After finally getting my certificate translated, that left only the Carte de Séjour. I summoned up the energy to have another crack at it. It is a very draining process, and one has to be psyched up for it. I arrived outside at 6.30am and camped out [...]]]> Previous Chapter: It’s not what you know, you know.

After finally getting my certificate translated, that left only the Carte de Séjour. I summoned up the energy to have another crack at it. It is a very draining process, and one has to be psyched up for it. I arrived outside at 6.30am and camped out on the steps until the office opened at 7, reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. By the time I got to the desk, it transpired that they had the whole dossier on me, and just needed at transfer of my file from Haute-Savoie. I left my number with the woman. I know things will speed up now, since Mme Lutin knows someone who works at the Sous-Préfecture.

A couple of days later (after speaking to Mme Lutin), I went to the Aliens Office for the last time. They handed me the document I needed. It was so easy. I still have it to this very day, and if I ever move back to France, will be able to go through the whole process again. Fun!

To say I was ecstatic about getting my resident permit would be taking it a little too far. However, I was feeling the sweet victory at having taken on French bureaucracy, and finally having my efforts pay off. I had taken on the system and won. Actually what I really did, with this and the translation, was what French people do: I used the Système D, which means that eventually you emerge victorious either by sheer dent of willpower or knowing the right person. In France, and especially a small place like Guadeloupe, it’s a people thing.

I had a class after that, so I took the bus up to Baimbridge, wearing my triumph like a crown. I got off on the corner by the mango trees, and there was Leila staggering towards me.

“Oh Kate, I’m so pleased to see you!” she breathed. Pleased to see me? Who’d have thought it? She did look rather desperate to tell the truth. She seemed dizzy and her left arm was cut and bleeding.

“I had a car accident…” she trailed off. The traffic lights were changing so she had stopped and the person behind ran straight into the back of her.

I took her into school so she could get some first aid and get out of the heat. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there was no sign of any car.

“Where’s the car?”

Apparently the police had towed it away as it was blocking the intersection. Since Leila was babbling away incoherently, and I was still feeling like I could take on the world, I called the car hire company and did five rounds with them. As it turned out, the car had been delivered back to them and they had been charged by the police for the use of the camion-grue which had brought it back. They wanted to pass this charge on to Leila, but I managed to talk them out of this, pointing out that she had taken out collision damage waiver, and that they would be insured. I really laid it on thick about how poorly Leila was feeling and how far away from her family she was.

“Do you have children monsieur? Would you not like to think that people would be compassionate to them in the same situation?”

They let her off the charge. That’s the Système D for you. I don’t know why I bothered, after all I owed Leila less than nothing, I guess I was still high after taking on the system and winning once that day, I thought I’d have another go. Besides a deposit in the bank of Good Karma never goes amiss, a lesson the Leilas of this world would do well to learn.