Elizabeth Gilbert - Committed - A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage

Instead, the immigration official picked up his phone and made a quiet call. Moments later, an officer wearing the uniform of the United States Department of Homeland Security came and took my baby away.

The uniformed men at the Dallas airport held Felipe in interrogation for six hours. For six hours, forbidden to see him or ask questions, I sat there in a Homeland Security waiting room-a bland, fluorescent-​lit space filled with apprehensive people from all over the world, all of us equally rigid with fear. I had no idea what they were doing to Felipe back there or what they were asking from him. I knew that he had not broken any laws, but this was not as comforting a thought as you might imagine. These were the late years of George W. Bush’s presidential administration: not a relaxing moment in history to have your foreign-​born sweetheart held in government custody. I kept trying to calm myself with the famous prayer of the fourteenth-​century mystic Juliana of Norwich (”All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”), but I didn’t believe a word of it. Nothing was well. Not one single manner of thing whatsoever was well.

Every once in a while I would stand up from my plastic chair and try to elicit more information from the immigration officer behind the bulletproof glass. But he ignored my pleas, each time reciting the same response: “When we have something to tell you about your boyfriend, miss, we’ll let you know.”

In a situation like this, may I just say, there is perhaps no more feeble-​sounding word in the English language than boyfriend. The dismissive manner in which the officer uttered that word indicated how unimpressed he was with my relationship. Why on earth should a government employee ever release information about a mere boyfriend? I longed to explain myself to the immigration officer, to say, “Listen, the man you are detaining back there is far more important to me than you could ever begin to imagine.” But even in my anxious state, I doubted this would do any good. If anything, I feared that pushing things too far might bring unpleasant repercussions on Felipe’s end, so I backed off, helpless. It occurs to me only now that I probably should have made an effort to call a lawyer. But I didn’t have a telephone with me, and I didn’t want to abandon my post in the waiting room, and I didn’t know any lawyers in Dallas, and it was a Sunday afternoon, anyhow, so who could I have reached?

Finally, after six hours, an officer came and led me through some hallways, through a rabbit warren of bureaucratic mysteries, to a small, dimly lit room where Felipe was sitting with the Homeland Security officer who had been interrogating him. Both men looked equally tired, but only one of those men was mine-my beloved, the most familiar face in the world to me. Seeing him in such a state made my chest hurt with longing. I wanted to touch him, but I sensed this was not allowed, so I remained standing.

Felipe smiled at me wearily and said, “Darling, our lives are about to get a lot more interesting.”

Before I could respond, the interrogating officer quickly took charge of the situation and all its explanations.

“Ma’am,” he said, “we’ve brought you back here to explain that we will not be allowing your boyfriend to enter the United States anymore. We’ll be detaining him in jail until we can get him on a flight out of the country, back to Australia, since he does have an Australian passport. After that, he won’t be able to come back to America again.”

My first reaction was physical. I felt as if all the blood in my body had instantly evaporated, and my eyes refused to focus for a moment. Then, in the next instant, my mind kicked into action. I revved through a fast summation of this sudden, grave crisis. Starting long before we had met, Felipe had made his living in the United States, visiting several times a year for short stays, legally importing gemstones and jewelry from Brazil and Indonesia for sale in American markets. America has always welcomed international businessmen like him; they bring merchandise and money and commerce into the country. In return, Felipe had prospered in America. He’d put his kids (who were now adults) through the finest private schools in Australia with income that he’d made in America over the decades. America was the center of his professional life, even though he’d never lived here until very recently. But his inventory was here and all his contacts were here. If he could never come back to America again, his livelihood was effectively destroyed. Not to mention the fact that I lived here in the United States, and that Felipe wanted to be with me, and that-because of my family and my work-I would always want to remain based in America. And Felipe had become part of my family, too. He’d been fully embraced by my parents, my sister, my friends, my world. So how would we continue our life together if he were forever banned? What would we do? (”Where will you and I sleep?” go the lyrics to a mournful Wintu love song. “At the down-​turned jagged rim of the sky? Where will you and

I sleep?”)

“On what grounds are you deporting him?” I asked the Homeland Security officer, trying to sound authoritative.

“Strictly speaking, ma’am, it’s not a deportation.” Unlike me, the officer didn’t have to try sounding authoritative; it came naturally. “We’re just refusing him entrance to the United States on the grounds that he’s been visiting America too frequently in the last year. He’s never overstayed his visa limits, but it does appear from all his comings and goings that he’s been living with you in Philadelphia for three-​month periods and then leaving the country, only to return to the United States again immediately after.”

This was difficult to argue, since that was precisely what Felipe had been doing.

“Is that a crime?” I asked.

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly, or no?”

“No, ma’am, it’s not a crime. That’s why we won’t be arresting him.

But the three-​month visa waiver that the United States government offers to citizens of friendly countries is not intended for indefinite consecutive visits.”

“But we didn’t know that,” I said.

Felipe stepped in now. “In fact, sir, we were once told by an immigration officer in New York that I could visit the United States as often as I liked, as long as I never overstayed my ninety-​day visa.”

“I don’t know who told you that, but it isn’t true.”

Hearing the officer say this reminded me of a warning Felipe had given me once about international border crossings: “Never take it lightly, darling. Always remember that on any given day, for any given reason whatsoever, any given border guard in the world can decide that he does not want to let you in.”

“What would you do now, if you were in our situation?” I asked. This is a technique I’ve learned to use over the years whenever I find myself at an impasse with a dispassionate customer service operator or an apathetic bureaucrat. Phrasing the sentence in such a manner invites the person who has all the power to pause for a moment and put himself in the shoes of the person who is powerless. It’s a subtle appeal to empathy. Sometimes it helps. Most of the time, to be honest, it doesn’t help at all. But I was willing to try anything here.

“Well, if your boyfriend ever wants to come back into the United States again, he’s going to need to secure himself a better, more permanent visa. If I were you, I would go about securing him one.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “What’s the fastest way for us to secure him a better, more permanent visa?”

The Homeland Security officer looked at Felipe, then at me, then back at Felipe. “Honestly?” he said. “The two of you need to get married.”