Copy editors travel too

Oct. 10: UK’s Passport Control, Gare du Nord, Paris

I just survived my first immigration interrogation. It happened like this:

As I approach the passport control window, I notice a Japanese girl sitting off in a corner being scolded by a passport control officer: “… so you better tell the truth.” The officer disappears behind a door, and the girl sighs apprehensively.

“Good thing I’m not her,” I think smugly. A couple moments later, I would eat my words.

I present my landing card to the officer at the window, who begins asking me some routine questions, writing down everything I say. “How long will you be in the U.K.?” Nine weeks, I say. “Doing what?” Backpacking. “For nine weeks?” Yeah. I explain I may be visiting other countries as well. “Who lives at this address?” My friend, I say. “How do you spell your friend’s name? And what’s their number?” I tell her.

I’m getting nervous now. Several people have by now whisked by at the adjacent window. The questions are straying further from normal. But I have nothing to hide, and I have a ticket to prove I’m leaving the U.K., so I try to keep cool.

“And how will you be funding your trip?” With my savings, I say. “How much?” I tell her, rounding up a bit. “And what did you work as?” A copy editor. I wonder now if this is where my story begins to seem fabricated. Copy editors don’t make enough to fund their own backpacking trips in the U.K. for nine weeks …

“Copy editor,” I see the officer writing in her notes on me.

She pulls out a walkie talkie and calls for assistance. There are a couple expletives at this moment that might describe what I’m thinking. I’m not used to this kind of treatment from immigration, and my heart is beating faster now. I imagine a British Jack Bauer being dispatched in my direction.

The officer then pulls me aside and sits me down next to the Japanese girl I saw earlier.

The officer disappears behind a door and returns shortly, accompanied by colleague, this one prettyish, hair tied back. The colleague starts some sort of aggressive, dominatrix number on me. Too bad I’m not into that kind of thing, it’d be awesome.

“What do you study?” the dominatrix asks me. When I was in school, you mean? “Oh, you’re not in school anymore. This Japanese visa goes till ‘08,” she points out, thumbing through my passport.  Damn you, Waseda. “Who’s Devon?” she asks now, referring to the first officer’s notes. My friend, I explain again. “Your girlfriend?” No. “How do you know her?” I met her in Japan three years ago. She’s American. “Oh,” the first one says, scribbling some more. “What do your parents do?” the dominatrix continues. I tell them. “And what do you plan on doing after the U.K.?” Traveling the rest of Europe and returning to the States and getting a job, I say, trying to mask my nervousness and sound like an upstanding citizen.

“In what?” she presses. In urban planning. “What?” Urban planning. “And do you have a ticket back to the States?” No. “Out of Europe?” I fumble through my backpack and show her my ticket to Turkey.

“Well, I’m satisfied,” she finally says to the first officer, and then disappears behind a door.

Is that it? No waterboarding or truth serums? I exhale silently.

I pick up my things and even have a little chitchat with the remaining officer to show they had not broken my spirit. She explains that my length of stay and unemployment is what set them off — they just don’t want me working on their soil. If only they had known how work-averse I am, we both might have saved some time. She explains I am now “coded” so that I’ll receive the same line of questioning when I leave the U.K. Great.

I leave the Japanese girl in her misery now and board the train. It’s another full hour, aided by Iron & Wine, before I fully relax again.