City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran

by Ramita Navai

  Fatemeh’s attitude to divorce had also changed. While the residents of the Meydan thought the moral fabric of their world was made of stronger stuff than in the rest of the city, they soon learnt they were wrong. Batool Khanoum’s divorce seemed to have opened the floodgates. Already four young couples in their area had separated. Over the last ten years, divorces have tripled in Iran, with one out of every five marriages ending – the number is even higher in Tehran.

  From thinking it was a shameful act, even Fatemeh had considered divorce. She had been looking for her birth certificate to replace a lost identity card. They were usually kept in a shoebox under the bed, but they were not there. As she pushed the box back in its place, she felt it knock something. She squeezed her leg under the gap and slid it out. Another shoebox, one she had never seen. Inside were old photographs and a brown envelope. Inside that, a stash of passports. Fatemeh flicked through the pages. She sighed. Haj Agha’s journey of spiritual enlightenment was stamped across the pages in colourful visas. One of them was a recurring bright-red crest. Could this be Iraq, or Syria? She squinted at the strange blue writing on it. She held the passport closer. It was not Arabic. Definitely not Arabic. Without her realizing, her heart had started to race. She scrambled for her reading glasses. The blurred picture snapped into sharp focus; a winged demon with cock’s feet stared back at her. Beside him words in English, which she could not read. She frantically turned the pages, and on every single one the scarlet demon pounced up at her. A neighbour three streets down knew how to read English, but she had a feeling she should ask a stranger. She slumped her body next to the scattered papers and passports beside her as she considered what she should do. Somayeh walked into the room to find her mother splayed on the floor like a bear on its back.

  ‘I’m fine, I’m fine, just had a dizzy turn, nothing serious,’ Fatemeh panted. Now she was clambering up to get her chador. She ran out of the door and headed straight towards the bazaar, to a daroltarjomeh translation office. She thrust Haj Agha’s passport into the hands of a young man sitting at a computer.

  ‘Son, read this for me. And I want the dates.’

  The young man paused.

  ‘KINGDOM OF THAILAND. Type of Visa: Tourist.’ He read out some dates, converting them from Gregorian to Persian. They exactly matched Haj Agha’s pilgrimage trips. But he had not been in Karbala or Mecca. Or Damascus. Or Mashhad. He had been in Thailand. Wherever that was. She racked her brain to remember history lessons at school, berating herself for never paying attention. As far as she could remember, Hossein’s crusade had not ventured to Thailand. Were there Muslims in Thailand? She was not sure. Even if there was a remote Shia shrine in this strange land, one thing was clear: Haj Agha had been telling lies. She tried to pay the translator, but he would not accept her money. She hurried out into the masses swirling around the bazaar, cutting across the backstreets to Vali Asr. This was an emergency. She needed to speak to Mullah Ahmad. For more sensitive matters, Fatemeh would see him in person. She was still not sure exactly what kind of deceit she was dealing with, but it was clear this was not a subject for a four-minute reading on the telephone. She called Mullah Ahmad’s mobile and told him she was on her way.

  She took the bus the length of Vali Asr. This was her favourite journey in the city, and usually she would enjoy watching the shops and restaurants pass by. But today she was too distracted to notice anything; she prayed under her breath as her mind ran through hundreds of possibilities. She got off at the very end of Vali Asr, where it opens its mouth and spews cars and taxis and buses and people into Tajrish Square. Mullah Ahmad lived in a large apartment on the second floor of a shabby building just off the square. His home was a shrine to mismatching styles and colours: reproduction French Versailles furniture stuffed next to seventies leather sofas; modern Ikea shelves and mass-produced tapestries hung on greying walls. There were the usual Iranian touches: crystal, gilding, marble and chandeliers of varying sizes and sparkle that hung in every room, including the small kitchen; Persian carpets everywhere, hanging on the walls and draped over armchairs.

  Mullah Ahmad’s wife opened the door in a white flowered chador, under which she was wearing dark blue slacks and a loose knitted sleeveless cardigan over a shirt.

  ‘He told me it was an emergency, I’ll get you in next,’ she whispered in Fatemeh’s ear as she ushered her into the living room, past Mullah Ahmad’s teenage son who was wearing Levi’s and texting on his iPhone.

  Fatemeh was not the only one with a crisis on her hands. A middle-aged socialite with a facelift and a Hermès scarf was snivelling into a tissue. A teenage girl from Shahrak-e Gharb with Chanel sunglasses propped on her head stared sullenly through the net curtains. A wrinkled woman in a black chador was wringing her hands and praying.

  When Mullah Ahmad got excited, he had a tendency to shout. As Mullah Ahmad’s wife served his waiting clients with tea and assorted Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolates from a silvery tray, her husband’s voice boomed out of his office.

  ‘Why aren’t you married? At thirty-nine that is an absolute disaster! Your parents have given you a terrible name and this has obviously affected your whole life. You’re going to have to change it straight away!’

  It was Fatemeh’s turn. Mullah Ahmad was sitting in a gleaming black swivel chair, surrounded by shelves lined with books. Cornices in pastel shades topped the walls of his office. A bleached-out picture of Mecca in the seventies and framed black and white photographs of his ancestors looking glum hung above him, next to a huge poster of the black-turbaned Ayatollah Boroujerdi, a dissident cleric who believed in the separation of religion and politics and who was imprisoned in 2006 for speaking out against the Supreme Leader’s absolute power.

  Mullah Ahmad was wearing his fine grey robe, his white amameh turban and leather slippers. Three chunky silver Islamic rings – one with a large burnt-ochre carnelian, the most important gemstone in Islam, on which was inscribed a verse from the Koran – adorned his long, feminine fingers, giving him a rock-star edge.

  ‘My goodness Fatemeh Khanoum, you’ve got so fat!’ He prac-tically shrieked when he noticed the extra ten kilograms Fatemeh had been lugging round her midriff.

  ‘It’s true, I haven’t been taking care of myself Haji as I haven’t been very happy.’

  ‘A blind person who sees is better than a seeing person who is blind,’ said Mullah Ahmad. Mullah Ahmad was not easy to understand, not least because of his thick Azeri Turkic accent and his propensity to break into Koranic verse. His terrible short-term memory did not help matters.

  Fatemeh launched into her findings. The details tumbled out in a torrent of dates, holy sites and sobbing.

  ‘As long as I live I will never call him Haj Agha again!’ She fished out the evidence from her bag. Mullah Ahmad flicked through Haj Agha’s passports.

  ‘But why does he go to Thailand? There are no Shia tombs of our beloved imams, God rest their souls, or of any of their relatives in Thailand, are there Haji?’

  Mullah Ahmad was lost for words. Which did not happen often. He knew what men did when they went to Thailand. Only last month one of his flock had confessed to him an addiction to Thai prostitutes. He had prescribed a strict regimen of prayers, which included reading the Ayatul Kursi – the Throne verse in the Koran, believed to protect against evil – five times at dawn and five times at dusk.

  ‘How come you are so unsuccessful in life, for this is truly a terrible husband!’ Mullah Ahmad thought that was a good way to ease into telling Fatemeh the truth about what men did in Thailand. He had judged it well. Fatemeh was very pleased with the answer. Not least because it was easy to understand but, more importantly, it was what she had suspected for a long time. She was unsuccessful in life. A loveless marriage, a small apartment in which she would most probably die, a lazy son and a useless son-in-law.

  ‘Haji I don’t know, I pray, I give alms to the poor, I do all my Muslim duties. Maybe it is my fault. Mrs Katkhodai’s doctor told her that h
er mental attitude was responsible for her life and that her future was in her own hands.’

  ‘What heresy! A sword in the hands of a drunken slave is less dangerous than science in the hands of the immoral!’ he said, breaking into a verse of poetry and a quote from the Koran. Fatemeh squinted as she concentrated on decrypting his words.

  ‘Haji, why has he been going to this country?’

  ‘Fatemeh Khanoum, are you fulfilling your marital duties to your husband?’

  ‘He never wants to do it. I tell you, I am fighting lust the whole time, because he shows no interest.’ The mullah shook his head.

  ‘I will not lie to you Fatemeh. There is only one reason why a man would go on so many trips to Thailand. They go for zanaa-yeh vijeh.’ The mullah was using the euphemism for ‘prostitute’ that the government had recently adopted: ‘special’ women.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Thailand is a country of prostitutes. All the women there are for sale. I have seen this before. You must take immediate action. For this crime is very serious.’

  ‘My husband’s been sleeping with whores.’ She whispered the words as she hung her head. A conversation with Mullah Ahmad was all it had taken for her life to vanish in front of her eyes. Why had God allowed this to happen to her? Few of the women in her circle talked of infidelity; it was a taboo subject that was only discussed as gossip about other people. Nobody ever admitted it happened to them. She felt stupid for having trusted that Haj Agha had been faithful to her. For having believed he was a Godly person. For having believed his spirituality had driven him to his countless pilgrimages. And most of all she felt stupid for having thrown such lavish parties in his honour, not for having paid his respects to God and the prophets but for having been a sex tourist. Mullah Ahmad could not bring himself to look at her; the pain of others affected him, even if he did not often see it.

  ‘My dear, just as those who are addicted to opium cannot help themselves, your husband is in the same position. He needs your help. Do not forget that Allah is forgiving,’ he quoted from the Koran; ‘Do not despair of God’s mercy; He will forgive you all your sins…For Allah will change evil into good. Allah is most forgiving and merciful.’

  Fatemeh did not feel forgiving. She could not help but think of Batool Khanoum and her divorce. Although her mehrieh was worth nothing now, and she had no idea how she would be able to survive on her own.

  ‘Haji, does the Koran say I should stay with this man, what do you see?’

  Mullah Ahmad usually refused to divine for divorce, but as this was an emergency case and Fatemeh was a loyal customer, he made an exception. He closed his eyes and whispered a prayer under his breath as he flicked open the holy book. He read out an Arabic verse then translated its meaning for Fatemeh.

  ‘Whatever happens, you must stay with him. You must teach him truth.’

  Fatemeh’s heart sank. They said the final salavaat prayer together: May God bless the Prophet Mohammad and his family. She got up to face her husband.

  Haj Agha was watching television when she got home. She threw his passports at him.

  ‘You mother-fucking sister-pimping bastard cunt!’

  Haj Agha blinked. He had never heard her utter words like that in his life. He blinked again, opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out, so he shut it. Fatemeh screamed as she had never screamed before. Soon enough Haj Agha found his own voice too. He went through the usual cycle of emotions dispensed by the guilty. Anger, denial and counter-accusations. Fatemeh demanded a divorce. She told him she would tell the judge he had been unfaithful, she would use Mullah Ahmad and his passports as evidence. And he could rest assured that the whole neighbourhood would know he had never set foot in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in his life. That was when Haj Agha changed tack. He started sobbing and begging for forgiveness. Porn was to blame. It was not his fault. Agha Mehdi had given him a DVD and he had got addicted from the first hit. He respected his wife so much he could not bear to ask her to do some of the things he had seen in the films, that is why he had spared her the humiliation and gone to Thailand, where all the women are whores.

  After five weeks Fatemeh forgave him, mostly because she had to. She did not tell a soul as both their reputations would have been ruined. The episode had its upside. Haj Agha now darted around her like a manservant. Somayeh had even noticed how uxorious her father had become and she had wondered, hopefully, if old age wore men down into good husbands.

  When Somayeh had told her mother everything, Fatemeh knew then that she was not going to allow the same fate to befall her daughter.

  ‘You must get a divorce,’ were the first words that came out of her mouth.

  ‘The shame of it! What will everyone think? Our aberoo will be gone, and I’ll be all alone, no one will want me.’

  ‘Forget about aberoo! I don’t give two hoots what people think. Amir-Ali will never change, and you’ll regret it. Haj Agha and I will support you, we will all hold our heads up high, you have done nothing wrong.’ Somayeh was amazed. She had never heard her mother talk like this. Even more shocking was that Haj Agha had heard every word and he was agreeing with Fatemeh.

  ‘A divorce is the only way you can be happy,’ he said with a smile on his face. Even an estekhareh by Mullah Ahmad confirmed that divorce was the best option for Somayeh.

  Somayeh refused to see Amir-Ali and she refused to talk to him apart from one telephone call to request the divorce. He agreed almost immediately, scared that Somayeh would go to the police, or tell the judge about his stash of porn films, or that he had been unfaithful, even though the latter would be hard to prove as four (Muslim) male witnesses would be required.

  By the time word spread of Somayeh’s impending divorce, all the neighbourhood, including a long line of relatives, paid her a visit to make sure no salacious detail would be kept hidden. Tact and sensitivity are not highly prized traits in the Meydan, and so everyone offered their advice and opinion. The women were split between those who thought she should divorce Amir-Ali and those who thought she should stay with him. But there was one thing they nearly all agreed on.

  ‘Nobody will want a divorcee with a child. You’re ruining your chances of another good marriage, just leave Mona with Zahra and Mohammad,’ said Auntie Ameneh. On this point, Somayeh would not relent; she would fight to have her child. By law, Mona could remain with her until she was seven years old or until she remarried, at which point a father would then have full custody rights. But Somayeh knew that Mona impeded Amir-Ali’s playboy lifestyle and that his parents were too guilty to request custody.

  The judge took pity on Somayeh and the proceedings were over in less than half an hour. She went straight to the mahzar notary office to sign and register her divorce papers. The official there had been conducting dozens of marriages on Skype between long-distance lovers; Iranians were getting around strict visa controls without even spending money on air fares for costly weddings, with the groom’s only presence in the room being a voice from a laptop.

  When Somayeh got home, she dropped to her knees and prayed: please God, don’t let me feel lust. She feared it would be a long time before she would be married again and she did not want to let God down.

  *

  It was a bright spring day when Somayeh and her brother Mohammad-Reza walked up Vali Asr, under the green canopy of the sycamore trees. Since she had given to birth Mona, Somayeh rarely got the chance to visit Vali Asr, so she walked slowly, trying to make the journey last. They stopped outside a glitzy furniture boutique that was sandwiched between an office block and an old bakery with bags of flour piled up along its dirty walls; they gazed inside at a giant china cheetah and an eau-de-Nil urn decorated with gold-winged cherubs. They walked past a group of Afghan construction workers in frayed clothes sitting cross-legged on a torn cloth they had laid out on a patch of elevated pavement between the trees and next to the joob, eating bread and carrot jam. They looked into Somayeh’s favourite clothes shops, and just near V
anak Square they walked into an orphanage. They were here to deliver the fresh chopped meat they were carrying in two plastic bags. It was from a lamb that had been slaughtered a few hours earlier. Somayeh was fulfilling her nazr prayer, the prayer she had made that had helped her unlock Amir-Ali’s briefcase the year before. Somayeh had God and Imam Zaman to thank for her new life. A life free of Amir-Ali’s lies. She had made a promise to God and Imam Zaman to sacrifice a lamb every year for the poor. A promise she would keep until death.

  And she did.

  three

  AMIR

  Haft-e Tir, midtown Tehran, March 2013

  The words punched through the receiver: slow, staccato and deliberate.

  ‘I’m an old friend of your father. I need to meet you.’

  Silence. The call was from a strange number; it was not a Tehran code. The voice did not wait for an answer.

  ‘I will see you tomorrow at two o’clock outside the Al Javad mosque in Haft-e Tir. I know what you look like.’ It sounded like an order, although there was no menace in the elderly voice. Amir was intrigued.

  He arrived early, as was his habit, emerging out of the pyramid-shaped mouth of the Haft-e Tir Square subway station. Haft-e Tir had become one of the first stops on the northbound ascent to wealth and status. Working-class Tehranis who made any money moved here from south Tehran, and so the fabric of Haft-e Tir had become a little coarser than before, a little more religious, but as diverse as ever with its Armenian quarter.