Almost two hours later a soldier approaches me, casually slapping against her leg a passport that I assume is mine. She is tall and thick, and the scars around her mouth signal that she once had a cleft palate. I also can’t help but notice that she is beautiful. The sight of an attractive woman in a military uniform and combat boots is somewhat jarring. She stands over me, unsmiling. She offers no greeting. Instead she asks, “You’ve been to Lebanon?”

“Yes,” I respond.

“Why were you there?”

“For a wedding,” I say.

“Where in Lebanon?”

“Beirut.” Beirut is the right answer. If I said anywhere south of the city—the south is Hezbollah territory—I likely wouldn’t be allowed in.

She flips through my passport. “Wait here,” she says, then rushes off. I wait, again, as instructed. I have little choice anyway. I watch groups of soldiers chatting, drinking Cokes, eating Magnum candy bars, and laughing while guns hang lazily from their chests. They all look very young. They’re mostly brunettes, like me, with the occasional blond. One soldier catches me staring and I quickly avert my eyes.

The day passes by slowly. With little to focus my attention on, I enter the cycle of hope followed by disappointment, thinking that each person I hear coming around the corner is her. It isn’t—not until late afternoon. By that point I am numb, and the excitement that I anticipated feeling at the sight of her doesn’t come. She is carrying a bottle of water and wiping crumbs off her chin. “Follow me.” She leads me to a white table with soldiers seated around it. One of them is shuffling a deck of cards. He deals them two at a time. Behind them are piles of suitcases, some held together with string or duct tape. “Find yours.”

I frantically search, feeling the pressure of the other soldiers watching me, of the clock ticking. I don’t want to take too long. Finally, I find my suitcase. I bring it to the table, where the soldiers are now all smoking. My soldier looks up at me from her cigarette and the hand she’s been dealt. She puts down the cards and leans her cigarette against the side of a dirty tin ashtray, then gets up and plops my suitcase onto the middle of the table. The other soldiers boo her for interrupting the game, but she ignores them and proceeds to open it.