At the Office of Life Certificates, the morning always begins with the thud of a rubber stamp. It has a steady rhythm, like the heartbeat of a bureaucracy convinced it's in good health. Citizens queue from dawn along a long corridor of dull tiles, each clutching a single sheet of paper tucked carefully inside a plastic folder, as though it were a newborn child. They all wish to climb to the 'upper corridor', where those entrusted with the fate of many sit in judgement. The price of admission is one thing: proof they once climbed the ladder of education.
The officials of this office are renowned for their thoroughness. Every sheet is examined under a magnifying glass, turned over beneath the desk lamp, and held up to the light to see whether any watermark has strayed. Signatures are compared, stamps are sniffed almost like vintage wine, and the whole inspection is repeated three times by three people who are forbidden to whisper to one another. One woman was once turned away because the corner of her paper was torn to the size of a grain of maize. A young man was sent home because his stamp ink was deemed 'not entirely convincing'. Nobody protested, for everyone knew the rules of the house: paper is truth, and truth must be inspected until one's back aches.
The contrast was all the sharper, then, when one day a certain sheet of paper arrived at the counter.
The paper was carried by a figure from the great family at the palace. No one spoke his name, and there was no need, for in that office the name always arrives before the person. The moment the paper touched the desk, something curious happened to the officials. Their spectacles misted over, all at once. The magnifying glass, usually so quick to leap into action, suddenly felt heavy, and the desk lamp, which for other papers was switched on in a flash, now seemed to have run out of enthusiasm.
'There is no doubt,' said one official, without looking down. 'There has been no complaint,' added another. 'There are no special circumstances requiring clarification,' concluded a third, in the tone of a waiter assuring you that the kitchen could not possibly be at fault. In that office, doubt is not something one goes looking for; doubt appears only when formally invited, complete with letter, reference number and wet-ink stamp. Until the invitation arrives, doubt is deemed not to exist, just as ghosts are deemed not to exist so long as nobody dares to speak their names.
The citizens further down the queue watched all this, their eyes moving back and forth between their own papers and the one being received with such reverence. The woman with the grain-of-maize tear suddenly felt that her paper was no longer a document at all, but an exhibit in a trial.
People began to dig up old stories. It was said that, in that very office, there was a clause that came in the dead of night. It was on nobody's guest list, greeted no one in the meeting room, joined no debate at the long table, and yet by morning it was seated in the most important chair, surveying the room as calmly as a guest who believes the house is his own. The clause stipulated that, for certain purposes, a certain proof of education need not be produced at all.
The occupants of the office denied the story with great vigour. The meetings, they said, had been held in the open; the door was glass, and anyone could look in from outside. Naturally, nobody explained that the glass was clouded with condensation, that the curtains were thick, and that the busiest meetings were held precisely at the hour when the front door had been locked. The glass door of the Office of Life Certificates is a lovely thing: it persuades people that they can see inside, right up until they try to enter.
Because the office could not oversee itself, a post was built beside it and staffed by gatekeepers. Their task was simple and noble: to ensure that the officials applied the same rules to everyone. These gatekeepers had authority, uniforms and broad desks, and, it was said, a little patience that was sometimes rather too long.
When word of the paper that was not held up to the light reached their ears, the gatekeepers did not hurry. They nodded, sipped their tea, and said they were awaiting a complaint. Once a complaint arrived, they said they were awaiting evidence. Once the evidence arrived, they said they were awaiting the right moment. The right moment, as every seasoned bureaucrat knows, is a shy creature that seldom shows itself to those who need it most.
In the second week of October, on two consecutive days, a law firm and a foundation bearing the emblem of the scales came calling. They carried no banners and raised no voices. They brought only a neatly compiled complaint, addressed both to the managers of the licensing office and to its gatekeepers, containing a single accusation wrapped in the language of ethics: that the educational requirement, and the road to the upper corridor for the figure from the palace, had not been handled as it should have been. An accusation, it must be said, remains only an accusation; those named are entitled to deny it, and some already have.
What is striking is that when the question reached the gatekeepers, whether they were ready to be examined themselves, they answered lightly: 'Monggo.' Please, go ahead. It sounded broad-minded, even generous, like a host inviting guests to look around the bedroom after tidying away everything he would rather they did not see. The satire lies not in any courage in facing a complaint. It lies in the comfort of an institution when scrutiny finally turns to look at itself, and it finds the room is spacious enough to pretend to be relaxed.
At the far end of the quietest corridor, there is a seldom-visited room called the Council of Honour. It holds only a long table, a few chairs, and a large mirror still wrapped in cloth. It is to this room that the complaint was sent, for it is here that the keepers of the rules are asked to check whether they themselves abide by them.
The complainants gazed at the mirror with hope and trepidation. It had only just begun to be hung, the cloth was barely half removed, and on its surface the very same mist that clouds the officials' spectacles still clung thickly. No one knows whether the mirror will reflect faces honestly, or merely the faces most comfortable to look at. There is no verdict here, and none should be expected before the mist has been wiped away. There is only a test: whether an institution can look at itself as sharply as it looks at other people's papers.
Meanwhile, at the counter, the queue remains long. The stamp still thuds, the magnifying glass still glows for the humble papers of ordinary citizens, and the woman with the grain-of-maize tear is still waiting her turn, unaware that in another room, behind a clouded glass door, someone is asking whether this office still deserves to be called an office.
The lesson of this story is a simple one, and that is what makes it bitter. A piece of paper does not become sacred because of who owns it. It earns its dignity precisely by being willing to be examined by anyone, at any time, without mist on the spectacles or condensation on the glass door. A paper exempted from scrutiny is not being protected; it is being suspected by everyone who quietly counts how many other papers were inspected more harshly because it was waved through.
And that is where democracy is tested: not in who may enter by the door, but in who dares to open it when someone knocks. For in the end, paper is only paper. What gives it worth is the honesty of the hand that dares to switch on the desk lamp, even when the sheet lying beneath it belongs to a very important person.
Note: This piece is satire and allegory. The office, its officials and the figures in it are fictional. The alleged ethical breaches that form its backdrop have been denied by those named and have not been decided by any competent body.
