In a new story, Éilís Ní Dhuibhneresponds to Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as part of a continuing series in association with Amnesty International to mark the 60th anniversary of the declaration
ARRIVALS. The door slides back like a curtain on a stage to reveal the travellers, with their bags and trolleys. Funny hats. Or power suits.Some faces smile, prepared to meet the faces they will meet. Some faces are surprised, some impatient. Nobody's waiting for them. Fiona could never be bored imagining the stories of the people who flow across that threshold. Out of the luggage area and into Ireland.
Soon, her husband will walk through the gate straight into her arms. He landed 12 minutes ago. She pictured him coming down the steps from the plane, his face lifting to the pleasure of fresh air. His feet have already touched Irish ground - at least, an Irish apron. Now he's probably pushing his way along the long, narrow passage that leads to the passport cubicle. Then the escalator to the luggage carousels. How long he'll be in there is anybody's guess.
After half an hour Fiona stops studying the incoming passengers. She couldn't care less now about their stories. That's a game for when you're happy. Now the only story that interests her is her own. Her eyes are fixed on the gate. It opens and closes. Opens and closes. Each opening is a squeezing of her heart and each closing a disappointment of escalating bitterness.
A few facts about Fiona, Max. The situation.
Forename: Fiona. Surname: Murphy. Date of birth: 1975. Sex: F. Nationality: Irish. Place of Birth: Dublin. Visas: Kerana, Nigeria, Kenya, India, USA, China.
Max. Surname: Ketera. Date of birth: 1980. Nationality: Keranian. Place of birth: Kerana. Sex: F. Visa: Germany.
He's black. It doesn't say it on his passport. And she is white, although that is not mentioned on the passport either. Passports don't tell us very much.
Such as, that Fiona is smart and attractive. Even now, when her belly juts before her like the bonnet of a car. She steers from above, behind the windscreen of her spectacles. "I've changed my name," she says. "Meet Volkswagen Murphy." She says this to Max, and to people in the coronary unit where she works as a staff nurse and where most of the patients are in love with her. Fiona, they call. Fiona, have you got a minute, love. Fiona is really good, they say, loudly, to their visitors, so that everyone, especially the nurses they don't like, can hear. Fiona is an angel.
Some of the juniors call her Hitler behind her back.
But nobody calls her Volkswagen. Not even Max, who is usually fond of a joke.
She met Max when she went to Africa on voluntary service overseas two years ago. Most of her friends had married, all of a sudden. It was nothing but weddings. The weddings were sparkling affairs, but married life is exhausting. You can only get a house about 60 miles from where you work so you've much less time with your partner than you had before - marriage is a hobby for weekends. And the children! As soon as they're born you start wishing they'd grow up and leave home. The creche at six in the morning. The expense. A nightmare. But the funny thing is, everyone went on marrying anyway. There was no stopping them.
Fiona decided it was not for her. Simultaneously, she decided the time had come for some sort of great change. A new continent seemed desirable.
And there in Africa: Max. She fell in love. They married. Max is a proper husband, not some sort of consolation prize for the older woman.
Handsome, educated, with a visa to study in Germany. A scholarship - he's on the last leg of a PhD in engineering in Bayreuth. And he loves music and plays the piano. A serious instrument. Actually, they share an interest in opera. Max is trying to get tickets for The Ring in August. (Almost impossible, but he has contacts.) So he isn't after her money or EU status, nothing like that. Anyway, getting married was her idea - it was perfectly okay with Max.
They married six months ago, when she was already pregnant. Then she had to return to her job in Dublin, and he to Bayreuth. They were to meet at weekends. But she had high blood pressure; the doctor warned her not to travel. Max has not come over until now. The scholarship doesn't stretch far, and he's busy, trying to finish his thesis. They e-mail, they Skype, she's not worried about his commitment.
They're married after all.
That is, in Africa, they are married.
Not in Ireland. In Ireland, some foreign marriages are valid and some are not, and theirs falls into the latter category. That's what they told her when she rang to ask how Max could go about applying for Irish citizenship when he'd finished the PhD.
"It's complicated," the young man had said, hesitantly, as if he was sorry about the laws of the land he served.
"But I thought if you were married to an Irish citizen, you were entitled to Irish citizenship?" She was still able to be indignant.
"That's right," he said. "It will probably be okay." There was a pause. "Write to us." During the pause her spirits sank. When a kind young civil servant tells you he is sure it will probably be okay and pauses it means he knows it is probably going to be a disaster but he hasn't the heart to break the bad news to you.
That he'll send in the post.
"The marriage contracted abroad is not valid in this jurisdiction."
Max was like the boy in the Civil Service.
We can marry here, he said. Meaning in Germany.
He asked somebody. Yes. They could. They would have to apply for permission. Wait. Then, if the application were successful, Fiona would have to be resident in the country for three months. Then they could marry. And it would probably be valid.
If all went well. (Max left out some bits; it was so complicated.)
She couldn't do it. Her job, her blood pressure. Maybe if they'd had pots of money she could have resigned. Taken the boat and train to Germany.
If you have pots of money, you can find the ways around the law, and marry whoever you like wherever you like.
If you don't, you have to stick to the rules.
Hours pass.
The mobile rings.
I am in Clobber Eel.
Clobber Eel?
A stranger takes the phone. A flat Garda voice says these two words: Clover Hill.
Then Max is back on the line.
They're keeping me overnight and deporting me in the morning.
He doesn't sound all that worried.
He's not in a cell, but a grey room with a table and two chairs, like those rooms they have for interrogating suspects in detective dramas on TV. He looks relaxed. But it may be just his clothes that make him look like that. Jeans and a red hoodie. Trainers. The door is locked behind them, and there is a guard in the room.
When she sees him, she realises he is the only person she wants to be with. Everyone else is a waste of her time. Her friends, her patients. A waste of time.
They kiss. There is no law against that, apparently.
And then
Fucking eejit
is what she says.
Why did he believe the marriage was valid? Why did he believe his German study visa would grant him automatic entry to Ireland? Did he ever check anything? Did he know his arse from his elbow? Did she have to investigate everything, make all the phone calls, learn the law of three countries, as well as have the bloody baby?
Max doesn't defend himself. Or remind her that the marriage was her idea in the first place. He listens patiently while she wastes the precious half hour, giving out.
The guard on duty expresses no surprise. He's used to this. It won't stop him wanting to marry either. He's already engaged to a girl from Cork. Which is okay. You're allowed to marry them.
It will be okay, Max says, on the phone, the next day. I will sort it out, do not worry.
That's a thing men say to keep women calm. It will be okay. They'd say that if you were jumping off a sinking ship into the freezing ocean, with suitcase in your hand and a baby in a sling around your neck. You have to wonder why anybody wants to marry such people.
**
She is in Holles Street.
Nothing is on her mind now. Except the pain and the fear . . . It is okay, they keep reassuring her when she asks. Everything is fine. The pain comes and goes and comes and goes. Astonishing how awful it is. It is not like that clever saying, like shitting a pumpkin. It's like nothing on earth except itself.
A hundred years pass.
Hubby, the nurse says, with a big smile.
Hubby.
They talk like that here. Not like coronary where mostly you speak ordinary English.
The midwife rushes over and sticks something into Fiona. Her fingers.
She takes them out again, wags them in the air, triumphantly.
We're nearly there!
Then Max appears, above her. He seems to have floated down from the ceiling.
This time he's in a suit, white shirt, red and blue striped tie. She can't see his feet.
He kisses her.
"Everything will be okay," he's laughing.
A civil servant in Germany said his visa should be valid for visiting another EU country. Just go back. Try again. He looked carefully at Max.Wear a suit, he said. Do not wear blue jeans. He looked down. Or trainers.
He can stay for three days. For now "it's okay", he says, leaving out some bits, as she is pulled under a crashing wave of pain. "And great news!"
He pulls something out of his pocket. He waves two bits of paper in the air. They are like little wings.
"I got them! I got them!"
Her heart leaps. Hope bounces into the room.
Tickets for Wagner. For Tristan and Isolde, not for The Ring.
Fiona shakes her head, as much as you can shake a head when you're supine.
Only a man, only the kind of man she would go and fall in love with, could think of Wagner at a time like this. Unbelievable.
But she still wants to be his lawful wedded wife.
Soon after that, a new sort of pain begins.
And soon after that, the gate opens.
A head comes out. Followed by a small thin body.
A new face stares at the waiting faces. A new mouth opens. And screams so loud you'd think the windows of the hospital would shatter and the glass fly out like a thousand silver stars all over the susurrating streets of Dublin.
ARTICLE 16
1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.
This is one in a series of 30 stories and essays by leading Irish writers marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The series was created by Sean Love for Amnesty International and continues next Saturday. www.amnesty.ie