may go on living. Yet how pitiable the one who does not empty his pockets and offer up papers meekly with outstretched hands, like a desperate prayer to the civil servants, who, immediately touched by such gestures, take on much weightier matters. The ones asking, or who have been summoned to step forward, can relax and stretch out on their chairs, breathing easier through their noses with the patience of pure being, or play with their fingers, look gratefully at the floor, or boldly look wherever they wish, as long as they remain civil. But the best thing to do is watch with shy restraint the promising quiet proceedings of the official, always ready to respond to any glance with the right bits of information or nods of the head in order to assure someone that everything is on the up-and-up. As the official looks over the work of his predecessors and his colleagues, the one summoned is taken in, his fate almost suspended, for everything he is lies there in the written notes, his physical presence just a means in itself, a messenger delivering a message, an appointed courier of papers that granthim a complete sense of himself. So it goes for every person, especially if he is a foreigner, in order that he be certified.
The official took from a little basket a long handsomely printed form, spreading it out carefully on his blotter, and stretching it taut when the fold would not flatten out. Then the man took a pen and gracefully and skillfully wrote down the names and several other items that he found while flipping through the pages of the passport and visa. Johanna and I might as well not have been there, for potentially we could only provide wrong answers that would undermine what the documents already accurately attested to. Maybe I was mistaken, but it is difficult to know whether the questions that the official posed were necessary or whether he wished only to relieve our possible boredom. Or was he cleverly just checking to see what effort we had made to learn what was stated in the papers themselves? I was grateful to the man for taking as much care with the first page of his form as with those that followed, for it put me at ease. Only now and then did he stop to look over his entries. He seemed to be pleased with all of them, which boosted my confidence. When the process had gone far enough that it could no longer remain at just this orderly and comfortable level, the official looked up at me.
“Can you tell me, Mr. Landau, why you are really here?”
This was the last thing I expected to be asked, and so I was immediately shaken from my calm and got upset. Behind his glasses the official’s eyes were neither threatening nor shifty; rather, his gaze appeared almost friendly. All I had to do was not disappoint him.
“No, I really have no idea. I was asked to come here. The summons gave no reason.”
My answer was not bad, for the official smiled mildly, and I was happy that I had not followed his provocative question into the plummeting depths. I had been saved.
“I mean, why did you come to this country?”
“Because I love it. I wanted to get out. I wanted to be free.”
The eyes of my examiner lit up. He sensed that I really meant it. He could tell from my voice just what kind of person was before him.
“Yes, a very good reason indeed. But why didn’t you remain in your own country? Here you are a foreigner, who doesn’t speak the language so well, and for whom things are not easy.”
I defended myself and this country and offered a picture that explained why I had left there and come here. The official wrote down what I told him. He let me go on talking, only rarely posing a question in between that helped my story stay on track. It was all pleasant and easy. Finally, my examiner was satisfied; his form had been filled out. He nodded approvingly as he touched each line with the end of his pen while reading through them once more. Then, at the end, he looked at me again.
“Your case seems clear to
The official took from a little basket a long handsomely printed form, spreading it out carefully on his blotter, and stretching it taut when the fold would not flatten out. Then the man took a pen and gracefully and skillfully wrote down the names and several other items that he found while flipping through the pages of the passport and visa. Johanna and I might as well not have been there, for potentially we could only provide wrong answers that would undermine what the documents already accurately attested to. Maybe I was mistaken, but it is difficult to know whether the questions that the official posed were necessary or whether he wished only to relieve our possible boredom. Or was he cleverly just checking to see what effort we had made to learn what was stated in the papers themselves? I was grateful to the man for taking as much care with the first page of his form as with those that followed, for it put me at ease. Only now and then did he stop to look over his entries. He seemed to be pleased with all of them, which boosted my confidence. When the process had gone far enough that it could no longer remain at just this orderly and comfortable level, the official looked up at me.
“Can you tell me, Mr. Landau, why you are really here?”
This was the last thing I expected to be asked, and so I was immediately shaken from my calm and got upset. Behind his glasses the official’s eyes were neither threatening nor shifty; rather, his gaze appeared almost friendly. All I had to do was not disappoint him.
“No, I really have no idea. I was asked to come here. The summons gave no reason.”
My answer was not bad, for the official smiled mildly, and I was happy that I had not followed his provocative question into the plummeting depths. I had been saved.
“I mean, why did you come to this country?”
“Because I love it. I wanted to get out. I wanted to be free.”
The eyes of my examiner lit up. He sensed that I really meant it. He could tell from my voice just what kind of person was before him.
“Yes, a very good reason indeed. But why didn’t you remain in your own country? Here you are a foreigner, who doesn’t speak the language so well, and for whom things are not easy.”
I defended myself and this country and offered a picture that explained why I had left there and come here. The official wrote down what I told him. He let me go on talking, only rarely posing a question in between that helped my story stay on track. It was all pleasant and easy. Finally, my examiner was satisfied; his form had been filled out. He nodded approvingly as he touched each line with the end of his pen while reading through them once more. Then, at the end, he looked at me again.
“Your case seems clear to
Similar Books
