Speeding in a Foreign Land

The public announcement system which was probably installed in the 1950s bellowed out a very loud and distorted command, first in the native language, then in German, and finally in English: “Will the next visitor please go to counter number seven?” Sarah caught the German version and nudged Robert to start walking to the right. Robert noted that this is their lucky day, for seven is the most common roll with two dice and is an automatic winner in Craps. “Yes,” Sarah retorted, “but only if it’s a new shooter’s first roll; otherwise, it’s his last roll and the house snatches all the money on the table.”

They were not very tired given the extremely long transcontinental flight they had just endured in cattle class. At least, they got to stretch their legs and eat a hearty lunch at Robert’s favorite restaurant at Heathrow before catching their connecting flight. In fact, they were ecstatic about starting their month-long journey down memory lane, almost ten years after Robert’s two-year assignment at the government run satellite manufacturer was over. That assignment was straight-forward as all he did was attend technical meetings and review and comment on the performance data of the satellite that was being built for his American employer. Robert managed to work a vacation-heavy schedule, taking long lunches and traveling on leisurely ‘vacations within a vacation’, as one of his friends called it. During their many sojourns in those two years, they spent considerable time in most of the major cities as well as the rich countryside, and more importantly, bonded with the natives.

At counter number seven, a friendly young woman in police attire smiled a broad welcoming smile and scanned their passports. Almost immediately, the warmth melted away into a quizzical look of surprise and almost helplessness. “Excuse minute,” she uttered rather nervously in broken English, and hurried out through the booth’s back door. Sarah looked at Robert with a concerned look, which he dismissed off-hand. “If their computers are as obsolete as their public announcement system, this might take some time,” he muttered quietly into Sarah’s ear. However, their pleasant mood quickly changed as they saw the young woman return with two armed policemen. The older of the two said: “Please follow me. My Captain would like to have a word with you.”

*****

In a small, hot, windowless room, Robert and Sarah waited anxiously. They had no idea why they were not simply let through Immigration Control as they had been on their many previous voyages through these gates. An interminable ten minutes later, the captain appeared. He politely told the couple that Immigration Control had a flag in their system to stop this couple if they ever tried to enter the country. Apparently, they had acquired multiple traffic violations during their last visit which were never addressed. It was this flag that flummoxed the young woman at counter number seven.Naturally, Robert and Sarah were both shocked. Robert explained to the captain that they never received any notice of the violations, and if they had, they certainly would have paid any fines. He did not mention that the auto rental company had in fact charged his credit card twenty Euros on three different occasions approximately two years after their return to America for providing his details to the authorities for traffic violations captured on cameras. There were no further explanations, and these were never followed by any communiques from the officials. Robert assumed that those infractions were long lost within the bureaucracy.

The captain presented a form on which they were requested to fill out the usual banal information: names, passport numbers and expiration dates, their local address, the duration of their visit, their current occupations, employers and emergency contact information. Robert stated that he was a self-employed consultant in the aerospace industry. On her form, Sarah unknowingly made the biggest mistake of her life: rather than simply write that she was a housewife or some made up profession, she truthfully stated that she was a consultant working for the Obama Foundation, the nonprofit philanthropic organization of the former U.S. president. The captain excused himself and came back an excruciating fifteen minutes later with faded pictures of Robert driving the rental car, the date and time stamp as well as the car’s velocity and road limits boldly printed in red at the bottom, and documentation showing that notices were indeed sent to their Cupertino address and that no payments were ever received. He then showed them an itemized invoice totaling eight hundred and seventy-four Euros as the cumulative fees and penalties plus interest; ironically, the actual fines were only thirty Euros each. And of course, they do not accept any personal checks or credit cards.Robert and Sarah were unhappy about having to pay all these penalties due to the incompetence of the postal systems. Nevertheless, as financially painful as this was going to be, they pulled out their wallets, handed over the required amount, were given a receipt and escorted to the baggage claim area. There was great relief and an inkling that all those Euros would soon be lining the captain’s pockets, but at least they were finally in a taxi and on their way to a much-needed shower, a nice glass of red wine and some sleep.

A week later, they were rudely awakened by a knock on their hotel door at five AM. A half-asleep Robert opened the door to find two police officers greeting him pleasantly and requesting their presence at the local police station. There, the couple was informed that new evidence related to one of those traffic violations has surfaced, and that Robert was going to be charged with hit-and-run driving as well as fleeing from a scene of a crime, and that Sarah would be charged as an accomplice. The trial would proceed relatively quickly as justice is exercised expeditiously in this country. The American Consulate would be immediately informed as well as Sarah’s employer. Within twenty minutes, they found themselves alone in separate holding cells with nothing but the clothes on their backs.

*****

Julia Armstrong, one of the Obama Foundation’s senior lawyers, was traversing the Atlantic entrusted with the task of repatriating the couple. Her role was to serve as legal counsel and do whatever she possibly could within their legal framework to bring Sarah and Robert home. Now the Foundation’s senior counsel, with excellent negotiating skills, Julia was the natural choice to work for the release of Sarah and Robert.

In preparing to defend the couple, she spent considerable time researching the nuances of their legal system. As she was sipping her favorite glass of wine, a sudden turbulence shook the airplane violently and caused her to spill its contents all over Sarah’s and Robert’s background files. Her best efforts to salvage the pages went for naught, but fortunately, she had a soft copy on her laptop which she pulled from the overhead compartment once the airplane stabilized. The file highlighted Sarah’s remarkable and Robert’s not so remarkable life stories: she was a Professor of Linguistics at Berkeley who put her career on hold for the two years to accompany Robert. Those two years were truly magical in their lives, for not only did they travel extensively, but she also pursued her second (or was it first?) passion of following a healthy lifestyle. After publishing some articles on healthy living in various minor journals, her prominence in the self-help book market was established with her groundbreaking work: ‘A More Reasonable Approach to a Healthy Vegan Lifestyle’ published by Knopf soon after their return to the U.S. The enlightened theme of this book, which claimed to not only stop but reverse cardiovascular blockages, was to meld the draconian, vegetable only diet advocated by Dr. Esselstyn with the kinder, gentler more sustainable approach of Dr. Ornish, where the participants may supplement the basic vegetarian diet with a moderate amount of dairy, fruits, nuts, and small amounts of flour products. This more palatable diet, although never scientifically proven to mitigate or reduce cardiovascular risks as advocated, was featured by Oprah and thus became a phenomenon on the popular self-help book circuit. As a writer of some fame, she was contacted by Mrs. Obama, an avid practitioner of healthy living, to join their Foundation as the point-person for the former first lady’s “Healthy America Initiative.” Robert, on the other hand, had a typicality-level engineering manager’s career. His greatest claim to fame was that he was good enough (or was it fortunate enough?) to never get laid off in his three plus decades in the aerospace industry, one that goes through severe boom and bust cycles almost biyearly. He was a man of modest aspirations, his greatest being the desire to retire before sixty and personally witness the launch of at least one of the satellites that he worked on.

After clearing Customs at the international airport, Julie immediately took Uber to the local police station where the American couple was being held. Robert and Sarah both vehemently denied that they had hit any bicyclist or ran away from the scene. They vaguely remembered a bicyclist crossing in front of them but insisted that he had safely cleared the intersection before Robert started to accelerate. “Why are the authorities trying to pin on us these obviously false criminal charges? All we did was accidentally speed on their highways, and for that, we are thrown in jail?” Sarah complained incredulously. Julie assured the couple that her job was to find out why and get the couple back home as soon as possible.

*****

After a restless night, Julie went to meet the captain who explained to her that, as this was traffic-related, the couple would face a three-judge panel and not a jury in a couple of weeks. “Unlike in your country, Madam. Armstrong, we prefer to resolve our cases here as fairly and judiciously as possible”. To her request that she depose the bicyclist, the captain told her that she would need to go to the police station in the village where the accident occurred to get the name and address of the unfortunate bicyclist. “You are charging them with hit-and-run driving, and you don’t even know the name of the victim?” Julie vented with incredulity. “Yes Madam,” the captain muttered and indicated that the village was just a couple of hours drive. “Suggest you leave now so that you have a chance of getting there before it closes. Today being Friday, they will probably close early, and next Monday and Tuesday are national holidays.”

The drive through the bucolic countryside gave Julie a chance to compose her thoughts and get over her exasperation at the captain. Little did she know that this was just a chip of the bureaucratic iceberg, and sure enough, the police station did close early for the long weekend. The village was very quaint and pleasant indeed. “I could have a mini vacation,” she thought. After walking through most of the main street hunting for a vegetarian restaurant, Julie spotted a place which advertised Indian fare. A practitioner of what she preaches, she was delighted that she would be able to eat a healthy vegetarian meal. The okra curry, dahl and nan she ordered were made with all vegetarian ingredients, as promised by the waiter, but they were literally drowning in oil. Given the late hour, she had no choice but to put aside her healthy eating mantra and satisfy her hunger with this very unhealthy meal. “At least I am not eating flesh,” she thought, as she satiated her hunger.

And on Wednesday morning, bright and early, she trudged up the hill to the small police station where she was politely informed that the officer handling all records did not come to work that day, and, unfortunately, no one else had a key to his file cabinet where such records were stored. So, Julie extended her reservation at the inn and spent the next few days boning up further on the case as well as local legal protocols. She did manage to find an Italian restaurant on one of the minor back streets that had a very good selection of local wines as well as a few vegetarian pasta dishes that the chef kindly made with very little oil. She consoled herself that at least she could eat a healthy diet and imbibe some fine wine for the rest of her stay; the village seemed a lot quainter and more agreeable.

The following Monday, when the officer finally showed up to work, Julie waited apprehensively as he opened his files. “I am sorry Madam Armstrong, but I have no file on this case. Perhaps my colleague had made a report on this case. He is off this entire week visiting his in-laws.He should be back next Monday, and, I do not have the keys to his file cabinet.” When Julie asked if there was any other officer at the station who might be able to produce the case file, she was told that the village had only two officers. As frustrating as this was, at least she was assured to get to the bottom of the case the following week when the second officer returns to duty. And so, Julie extended her reservations once more and settled in for another quiet week in the countryside, something she had never experienced in her entire adult life.

On the subsequent Monday, Julie was elated when the second officer retrieved the file on the accident with the name and address of the bicyclist.Using the ubiquitous Google Maps, she navigated to the address, and as she walked up the flight of stairs, she had a gut feeling that the current resident would not be the bicyclist in question. Her instincts were correct, and furthermore, the man stated that he had been living in that apartment with his family for over twenty years. At a loss for words and in total frustration, she then contacted some of the neighbors who also vouched that the current resident had been living there from the time that they moved in. Back at the police station, the officer showed her the file with the name and address he gave and exclaimed with some annoyance that he had no further information. With no other course of action available to her, she decided to head back to the city the very next morning. The drive was very pleasant on a warm fall afternoon, and Julie consoled herself that at least she had a holiday of sorts in a quiet little village. In America, with no victim to press charges, the case would have been thrown out of the court, but in this land, she was sure that it would not be the case. With nowhere else to turn, she decided to call the US Embassy which, after a few days of poking around the federal government, referred her to the Economics Ministry.

*****

For some time past, the Economic Ministry has been engaged in trying to get General Motors to expand their manufacturing operations in their country. The Minister had a brilliant idea when he heard of the incident with the two Americans at the airport. Given that one of them was a member of a former president’s inner circle, he assumed that President Obama would be willing to pressure GM to avoid an international situation as well as retrieve his valuable employee. The infusion of such a large foreign capital from a major U.S. company into his staggering economy would have significant economic and political benefits. And so, he concocted a scenario where the Americans did not just violate the speed limits, but on one occasion, injured a bicyclist crossing the street in front of them. And to make matters worse, they did not stop to help the victim or report the incident. The traffic camera’s picture was altered slightly to show the cyclist crossing ahead of the car, thereby implying an imminent collision. A back-dated report was filed with the local police department which falsely stated that the car tangentially struck the front tire of the bicycle which of course drove the victim to the asphalt leading to multiple cuts and bruises. The damning evidence was that the driver did not stop to check on the victim and flagrantly fled the crime scene, a very serious offense in any country. The Minister never intended to pursue this matter to an actual trial; rather, he simply planned on negotiating with the Foundation to pressure the GM executives who were, as he figured, completely beholden to President Obama for having bailed out their company during the 2008 financial crisis.

“Ms. Armstrong, pleasure to meet you madam. Please, take a seat. A cup of tea, coffee, perhaps,” the Minister said warmly in his ornate office a week before the trial was scheduled to commence. After the initial pleasantries, the Minister got to his point: he wanted the former President’s assistance in getting the GM plant in his country. “If I could have the President’s assurance, I am sure we will be able to find a way to have Sarah and Robert quickly on their way home to their families,” he said in a very nonchalant tone.

A day later, Julie made the most difficult telephone call of her life, relaying a message in a business-like tone: “Minister, I have just been informed that the President will not be able to take up your cause with GM. He wishes to convey his best regards to you and your family. I am extremely honored to have met you yesterday, Sir. Thank you for your time.”

*****