Mary Morris

Word Count 3,378

On a bright December morning , I’m up early. I have to go get my visa to India. It’s a freezing cold morning and I bundle up. I have a reservation and, surprisingly for me, I arrive on time, only to find a line out the door. I thought the fact that I had a 10:40 a.m. reservation would be relevant, but apparently it is not. The guy before me had a 9:40 a.m. reservation. It’s going to be a long morning and I have to get to work. It is the last few days of the semester.

I’m perhaps fifteenth in line so I think I should go up and tell the Hispanic guard with the walkie talkie and wire in his ear that I have an appointment. I’m not certain that everyone ahead of me does. A woman in a fur coat with a red-dyed fur hat is putting on her mascara behind me and I ask her if she'll hold my place. "I'm not in line," she tells me in a thick Russian accent.

As I approach the guard, a Russian man (the husband of the woman in fur, it turns out) with a lot of dandruff is shouting about not having an appointment but needing a visa. He’s going into a long, complicated story about his documents and why his passport has expired and his need to travel, but the guard will have none of it. "Go to the back of the line, sir."

Just then an elderly Indian man approaches and says that he too has to get a visa and he can't wait. "Do you have a reservation, sir?" the guard asks. The man replies he does not but he requires a visa. "But do you have a reservation?" Once more the man says he does not. This elderly gentlemen who is nicely dressed with a cap on his head begins shouting at the security guard.

The Russian is still trying to explain his problem, but the guard starts shouting back at the Indian gentleman that he needs a reservation. Around me a Sikh in an orange turban yells into his cell phone in a language I don’t recognize. Other people of Indian descent are also on their phones, some crying, some begging for documents from family members. "I need my birth certificate," one girl sobs. "Fax it to me."

The elderly gentleman refuses to take no for an answer, and the guard calls for backup. "I need help down here," he says. A woman appears in some official capacity, and the guard shouts at her in Spanish, "I need someone to tell this asshole to go away." I'm not sure who else in this line understands him, but I do.

Finally the manager of the visa office who looks and acts a bit like a former marine comes outside in his shirtsleeves on a freezing day. "No walk-ins, absolutely no walk-ins. You must have a reservation," he shouts in a distinctly German accent to the angry elderly gentleman and the Russian man who are now both screaming. There’s lots of rumbling from the crowd. Some people leave. Many do not have a reservation. The line shortens. I am making progress. After about half an hour, I am first in line. I am told to turn off my cellphone and prepare my documents, which I do. I feel the tinge of excitement. Soon I will have my visa.

But upstairs there are two more long lines, one that snakes around, and one where you have to wait to get your documents examined. After about fifteen minutes a woman asks me to come up to the front. She looks over everything. “All is in order,” she tells me - except I don’t have enough pages in my passport for the India visa and therefore I am denied.

"What do you mean?"

"You need visa pages in your passport. You have only one page available. You need two."

"But nowhere does it say I need two." I am displaying the sheet of instructions for the India visa that I got off the Internet.

"Well, you do."

This is what I get for traveling so much.

I am told I have to go to the US passport office and there I will be issued new pages or a new passport, depending on what I prefer, but that I have to make an appointment for this and that can take several days (which it does). Before leaving I think I should make another appointment for my visa, but on the way to the computers, I run into the manager who asks me my problem. I am aware of the fact that I am one of the few white people in the room and he hasn’t asked anyone else what their problem is. I make a mental note of this as I explain about my passport pages.

He nods, makes sweeping gesture of the room that is filled with the troubled, turmoiled masses, snaking slowly around in their lines. "Why don't you just mail your application in?"

"Can I?"

"Why would you ever want to come back here again?" The question for him is clearly rhetorical, and I can't help but note the disdain in his voice. His message to me is coded. Because it is clear to him that I am white and educated and many who frequent his establishment were not. I make a mental note that I will not mail my application; I will return in person if I can.

As I walk out, the Hispanic bouncer asks me why I’m leaving so soon. "My passport doesn't have enough pages."

He shakes his head, his voice filled with pity. "That's a bummer," he says.

On the packed subway, heading to Grand Central, I need to write some of this down, but I have nothing to write on. So I take out a piece of paper and try to scribble notes on the pole. A young man asks if I wanted to sit down. "No, thank you. I'm getting off at the next stop."

"But you're trying to write on that pole." I shrug and he holds up his hand to me. Not knowing what else to do, I high five him. He looks a little stunned, then bursts out laughing. "I was holding it up for you to write on it," he says.

As we pull into Grand Central, I wish him a good day. On the train to work I nibble from the snack bag Larry had prepared for me. My purse is always filled with all kinds of things - gloves, water bottles, snacks, pens, life savers. I’m not paying that much attention. I’m reading and nibbling. Then I eat a dog treat. Apparently I also have a bag of these.

I sit back, gazing as the train crosses the Harlem River, a part of my commute to work I always love. It’s a gray day and the river reflects the pewter sky.

*

My new passport arrives with its pristine pages via Federal Express and, as soon as it does, I make an appointment online and march back to Trasvisa for my visa. The lines are, of course, long, but everything is at last in order. Behind me a young couple is heading home to celebrate their engagement. An old woman stands in line with tears in her eyes. Tired masses, huddling, pushing, wanting to get the sticker in their passport that will allow them to cross half the world and go to India. College students about to travel, a businessman with an air of self-importance, stands before me, tapping his papers against the palm of his hand. Perhaps he should have mailed in his work the way the manager had urged me to do.

I have my paperwork in hand. In the space entitled “Profession” I have written, “Writer.” Normally I would not be so bold. I have traveled all over the world and have always, as a precaution, listed my profession as “Teacher.” In the former Soviet Union, in Cuba, in China, I also indicated that I am a teacher. It raises less eyebrows, causes no problems. But this time I don’t want to. Somewhere Toni Morrison wrote that men have no problem calling themselves writers, but that women are less emboldened. So I feel brave. I am going off to write and wander on my own. This time, for this trip, I am proud of myself. I am a writer and that is what I put down on my visa application.

When I reach the front of the line, I turn in my paperwork. The woman looks it over. “All right,” she tells me. “It looks like everything is here.” She tells me to return the next day and pick up my visa. On Monday I leave for India, and my excitement is palpable. It is done. I am almost ready to leave. Now I can focus my attention on packing, on research, going through my checklist. I am trying to ignore the fact that I feel a soreness in my throat. I cannot get sick, I tell myself. I am going to push this thought away. I start drinking hot liquids and swallowing tablets of Vitamin C.

Thursday is a gray, December day. Not cold really. Just a kind of gray nothing hangs over the city. It is the end of the month. In two days it will be New Year’s Eve. The day after New Year’s Kate will move with Jonathan to D.C. and the day after that I will fly to India. It is all what it is going to be. More or less set in stone.

I return to see many of the same people who were in line with me the day before. The young couple in love, the old woman, the impatient businessman. And I watch as each of their names is called and they disappear out the door, smiles on their faces, travel documents in hand. Their adventure is about to begin. I wait, but my name isn’t called. Still there are others who haven’t received them. I tell myself not to panic. Maybe it’s like when you’re waiting for your luggage and it’s going to be the last bag off the plane. But it is taking a long time. As I sit, I realize I am feeling weak. Almost faint. I have a bottle of juice with me and I sip it. There is a slight stinging I decide to ignore at the back of my throat.

Before long only a few of us remain. This is about when you’d start to fill in the “lost luggage” forms. I take a seat on a plastic chair next to a young man who appears to have been waiting for a while as well. He’s doing the Times crossword puzzle and it’s a Thursday so I am impressed. I decide to make conversation. Perhaps he knows something that I don’t know. “Have you been waiting long?”

He nods. “I had to get some things straightened out.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I’m a photographer and they sent my passport to the media department...” He sees the look on my face. “What profession did you write down?”

I gulp. “Writer.”

He shakes his head. “That might be a problem.” Then he tells me that he had to wait three weeks for his visa, but he was on assignment for a magazine so it didn’t matter. “When do you leave?”

I am about to cry. “Monday.”

His face fills with concern. “You better talk to someone.”

It turns out the young man is correct. My passport and visa request have been sent to the media department of the Indian Consulate and that the problem is no longer being handled by the Tranvisa people. “But I’m not traveling on assignment,” I tell the manager who informs me that there’s nothing he can do. It will take three to four weeks to process my request. “Oh my god, no,” tears swell in my eyes. “What can I do?”

The manager shrugs. “You need to discuss this with consular services.”

I go back to the young man. “You’re right,” I tell him. “I should have written that I was a college professor.” Oh, why didn’t I do this? Why did I let pride get in my way?

“If you work for a college, get someone to write you a letter. The dean of your college or someone who can say that you aren’t a writer, but a professor of writing. Then go to the consulate tomorrow, not to here.” He gives me an encouraging smile which I know he doesn’t mean. “And good luck.”

“Okay, okay,” I tell him, thanking him profusely. I have no idea what I’m going to do, but it seems as if everything around me is falling apart. Did I really want to go to India? Do I really want to look for tigers? For the first time in my life I took travel insurance. I can cancel right now if I want. I call my husband in tears. Then I call Catherine who is already in India. I explain to her that I may not actually be anywhere because of my visa problems.

“Listen,” Catherine tells me, “I know all about these consular services. Bring a fruitcake.”

“A fruitcake?”

“Yes, they love fruitcake.”

I race home to write a letter to my dean. I draft the letter for him. “This is to state that Mary Morris is a tenured professor of creative writing” and that she’s not a real writer at all. Or words to that effect. The dean faxes me a signed copy of the letter. Then I go to the store and buy a fruitcake.

*

On Friday, which is also the last day of 2010, I wake with a sore throat. “I am not getting sick,” I say over and over like a mantra, hoping that my body will believe it as I race out the door and join a seemingly endless line in the damp cold of January in front of the Indian consulate as people await their passports. Everyone has a similar problem. For one reason or another their visa has been denied or they need other official papers. Some need to file marriage papers and one man in front of me, I overhear, needs to ship his father’s corpse.

It turns out that no bags are allowed inside the consulate and also there is nowhere to check them. However a solution has been found for this dilemma. An enterprising young man has set up a private concession across the street. And literally on the street. For ten dollars each he will “check” your bags. That is, he will watch your briefcase, your backpack, anything bigger than a purse as it sits on the sidewalk. Never mind that it is drizzling. That is where all the bags, including my backpack, end up. Unless, of course, you’re one of the poor suckers (the grandmother in her sari, the impoverished-looking young man with his duffel) who don’t happen to have ten dollars on them or an ATM card. They depart, dazed.

I relinquish my backpack, hold on to my papers, including the fax from the dean and a letter of my own explaining my status as a writer and that how this is all a huge mistake, and my fruitcake. Slowly the line seeps into the building where we are squeezed into a small room that resembles the kind of institutional rooms where I imagine family members wait when visiting a prison. I am given some kind of a number with a letter of the alphabet. Clearly there are all kinds of problems being resolved, or just delayed in consular services. Each clerk sits behind a bulletproof glass. I put my fruitcake on the floor, wondering how I can slip it through the slot on the bulletproof glass.

I’m starting to understand why Buddhism took root in India. Because Buddhism teaches you how to sit quietly and be present. And here everyone is sitting with seemingly endless patience. But I’m not like them. I am more like one of the Three Senseless Creatures. The monkey for its greed. The deer for its lovesickness. And the tiger for its wrath. And now my inner tiger is growing as I wait for my name to be called and my passport returned.

I do have a mantra. I got it in the summer of love in 1968 and use it to this day. It’s perhaps the one thing that I’ve never shared it with a soul. Now I’m trying to use it as the minutes tick away. But it’s hopeless. Instead I’m biting my cuticles and sighing deep, exasperated sighs. Doubts run through my mind. Maybe this is a sign. Maybe I don’t really want to go on this trip after all. Maybe I shouldn’t go – no matter what. I am contemplating this as, at last, my number is called.

I race up to the window and show them the fax from the dean, my own letter, a copy of my ticket for Monday. The woman looks it over. I am wondering if it is too late to retrieve my fruitcake and thrust it at her. Her expressionless face scans my materials. “Come back on Monday,” she tells me. “We are closing early today for the New Year.”

On Monday? “My flight is on Monday,” I tell her, fighting back tears.

“Come early,” she says.

I try to argue with her, but it is useless. I slip out, leaving the fruitcake on the floor behind me. I claim my checked bag from the sidewalk where rain drizzles on it, and make my way home.

*

The weekend is a haze. I pack, but only half-heartedly. Probably I’m not going anywhere. Instead I help my daughter as her boyfriend prepares to move her and our dog to D.C. It’s a dreary New Year’s Day. We have parties to go to, but I have the heart for none. Her boyfriend has driven up with a U-Haul van and we help as they stack the bins of clothing, her desk, her bike, two boxes of books, and the dog she’s come to claim as her own. My child, who of course is now a grown woman, is going off into the world. I wish I could be like the grizzly bear who, when the time comes, chases away her cub. But that is not who I am. It is as if she is being wrenched from my arms, and I know that I must let go. When they leave, I rummage around the empty house. I rinse some dishes. I go to her room and start to sweep and clean up. It’s pretty messy so I get the vacuum, the Mr. Clean. I scrub and sweep, but in the end it’s just an empty room.

On Monday morning Larry heads for work and I return to the consulate. We say good-bye, knowing that we will either see in a month or that night for dinner. I really have no idea which it will be. By ten a.m. I am at the consulate - this time with no backpack, no bribes. Just me, cup in hand. The wait is short and I go in right away. Apparently most of the people here last week were heading home for the holidays. Now the place is almost empty.

I sit on a plastic chair, staring at the floor. In four hours I might be heading to the airport or making a shrimp stir-fry. I have no idea. Half an hour later a woman emerges from behind the bulletproof glass. She hands me my passport, visa in place. It is so anti-climatic I hardly know what to say. I gaze at the visa and see that, despite the requirement of two blank pages, the visa has only taken up one. “Have a good trip,” the woman bids me and I’m out the door.

Mary is the author of sixteen books - eight novels, including most recently Gateway to the Moon (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2018), three collections of short stories, and four travel memoirs, including the travel classic, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone (Houghton Mifflin, 1988), and an anthology of travel literature. Her numerous short stories, articles and travel essays have appeared in such places as The Atlantic, Narrative, The Paris Review, and The New York Times.