by Mirjam Dikken
Solidarity hangs like thick smoke in the room full of strangers. I guess about twelve of us have been here before. The others still have that expectant shine in their eyes, thinking a new phase in their lives will start in about an hour or so. Poor souls.
Across the room, a man in a dark-grey pinstripe suit crumples his Financial Times. He’s probably used to the royal treatment wherever he goes. But within these walls, where a different country rules, we’re all treated as if we’re in our birthday suits.
An officer summons Pinstripe to one of the counters. After an inaudible exchange of murmurs, Pinstripe slams down his tormented newspaper. “One month ago, you guys also told me, ‘Only one more document.’ Now I need another one, yet again?”
The officer stretches up and stares him down. All first timers crane their necks. The eyes of the smart ones glaze over with this initiation into the ‘one-more-document’ lie. The rest of us avert our gaze, embarrassed he succumbed to the temptation we all feel but learned is essential to resist. He violated rule number one—never show your anger.
Today will be my last attempt before I’ll throw in the towel. Will the people behind these counters shift my dream into a nightmare? I clench my fists. But the sulking Pinstripe, slouching towards the exit, reminds me of rule number one. I relax my fingers.
Last weekend, at the third farewell party my friends threw me, they sniggered at the packed boxes, gathering dust.
Max, my best buddy since suffering through onboarding together at our employer, held up a bottle. “Jelle, you don’t mind us finishing your scotch ales, do you? You can’t take them with you, anyway.”
He toasted to a keepsake from my sister. As a teenager, she called me her nerd brother and made fun of me and my friends. But the day before my first hopeful trip to this room, she cried when I unwrapped her gift—a picture of me as a toddler, holding her as a newborn. The metallic frame engraved: ‘Even though we are far apart, family is always close at heart.’.
At the end, my friends joked, “Next month, same farewell party?” My laughter was thin, theirs roaring, accompanied by scotch-ale-fortified slaps on each other’s shoulders.
“Yeah, I’ll let you know when,” I said, massaging my shoulder. Hoping this was the final farewell, now that I had come up with a new strategy.
I glance at the woman to my left. She digs her unnaturally long, pink nails into her palms. The pain no doubt negligible compared to another rejection. Her eyes, which lost their shine well before today, meet mine. She mutters, “This is my fourth time. Bringing more papers every visit. They’ve been campaigning for years to convince us they welcome talented people. Welcome, my ass! I hate how they seem to enjoy driving people to utter frustration.” Her pink daggers plunge deeper into her skin.
“Despair,” I respond, eyes dropping to the scarred linoleum, witness to years of dragging feet. “Not frustration. Utter despair.”
Because I consider frustration my friend. Maybe not like a best friend, but one you can count on when life’s tough.
Like yesterday, when an operator threw an inspection drone on my workbench.
“It bumps into the tank walls. Fix it.”
I embraced the expensive, intricate equipment. From the scar on her belly, I could tell I’d repaired her just last week. Bastards don’t know how to treat a lady.
For the rest of the morning, I took the slender marvel apart, cleaned, reassembled, and updated the software. I tested her after every change. But the intelligent machine still clumsily crashed into objects.
During lunch hour, I sat outside with my frustration, chewing my favourite habanero salami sausage. I like to eat fire. Even though it deposits tiny white rubbery strands between my teeth, leaving me yearning for a piece of floss for the rest of the afternoon. I plucked at one particularly irritating strand, straining two molars apart.
Then a new idea burst through the frustration. It had to be the sensor! The drone worked fine. She just got the wrong information from the sensor.
Adrenaline flaring, I rushed back to the drone, exchanged the sensor, and watched the beauty sweep through the air like a bird. My spirit lifted as she soared higher with every suave move, avoiding every single object in her path.
I chose the noble engineering profession for these precious moments—to experience the high of discovering the solution. The moment I imagine myself bathing with Archimedes, yelling ‘Eureka!’ in unison.
Before I had time to attribute the solution to my own brilliance, Frustration threw me a towel. Hand on his hip, head cocked to the right, he claimed, “You know, if it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t be high-fiving an ancient Greek scientist right now.”
But in this humourless room, at the feet of the haughty officers shielded by tall windows, even frustration seems powerless.
A man wearing steel-toed work boots like mine is called to the furthest counter. His lower lip trembles and he wipes the sweat dripping from his forehead, physically incapable of adhering to rule number two—never show your fear. Not here, in their four-walled kingdom, where the officers are already drunk with their almighty power.
Steel Toes surrenders all his papers to the officer. I watch the man’s gesticulations grow wilder. The officer stifles a yawn, shakes his head, and returns the papers. I suck in my upper lip. Will my bold habanero salami-slice strategy work?
Pink Daggers groans. “Why do we even bother? If they don’t issue it to me today, they can source their talent elsewhere.” She slams her documents on her lap, the impact causing her pinky nail to let go of its shell. Indignant, the pink tip tries settling for another life on top of my left boot.
“Mr Bos? Gel Bos?”
I bite down hard and move to the counter where the officer just screwed up my name, swallowing down my usual quip, ‘I’m not a hair product. My Dutch name is pronounced as Yell-uh’.
Hoping to strike the right ‘I don’t really care what you decide today’ attitude—not too arrogant, not too careless—I slide a stack of papers under the glass window. The officer in his immaculate pressed beige uniform takes them, shuffles through and huffs.
“We need the invitation letter. We won’t be able to process your application without an invitation letter.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Didn’t I include it?” I select the desired letter out of my bulging file folder and ease it towards his reluctant hands.
Smooth Khaki grunts, then shakes his head. “We also need the birth certificates of your parents. Without those, I can’t complete your request.”
Just when he pushes the papers back, I produce two birth certificates.
He hardens. “Your high school diploma. Can’t do anything without that. I’m so sorry, sir.” He looks up, his angry eyes betraying his apologetic words.
I clear my throat, stubborn like the pink dot persevering on my boot. Frustration encourages me to allow Smooth Khaki a small taste of victory. “You have my university degree, though, right? According to the information on the embassy’s website, that should be enough.”
He shakes his head. “We really need your high school diploma, sir. It’s the only document missing. With that, we could have processed your application today. Such a shame.” He puts his hand to his heart, bowing slightly, making a fine show out of his fake regret.
“Then I’m glad I brought it.” I push the last salami slice of my strategy under the glass window.
The officer squirms. He thumbs through the documents, shakes his head again, tsking through his teeth for show. Unable to hide the fury in my eyes, I drop my gaze to the floor.
A stamp bangs down. Once, twice, three times. I lift my eyes, confused. My hand trembles when Smooth Khaki slides the highly sought-after permit towards me, dismissing me with a grunt.
On my way out, I glance over at the poor sods waiting, their faces creased with envy. Now that I’m clutching what they’re all after, the warm chain of solidarity breaks. I curve my lips into one last sympathetic smile, but my mind already works out the logistical challenges of an international move.
The sun warms my face as I step out of the building. I raise my arms wide, releasing the adrenaline built up over months of rejections in a loud, “YEEESSS!”
A flock of pigeons flutter away, disturbed while feasting on trampled French fries around the overflowing trashcan. They strike down twenty meters away, eyes on me, heads bobbing up and down, left to right, right to left, to assess the earliest opportunity to return.
The boldest one takes a few tentative steps in my direction. I greet it with an explosive, “I finally have my work visa. Eureka!”
Mirjam Dikken, born in the Netherlands, has worked and lived around the world through her jobs as a chemical engineer, recruiter, and HR manager. She now wanders around in the darker places of her imagination to write thrillers and other fiction. Her stories have appeared in anthologies and on the beer cans of her favourite coffee stout. Her first novel, the thriller “On the other side of the river”, will be published in 2024 by Stonehouse Publishing. She and her family are in the process of moving back from Edmonton, Canada, to the Netherlands in 2023.
Capital City Press Anthology 