Chapter 1

1

“Paris is so drab in the winter.”

Margaux, my office assistant, just looked at me.

“You say that every January. Maybe you should look for a posting on Guadeloupe. I am sure the climate in the Caribbean would be much more to your liking.”

“There is no French Immigration Office on Guadeloupe. You know that. To have this kind of position I have I must live in Paris. It’s the capital of France, remember?”

“Yes, of course I do. So I don’t spend time complaining about the climate because I know I also have to live in Paris to have this job.”

“You know, if you weren’t my best friend…”

“I know, I know. You would have fired me a long time ago. If I had a couple of euros for every time you have told me that, I would retire and then I would be the one moving to St. Marie.”

“You know, your attitude…”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before. Let’s move on.”

“Well, you must admit, it would be nice to take a vacation somewhere a little warmer and sunnier. What do you say?”

“Sounds good to me. What do you have in mind?”

“Well, we went to Mykonos last year.”

“Yes, and I still remember you stumbling home in your stilettoes on the cobblestone streets after we went out drinking that night.”

“And we went to Morocco last year.”

“Yes, and the guys were hot there, weren’t they? You went nuts.”

“Yeah, well, those Arab guys can be very hot. You know my weakness for them.”

“Oh, just Arab men? How about Greeks, Italians, Turks, Swedes…”

“Oh, shut up. So I like sex.”

“Not exactly breaking news.”

I just shook my head. “So, anyway, where are we going this winter?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard Miami is nice.”

“Nice and expensive. Long flight, and the hotels not cheap. And I’m not too sure about some of the gun violence in the US right now.”

“Well, if you want warm, maybe we should go to the southern hemisphere. It’s summer there now.”

“I know,” I said. “Let’s go to Spain. We wouldn’t even have to fly. We could just take the train.”

“Where in Spain? Madrid isn’t really that warm right now.”

“No, but it sure is sunnier. How about Malaga?”

“Malaga?”

“Yeah, on the south coast. It’s not too far from Gibraltar. Beautiful city. Lots of culture. Picasso Museum. Great architecture. Lots of little streets with…”

“Great shopping? I’m in. When are we going?”

“We can get away for a couple of weeks in February. After we finish all these statistical reports due at the end of January.”

“Is that your way of telling me we need to get back to work?”

“That’s right. For now, it’s just work, work, work.”

Ah yes, the January reports, due every year reporting the number of immigrant applications to France. My department’s job is to review the applications, giving final sign-off on a yes or no. Sometimes I have to reverse a decision made by a lower official, as everything just doesn’t add up properly. Other times, I have to be the heavy making the difficult call when an applicant or his family is denied, even though they no longer have a home to go back to. It’s all part of the job.

Some of my co-workers say that I have a heart of stone. I don’t think it’s true. But someone has to make the difficult decisions. If an individual or a family don’t have the language skills in French to live in this country, that’s a problem. I once had a Syrian family apply for asylum, their home and their town had been destroyed, and the only person in the family who spoke French was their eight-year-old daughter. She tried to translate what I was saying to her parents, but how can an eight-year-old adequately explain all the legal ramifications on an asylum request? They had no sponsor, no one to help them, nowhere to live. It just wasn’t going to work. Even though I knew they had nothing to go back to in Syria, their home had been destroyed, as well as their town, and they would just end up in another refugee camp, I had to deny their application. In this case, I recommended that they try Canada, and that they find a mosque there to sponsor them, hoping that would be just enough to tip the balance for them in that country. It happens sometimes, but not often. So I am not heartless. But I have to follow the rules as they exist in my job.

“Wow, these application figures are really up this year,” said Margaux.