Martin had risen at six.
He’d ironed his shirt, twice. Not out of vanity, but out of diplomacy. A clean shirt — crisp, unblemished — was a silent pledge of allegiance to the host country. He wore socks with no holes, pants with no wrinkles, and a belt he hadn’t used in years, purely to suggest personal containment.
He'd cleaned the apartment. Vigorously. Even the bits no one could see — especially the bits no one could see. Behind the fridge, under the toilet cistern, the groove between the sofa cushions. No rogue item would be allowed to appear and say, “Look at me — look how out of order I am.”
At 9:58 a.m., the officers arrived.
Two men. In uniform — and not the relaxed, apologetic kind, either. These were polished, formal, navy-blue police uniforms with heavy creases and unsettling authority. Their shoulders were squared. Their faces were unreadable. They introduced themselves by surname only and flashed IDs so quickly Martin wondered if the gesture had actually occurred.
He welcomed them in like royalty.
“I’ve prepared a seating arrangement,” he said. “This chair has no broken springs and complies, I believe, with local standards of posture and lumbar support.”
They sat.
The questions began. Not traps. Not riddles. Just questions.
“Are you living here alone?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else using this address for mail or registration?”
“No.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Ninety-five days.”
Martin answered with the gentle cadence of a man reciting vows.
And they nodded. They ticked boxes. They were, above all things, efficient. And this — this was Martin’s element. He was fluent in efficiency. He anticipated each query with the precision of someone who had Googled Common Questions During Immigration Home Visit and cross-referenced the results with three forums and a wiki.
They didn’t open any drawers. They didn’t inspect the kitchen. They didn’t smell his breath.
Instead, they stood.
“Well, everything seems fine here.”
Martin beamed.
“I just want to say,” he began — and they paused, politely, already halfway to the door — “that I deeply admire the procedural rigour of your department. And I know you may not fully understand what I mean, linguistically, but I want to express my unconditional respect for your country’s royalty, your military, and your democratic institutions. In that order.”
The younger officer gave a faint smile. The other said, “Okay, sir,” and made a vague gesture that could have meant goodbye or surrender.
And then they left.
Martin stood in the middle of the room, aglow.
He had passed.
They had come. They had inspected. And he had emerged untarnished. It was a form of canonisation — a bureaucratic beatification. He felt radiant. Holy. Almost... sexy. He considered writing a blog post called The Day I Was Declared Legal, but decided against it. The document might be misinterpreted.
Instead, he celebrated by attending his Wednesday badminton group.
The courts were in a converted warehouse with bad acoustics and excellent lighting. After an hour of smashes and apologised-for serves, Martin found himself sitting beside an acquaintance from the group — a wiry man with long hair and the sly posture of someone who never carried ID.
They sipped bottled water and made perfunctory chat. Then the man — let’s call him Jack, though names were always provisional in expat circles — leaned in conspiratorially.
“You know what the trick is,” Jack said, “don’t make too much noise and they don’t care. I’ve been working off-book for six months now. No one’s said a word.”
Martin blinked. “Off-book?”
“Yeah. Cash. No permit. I teach English to business people. They don’t report it. They’re too embarrassed by how bad their English is.”
Martin felt a twitch in his eye.
“That’s... not permitted,” he said.
“I mean, technically, yeah. But they don’t chase that stuff unless you’re like, setting fires.”
There was a pause.
“You smoke?” Jack said, pulling a vape from his bag.
“I don’t—”
“It’s green,” Jack added. “Not legal, but this stuff gives off almost no smell. But again — don’t be obvious and they don’t care. Half the guys at this place are high. You think that guy smashes like that when he's sober?”
Martin felt the air thicken.
“But you could be deported,” he said quietly.
Jack shrugged. “Yeah, but I won’t be. And if I am, I’ll just go to another place. It’s all the same.”
Martin left quickly.
He cycled home slowly. The sunlight that had earlier anointed him now seemed forensic in its golden hour.
He couldn’t stop replaying the conversation. Not because he wanted to — but because now that he’d heard it, it lived in him. Jack’s crimes — and they were crimes — were now facts in Martin’s mind. Which made him... what? A carrier? A co-conspirator?
He had nodded. Not in approval, but in politeness. Would that look, in retrospect, like agreement?
He couldn’t know.
He opened his laptop and began a new file. Titled:
Clarification of My Association with Illicit Conversational Material (Badminton Centre, Approx. 3:30 p.m.)
He began writing, feverishly, then deleted the first paragraph. Then started again.
Then opened a second document titled Hypothetical Confession Letter (Not to be Sent, Just to Be Safe).
And that night, he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and thought: There’s no such thing as sanctuary. Only the appearance of sanctuary, briefly misinterpreted as safety.
He slept poorly.
And dreamed of badminton rackets shaped like subpoenas.