Officialdom

Yesterday marked the passage of three months since our arrival in Berlin. That put me, the only non-dual citizen in our family of three, two days past the ninety-day stretch an American can legally stay in Europe without a visa. It put me in a realm not only of marginal legality but of no longer feeling I was on an extended summer holiday that had bled somehow into the fall. Already a Kita dad, Spielplatz connoisseur, and student in a level B1 German class, perhaps I should have felt like I lived here. But what brought the feeling home—and resolved my legal status with an almost alarming finality—was a visit to the fearsomely umlauted Ausländerbehörde.

The Ausländerbehörde makes other polysyllabic bureaucratic institutions, like the Bürgeramt or the Kinderamt, seem parochial, which they are. We had visited the Bürgeramt, a local branch of the city government, on our first week in Berlin. Like the holy family in the Christmas story responding to the decree that all the world should registered, we tromped with our child and all of our most important documents (birth and marriage certificates, passports, even our apartment rental contract) to the yellow-brick complex at the end of our street. A rusty gate, coils of barbed wire, dumpsters, a smokestack, and an air of having been used for various unsavory purposes over the long decades since its 1900-era construction seemed to pose the question: are you sure you want to live here?

Inside the Bürgeramt was a different story. Joined by a tall relocation expert named Jana (whom my wife's company had appointed to help us), we waited for our number to be called in a waiting room that had a large wooden toy castle for children to play with. The appointment took place in a room where two women with the kinds of American names that were once popular in East Germany (Jenny and Betty, I think), their hair dyed exciting shades of blonde and reddish-brown, sat under a veritable museum of Thomas Kinkade prints. As they processed our forms, we looked up at a covered bridge in Vermont whose slightly radioactive fall glow did its best to soothe us, reminding us of home and New England.

That day, we left the Bürgeramt with our Anmeldung, the piece of paper that says you officially live in Berlin, and proceeded to the Kinderamt, the friendliest of bureaucratic offices. There, a spiky-haired lady handed us our Kitagutschein, the license that allows your child to go to Kita. Her office was decorated exclusively with laminated cat puzzles. In one, a giant white cat stood in outer space behind planet Earth, trying to paw the moon.

For three months since that day in early August, our lives were free of bureaucratic duties—until yesterday, when the date came for our appointment at the Ausländerbehörde (Foreign Office), which I had almost forgotten about. Located in a weird part of Mitte that you wouldn't visit unless you worked in the huge Bayer complex nearby, it sits on a canal facing a building of extravagantly colorful ugliness, like a public-housing project repainted by Pedro Almodóvar. We had planned to bike there, but after a classic northern-European bike accident the day before, in which I got my front tire stuck in a tram track and went flying over the handlebars (I'm fine, just a little shaken), we took a cab.

The reassuringly punctual Jana, like one of the guardian angels from Wings of Desire, but with a specialty in paperwork, met us out front and ushered us to the right waiting room. A sign along the way indicated where to go depending what country you were from: Syria, this way; everyone else, that way. The United States appeared buried in a long lost of mainly African countries. The waiting room lacked any amusements for children, but gradually filled up with strollers. We wondered if we should have brought J. (whom we'd dropped off early at Kita), since cuteness might help our cause. But Jana assured us that the authorities don't care about niceties or attempts at charm. The night before, I had emailed her to ask if we should dress up for the appointment (she said no), a concern that seemed laughable when we entered the appointment and found, sitting behind the desk, a plump, stubbly, friendly young guy in a baggy pink T-shirt and jeans. (There wasn't any art in the office.)

We handed over the necessary items: the same ones as for the Bürgeramt, plus a headshot done in the modern biometric style, no smiling allowed, and a letter certifying I was enrolled in a German course. "Haben Sie deutsch?" he asked. Indeed, I said, I am enrolled in a B1 course. "Und Sie haben auch ein Kind?" Yes, we said, we do have a kid. He nodded as if extremely impressed by this combination of procreation and intermediate German acquisition. And with no further questions, he said, "Well, in that case, you can stay here at least until 2036." Now, even Jana looked surprised. "He can?" she asked.

The T-shirted official explained that yes, since B1 is the level considered serious enough for one to work here (even though I still miss about 40% of what anyone says in German), it signifies a readiness to integrate into society. This, combined with having a child who is a German citizen, means, according to German regulations, you can stay until the child is 18: hence, 2036. "But I imagine you'll want to get a German passport before then," he said, sticking the Auffenthaltstitel (residency permit) onto a page of my US passport and pounding it with a resounding stamp.

In a single morning I went from slightly illegal visa overstayer to stamped-and-sealed EU resident until, should I want to stay that long, my mid-50s. I felt a little guilty for having treated the appointment so casually, just another paperwork errand to run. Many people from worse-off countries must count down to their appointments at the Ausländerbehörde with the fear and excitement of destiny, of deliverance. Some of us are just lucky.