local postal system was daunting. Even when I asked questions, I could not understand more than 5 percent of what the locals told me. Yet somehow, with the disgrace of a bumbler, I managed to post the large envelope. What a relief! We had done our part. I swear, I would never have made it if I had not met some English-speakers along the way.

Now we waited. With any luck, the OFII would respond via email with the time and place of our mandatory medical appointments. Immigrants (anyone from outside the European Union) must undergo a general health check-up and a chest x-ray. You don’t get to choose when you go — you wait and hope and pray that your paperwork clears and then you show up promptly at the appointed hour, well dressed and well groomed, with your dossier of identification papers, photos, and tax stamps. If you had a lunch date, you cancel it. Pas d’excuses!

Being a foreigner can feel unsettling at times.

You must never forget that you are at their mercy. In the ex-pat world here, everyone knows someone who has had a nightmarish experience. And you hear so many jokes about French bureaucracy – even from the French – that it makes one apprehensive. Imagine the DMV at its worst but in a foreign language. In Paris, naturally the functionaries communicate only in rapid French, made more incomprehensible by the liaisons by which they blur the boundaries between certain words!

In truth, I am grateful that I am not in the hands of the Italians; I met a woman who spent three years trying to complete her immigration paperwork when she was working in Italy. The Italian government literally sent her entire family packing back to Germany, where they had previously lived, and then back to Canada, their home country, to reapply, only to discover that it was all an expensive mistake. They were actually supposed to apply in Milan. The day after she finally received her paperwork, she found out they were moving to France. Okay, so things could always be worse! The French are decent administrators, right? I mean, at least they would process and file correctly.

WHY IS LE GOVERNMENT IGNORING ME?

At first, things looked promising: the Office of Immigration responded quickly to the applications from Sam, Benton, and Baker. Yet to my dismay, weeks passed in silence as the Rubber Stampers neglected to process Clay’s and mine. We had mailed our forms in the same envelope, so I knew they had the complete set for la Famille Franklin. The Student Affairs wizards at Clay’s school, the American University of Paris, got involved on his behalf; within days, Presto! Clay had received his “convocation” inviting him to the necessary medical appointment.

But my convocation still had not materialized. When I tried calling the OFII, the man on the other end could not be bothered to check into it. Annoyed with my halting French, he simply said, “You must wait,” and hung up.

In mid-September, I went in person to the Immigration Office. My shaky French gets even more jangled when I am anxious, so I wrote out a plea for help and took it with me. After a bit of awkward dialogue, the receptionist scanned my letter and allowed me to reapply. All would be fine, she assured me. I should receive my convocation soon.

BONJOUR! I AM STILL WAITING!!!

Another month passed. Every few days I would search my email baskets but find nothing pour moi from the OFII. I began to ponder unfortunate scenarios: what if my mother became sick or developed cancer and I had to visit back home? Afterwards, I would be denied reentry into France.

“Your paperwork is incomplete,” the customs officials could say, sending me back to the United States to live in limbo. Sam and the boys would spend several lively months in Paris — having a grand old time — while I sat home alone in South Carolina and reset the tourism clock by waiting 90 days. My only resort was to turn to a higher source.

Yes, I am a believer in prayer. I spend the first waking hour of each morning talking to the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Also, I believe in Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good for those who love God. So I asked the Lord, what could be good about slipping through the legal cracks or being separated from your family? Yet not my will but your will be done. In other words, take over this situation. The prayers made me feel better, but as more days passed, I could not detect any movement on my behalf.

One of the OFII offices in Paris

BACK TO SQUARE ONE

I resigned myself to enduring another visit to the OFII office to throw myself on their mercy; perhaps if I were processed by someone having a good day, he would invite me to apply a third time. After a week of thinking about it (bon courage, as they say here), I decided to return on Monday, Oct. 13 because Clay had his medical appointment that afternoon. This way, it wouldn’t be such a lonely trip. And I could help translate, as Clay speaks almost zero French and the desk dictators speak nothing else. After more than two months here, I am now comprehending about 40 percent of what is said. (Oddly, sometimes I understand 90 percent and other times I loose the thread and understand nothing. It comes and goes!)

Naturally, the OFII office is inconveniently located on the other side of town, on the narrow Rue de la Rocquette near the Bastille. Since it was a rare sunny day, I rode my bike about 45 minutes through the busily charming quartiers of Paris and across the islands in the Seine to reach the distant right bank and beyond, battling delivery mopeds, city busses, repair trucks, and ear-splitting motorcyclists. Turns out I have learned to hold my own as a big city biker. Don’t tread on me, as we say in Charleston! I am one of the only cyclists in town wearing a helmet. And, since I do not smoke, I can out peddle you.

When I finally reached the front door to the institutionally shabby office, the security guard questioned me about my business. I began to stumble through a painful explanation in butchered French; it was too tedious for him, so he shrugged and waved me inside. That was my first break. Second break: the receptionist was busy smacking on a taffy lollipop that required most of her energy. As she scanned my letter, she stopped reading when her cell phone rang three times in a row. She answered it and but kept it brief. What’s up with her? I wondered. Maybe she has a new boyfriend; maybe her child is sick at home.

Normally, the desk clerks act like little Napoleons, and you have their complete attention as they lord their power over you. I realized very quickly that her distracted attitude might work in my favor.

Between sending personal text messages, the receptionist actually looked up my case on her computer. Then she told me to go upstairs to the medical clinic — they would take me right away for my exam. What? I didn’t have to file more papers? I was thrilled. What luck! Perhaps they were shifting me into the spot of some Sad Sack who did not show up.

But I found out the whole truth upstairs in the medical clinic. The receptionist there spoke some English; when I checked in with her and tried to explain why I was there without an appointment, she looked puzzled.  She gestured toward a stack of yellow dossiers on her desk. My file was there among them — those immigrants who were coming in that afternoon.

“Your convocation is today,” she said.

“Really?” I was shocked. “At what time?”

“Now,” she said.

I was floored. I explained to her that I had never received the emails and had no inkling of my scheduled medical exam. And yet, here I was, punctual to the minute, in the required place.

“C’est incredible!” I said.

“C’sst incroyable,” she corrected me, while smiling in agreement. She gestured for me to go and take a seat in the crowded waiting room amongst the Japanese, Chinese, Iranian, and Peruvian immigrants. Yes, it was really true. I was recognized again by Le System.

As I sat in the hard-backed plastic clinic chair, time and space shifted inside my mind. Although I had not detected any effects from my prayers, God had handled it. Without my perceiving it, He had guided me to the right place and the right time. He works in ways that we cannot understand.

LANGUAGE LESSONS FROM THE MEDICAL EXAMINER

Not surprisingly, I passed the medical exam but failed the oral exam. While the doctor was going through his check list in the examining room, he was also drilling me on my pronunciation faux-pas.

“What do you do?” he asked in English.

Just last week during French class, I learned the phrase for housewife. I was ready for this. “Je suis une femme au foyer,” I said, feeling proud of myself. But all he heard was discordant sounds.

“Not fim, it’s fam,” he said sharply.

“Feem,” I tried.

“No, fam,” he repeated.

“Ummm….fayem,” I tried. “Fayem au fo-yer.”

“Not ew, it’s ooh,” he said.

“Ew.”

“Ooh.”

“Oh.”

“Oui, une femme au foyer,” he said, nodding like a professor. Then he asked what level I was taking in French class; when I said intermediate, he looked skeptical and said, “Are you sure?”

If I possessed the language skills, I would have explained that I had studied French for seven years decades ago in school, but even then, I was never good at pronouncing or understanding spoken French. I simply told him that I could read!

“And write,” he added.

“Oui,” I said. Yes, I could write fairly decently, al least, far better than anyone who hears me would expect.

If only hearing people correct me meant that I would be able to imitate them. As much as I try, it is a slow process to make things stick. Yet I have been in France long enough to know that the doctor was actually trying to help. Basically, your chest x-ray looks good but I am worried about your speech is a kindness. They want to help us assimilate.

Yes, from time to time I have prayed that God would allow my ears and tongue to open up to the French language! Now I realize that, even if nothing seems to be happening, I just need to keep praying.