by Jamie Maslin
All in all, it was a splendid afternoon and evening, and when we got back to my hotel, they offered to put me up at their place the next night. I did the refuse three times routine then agreed on the fourth. Things were working out extremely well.
CHAPTER FIVE
German Pop Songs and Chains of Misery
At the bottom of Shahram’s apartment block was an area to leave your shoes before entering the block proper. We added ours to the pile of existing footwear, which belonged to everybody else who had a place here, and went on up in our socks to Shahram’s third-floor apartment. Kimya was waiting for us, and although still wearing a hijab, she had lost the black chador she’d worn the night before and was now dressed in far more Western clothing.
I didn’t make the mistake of trying to shake her hand this time but instead put my hand on my heart and gave a little bow. They had a nice but basic place with loads of furniture that was colored or painted gold. I got my first home-cooked Iranian meal, which was called Ghorme Sabzi and consisted of sautéed herbs mixed with black-eyed beans, dried limes, onions, and succulent lamb, all served with the softest melt-in-the-mouth rice, and a crusty sort of rice fritter. This was accompanied by an interesting Iranian drink of watery milk and dried mint called doogh. Shahram was the epitome of hospitality and kept piling the food on my plate, giving me far more than I could have possibly finished.
“What do you think of Arabs?” Shahram queried from out of nowhere.
“I don’t really know any,” I replied neutrally.
“They are just interested in money, don’t you think?”
I remained neutral on this one and explained that actually a lot of people in the West mistakenly assume that Iranians are Arabs.
The color drained from his face in shock. This was not what he wanted to hear and was probably the equivalent of telling a Frenchman he’s English or vice versa.
“Really?” asked his wife in disbelief. “Why would they think that?”
I did my best to explain that a lot of people, through ignorance, lump all of the Middle East together and don’t have a particularly good sense of geography.
“What do people in England think of Iran?” she asked next. I could have lied and been diplomatic about this one but thought honesty was the best policy and explained that a lot of people, again, through ignorance, thought of Iran in George W. Bush’s terms as a member of the Axis of Evil, full of dangerous terrorists, and that a lot of Western media portrayed the country in this way. I said some people were too shortsighted to differentiate between the people of Iran and its leaders, and told them that I had been warned on several occasions not to visit Iran, and even been told I’d probably get shot here. Both found this very funny at first but then expressed their sadness.
“Yes, I have heard in newspaper, they say we are terrorist,” Shahram said thoughtfully. Things lightened up when Kimya asked what type of music I liked. She hadn’t heard of any of my favorites and probably assumed Britain was years behind Iran on the international music scene. I asked what they liked.
“Michael Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, Chris de Burgh, David Hasselhoff, Ace of Base, and of course Modern Tacking.”
“Modern who?”
“Modern Tacking!” she exclaimed.
“Tacking?”
“Yes, Modern Tacking, you must know!” It took a while before I realized she was saying “talking” but this was no help either. When I told them I’d never heard of a “Modern Talking” they honestly thought I was joking.
“But Modern Talking are the biggest rock group in the world,” Kimya explained.
“Are they Iranian?” I asked.
“No, of course not, they are German!”
“Oh I see,” I said and explained that German music wasn’t particularly popular in Britain or the rest of the English-speaking world—thank God!
“But they sing in English!” she countered, incredulous that I hadn’t heard of them. Shahram got up and returned to the table with a book. On the front cover were two cheesy-looking middle-aged jerks in full leather jackets and pants.
“It is English to Persian translation of the most beautiful songs of Modern Tacking,” he explained.
Kimya chipped in with, “Yes, it is very beautiful words, like poetry, like our great poet Hafez.”
I took a look at the book while Shahram slipped on a cassette tape. The lyrics were inspired, like Wordsworth, Keats, or Byron, but set to an eighties electro-pop disco beat. The words dripped with emotion and grace.
Think of something freaky in a crazy form
As long as I don’t have to put my pants back on
She’s the girl I never had; she’s the girl of my dreams
A body like a Lamborghini covered in jeans
I couldn’t believe they hadn’t cracked the U.K. or U.S. market!
We left their apartment with Modern Talking ringing in our ears and set off on our second evening of sightseeing. Our first stop was the Tabriz museum on Imam Khomeini Ave. Immediately on walking in, I was drawn to a massive hunk of black volcanic glass called obsidian, which was on display just inside the entrance. Next to it were some arrowheads made of the same material. Having done a couple of flint knapping courses, I knew a bit about this and had the pleasure of sounding all scientific and knowledgeable for once.
“Obsidian,” I stated for Shahram and Kimya in my best professor-like voice, “produces the sharpest edge known to man, which is some five hundred times sharper than the very sharpest steel scalpel.”
In fact, surgeons have even made blades from it, as it will slice through human flesh far easier than a metal scalpel. It is so sharp that on a cellular level a blade made of obsidian is capable of slicing between cells as opposed to tearing them apart as a steel scalpel does. And the sharper the cut, the less the scarring, and the faster an incision will heal. I finished up by telling them that under high magnification the edge of a steel scalpel blade appears serrated, whereas an obsidian blade still looks smooth.
I felt all clever and learned as I recalled all this, and both looked suitably impressed. It was, however, the last exhibit I knew remotely anything about, so I read the English labels on all the rest. The museum had some interesting artifacts from regional excavations, including, amongst many other things, silverware from the Sassanid period (AD 224-637), drinking vessels from the Achaemenid period (550-330 BC), a vast collection of ancient coins, some beautiful bronzes from Iran’s Lorestan province, and Shahram’s clear favorite, a big collection of nasty-looking swords and daggers.
Also of interest were two skeletons called “the lovers” that had been excavated side by side. But the real highlight for me was an exhibition of the best sculptures I’ve ever seen in my life. They were made out of some sort of metallic material by a local, contemporary sculptor named Ahad Hosseini and were exceptionally striking. Most showed human figures in tormented states of one kind or another and were rather depressing, but all were hard-hitting.
The names of the sculptures included Anxiety, Racial Discrimination , Chains of Misery, Population Growth, Hunger, Five Masters of Death, The Miserables, Autumn of Life, and the worst and best of all, Political Prisoners, which depicted a group of men in a cage. One was partially beheaded, another was attached to a skewer hanging from the ceiling, while another was cramped into the fetal position inside a safe-like box with spikes protruding from inside, and yet another was screaming in sheer terror. It was scary as hell to think that these things actually happen. It was the antithesis of all the arty-farty impressionistic crap you see made by untalented modern art posers.
The next museum we visited was a little on the eccentric side. It was called Salmasi House, after its former wealthy owner, Mr. Salmasi, who’d traveled the world collecting things of interest as he went. Among the stranger exhibits protected behind thick security glass were some English scales from the 1950s, a collection of wooden school rulers, numerous heating meters, and my favorite, a whole load of speedometers.
Shah
ram and Kimya walked around listening intently to the curator in Farsi and translated for me in English. Both seemed genuinely fascinated by the displays, as was I but probably for different reasons. Among the exhibits were some more conventional purchases for a gentleman of leisure, which included opulent-looking Swiss clocks and watches, and some beautiful European furniture. But for me, the weirder stuff was what it was all about.
After finishing up here, Shahram and I split from Kimya to go to the karate class, while she got a shared taxi home. We stopped off first at the office where Shahram worked to pick up some things, where his two brothers and about seven of their friends were sitting and talking together in total darkness. I guess the electricity must have gone out, which made for an interesting few minutes. While Shahram pottered about in the dark looking for something, I sat with his brothers and friends answering the normal icebreaker questions in complete darkness. We left before the lights came on, so I didn’t get to see what any of them looked like.
The karate class was held on the first floor of a crumbling old tower block, and the stale smell of sweat instantly transported me back to an old boxing gym I used to train at in South London. Although the smell would be repulsive to most people, it had a good association for me, and I couldn’t help thinking back to all the great times I’d had there. We arrived just as a class was finishing and all the young guys were getting changed out of their white karate uniforms and packing up. Shahram got changed along with the guys waiting for the next class and said he’d ask the teacher if I could join in. I was of two minds about this; I quite liked the idea of getting stuck in with the locals but was also fairly tired after spending most of the morning at the bazaar, so the idea of sitting on my ass taking it easy also appealed.
The decision was taken out of my hands when no spare kit could be located. This was fine by me, and when it all began, I was extremely pleased to just be watching. The class consisted of stretching and frantic running around with the occasional flashy kick thrown in but precious little combat. All the running about looked exhausting, and in the state I was in, it would have killed me.
After about forty-five minutes, Shahram made his excuses and left early before the class was over. Before we left, Shahram gave his teacher a formal, martial arts-type bow. The teacher returned this to him, then put his hand on his heart and bowed to me in a more informal manner. I did the same in return.
On arrival back at Shahram’s place, we were presented with a delicious spaghetti bolognese. It looked and smelt divine and was beautifully prepared. Shahram and Kimya seemed keen to smother all the flavor out of theirs with copious amounts of tomato ketchup, and it was a real effort to stop Shahram doing the same with mine. At first, I think he thought I was just trying to be polite and that surely I wanted some of the stuff. It wasn’t easy to convince him that I didn’t, but he eventually gave up.
I liked Shahram a lot but it has to be said, his table manners weren’t the best in the world. Not only did he make loud intentional slurping sounds for effect, but he forced whole chunks of bread into his mouth, with his fingers pushing the bread into every available cheek crevice. It left him resembling a bloated puffer fish, which he thought most amusing. As well as eating like a pig, he was also keen to hear if I’d ever tasted pig and what it was like. Rather unfairly, I said it was without doubt the greatest tasting meat in the world—after all, you can’t beat a good bacon sandwich. Kimya asked if I had tasted rabbit and explained that this was also forbidden by their religion. This was news to me.
Shahram took charge of dessert, which was a large green melon. He had an interesting way of serving it, which was to hold it in one hand and peel off all of the outside skin with a knife without putting in down once. Still grasping the whole peeled melon, he chopped it into little cubes then served it.
Being the better English speaker, Kimya had plenty of questions for me about life in Britain. Of particular shock to her was learning that unmarried friends of the opposite sex could share apartments together and that people didn’t have to live with their parents up until marriage. She asked what I thought of the hijab scarf she wore and if girls in England would wear one. I let her know the lay of the land at home on this one and asked if women in Iran would wear it if they didn’t have to. This provided a telling response from both of them.
“If women didn’t have to wear the hijab, I think a lot of them wouldn’t wear it,” said Kimya.
Shahram chipped in and corrected her. “Er, no, I think they would still wear it.”
“Oh yes,” she now corrected herself, “Yes, I think they would still wear it.”
They were both fascinated by my lifestyle and thought it very strange I had casually left a job to go traveling and just planned to find a new one when I returned.
“In Iran, you don’t choose a job, the job chooses you,” said Shahram.
I had as many questions for them as they had for me and got them talking about what they thought of their government. Shahram summed it up nicely with, “Government bad, people good.”
“Like mine,” I told him.
I wondered what they would think of a dose of Bush and Blair style “liberation.” Both were absolutely appalled by the suggestion and said of the situation in Iraq, “It is terrible.” I agreed. After we finished dinner, there was a knock on the door. Kimya went to answer while Shahram and I reclined on the sofa. She returned a minute later and explained that earlier on she had told her friends that they had a “tourist” staying with them and that now they had come around to, as she phrased it, “look at” me. And that’s pretty much what they did.
In walked a guy of about thirty along with two girls in their early twenties who were dressed in light-colored bedsheet-like cloths, leaving only their faces visible. I shook the guy’s hand and put my hand on my heart and bowed to the girls. Kimya explained, as if to put my mind at rest, that it was okay her friends were out together as they were brother and sisters. “Phew, thank goodness for that,” I thought.
The girls seemed very shy and much less approachable than Kimya. Neither of them spoke English, so their limited questions were translated for me by Kimya. It was the normal stuff again: What was my job? What was my salary? How old was I? Was I married? Along with a couple of new questions like, “What is the main industry in England?” I struggled with this one and copped out by saying, “Banking.” After this, they just sort of stared at me as if they’d never seen a funny-looking bastard before. Fifteen minutes later and they were gone.
I then got my first taste of Iranian state television, which was put on especially for me, when it was time for the nightly Iranian news broadcast in English. Ironically, the woman reading had a very strong American accent, which I thought strange considering the Iranian government’s dislike of all things American. It was nearly all about the chaos in Iraq and filled with gruesome footage of civilian deaths. The news was followed by loads of patriotic war clips from the Iran-Iraq War, along with clips of Iranian flags fluttering in the wind.
We all hit the sack soon after, and despite my protests, they insisted I slept in their nice big double bed, while they slept on the floor of the television room. They were both exceptionally generous to give me their bed, and on it I slept like a log.
CHAPTER SIX
Rules of the Road
At the time of writing, there are 9,418 Iranian rials to every single U.S. dollar. Since the highest commonly available denomination in Iran is a 10,000 rial note, any exchanging of Western currency leaves you with one hell of a big bank roll.
Since Iran is essentially a cash economy where credit cards are just about nonexistent (not that I have a credit card, thanks to my declaration of bankruptcy a few years ago), I had to change a significant amount of money. In total, I had about $1,200, having blown around $150 to get here, so I figured $600 would be a good amount to convert. To help with the translations, Shahram had kindly accompanied me to the main bank in Tabriz, which looked like a bank from old Victorian London. There
were no security screens and everything was done face-to-face. I handed over my thin sliver of hundred-dollar bills and waited for what seemed like an eternity while the guy behind the counter counted out my Iranian cash. He finished one pile, and then started on another. The first, it turned out, was only the small decimal change. The main bank “roll,” which was so big I couldn’t have rolled it, was ridiculous and must have been a good ten inches thick, containing roughly six hundred notes.
I felt a bit guilty at having changed such a vast sum in front of Shahram as the average annual income in Iran is around six thousand dollars, and one in seven Iranians earns less than a dollar a day.
Shahram and I bade each other goodbye outside the bank with a warm man-hug. I thanked him an embarrassing amount of times for his and Kimya’s generous hospitality and promised to be back again to see them within the month. This was imperative because earlier in the morning, I had asked them if I could leave some of my camping gear behind as I was now lugging around far more stuff than I needed. My tent and camping equipment had been invaluable on the way to Iran but as I planned to stay in hotels from now on, they had become obsolete. Shahram had agreed to this without a second thought, and as a result, I had stripped everything down to the bare essentials. By the time I’d finished, my backpack was a fraction of its former weight.
A steaming black Nescafé was graciously passed my way in the Tabriz Tourist Office by multilingual Mr. Nasser Khan. He was a wealth of information, and after hearing my planned itinerary, suggested that I take a slightly different route around Iran and go to see Babak Castle when I returned to Tabriz.
His recommended route, he explained, would still include all the sights I wanted to see but would save me loads of time with connections. This was very important considering the staggering size of Iran, into which you could fit France, Germany, Britain, Holland, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic with over 15,440 square miles to spare.