I VANT A WEEZA 179When “President Clinton” came on the line, I stood at attention and
said, again in Serbian, “Thank you, Comrade President, for taking my call!
I’m here with Comrade Jerkov, and he would like a visa.”
I pretended to listen intently for a moment, nodding, then covered the
phone with one hand and addressed Mr. Jerkov: “President Clinton wants
to know if you have any cows.”
“Pa, nemam, jebiga!” was his angry, profane response. He did not.
“No, Mr. President, I’m afraid he has no cows.”
Another pause, a few more nods, some more back-and-forth questions
between “President Clinton” and Mr. Jerkov, then, “Thank you, Comrade
President, for your time. My best to Hillary and the twins.”
I handed the phone back to Vesna, who just shook her head, still
mumbling.
I then broke the news to Mr. Jerkov: “Comrade President Clinton has
carefully considered your case, but unfortunately, he did not approve the visa.”
By this point, Mr. Jerkov had calmed down considerably and appeared
reassured that his request had been given a fair hearing. He graciously
accepted the visa refusal and left the consular section peacefully.
For this performance, I received a lukewarm round of applause from the
dozens of other applicants, who were crammed in and standing patiently
in the hot and stuffy waiting room. It also earned me a caustic comment
from intrepid fraud investigator Marija. During my previous couple of
visits to the visa section, she’d overheard me joking and cursing right back
at many of the applicants in their own language. On one occasion she’d
heard me tell an applicant who assumed I was a Yugoslav—but of a rival
ethnic group—that he was not allowed to speak with an American. She
saw me describe a small, plastic Chinese toy, with flashing lights emitting
annoying French-ambulance sounds, as a “secret American lie detector,”
in order to trick applicants into admitting that they had no intention of
ever returning to Yugoslavia. She watched in disbelief when I began to ask
applicants if they owned cows, then issue visas to cow owners, on the emi-
nently reasonable assumption that a Yugoslav would never abandon his or
her cows to live illegally in New Jersey. She’d even witnessed me snatch an
immigrant visa applicant’s chest X-rays from Joe’s hands as I was walking
past, hold them up to the light, then say to the applicant, “I’m a doctor;
you’re going to be fine.”