Our last chapter left our hapless hero preparing himself mentally for a gruelling visit to the comisería. It was an unusually cool Thursday (at the end of March), and it went something like this:

I’m sitting outdoors, with frozen hands, at a police station just off Balmes. There is a large group of us (at least a hundred) sequestered in a parking garage, part of which is cordoned off and contains more than 200 chairs, about half of which are full. Full of couples, children, babies. Many South Americans are here, as are a good number of Asians, and very few rubios like myself (in fact, as far as I can tell, I’m the only one). The police gatekeeper told me to take a number, “como en la carnicería” (”like at the butcher’s”, how appropriate) and go sit in a chair. The parking structure where we’re sitting is covered, but open, and today is quite cool. And there are exhaust fumes.

It’s not yet clear to me how you know when your number is called. I’ve seen no electronic signs, heard no beeps, and no one has been calling people in. We just sit, looking mildly confused. I think you have to get up and look over a corrugated metal wall, toward the main building, when you think your time is getting close(?). I’ll go check in a bit — for the moment, I imagine there’s no rush, since none of the people around me has moved in at least twenty minutes. The buses are on strike today, so I hoped it might be less busy here. If this is less busy, I’d hate to see busy… A few people read as they wait (newspapers, the sports section of course), but many just sit, staring into nothingness, perhaps pondering the uncertainty of their immigration situation. Most are here as couples or entire families, so at least they have someone to talk to. Of course, many are talking on cell phones.

At least we’re in a place with natural light — curved whitewashed arches overhead with rows of small square skylights. A brisk wind blows into the parking structure, over us before being swallowed by the down-ramp. Several people wear Barça hats and scarves — an attempt to “impress” the officials (asks my cynical mind), or just genuine fandom? Surely the latter, Mr. Cynic. The chairs are light wood with black metal bases; actually surprisingly nice (considering the grim surroundings) and clean.

A lot of people, recently, have been getting up, I guess going to check the status(?). Will go do the same. [a few minutes pass] Well, there’s nothing I can see that shows the “current” number being processed, so I’m not sure why everyone is watching “the yard” so intently. Is this what prisoners do? Just watch the guards, since there’s nothing else going on.

Finally — finally! — a guy in jeans and a jean jacket came and started calling numbers: B60, 61, 62…eventually got to C0, 1, 2… Obviously they’re taking large “batches” of us into another waiting room. I wonder if C91 (mine) will be in the next batch, or more likely two or three batches later. The only problem is that each batch is being called about an hour apart.

11h00 — B60 to C10
12h00 — to C42
12h45 — C32-63
14h12 — a bunch more, and yay, I’m inside, in the WARMTH!

I got really chilled — after arriving around 9h45 in the morning, I waited outside in the cold (should have worn a thicker sweater under my “spring” jacket) for about 4.5 hours. They close each day at 14h, so I was lucky, the rest of the people (starting in the mid-”D”s) were sent home, to try again another day. There was much shouting and arguing, but Mr. Jean Jacket was having none of it. He was actually very calm, diplomatic, in control. Easy for me to say, since I wasn’t in the “sorry, try again” group.

I was in the final batch to get into the warm, (indoor) waiting room. Luckily, once there, I was one of the first people to be called forward. I was shivering uncontrollably, and my hands were like ice. Inside, at last there was one of those signs with big red letters that indicates which number should go into which office. C91, yes! — and off I go to sit in front of a matronly woman (no police uniforms here, except for the guards outside). She is quite friendly, although I think some of her co-workers are bitching that Officer Jean Jacket let such an enormous batch of us in at the last minute…by all rights, they should be going off to lunch by now!

I give her my passport, head-shots and other documents, and she asks for the resguardo of my original solicitud. I wasn’t sure what they wanted here — somehow my application for the residency was combined with the visa application (a good thing, that saved me much waiting once in Spain), but I didn’t have this paperwork. I had a copy of my original visa application in Montreal, but this was not what she wanted. In the end, after I nervously explained that I really didn’t have anything else, she shrugged and continued on processing me.

She was friendly, and at one point, mentioned the weather — how cold it had been recently! I thought she was saying this because she could see my quivering legs or blue lips, and so I made some joke about how miserable it was to be sitting outside for so long. Just then, in a very motherly way (or so I thought), she reached out and said: “Let me have your hand.” Wow, so friendly! I gently lay my left hand in hers, ready for an embrace of warmth.

She pushed away my left, and grabbed at my right. Fine, I thought, that one’s cold too. But she kept twisting my wrist in a strange way, and it took a moment of this “wrestling” before I realized she wasn’t trying to comfort me, but rather was trying to take my fingerprint. “Ahhh!” I said, laughing and blushing, finally understanding. She took my right index finger, plunked it down (in a motherly, loving way, it must be said) onto the inkpad, and pressed it into the form. Then she handed me some Kleenex to clean off the ink.

And that was it, more or less. She gave me yet another resguardo, and told me I could pick up my TIE in a month, at another indicated address. Many things had to be put on hold until then — for example, opening a bank account. But a couple of weeks ago, at the end of April, I went to another police station, and picked up my sparkling new identity card. Although we’d had some beautiful warm weather in the intervening month, this was another cool, rainy day. But this time, no line-ups, no butcher’s numbers, no delays. I walked right in (the building seemed like a ghost town, and I had to find my way to the correct floor and office), showed my passport to some other matronly women, and — just like that — got my new card. And that means that I’m now con papeles (”with papers”, i.e. “legal”).