Joshua Sur­tees

The ba­by stops wail­ing, mo­men­tar­i­ly. His moth­er, twice the size of the fa­ther, rocks him as gen­tly as pos­si­ble in her gar­gan­tu­an arms. Her vice-like grip soothes him. The im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer calls out a Chi­nese-sound­ing name for the third time. Peo­ple gig­gle. Even­tu­al­ly a Chi­nese fam­i­ly de­cides it must be their name and hur­ry for­ward, slight­ly em­bar­rassed. A young man with tat­toos speaks Span­ish to his girl­friend who drapes her arms around his neck, vis­i­bly in love.

The gar­gan­tu­an Guyanese woman walks away. The ba­by screams un­til she re­turns. The wed­ding ring on her sausage-like fin­ger is ba­si­cal­ly a man's signet ring. I look at her scrawny hus­band and think of the Stabroek News sto­ry about the 76-year-old Guyanese granny who bat­tered her 45-year-old boyfriend to death.

I con­tin­ue guess­ing the na­tion­al­i­ties around me. I love this game. It's like a Unit­ed Na­tions Guess Who? Guyanese and Venezue­lans abound. I ob­serve pass­ports. Re­pub­lic of Ghana, Re­pub­lic of In­dia. Even­tu­al­ly Ger­many then USA. The big boys have ar­rived.

All, no doubt, have fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ries. I won­der if they ever imag­ined be­ing im­mi­grants. I nev­er did. Sit­ting here at the Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, it's the first time I re­alise my sta­tus. In Eng­land I'm an em­i­grant. In Trinidad an im­mi­grant. Both are politi­cised terms.

"Any idea how long the wait will be?" I en­quire. We've been here since 7 am. Two hours lat­er all we've ac­com­plished is hand­ing in our ap­point­ment let­ters.

"Take a seat, please," the of­fi­cer snaps, "I don't know how long the wait is." I re­frain from cussing.

A door slams and a Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tion drops to the floor. Twelfth Night has passed, per­haps it's an omen.

Oman? Ro­man? She sells Sey­chelles? We've all washed up on the T&T shores. Like flot­sam and jet­sam.

"Anne Frank!" an of­fi­cer calls. Sure­ly not? A mid­dle-aged black woman stands up. The of­fi­cer re­peats it to make sure: "Anne There­sa Frank?" The woman nods.

Muhammed Ali is called next. A Syr­i­an, not the erst­while Cas­sius. Lat­er I google the name and find there is a Muhammed Ali in Trinidad on LinkedIn.

Por­traits of Car­mona and Aun­ty Kam­la gaze down over the lat­est ar­rivals.

Signs say Please Do Not Stand In The Cor­ri­dor and No Hats Al­lowed In The Wait­ing Area. But peo­ple are stand­ing in the cor­ri­dors. And wear­ing hats. Who­ev­er print­ed those signs must be apoplec­tic with rage. I pic­ture them in a back of­fice scream­ing at the CCTV mon­i­tor.

A woman with a T-shirt say­ing "I Feel Sor­ry For Peo­ple Who Don't Know Me," falls asleep on the shoul­der of the stranger next to her. For a coun­try that doesn't get irony, iron­ic T-shirts are sur­pris­ing­ly pop­u­lar.

A Malaysian man makes notes in a study book about mol­e­c­u­lar bi­ol­o­gy. Not all im­mi­grants are needy and des­ti­tute. Many are here be­cause the coun­try needs them. The health and me­dia in­dus­tries need CSME skilled work­ers.

Three hours pass and very lit­tle hap­pens. I have no wifi or 3G. I be­gin draft­ing this col­umn on my phone. This is the mod­ern world that I've learned about.

The tor­por briefly lifts when Bun­ji Gar­lin walks in. Peo­ple mur­mur ex­cit­ed­ly but re­spect his pri­va­cy. Just one au­to­graph re­quest. He waits in line like the rest of us.

Five hours in the ex­cite­ment has well and tru­ly worn off. Bun­ji left ages ago. I haven't eat­en and my blad­der is about to burst. I don't want to leave my spot in case they call my name and I miss it. An Amer­i­can woman hands out lol­lipops to chil­dren as re­wards for pa­tience. One hun­dred and 35 peo­ple have ar­rived ac­cord­ing to the tick­et­ing sys­tem but we 7 am folk are still here, ques­tion­ing the sys­tem, if there is one at all.

I ask an of­fi­cer but he has no time to ex­plain.

"Do you have an ap­point­ment to­day?" he barks.

"Well, yes..."

"Then wait to be called."

Af­ter sev­en hours I am called. Once in the room the woman stamps my pass­port and tells me how I could have avoid­ed all this at the air­port. I scream in­ter­nal­ly.

Lat­er my land­lord gives me sage ad­vice, "In Trinidad, nev­er hus­tle of­fi­cials. You'll wait longer. If you get through, even­tu­al­ly, that's the main thing, don't watch how long it took."

I think of the young Don Cor­leone ar­riv­ing in New York in The God­fa­ther Part II and in my head I hatch a plan to etch some­thing on the Port-of-Spain light­house: "Give me your tired, your poor, your hud­dled mass­es yearn­ing to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teem­ing shore. Send these, the home­less, tem­pest-tost to me, I lift my lamp be­side the gold­en door!"

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