Today, was one of those days. There was a letter in our PO box from the UK asking me to confirm that I am still extant. I'm sure they've asked before, and I seem to remember that it was a simple enough process. I signed a form and I got another Briton to witness it. So, today, instead of coming home to read the paperwork, I thought I may as well sort it out then and there where I had access to a post office and at least a couple of people to witness my signature.
Maybe I'd misremembered, something which seems to happen more and more frequently, or perhaps they've beefed up their checks but, when I actually got around to checking the paperwork, they required someone of 'social stature', and with an official stamp, to witness the document. I can't remember who exactly, but the list included people like bank officials, medical staff, town hall employees, the mayor, a solicitor etc. They said I had sixteen weeks to return the form, well minus the two weeks it had taken to get from the UK, so there was no rush, but I like to get these things sorted. The challenge was that I don’t have many contacts who meet the pension authorities' criteria and who wouldn’t baulk at completing an “official” form written in English, which I would need to explain in a world rife with frauds and scams. Then it struck me: my accountant!
In the accountant's office I explained, in Spanish, that I needed someone to witness my signature. 'Ah', said the young woman, 'you want a "fe de vida"'. The meaning was obvious enough, she knew what I wanted but in my Spanish "fe" means faith and the expression I most associate with "fe" comes from the Spanish Inquisition. It's only because I thought to write this blog that I now know that "fe" also has a second translation as ID or certificate.
The Inquisition was supposed to protect the one true faith by searching out heretics - people who practised other religions or didn't accept the absolute truth of the Catholic Church's version of Christianity and its practices. Actually it was about personal vendettas, enriching the church and maintaining its power. The most extreme punishment of the Inquisition was to burn people at the stake and that involved a ritual public penitence before the actual death. That whole process was called, and this is the phrase I knew, an 'auto de fe' or 'act of faith'.
I do this all the time. Someone says 'our David had a puncture' and I see David deflating so I ask if it hurt or if he's OK now. When I try these word associations in Spanish the person I'm talking to generally looks at me as if I'm demented but today when the person in the office said I needed a 'fe de vida' and I said 'thank goodness it's not an auto de fe'. She chuckled. A minor triumph I thought. And I got my form signed.
