A true story

Basle/Mulhouse airport.

On the left side, a sign says “France.” On the right side, a sign says “Switzerland.” A large glass partition runs right through the middle of the airport, dividing it in half.

From the luggage racks I can see the rent-a-car counter located on the French side.

“Bonjour.” I say to the French Customs officer. He nods, takes my passport, checks the mugshot, and asks. “Anything to declare?” I say. “Nothing to declare.” So he waves me through.

But the lady at the French rent-a-car counter says. “Sorry, your reservation is at our Swiss rent-a-car counter. You’ll have to go back through French Customs and out through Swiss Customs.”

“Still nothing to declare,” I smile at the Frenchman on the wrong way past his little booth.

“Where are you going?”

“Switzerland.”

“Passport, please.”

“I just showed you my passport.”

“That was to enter France. Now you are leaving France.”

“It was only thirty seconds ago.”

He doesn’t want to know. “What have you been doing in France?”

“Not renting a car.”

He thumbs through my passport, checks the mugshot, and asks me, “Anything to declare?”

“Yes,” I say. “I want to declare that I went to the wrong side of the airport.”

He waves me through.

Literally two seconds and three steps later, I smile, “Guten Tag.” Now the Swiss Customs officer thumbs through my passport. “Where are you coming from?” I tell him London. He checks my mugshot and asks, “Anything to declare?” I say. “Nein.” Then he wants to know, “Where are you going?”

“Mulhouse, France.”

He hands me the passport and shakes his head. “Wrong way. You’ve got go through Customs over there.”

“No. You see. I’ve just gone through Customs there and…”

“But you told me you were coming from London. Now you say you are coming from France. You also say you want to go to France.” He isn’t going to let me through. “Nein. Nein. Nein. France is over there.”

“Tell you what,” I say. “I think I want to go to Basle instead, the weather looks better on your side of the airport.”

He shakes his head. “Make up your mind,” stamps the passport, and waves me on.

The lady at the Swiss rent-a-car counter promises it is merely a twenty-minute drive across the Rhine to Mulhouse. She even shows me which road to take: “Just follow the signs.” Except the signs leading to a road of the Swiss side of the airport that doesn’t go directly to Mulhouse.

It takes you all the way into Basle.

Twenty minutes become forty minutes. And another Customs check.

I tell him Basle. The French inspector wants to know where I am going. I tell him Mulhouse. My passport gets looked at.

The mugshot is checked. The Frenchman glances at the empty back seat and waves me through.

A few hours later I try to retrace my steps. Now the signs point to Basle but take me onto an autoroute, which is not the same road I’d taken that morning.

After another twenty-minutes ride that takes forty minutes there is another Customs check.

I hand my passport to a Frenchman, who looks at it, goes through the usual mugshot inspection, and waves me on to the next officers, thirty feet ahead.

The man there takes my passport, studies it, checks my name in his book of names, and asks. “How long will you be staying in Germany?”

“Germany?” I gasp.

“Where did Switzerland go?”

He promises that Basle somewhere straight ahead.

Two-times twenty minutes later, and sure enough, there is yet another border. A German guard looks at my passport and, almost as if he personally reluctant to do so, agrees to let me leave Germany.

Then the Swiss Customs inspector who checks my passport demands 100 Swiss francs before he lets me enter the country.

“Road tax.” He points to a vacant spot on my windshield where some sort of sticker should have been.

“It’s rented car,” I protest.

And he answers, “This is not my problem.”

I whine, “I want to go to Basle.”

“If you don’t want to pay the road tax,” he gestures to show this isn’t any skin off his nose, “You can’t use this road.” He points toward Germany.

“You’ve got to go back.”

I ask to speak to his supervisor.

The supervisor isn’t very helpful, so I ask his supervisor. Within no time a senior supervisors conference evolves. Six humorless men in uniforms and within arm’s length of the offending road-tax-less wind-shield, planning my fate. It ends when one of the tribal elders comes forward and confides, as if it were a state secret. “There’s a small road. It will be your first turning on the right and it will take you to Basle. Follow me.”

“Thank you.” I say. “Thank you very, very much.”

But I’d been too grateful too soon.

He walks into the middle of the motorway, hands up his hands, and waves me straight across six lanes of oncoming traffic. U-turning me back to Germany.

“Passport, bittle.”

It is the same Customs inspector who’d let me through ten minutes before.

“Hi, remember me? I’m the guy who wants to go to Basle…”

He studies my passport as if his memory extended only nine minutes.

“Where are you coming from?”

I take a chance on “Switzerland?”

“And where are you going?”

I figure, what the hell, and say “Basle?”

“But Basle is back there …”

I meant Berlin. Did I say Basle? No, I meant Munich. Or Mulhouse.

“Any place but Basle,” I stammer.

That only makes him all the more suspicious. He checks and rechecks my mugshot, looks for my name in his book of names, and this time asks me to open the car’s trunk.

“But I was just here …”

He stares at the empty trunk, then wants to know how I will be staying in Germany.

I am beginning to think it could be for the rest of my life. “Only until the first turning on the right.”

As reluctant as he’d been to let me leave. He is just as reluctant to allow me back.

Without any reluctance I take the first turning on the right and follow that road … until I come to another border.

“Switzerland? Is it Switzerland? Please, please, tell me this is Switzerland. And how far is Basle?”

“Basle?” The officer says, “You mean Bale. No, this is France.”

Tears well up in my eyes as visions of the Twilight Zone enter my brain.

I beg, “Sir, you’ve got to believe me … Switzerland was here someplace when I left it this morning.”

He makes me turn back, telling me about yet another “first turning on the right” that he faithfully promises will take me to Bale.

In fact in does.

But not before I go through German Customs to get out of Germany and Swiss Customs to get back into Switzerland. Seven borders and twelve Customs checks later …

Now I eagerly await my first meeting with any Customs inspectors who might have read this. And add, in humble exasperation. “Please, believe me, I have nothing to declare!!”

TASKS

Task 1. Answer the following questions.

1. Where does the scene open at?

2. Where is Basle situated?

3. What do you know about this country?

4. Why did the author have to go back through French Customs?

5. What did the lady at the Swiss rent-a-car counter promise him?

6. Was it a long way to Mulhouse?

7. How many Customs checks did the author go through?

8. What experience did he get?

9. Do you believe that it is a true story? Give your argument.

10. What would you recommend that a passenger should do before going abroad?

Task 2. Say if it is true or false.

1. The author arrived in Paris/Mulhouse.

2. The lady at the French rent-a-car counter helped him with the car.

3. The lady at the Swiss rent-a-car counter showed him which road to take.

4. The French Customs officer demands 100 Swiss francs as road tax.

5. Six humorless men in uniform are planning the fate of the author.

6. Seven borders and twelve Customs checks before setting back into Switzerland.

Task 3. Look up in the dictionary the idioms “It’s no skin off somebody’s nose.”

Do you know any idioms with the same meaning?

Task 4. Summarize the text.