A Short, Strange Trip
TIME's Geneva correspondent has a brush with the law
BY Helena Bachmann Geneva
| JANUARY 29 |
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The day started well enough: a sunny, crisp morning with promises of long-awaited snow. But by the time it ended I was almost arrested for smuggling terrorists into Swiss territory.
This is how it happened. A friend asked me to drive across the border from Geneva to Divonne, France, to pick up a mannequin she bought for her shop. I drove the short distance, picked up the mannequin, put it in the back seat of my car and threw an old blanket over it. Then I did what I always do in France: I had a café au lait and a croissant. Had I known what awaited me on the other side of the border I would have had a stiff drink instead.
Living so close to the Swiss-French border, I know all the shortcuts. Usually I go on back roads where there are no sentries or border guards. Today was no different. I drove back into Switzerland through that unmarked territory and dropped off the mannequin on my friend's driveway, about 500 meters from the border.
As I was approaching the highway on my way home I heard the wail of a siren. I looked out my rear window and saw a police car tailing me and signaling me to stop. "What have I done?" I thought. I pulled over, rolled down my window and waited. I have seen this in movies: the driver stops, rolls down his window and says: "Officers, what's wrong?" So when the gendarmes approached my car, I said: "Officers, what's wrong?"
The policemen circled my car, looked in the back seat, asked me for my license and registration. Then they asked me to get out of the car. Oh no! I had seen this in movies, too: when cops ask you to step out of the car, it's bad news.
When I stepped out, the officers told me to open the trunk. I obliged — not that I had any choice. Then they asked me where my passenger was. What passenger? I said. "The passenger who was hiding under the blanket in the back of your car," they said.
It took me a few seconds to comprehend what was going on: the cops had somehow spotted my cargo and thought the mannequin's legs and arms were those of someone being illegally smuggled into Switzerland! The borders are checked more thoroughly than normal these days because of a threat of a terrorist attack against the World Economic Forum conference now under way in Davos. And I, of course, didn't drive through an official checkpoint, but got into the country through back roads with a pair of feet and arms sticking out from under a blanket!
I felt like laughing, but instead explained — fighting hard to keep a straight face — what had happened and offered to take the policemen to my friend's house. There, lying in the middle of the driveway, was my alibi. The policemen cleared their throats, mumbled something and drove off. I took it to mean that I wouldn't be passing the night in jail. I was free!
I don't know how this scene would play in a movie, but now I know from my own experience that life sometimes really is stranger than fiction.
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