pas de zonzon pour Ara
I may bitch and moan about the French bureaucracy from time to time (usually not here, but to myself, in crazy, muttering, swear word-peppered tirades) but I also make a point - in an attempt to maintain a semblance of sanity - to give credit where credit is due. So, pour rendre à César ce qui appartient à César, I would like to send a cyber French kiss to the folks at escalier F, salle Titres de séjour.
Approaching the impressive Préfecture on the île de la Cité, I remarked with mitigated delight that the line to the public entrance was uncharacteristically inexistent. My first thought was that I had chosen the one day/hour/zodiacal conjunction that the Préfecture does not handle immigration issues. Or that perhaps the massive teachers strike yesterday had engendered a bit of civil servant solidarity/3 day weekend.
All these suspicions proved churlish and unjustified, thankfully. Grinning brazenly, I waltzed through the metal detector, past the "welcome" desk, and instead of anxiously veering right after the doors, took a prodigious turn to the left. Five minutes later I exited the office, a carte de séjour in hand and relieved at being able to stay, work, and study in la belle France for another 10 years.
Before making it past the pearly gates that lead to this office, Lord knows I had to suffer, wait, haggle, kiss-up, make many, many, many visits to the other escalier, the dreaded escalier E, a place where I'm pretty sure many Americans in the City of Lights have spent more waking hours than in, say, their living rooms. So thanks, friendly fonctionnaire who handed me my shiny plastic get-out-of-precarity-free card. Not only did you greet me with a smile, complement my name, and wish me a great weekend, you were fast. 'Tis a shame so few will come to know your charms.
I congratulated myself this tiny victory with a walk to a used bookshop on rue des Ecoles, and a rummage through their pretty good collection of j'ai lu and livre de poche novels. As I was sifting through compressed editions of classics, pot-boilers, and criticisms, a gentlemen descended the stairs. "Bonjour Mesdames," he greeted us (myself and the 2 middle-aged women bickering over their book club's pick of the month). Sidling up beside me, his breath reeking of cornichons, he began asking if he could have a go at the book row I'd just sifted through, for the sake of keeping things organized, "vous voyez," said with a sardonic smile. I did an immediate insane-factor appraisal of the grandfather figure poking his pudgy fingers into the rows and figured he was probably harmless. I also figured he'd do some book-seeking and be off. Not so.
Within a matter of minutes, he had inquired into : my scholarly background, why I read, my current professional situation ("Ahhh... vous communiquez"), how I develop my artistic side, if the dance classes I take give public performances, whether or not I'd read Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, was I familiar with the much cheaper used bookstore on rue Saint Jacques? (not yet), which of the books in my grasp I was actually planning on buying... in between the interrogation he read me fragments of Sodome et Gomorrhe, solemnly placed a book in my hands, all the while swinging around the tiny basement pulling books off the shelves that I absolutely must read before spoiling my brain with the "petits romans" I had selected (Badinter only passed on its sociological weight, but he was having none of Philippe Grimbert).
It took moving to Paris to meet the eccentric uncle I never had.
Approaching the impressive Préfecture on the île de la Cité, I remarked with mitigated delight that the line to the public entrance was uncharacteristically inexistent. My first thought was that I had chosen the one day/hour/zodiacal conjunction that the Préfecture does not handle immigration issues. Or that perhaps the massive teachers strike yesterday had engendered a bit of civil servant solidarity/3 day weekend.
All these suspicions proved churlish and unjustified, thankfully. Grinning brazenly, I waltzed through the metal detector, past the "welcome" desk, and instead of anxiously veering right after the doors, took a prodigious turn to the left. Five minutes later I exited the office, a carte de séjour in hand and relieved at being able to stay, work, and study in la belle France for another 10 years.
Before making it past the pearly gates that lead to this office, Lord knows I had to suffer, wait, haggle, kiss-up, make many, many, many visits to the other escalier, the dreaded escalier E, a place where I'm pretty sure many Americans in the City of Lights have spent more waking hours than in, say, their living rooms. So thanks, friendly fonctionnaire who handed me my shiny plastic get-out-of-precarity-free card. Not only did you greet me with a smile, complement my name, and wish me a great weekend, you were fast. 'Tis a shame so few will come to know your charms.
I congratulated myself this tiny victory with a walk to a used bookshop on rue des Ecoles, and a rummage through their pretty good collection of j'ai lu and livre de poche novels. As I was sifting through compressed editions of classics, pot-boilers, and criticisms, a gentlemen descended the stairs. "Bonjour Mesdames," he greeted us (myself and the 2 middle-aged women bickering over their book club's pick of the month). Sidling up beside me, his breath reeking of cornichons, he began asking if he could have a go at the book row I'd just sifted through, for the sake of keeping things organized, "vous voyez," said with a sardonic smile. I did an immediate insane-factor appraisal of the grandfather figure poking his pudgy fingers into the rows and figured he was probably harmless. I also figured he'd do some book-seeking and be off. Not so.
Within a matter of minutes, he had inquired into : my scholarly background, why I read, my current professional situation ("Ahhh... vous communiquez"), how I develop my artistic side, if the dance classes I take give public performances, whether or not I'd read Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu, was I familiar with the much cheaper used bookstore on rue Saint Jacques? (not yet), which of the books in my grasp I was actually planning on buying... in between the interrogation he read me fragments of Sodome et Gomorrhe, solemnly placed a book in my hands, all the while swinging around the tiny basement pulling books off the shelves that I absolutely must read before spoiling my brain with the "petits romans" I had selected (Badinter only passed on its sociological weight, but he was having none of Philippe Grimbert).
It took moving to Paris to meet the eccentric uncle I never had.
Comments
I'se happy for you. And brava also!