Sharon Harrigan

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Paris Journal: Trapped in France?

 

What Gerard Depardieu and I Don’t Have in Common. Or, The Immigration Blues.

After threatening to become a Belgian citizen to avoid paying 75 percent of his income in taxes (based on a controversial proposal by the new French president, Francois Hollande), Gerard Depardieu has taken the next step into absurdity by trading his French passport for a Russian one. Yesterday’s Le Monde showed the French actor dressed in traditional Russian folk garb, being offered his choice of an apartment or a lot on which to build a house, in a part of Russia more known for prison camps than tourist attractions.

Getting French immigration papers is not nearly as easy. Since the day I arrived, four months ago, I’ve been trying to get my carte de sejour (roughly the equivalent of an American green card).

All the stories I’d heard hadn’t prepared me. The offices of immigration are scattered all over the city, so people seem to have different experiences, depending on where they are assigned. Ours was near the Bastille, one of the world’s most famous prisons. Not a good omen.

I’d heard about people being rounded up like cattle, men and women together, shirtless and braless, while being given medical exams en masse. But that’s not how it happened with us. If I’ve learned anything about the experience, it’s that it seems to be varied and almost random. Our friends who lived in this apartment last year didn’t receive their cartes until after seven months. Among foreigners at our daughter’s school, one family received a twelve-month visa before they even arrived, one had to return to the U.S. during the November school vacation to do paperwork at the Embassy, one received a five-year visa immediately, and another, staying only a semester, received their cartes the day before they returned to the U.S. I think the idea is to catch us by surprise.

Which is what happened. After standing in line with hundreds of people, my husband James and I were handed tickets and told to separate. My first thought was: Men in one hall, women in another. I was expecting to be asked to strip, after all. But that wasn’t the case. I figured maybe they just separated husbands and wives to make it more stressful.  A woman at a desk took all my paperwork and said I needed to wait for my name to be called. Much later, a technician took an x-ray of my chest and told me to wait again. A doctor then did a superficial exam, saying, “You’re American. You must have all your vaccinations.” (So much for the letter that told me I was required to bring in my lifetime vaccination records.) Finally, I was ready to stand in another line, at the police prefecture down the hall. My letter had said I would be required to take a French test, but it must have been wrong. I was going to get my card!

It seemed too good to be true, and it was. An angry woman in a red turtleneck sweater told me to get out of line. Apparently, my husband’s and my tickets had been switched, and he had gone to the hall for spouses and I to the hall for “scientists.” He had been shown a film and given a lecture about assimilating into French culture, which was meant for me. I had been whisked through the system relatively painlessly, which was meant for him. It was not our mistake, but the woman, a social worker, I later learned, was upset with us, anyway. Luckily, though, she did not make us leave and reschedule for another day. Who knows when that other day might have been, since it had taken us four months to get this appointment?

I’m sorry I missed the film. James said he was impressed by its message: “You are French now, and this is how we do things. Here, husbands are not allowed to forbid their wives from working. The governmenet will help you find a job and improve your French. Husbands are not allowed to beat their wives. Women have the same rights as men.” The walls were covered with signs explaining the dangers of female genital mutiliation and encouraging people to get an AIDS test and avoid carbon monoxide poisoning.

I was required to do an interview with a social worker, something my husband, as a “scientist,” was exempt from. She asked about my education and job experience, my career aspirations and child care availability. She complimented my French, effusively. (So much for having to take a French test.) She wasn’t angry anymore, but warm and friendly.

Finally, my husband and I reconnected and stood in line at the police prefecture again. The office consisted of a man in blue jeans and a woman in a tight dress and heels, who both alternated eating chocolates, checking e-mail on cell phones, and licking fiscal stamps, while occasionally looking up to tell a woman that just because she had a crying baby didn’t mean she could cut the line.

We handed in our stamps, worth hundreds of Euros, and watched the bureaucrats lick and stick them onto forms, a frighteningly low-tech procedure that made me feel as if we’d gone back in time fifty years. Nothing was computerized. Finally, I heard the dreaded words: They’d lost my file. They would call all the other immigration offices in Paris and try to track it down. I could wait, but there was only a half hour before the office closed, and it was the last Friday before Christmas, so my chances were slim.

I already had a ticket for a trip to the United States in early January. Without a carte de sejour, since my three-month visa had already expired, I would not be allowed to return to France. I was trapped.

I tried to lose myself by reading Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, substituting a story about American absurdity for my real-life experience of French craziness. Finally, the chocolate-eating woman called my name. She found my file. I got my card.

It is a beautiful thing, worth every minute of anguish. I still don’t understand my ordeal, but I’m trying to tell myself: “I am French now, and this is how we do things.”

I’ll celebrate with a bottle of champagne (because that is definitely the way we do things.) Maybe I’ll also watch a classic Gerard Depardieu film. Not his best (Last Metro in Paris) or even most recent (Asterix and Obelisk). But Green Card.

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Paris Journal: Epiphany

Today is the end of the holiday season, the twelfth day of Christmas, the Sunday before the return to school. It’s also Epiphany, or the feast day that celebrates the Three Magi’s arrival at the Nativity Scene. Here in France it’s celebrated by buying a “galette des rois” or “kings’ cake.” These flat, flaky pastries, made with croisssant-type dough and filled with a thin layer of almond paste, are prominently displayed in every bakery and supermarket I’ve seen in Paris. Inside each is a “fevre,” or favor, and a paper crown is included with the purchase.

According to my daughter’s French children’s daily newspaper, Mon Quotidien, the tradition is for a child to hide under the table, cut the cake, and distribute the pieces. The person whose slice contains the favor is crowned king or queen for the day. He or she dons the paper crown and makes a wish. We followed these instructions yesterday (a bit early) and my husband James was the lucky winner, finding a tiny pink plastic croissant on his fork.

He couldn’t decide what to wish. Back when this custom started, the decision might have been much easier.

Mon Quotidien explains that the king’s cake can be traced to ancient Rome. Noble families celebrated with their entire households, and slaves who received the special piece of cake (implanted with a dried bean, not a plastic croissant) could ask for their freedom. This was not a game to them. We’re lucky that it is for us.

That’s my epiphany. During this month, we Americans also celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, when, on January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln ordered the freedom of all slaves in Confederate States that did not return to the Union. So when James donned his crown, I thought not only of Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, but of our native Wise Man, too.

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Paris Journal: School (Interview with Ella)

Field trip behind the scenes at the bakery.

 

How is your school in Paris different from your school in Charlottesville?

The teachers are stricter, we’re studying harder subjects, and we get more homework, even on weekends and vacations. But we get more vacations. We have different teachers for different subjects, even a teacher for theater.

 You go to a bilingual school. What does that mean?

Most of the day is in French. But there’s an hour of English class every day, where we’re  mixed with French kids. Because we’re in Adaptation, the gym teacher also speaks to us in English.

 What’s adaption?

Adaptation is a class for people who are new to France. They go in it for a year to learn French. After a year they go mainstream.

 Do kids in Adaptation know how to speak French at all in the beginning?

A lot of Adaptation kids have one French parent and they speak French at home but they didn’t live in France before so they don’t know how to write French. Also, a lot of kids studied French before they came to France, like me. So people do know French, but not really well, and they are at very different levels.

 Are you in top, bottom, or middle for French?

I am in the slight top, but in math I am one of the worst. In English, I am the best, along with the two other Adaption kids in that class.

 Do you like your teachers?

I really love my French Adaptation teacher. She is so kind but she is also strict, so she makes sure people do their work, and we learn a lot of stuff that way.

 Do you ever go on field trips?

We go on field trips every month, but this month we’re doing three: to the Louvre to see Raphael, to a play, and to the National Assembly. The field trips are in French so they’re hard but I understand enough to have fun.

 How is your schoolwork different?

It’s harder! We have to memorize poems, write with fountain pens, and underline math problems with a ruler. We have to write in cursive and it’s supposed to be very neat. My report card had a whole separate category for handwriting for each subject. As you might expect, I did very badly. We barely did any handwriting in the U.S.

 How is the school cafeteria different than in the U.S.?

It has way better foods, like steak frites, cordon bleu, couscous with vegetables, roast chicken with rice, pasta with fish brochettes, and so on. For sides, there are little desserts, like chocolate mousse and fruit compotes. There are also little appetizers with salami and pickles, pâté, lentil salad with vegetables, and so on. We have a bread basket and a carafe of water. We also have tables and chairs that are set up likea real restaurant. Every day you get to choose from a variety of foods, which are always different. We get a long time for lunch, and after you finish eating, you get to go into a miniscule playground. We usually play a vicious game of soccer, which turns into tackle-to-get-the-ball. We also play tag and there are so many people in the playground, sometimes by mistake you get punched in the eye (I know from experience).

How do you get to school?

We take the Metro.

 Have you had a school vacation yet?

We had a two-week holiday for All Saints Day. I went to Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France.

Is there anything that you miss?

I miss being able to use pencils. I miss peanut butter and bacon. I miss everybody speaking English. I miss Halloween. I miss Thanksgiving. I miss large Christmas trees. I miss the community of a small town. I miss the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, where we always ran into people we knew. I miss living in a big house. I miss climbing trees. I don’t miss riding in a car. I miss my friends, but not as much as at the beginning of the year, because I have friends here now, too.

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Lost in Translation: Your House Is Homely But Your Daughter Is Delicious

Yesterday, on the way to the apartment of this week’s host for our French-English conversation group, I passed a Laura Ashley boutique with a window display that said : “Make Your Christmas Homely.” When I mentioned this to my group, only the anglophone half laughed. “Homely means ugly,” I explained. Laid. Moche. They were shocked and said they use this word as a compliment all the time. Each francophone grabbed her phone, making a frantic note. They are eager to perfect their English because it is the language of business. One of the people in my group is an architect, I can only imagine how often she’s told clients she will transform their apartments into something truly homely.

Be Fruit. Be City. Be Rock. This is what the window display of a children’s store on my block says. This construction: Be [a weird noun, instead of an adjective] is common here. It’s as if saying anything in English makes it automatically cool, even if it doesn’t make any sense.

A French woman in my group was describing a wedding she’d attended. The bride was delicious, she said, and when the angophones pointed out that this adjective has sexual innuendo, all the francophones were mortified. In French, the word means charming, so they assumed it meant the same thing in English. I can imagine the reaction of American mothers, hearing male teachers call their teenager daughters “delicious.”

An international family moved from Switzerland and then Germany before coming to Paris and sending their children to a private American school here. When they got an e-mail from the guidance counselor, saying their son is “a pleasure,” they were sure the man was a sexual predator. Once they met him, they realized they just weren’t used to the perhaps uniquely American practice of telling students how great they are.

The trilingual father of one of my daughter’s friends shared this trick: Whenever he’s unsure of a phrase, he types it into Google. If multiple links appear, the phrase is probably colloquial. If not, he tries something else. That’s what I’ll do next time I write an e-mail, before I accidentally call someone I’m really trying to impress the French equivalent of a homely, delicious fruit.

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Paris Journal: A Store Called Thanksgiving

Fine chocolate can be had here, cheaply, at local supermarkets. But yesterday, I took a twenty-minute train ride to buy an expensive bag of candy corn.

Actually, it was a quest for pumpkin pie that sent me to an American-foods store in the Marais called Thanksgiving. I bought two cans of Libby’s pumpkin puree, mixed it with sugar and spice, and put it in the oven in a French fluted pan, the wrong shape and size. My humble pie came out looking like a toddler dressed in her mother’s fancy clothes.

As the New York Times editorial put it this morning, today is a time to “dust off the Norman Rockwell part of your heart” if you’re an American abroad. Like Halloween, it’s a day that makes you lonely for home. It’s a holiday for huddling together, sharing recipes for our strange foods. My husband remembers living as an American in Holland as a child, when people asked, incredulously, “A tart made with squash? And sugar?”

When I walked into the tiny store, brimming with shelves full of homey, often processed foods, disguised as exotic specialty items, I was embarrassed for my country. Marshmallow fluff? Stovetop stuffing? This is what we want the world to think of American cooking? I want them to see the locavore, organic culture of seasonal, fresh foods, where we pick from our gardens and shop at farmer’s markets. I want them to see the mediterrean diet that I cook in Charlottesville, full of greens and grains and ethnic cuisines.

But today I’ll give thanks for a little store that stocks candy corn. Why? Because I have a homesick little girl who missed Halloween. Because I wasn’t buying food as much as memory. Yes, it’s possible to be nostalgic, for things comfortable and familiar, even (or especially) if you’re only nine.