Visa Envy

Finally, it’s official: The Kiryks are going to France! — all except Peetsie (dog) and Ginger (cat), who will be staying with our much-loved pet-sitter, Emily — and Puffy, our Ukrainian (or maybe Russian?) tortoise, who will spend the next one of her 80 or so long years living with friends. The rest of us have fancy new visas glued into our passports, each with a shiny hologram, official ink-stamp, the words, “good through July 2014” or something to that effect, and a mandated grim-faced photo taken by a French official, who sat behind bullet-proof glass with a hand-drawn sign admonishing visa applicants not to smile for the camera. (See my facsimile below). We’re very excited.

Don’t smile for the visa photo.

What started slowly, as a collection of pipe-dreams and night-drive conversations between me and my wife, took shape as we determined to go to Europe, and then France, and finally — Aix-en-Provence. We made arrangements for our animals, enrolled our kids in French school, and found a home we could rent. We talked with our employers (more on this later), withdrew our kids from their U.S. schools for next year, and rented out our Cambridge home. We bought airplane tickets. We opened a trans-Atlantic bank account. I bought a GSM-compatible (that is, France-friendly) phone! We went all in.

And then we arrived at our visa interview appointment, the Consulat Général de France à Boston, 31 St. James Ave, Boston Ma. It’s in an office building, nothing special, seventh-floor, down a long hall — a very long hall. Like in a dream. There’s a French flag down the end of this very long hall and a guard, who checked our identification papers solemnly and showed us to the waiting room. We were the first people of the day.

It would have been a hassle for the couple who came just behind us, because we were there for an hour speaking with the consular official, handing over documents, taking back the documents she didn’t want, searching through folders and binders for the specific forms she required. We did this one at a time, me, Phebe, Jack, and Dmitri, each one of us fumbling our way through the digital finger-print-taking machine, which indicated through the use of tiny red, green, and blue lights whether we were pushing too hard for the reading (Jack) or not hard enough (Phebe) or just perfectly right (me and Dmitri). Then we had our grim-faced photos taken, and the official said, “good luck” and mentioned in passing that we shouldn’t necessarily expect to get our visa application approved. This sort of visa — the visa long sejour – is meant for retirees, she said. In any case, the “police” would decide our case and we would hear from them in a few weeks.

Part of our application bundle

This was obviously upsetting, since we had staked so much on things going smoothly, but we were in the Consulate with our kids and there was really no recourse but to smile, say thank you, and assure our kids it would all work out fine. What is our Plan B? I whispered to Phebe, later, when we’d had a little time to process what we’d heard. We’ll go to French-speaking Africa, she said. Morocco. Should we have a little more of a detailed plan? We weren’t sure. In any case, we’d get an answer soon enough. There was still some time for re-applying.

We tried adopting an attitude of “it will work out,” although I actually felt quite uncertain. On the one hand, we were essentially offering to take our U.S. dollars and spend them in France: +1 for giving us a visa. On the other hand, it’s a big country and one family doesn’t add much to their economy. I spoke with a lawyer, just to learn if there might be some standard course of action should we be turned down, but there didn’t seem to be. The lawyer said it would be better if we had a French corporate sponsor. Which was not part of our plan.

(Actually, if you’re reading this and are thinking of doing something similar, it might not be quite so bad. You can re-apply, and they supposedly tell you why you were turned down, so there’s at least some opportunity to make necessary adjustments to your application. I think their main concern is that you have some kind of assets to prove you’ll be returning to the U.S.).

Anyway, two weeks and then three weeks went by and there wasn’t any news. Every day, Phebe or I or both of us checked the Consulate’s web site, entering our application number into a form which then said, “still pending” or sometimes, alarmingly, “there’s no record of this application,” or something like that, something not good-sounding, but which would then say “still pending” as soon as we tried again. Until finally:

The decision was reached! But what was the decision? I read and reread carefully, but there was no hint. The next day, I took an extended lunch-break and visited the Consulate. Seeing my four passports, the solemn guard asked, Where is the rest of your family? I said they couldn’t be there that day, but I had brought their application receipts. You can’t take their passports if they aren’t here, he said, saying it with a tone to suggest my assumption to the contrary had been ludicrous, utterly wrong-headed. But I’m the children’s father, I explained. You’ll need approval from your wife, he said. Can I at least get mine? Of course. He softened a bit. He let me into the office. He asked how old were my children, and when I told him he said, oh, well then you can get them, but you won’t be able to take your wife’s.

All this time, I still didn’t know if we would be getting the visas.

Finally, we determined that I could call Phebe (but I’d have to do it out in the hall since cell phones are not permitted in the consulate) and have her send an email stating I could retrieve her passport. This being done, I went to the bullet-proof glass window, handed over my receipts, and became the proud recipient of a visa long-sejour (see below). We’re moving to France!