After a seemingly endless array of forms
and paperwork, it was time for my
all-important visa interview. The American Embassy is a large and terrifying
building in Grosvenor square, which I arrived outside at 10am one sunny
Thursday morning; finding myself somewhat taken aback by the large number of
armed police patrolling its perimeter. I nodded to one of them as I joined the
queue outside, and he adjusted his hold on the gun in his hands, at which point
I resolved that eyes-on-the-ground was the best policy. In groups of twenty,
visa applicants were ushered through a glass box and a metal detector, while a
red-faced man bellowed “TAKE OFF YOUR BELTS! TAKE OFF YOUR BELTS! NOT YOU-” he thrust a finger in my face
“YOUR BELT IS TOO THIN TO TAKE OFF! JUST GET THROUGH, FAST AS YOU CAN!”
In my confusion, I went striding off
in the wrong direction, and had to be caught and turned around before managing to
locate the entrance.
We were herded into the main foyer
of the building and up to a room where five hundred chairs stood in rows,
filled with people while an automated voice called people’s ticket numbers to
the glass-plated windows for confirmation and interview. The ban on electronic
equipment in the building resulted in an atmosphere of futile despair; the
pervading sense of helplessness people feel in this day and age when they
suddenly find themselves without their mobile phone, iPod, iPad, Nintendo DS,
walkie talkie, etc. I had a book, so I felt smug- for the first two hours. When
my number was eventually called I shook out my dead leg, got up to go to the
glass-plate window and descended into a fit of panic. Did I have all the right
bits of paper? Yes I’d triple-checked before leaving the house, but with my
capacity to misplace things there was never a guarantee. The impassive woman on
the other side of the glass- the safe side of the glass- scanned my paperwork and
talked me through the basics, before asking:
“And
have you read your Workplace Rights?”
“No.”
“No?”
She stared at me through the glass.
Oh God. In an instant I realised
that, although it hadn’t been included in any of the paperwork or online
briefing, this was apparently the
most crucial aspect of being allowed legal entry into the United States. I hadn’t
done it. It was all over. I would have to go home and spend the next year
eating pringles in bed.
“I
mean, I can read them. I will read them. I promise, as soon as I can get to a
working computer-”
I was babbling. At some point in
the past two minutes my brain had caved in on itself. She was pushing a
pamphlet at me under the glass panel.
“Just
read them before your interview.”
Right. Hang on, what? Before the interview? This wasn’t the
interview?
“Now
go back to your seat and wait for your number to be called a second time round.”
A
second time round. My number was 548.
As I returned to my chair, the automated voice summoned number 135, and I
realised I was beginning to lose my grip on sanity.
I read too fast. I always have
done, and my book had been consumed, cover to cover. I had no clock, no means
of measuring the time as the minutes crawled by and the automated voice rapped
out number after number. The only indication I now possess of the delirium that
crept up on me over the next three hours are the scribbles in my notebook- observational
(raving) passages I wrote down about the people around me. Here is one of these
ravings:
Directly
next to me: young man in his mid-twenties. Brown hair, short back and sides,
light blue picnic-blanket shirt. Thick leather belt, cream trousers and brown
suede shoes that look expensive but are quite possibly knockdown. Thick
black and red striped socks, which disturbs the inner-city private school
banker look. Very small hands for a man, with fingernails chewed down to stubs.
Looks sort of… clean and asexual, like his mother still scrubs him behind the
ears every morning. Was probably kicked around a bit at school for being too
clever. Seems impossibly cheery and good-natured in a room full of angry
people.
Of course I then had to speak to
this unfortunate bystander, who had no idea why I’d been staring fixedly at him
for fifteen minutes while writing in a pad. I discovered he was going to study
Law at Yale. It seemed as though I’d almost achieved a coherent conversation,
something to alleviate my tedium-fuelled insanity, until I said “Imagine having
a cardiac arrest as you left the building and dying, and this being how you had
spent the last four hours of your life.”
The boy suddenly became engrossed
in his book, and didn’t speak to me again after that. The embassy had not only
stolen hours of my precious life, it had also robbed me of any social skills,
possibly forever. California had better be worth it.
At 3pm I was finally called for
interview. I understood now why the officials worked behind plates of glass.
Protection. They were probably bulletproof.
“And
you’re going to…” The young man stared uncertainly at me- pale, crazy-eyed,
slightly murderous-looking on the other side of the glass- “Berkeley?”
Had I seen myself at that moment, I’d
have been doubtful about them letting me in as well. But after a second he
asked me to scan my fingerprints, explained that my forms would be returned
within seven working days, and told me I was free to go.
The process itself took a total of
eight minutes.
The waiting was five hours.
Still, I was there. I possessed a
J-1 visa, a sense of burning rage, and the desire to inhale a huge quantity of
junk food.
I fly in three weeks.
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