Visa Fever

Yakutiye Medrese

Uncomfortable chair. Bloody uncomfortable. I cross my legs and try not to fidget. This is not the time to draw unwanted attention. A minute passes. Then another. Utter silence. I look around. The watercooler looks inviting but is just out of reach. On the table next to it some used paper cups with a decoration of ice crystals and little stars. Stars of David. I smile at the irony but then catch sight of two framed ayatollahs hanging above the watercooler, eyeing me suspiciously. I avert my gaze and catch sight of my reflection in the mirrored wall in front of me. Not looking my best. Pallid face, tiny beads of sweat on nose and brow. I shiver. What was only a raised temperature back at the hotel is gradually evolving into an old-fashioned fever. I can feel its clammy hands around my throat.

Behind the semicircular opening in the mirrored wall the lower half of a face appears. I have to bend forward in order to see more than just a stubbly chin. ‘Good morning,’ I say. ‘No English,’ a taut voice replies. ‘Passport and reference number.’ I oblige. The face disappears, only to reappear a minute later. ‘Come back tomorrow,’ the voice says. A disembodied hand pushes some paperwork in my direction. Application form, I read. And something about a cash transfer. ‘But I’ve come to collect my visa, not apply for one,’ I mutter. ‘Come back tomorrow.’

Outside, it strikes me how pale the light is in Erzurum. And how cold the air. It’s the altitude. Here, at two thousand metres, winter starts in October. Each day, the mountains surrounding Erzurum become a bit whiter, as if a strange mould is slowly creeping down towards to the city.

Walking to the gate of the consulate, my eyes on the nasty surprise I’ve just been handed, I almost bump into a group of burly men smoking in silence. Passports, forms… We shake hands, sensing there is something that connects us. The men are from Turkmenistan and are on their way home from Germany, where they bought a couple of second-hand lorries. ‘Brauchen nur ein Transitvisum,’ one of them laughs, showing a row of gold teeth. Another speaks some English. ‘Come with us to the bank,’ he says, pointing at the transfer slip in my hand. ‘We have done this before.’

View of Erzurum

We squeeze ourselves into a decrepit yellow cab owned by one of them, and, as we drive into the city centre, sing the praises of Iranian bureaucracy. On Cumhuriyet Caddesi, the city’s main street, we pull over at T.C. Ziraat Bankası, the city’s main bank. Inside, we’re met by utter mayhem. Children running around, old geezers slumping in their chairs, men in ill-fitting suits shouting into mobile phones. The taxi driver contemplates the scene for an instant, checks the number he has just received from the dispenser at the entrance and slowly shakes his head. Then he marches to the counter and slams down our passports and money. Five minutes later we are back in the taxi, everything settled and paid for.

That night, having watched the news on Al Jazeera about the devastating earthquake in the Van region, only a few hundred kilometres away, I dream feverish dreams about taxi rides through a shattered city where people can only be pulled from under the rubble if they’ve got their paperwork sorted out. ‘Brauchen nur ein Transitvisum,’ a voice gasps over and over again. Then it starts snowing and everything becomes silent.

Two days and three visits later, I close the door of the Iranian consulate behind me, passport in hand, visa in passport made out to a certain Mr. VANAVLIET. Just a small typo, I tell myself, nothing that a stern ayatollah will lose any sleep over. I breathe in the fresh air, feeling better than ever, and head back to the hotel.