“You have to leave your passport here for a while,” the clerk said when it was my turn. He was a heavy, tall man with a pock-marked face. “We keep it here until we’ve checked into your record.”

“How long would that take?”

“Oh, a few days.”

“But I want to leave immediately.” I knew a few days meant at least a week.

“That’s how long it takes.”

“But what if there’s an emergency?”

“Do you have a letter from your husband, giving you permission for the trip?”

“Permission? No. I didn’t know anything about that.”

“We’ll need that before we can give you an exit visa.”

“This is ridiculous, crazy,” I said.

“Step aside please so that I can help someone else,” he said, not looking at me.

The young woman standing behind me tapped me on the shoulder. “That’s part of the routine. I had to do that too last time I came. Ask your husband to write a letter saying that you came here with his full knowledge and permission.”

Another Iranian woman standing in line leaned towards me and said quietly, “This is only the beginning of trouble. They’ll make you run around for weeks. I’ve already been here two months longer than I intended.”

“Oh, no.”

“That’s right. They’ll find some excuse to hold you. They have nothing else to do with their time.”

“But my husband is an American and I’m a resident of the United States—Americans don’t write letters of permission for their wives,” I said to the clerk, trying to keep hysteria out of my voice.

“Oh, you should have said so from the beginning.” He picked up my passport and disappeared into a section blocked off by a curtain. He took an inordinately long time and the people in the line began to complain.

Finally he came back and said, “We have no record of your marriage.”

I reached into my pocketbook and took out my marriage certificate.

“Here. It’s a good thing I thought of bringing this with me.”

He took the paper and looked at it for a moment. “Did you register this with the Iranian embassy?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to.”

“We don’t recognize this marriage,” he said, becoming impatient. “It never was registered. We have no record of it.”

“Of course you wouldn’t have a record. Not if I didn’t report it. At any rate, don’t you see that I’m a resident of the United States?”

“What difference does that make?” he said. “You’re still a citizen of this country. If you were married to an American …”

“Look at my last name here—it’s an American name.”

He stared at McIntosh and pronounced it a few times with the accent on the last syllable so that it almost sounded Persian. “That can be any name. Go to the office next door and tell them the situation.” He looked away from me. “Next, please.”

I stepped out of the line, wondering what to do. I decided to try the office he had mentioned.