I was exhausted, shirtless, and freezing. I stared at the papers spread out on her desk and couldn’t answer questions any more articulately than mumbling because I was afraid I might start crying if I opened my mouth any wider.
After the countless hoops I had to jump through to initiate the visa process in the US, I should have known that more would be waiting for me on this end. On Friday I had to go in for a medical exam, as part of my visa process. In the days prior I had to run around accumulating different bits of paperwork, some photos, a tax stamp, and a spare organ.
I also had a paper proposal and literature review due that day and I was up until 4 in the morning completing it. I set my alarm for 7, with the intent to be out the door at 7:30–8 at the latest. I was scheduled for 9, but told to aim for 8:30.
At 7 I turned on the coffee maker and stumbled bleary eyed around my apartment. With the curtains closed I lose all concept of the fact that the outside world exists, and as the building is largely populated with tourist rentals, I was met with none of the usual lobby noise.
I didn’t get out the door until about 5 minutes before 8. I got most of the way to the metro before realizing I had forgotten one of the documents I was supposed to bring. I went back, got it, realizing that I was now pushing it on being able to take the metro. I left again only to realize that I wasn’t sure if I had my wallet.
“This is clearly going to be a fantastic day,” I mumbled to myself as I realized that I was definitely going to have to take a cab.
By 8:20 I was making my way through the streets of Paris in a cab. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been in a car during the day. Watching the lovely old buildings of Paris blur past was strange but calming.
I paid for my cab and saw an enormous line outside the building. I joined a couple friends standing near the end. We talked about what we managed to patch together for our proposals before being consumed by the reason we were there.
“Do you think they’re going to ask us any complicated questions in French?” my friend asked.
“I hope not.”
Once in the building, we showed some paperwork and climbed the stairs to another line, showed more paperwork, sat in a waiting room, and when our names were called we were sent to…another waiting room.
This kind of thing seems to happen often in my experience here. Waiting.
About ten minutes into our waiting a doctor came out and said a lot of things in French. I wasn’t quite sure, but I understood “x-ray” and something about €55 and the general tone was something decidedly not good.
“What did she say?” I whispered.
My friend looked around helpless and wide-eyed, “I have no idea.”
Fortunately half of the room was populated by students from my school. Another girl in my program informed us that the X-Ray machine was not working. We could go somewhere else and pay to have that part done that day, or else reschedule. In either case, we would conduct the rest of the process that day, since we were there.
Eventually I was called into a room where I was asked if I am pregnant (never wearing that shirt again…) weighed, measured, and told to read an eye chart. I was sent back into the waiting room to talk to my friends, feeling a bit relieved. Sure, I would have to come back again and there was a ridiculous amount of waiting and I wanted nothing in the world quite so much as my bed, but on the whole it wasn’t so bad.
I was called into the second room. I shut the door behind me but it refused to stay closed. The woman behind the desk gave me the, “Holy shit you’re a moron,” look that Parisians are so good at. I can assure you, if you have never received this look from a Parisian, you know nothing of its power.
She told me to close the door, but I was tired and flustered and my already abysmal French comprehension was lagging even more than usual.
“You mean you don’t know how to shut a door?” she asks — her first use of English — as it finally clicks closed. “Ahh! It’s a miracle!” she adds sarcastically.
I can feel my face turning stop sign red. She made me take off my shirt and sit down. She asked me questions in French, and while I understood, I answered in English.
“This is France. You must answer in French.”
Right. I contemplate whether or not I can crawl under the chair and hide. I struggle to spit out answers, and she is wildly impatient with how slow I am.
“Are you taking French classes?”
I keep replaying this moment, because I obviously should have just lied. I have no idea why I didn’t, except that I am clearly just not very good at lying.
“No.”
“How can you go to school and not take French classes?”
“My classes are in English…”
She shook her head and goes back to writing. I held my arms over my stomach, regretting my earlier contempt for my shirt. I’M SORRY, SHIRT. I LOVE YOU AND I’LL WEAR YOU ALL THE TIME IF YOU JUST ROLL YOURSELF OFF THAT CHAIR AND ONTO MY LAP SO I CAN PUT YOU ON AND SPRINT OUT OF THIS ROOM, ALL RIGHT?
She asked me more questions, most of which were yes/no, making it a bit more manageable, not that it mattered much for my general humiliation at that point. She still managed to find a few more reasons to revert back to English to chide me for my stupidity before sending me on my way.
I pulled my shirt on exited her office. When I went up to the desk to reschedule my x-ray appointment I was still shaking a little, but at least it was over.
On the walk to the metro with my friend I realized that I still had all of my documents with me.
“Yeah, we’re supposed to bring those with us when we come back for the x-ray.”
Of course. I asked her if her doctor had only spoken to her in French, hoping to have something to commiserate over.
“Oh, no! He was really nice! He asked how my day was going, and he was really friendly.”
OH.
Her doctor also didn’t make her take her shirt off.
