by Jamie Maslin
“What the hell is going on?” I thought. I didn’t want to sit down with a Harlequin novel—I wanted to get some accommodation sorted.
We turned up at a library nestled in a little park in the north of the city. Here the guys made hotel inquiries with one of the library assistants and not surprisingly came up with fuck all. I was grateful for their help but couldn’t see why we were wasting time or why they were so adamant that the hotels in my guidebook were no good.
By chance, a professor who spoke better English than I did was also at the library. He sounded like an Oxford University don and was a charming fellow who was more than happy to translate. He told them to take me to my chosen hotel, which as far as he was aware, was an “awfully good little place,” and said he didn’t know what all the fuss had been about.
I thanked him, he gave me his card, and we set off again.
Tehran went on and on forever with very few prominent landmarks from which to get your bearings. The amount of people and traffic was something else; it seemed like all 15 million of the city’s residents were out on the streets today. We stopped at three other hotels, all of which were full, before we got to the original one I’d selected. It was also full. This wasn’t good news as it was now late afternoon, but the reception guy recommended a place around the corner. It was thirtytwo dollars a night, which was by far the most expensive place thus far on my trip, but I paid it gladly and was just pleased to have a roof over my head. I thanked the guys for their help and headed up to my room. It was absolutely fantastic. It had a double bed, a TV with BBC World, a shower room with a proper toilet, a fridge, and to top it all off, the price included breakfast. I got on the phone to Leyla who arranged to pick me up in three hours, though she still hadn’t heard from Ricardo. That gave me ample opportunity to shower and put my feet up and watch the BBC’s Hard Talk program before indulging in a nap.
The phone jolted me back to reality from a deep sleep. Predictably, it was Leyla on the line, who told me to meet her in reception. The first thing she said when I turned up was, “This is not a good area.”
Leyla told me there’d been antigovernment demonstrations near the hotel two days ago and that the police and the government’s Basji Militia had tear gassed, beaten, and arrested loads of students. The demonstration had been inspired by an Iranian exile, Dr. Ahura Pirouz Khaleghi Yazdi, who had broadcast the call to protest from a satellite station based in the United States.
She expressed her relief that I hadn’t arrived a couple of days earlier, but the journalist in me was genuinely gutted to have missed the opportunity to record the events and get some photographs.
Two of her friends were waiting in the car. The girl spoke good English but the boy spoke next to none. Both Leyla and her female friend looked very Western with makeup and jeans. Although wearing the compulsory hijab, they were of a lightweight material and covered only a fraction of their hair. We drove through the city, which was surprisingly quiet now that it was dark, and arrived at a little restaurant in the north of Tehran. It was an upmarket place and all of the customers looked very wealthy and Western in comparison to other parts of Iran, dressed in expensive-looking clothing, and the women wearing makeup and minute hijabs.
Leyla’s friends were both twenty years old and were dating each other. Although it was officially not allowed, they said it was common for young people to be in relationships and to keep it from their parents. The girl, whose name I didn’t make a note of, told me that her father had discovered her relationship and had gone crazy. He had told her to break up with her boyfriend but she had steadfastly refused. Surprisingly, she said, he had eventually come to accept it. Like Leyla, the girl had grown up abroad and had recently moved back to Iran when her parents returned (her boyfriend was Iranian). In Canada, her father had enrolled her in a Catholic boarding school, despite her being a Muslim, because he was determined to keep her away from boys.
I asked her if she would return to Canada when she got the chance after finishing her studies. I was surprised when she told me that she planned to stay in Iran forever. If she’d grown up here, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but since she’d spent most of her life in an open society, I thought it odd she’d now happily live indefinitely in such a repressive one. She explained, rather unconvincingly to my mind, by saying that the state repression wasn’t such a big deal to her personally and that she was Iranian and this was Iran.
Leyla was not in agreement with her and planned to be off within a year. Of the two, she seemed to be much more of a free spirit, and as a result I liked her far more.
It was very interesting to chat with them both and learn more about their lives and their attitude toward their government, which the Canadian girl said now just about everybody despised. I asked her then why she thought more people didn’t rebel against the state. She put it down to the Iran-Iraq War having caused half a million Iranian deaths and people not wanting to cause any more bloodshed by rebelling. Leyla added that if you stepped out of line politically, you didn’t just get reprimanded, you got killed or worse—which, of course, is a pretty effective deterrent.
When it was time to get the bill, it was no surprise that Leyla and friends wouldn’t let me chip in. They insisted that I was their guest and that in Iran it was customary for them to pay for me. It was actually becoming hard to spend any money here at all due to the overwhelming generosity people were showing me.
On the way back in the car, we drove past a special jail that Leyla pointed out. It was specifically for people picked up off the street with either a boyfriend, girlfriend, or an inappropriate hijab. Leyla told me that the police did big swoops in certain areas and arrested loads of people all at once. She said that she knew of people who’d been there and that as jails go, it wasn’t too bad, and that on the whole you just spent a night there for these offenses.
Near my hotel, Leyla spotted some cops on the side of the road. She got nervous, said once more, “This is a bad area,” and pulled up her hijab conservatively. I asked what was wrong with the area and she said that a lot of people get arrested here for being with unrelated members of the opposite sex. When we pulled up, Leyla stayed in the car and said, “Hurry.”
“Why?”
“I can’t be with you,” she said. “I could go to jail.”
I got out and went inside.
Once in my room, I got really pissed off. I couldn’t get my head around how she could have been arrested simply for being in a car with me, and I couldn’t get my head around the apparent apathy of her Canadian friend who considered it no big deal. To me, it seemed a huge deal, especially when people were getting killed and tortured for simply stepping out of line. I went to bed highly annoyed.
CHAPTER TEN
All the Gear but No Idea
Pedram’s car swerved recklessly across the main road, coming to a screeching stop outside my hotel. A moment later, his two library-loving friends did likewise in their car, drawing several hornblasts from agitated drivers behind. It was great to see Pedram again, and after warmly shaking hands, I jumped in the back of his car, which sped off at breakneck speed.
Our first stop was a pool hall in the center of the city where we met up with the ever-cheery Behzad and two more of Pedram’s friends. Pedram explained that the party I had been invited to by his friend in Hamadan was scheduled for tomorrow night and that it should be a very good one indeed. I was delighted and couldn’t wait to go along for another illegal Iranian gathering.
The pool hall was obviously one of their haunts; nearly all the young guys inside—and there were only guys inside—knew Pedram and his friends. I was the center of attention and introduced to all the locals, a couple of whom spoke good English. It was a typical pool hall with the same dark interior and laid back atmosphere as any establishment back home, minus the alcohol of course. We decided on a game of doubles, with Pedram and me versus Behzad and one of the other guys, whose name was Ali. It wasn’t a convincing victory, but Pedram and I pulled off a
win. Just when we were about to rack them up for a second game, over walked a confident-looking guy carrying his own personal cue case—always a dangerous sign—who challenged me to a singles match.
I accepted reluctantly. In no apparent hurry, and as if playing for the audience which had gathered to watch, Mr. Professional placed his cue box on the table and slowly flipped its briefcaselike locks. It popped open revealing a beautifully crafted piece of equipment. He screwed the two ends of the cue together with a quick twist of his hands, then held it to the light and looked along its length, checking for straightness.
What the fuck?
But this wasn’t the end of his little ritual. Next, he got out a strange three-fingered glove, which he purposefully slipped onto his lead hand. His knuckles were then given a full crack, the cue was given a scientific application of chalk, and he was ready to begin.
I didn’t fancy my chances.
Now I’m either a good player or a bad player, and one that improves with alcohol, which wasn’t an option today, but by sheer luck I played a masterful game and beat Mr. “All the Gear but No Idea” hands down. He looked embarrassed. After this victory, everybody in the club wanted to challenge me. I even had the gratifying pleasure of pulling off a fluke victory against one of the best players in the club, or so I was told by Pedram. After everybody had had a chance to play me, we headed across the road to a little café where we all tucked in to buttered rice and lamb and tomato kebabs. Once again I was not allowed to pay.
Everyone now discussed where I should be taken next. The conversation was conducted in Farsi, so I had no idea what locations were thrown into the discussion, but I was expecting maybe a museum or historical site. Nothing of the sort. I was taken to a shopping mall dedicated to nothing but a load of Best Buy-style computer stores!
God knows what possessed this insane decision, and for the next hour and a half, I had to do my best to look interested in the latest laptop or PC monitor. The highlight of this bizarre outing, which predictably was not much of a highlight, was eating a takeaway sweet-corn snack from a polystyrene cup and drinking mandarin juice from a vending machine. I was pleased when it all came to an end and we got back on the road.
Thankfully, there were no more computer stores for us next, as it was unanimously agreed that we were all going to head over to Ali’s place and use his swimming pool. En route to his place, we raced around the city with the windows down and music from a cassette blaring out from the stereo—music which without a shadow of a doubt would have been on the government’s official list of prohibited tunes. It featured a woman breathing and moaning over a fast-paced techno track. Either she was panting after a brisk five-mile run in the fresh air or she was rather enjoying herself. A strange mix followed of rap, hardcore dance, and romantic ballads, which blared out at deafening volume. The guys all sang along enthusiastically and saw no contradiction between throwing up gang signs to rap songs one minute and then swaying to a slow, pensive rendition of Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red” the next. I thought that was great.
Iranian driving reaches its zenith of insanity and chaos on the heaving streets of Tehran. It certainly isn’t for the timid, and Pedram’s approach was anything but, with him swerving in and out of traffic, yelling at other motorists, and constantly beeping his horn at he went. It requires a certain amount of skill just to get through the day there without hitting or being hit by another vehicle.
One thing you can’t help but notice when driving around Tehran is the vast number of political murals dedicated to subjects such as Iran’s war dead from the Iran-Iraq conflict or the murder of Palestinian children by the occupying Israeli forces. These are all over the city, painted on the sides of buildings and on huge billboards along the road. Nearly all of them are very artistic and skillfully done, and range from depictions of heroic military figures gazing pensively off into the distance against a backdrop of fluttering Iranian flags, to banners of Persian text scrawled across war scenes.
As we got closer to Ali’s, we roared past a mullah, one of Iran’s turban- and cloak-wearing religious leaders, and the lads discreetly muttered abuse at him under their breath. Pedram explained that they all hated the mullahs because, as he put it, “They have closed mind.”
We came to a dramatic tire-screaming stop outside a salubrious apartment block in the wealthy northern suburbs. This was Pedram’s parents’ place. He insisted that from now on in Tehran I would stay here. They had a really nice spacious apartment, which must have cost a pretty penny—property in Tehran is far from cheap. Only his mother was in, who greeted us with a warm smile and was wearing the full, tablecloth-like chador showing only a fraction of her face. Pedram grabbed some swim trunks for me whilst I dropped off my backpack and gave Leyla a call. It was a pain to get the call to connect, but when it finally did, she gave me the good news that Ricardo had been in touch and that he was going to meet us this evening, along with her mother, at a traditional Iranian restaurant. With characteristic generosity, Pedram insisted that he would give me a lift to the restaurant. I couldn’t have asked for more. Ricardo was apparently staying in a dirt-cheap hostel in the nasty southern suburbs. I smiled to myself and felt extremely fortunate to be staying with Pedram.
Pedram’s place was nice but Ali’s was in a different league altogether. Two huge security gates opened up for us revealing a palatial, ultramodern apartment building. A beautifully tiled driveway led past several floodlit fountains showering a vast pool, and down to an underground parking area. Inside, it was like a five-star hotel with a vast lobby decorated in marble and gold, and carpeted with an exquisite red Persian rug. In the basement, there was a full gym, communal swimming pool, steam room, and sauna, which we had all to ourselves, and it’s just as well.
My leisurely swim went out the window as the order of the day was a load of wrestling, ducking, and bombing, swimming contests, and general larking about. Poor old Behzad got a lot of shit for his slack frame, and Ali thought it most amusing to get his cock out and close his legs around it to impersonate a woman. The lads thought this was hilarious. I retired to the sauna shortly after this for a much-needed bit of sanity. It didn’t last long. Everybody piled in and began flinging water all over the place. Maybe it was because I was tired, maybe because I was older than them at nearly thirty, but I began to get really bored with all the messing around and would have given anything just to be able to sit in here and relax for a bit.
The festivities came to an abrupt end when Pedram looked at his watch and realized that Cinderella was going to be late for the ball with Ricardo, Leyla, and her mother. It was dark outside now and we drove like complete fruitcakes through the crowded streets all the way from northern to southern Tehran. The city was even more chaotic than normal and all lit up with sparkling colored lights and decorations to celebrate the birthday of Imam Mehdi.
Iranian Shiite Muslims acknowledge twelve Imams who they see as the direct successors to the Prophet Mohammed and the only people capable of infallibly interpreting the Koran.
The twelve Imams are venerated much like Christian saints and everybody seems to have their favorite. I saw their images everywhere, from the inside of shops to the backs of buses. Coincidentally, I also saw many buses and other vehicles with the English word “GOD” in capital letters on their windscreens. Imam Mehdi was the twelfth and last Imam, and the only one said to be still alive. It is claimed he simply vanished inside a cave beneath an Iraqi mosque when he was still young. Shiites also believe that at the end of the world, Imam Mehdi and Jesus will return together, as a sort of tag team special, to sort the world out and reestablish peace on earth.
To Shiite Muslims, an Imam is divinely appointed and infallible, whereas to Sunnis, he can be appointed by man and is seen more as a leader of the Muslim community. Although many places in Iran are officially named Imam Khomeini Street or Imam Khomeini Square, the title is an honorary one given to Khomeini after his death by the Shiite government in an attempt to venerate him. Many Ira
nians I spoke to find this offensive and refuse to refer to him with this title, instead using more colorful and choice ones of their own.
We arrived at the restaurant, which was hidden away at the bottom of an attractive little staircase. The lads remained in the cars outside while Pedram came in with me to give Leyla his address. The restaurant was decorated with ornately tiled vaulted ceilings and was packed with people smoking the water pipe, drinking chay, eating, and generally having a great time. Four guys provided live traditional music that filled the restaurant with a contagious vibrancy. Their Persian instruments included a pear-shaped traditional guitar called a tanbur, a chaliceshaped drum made of mulberry wood known as a tombak, and the Persian equivalent of a small cello called a kamancheh.
Nestled in a cozy corner in the very best spot were Ricardo, Leyla’s mother, and Leyla herself. They all looked far smarter than I did making me wish I’d made more of an effort. Ricardo, the old smoothie, had even bought them a bunch of fresh roses. I greeted them all warmly with handshakes, which I figured was okay because they were friends and had spent so long in the West. Pedram passed on his address to Leyla whose mother invited him to join us. He declined the offer and explained his friends were waiting for him. After Pedram departed, Leyla said that he lived in a very expensive area of Tehran and that it was not too far from their place so we could all share a taxi at the end of the night.
It was great to see them again and we all settled down to what turned out to be a wonderful evening. We had a traditional Iranian meal called abgusht or dizi. This is a stew made from super-succulent mutton or beef, potatoes, onions, chickpeas, tomatoes, and a good dollop of fat, which is all served in a container called a dizi. With the dizi, you also receive a pestle and a separate bowl in which to pour off the red soupy liquid at the top of the stew. You either drink this with a spoon or mop it up with bread. Then comes the fun bit—you pound the living hell out of the remaining foodstuffs in the dizi with the pestle until they’ve been reduced to a thick tasty paste, which you then scoop out with additional bread.