by Stephen Orth
From: Iran
Iammina,frendmobina.came hear in Herat. Emamstreet
From: Laila Hamburg
Hey honey, my flight lands at 21:00 in Yazd. See you tomorrow night!
I spend the afternoon on a tour of the small town of Mahan, rightly famous for a Sufi dervish named Shah Nimatullah Wali and wrongly for the Bagh-e Shahzadeh Gardens. Iranians are always turned on by the color green, which is why the garden compound, with a couple cherry trees, wilting flowers, and a mud-colored cascade, is such a popular attraction. Actually, the only spectacular thing about it is its location at the foot of some mountains. The cab driver bringing me back to Kerman has far more character, with his white mustache, suit, and hat. He drives his ancient Paykan and feeds me sweet, gooey clumps of halvah while the sun sinks behind the mountain peaks to the west. Of course, he cheats me at the end of the ride, but the price is worth it just for the souvenir photo.
YAZD
Population: 486,000
Province: Yazd
FAKE MARRIAGE
THE BUS ONLY needed a spritely 5.5 hours for the 250 miles to Yazd. On arrival I book a double room at the Orient Hotel and buy a plastic rose with I love you on its plastic leaves at a souvenir store. The streets of the desert city are alive with a hectic hustle-bustle of activity. Fruit stalls, fast-food joints, carpet dealers. Two groups of European tourists, one Italian and one Swiss, pass by, an unusual sight after weeks with the locals. They seem very foreign and a bit ungainly, especially the women. You can see from a distance that they haven’t really become accustomed to their Islamic garments.
To: Laila Hamburg
Hey baby, tell the cabdriver to take you to the Orient Hotel, next to masjed-e jameh. See you soon!:*
The room isn’t exactly a honeymoon suite—separate beds, bare interior, and a mosque picture on the wall. The only cause for slightly romantic thoughts is the fact that the washroom door cannot be closed and sometimes opens on a whim. To compensate for this, the inner courtyard is amazing: a burbling fountain, caravanserai-like arcades, and an undisturbed view of the star-studded heavens.
I got to know Laila, who is half Iranian, more than a year ago in Hamburg through couchsurfing. I was looking for couchsurfers from my city who had some connection to Iran so that I could learn more about the country. In her profile she described herself as “spontaneous and dreamy,” and as someone who couldn’t live without music. We met a few times and discovered that she was coincidentally going to be in Iran at the same time as me. During a boozy evening in February we decided to spend a week traveling together. And to get married. Well, not exactly. The arrangement that she captured with a pen on a coaster was for a ten-day fake marriage and purely for a number of practical reasons: tourists to Iran can only book a double room in a hotel as husband and wife; it would save a lot of explanations in conversations with the locals; and last but not least, because it would save Laila from a host of unwelcome advances. She had already traveled to Iran a couple times and knew the feeling of being fair game when making excursions without an escort. An amusing side effect of our “engagement” is that since then we have called each other “honey” and “sweetie,” and we make a genuine effort to cultivate quirks that you can only find with real couples.
Instead of arriving by cab, she comes in a private car. A fellow passenger on the flight offered to give her a lift to the hotel. “Leave you alone for a few days and look what happens,” I say as we shake hands in front of the hotel. I ask, despite her new acquaintance, whether she still is prepared to marry me. “Yes, why not,” is her answer. Then it’s enough of the formal nonsense: “Great to see you!” And we hug each other, in the middle of the street, in the middle of Iran; at this moment, we couldn’t care less.
Laila is twenty-nine, wearing a red scarf over a loose-fitting pink garment, and she works as a graphic designer. Her father comes from Tehran, and her mother is German. She has spent her whole life in Hamburg but speaks a little Persian.
We carry her luggage to the room. If she is pleased about the plastic rose, she doesn’t show it, promptly dumping the present unceremoniously in the trash can. We then go for a walk through a labyrinth of sand-colored alleyways while we exchange travel adventures. I tell of fishing on Kish, dominatrices, and smuggler buses, and she of her overprotective family in Tehran and strenuous hosts. “In Chalus, in north Iran, there was one host who took me on a tour in the mountains. He desperately wanted me to take off my veil. Well, okay— no problem. He took some photos. When the path became tricky he took my hand. But when he wanted to kiss me, things began to get really unpleasant. Not that I was frightened of him—he was totally insecure, and I think that he simply wanted to touch a woman once in his life.”
Behind a half-open wooden door some steps lead up to a flat roof with a cupola. A few Iranians are already there: two young men and two young women, smoking slim cigarettes and holding hands. Not wanting to disturb them, we sit on the other side of the igloo-sized cupola.
There are moments during traveling when the allure of wanderlust wanes but waits for you, suddenly popping up exactly where you are. Where future and past no longer matter, and you believe that your path, up to this point, has been a circuitous and zigzagging journey to reach this particular place, and all that follows is nothing more than a lengthy departure. When you already suffer from yearning while still there.
I am not usually the type who sits around gazing at the scenery. Almost all of my top ten unforgettable travel experiences are in some way connected to activities.
But in Yazd I learn something: sitting on a flat roof and gazing at the scenery is the most beautiful thing in the world. We should all spend more time sitting on roofs and gazing.
In best-case scenarios we would be looking out over a place like Yazd. A mud brick–colored city with magnificent minarets and mosque cupolas lit up with purple light, with no skyscrapers obscuring the view and a mountain range presiding on the horizon. Yazd is so beautiful that even the air conditioners are grand buildings—the badgirs, wind catchers, looking like gigantic ancient microphones create natural ventilation through slits at the tops of the towers. Every now and then the call to prayers of the muezzins, who really can sing, pierce the quiet of the evening desert air. You just have to climb a few stairs and you feel free, far away from all of the restrictions and laws. But this freedom is deceptive; Yazd is a very religious and conservative city. And hostile to couchsurfing. A couple months ago the manager of the Silk Road Hotel complained to the police that private accommodation was killing off his business. Since then the authorities have been harsher on members than elsewhere; there have been interrogations and arrests. I wrote quite a few e-mails, but it was impossible to find a host in Yazd. One wrote back that unfortunately he couldn’t help me out as he was too scared.
And so Laila and I are sitting in this magical place, talking about fear. “My aunt and uncle in Tehran are always incredibly worried about me and would rather not let me out without company,” she says. “And I notice that this fear is rubbing off on me. When a country is ruled by such strict regulations, then in time it takes over your thoughts. I’m always thinking about whether something I’m doing could be wrong or dangerous.” Yesterday she noticed that her German website was blocked in Iran. Type in the address, then an error message appears in Persian, and then a few nature photos fade in. “I’m wondering whether the secret service is collecting information about me. Or whether it’s because I posted a few pictures of scantily dressed women.” Fear and paranoia are the strongest weapons of totalitarian regimes, and the mullahs are real pros at using them.
I watch a couple of women in chadors fifty feet below us as they walk through an arch illuminated in green and ask myself if they, too, are afraid in their everyday lives. Whether they belong to those who believe in the system in which they live or to those who secretly dream of freedom. Our rooftop perspective feels like being in balcony seats at the theater. Showing tonight: the ten thousandth repeat of the p
lay Islamic Republic, showing every day throughout the country, with a cast of millions, all well-trained performers. A masquerade without dance, a tragedy without applause, a plot without conclusion. And no one knows what is going on in the heads behind the masks.
• • • • • • • • •
THE NEXT DAY we buy wedding rings at a street stall for one dollar. On the opposite side of the street a popcorn vendor waits for customers.
“Did you know that the Persian word for popcorn is “elephant farts”? asks Laila.
No, I didn’t. I notice that the men in Yazd always greet and address me first. Laila mainly appears to be seen as an ornamental accessory. However, as she is the one who speaks Persian, she often takes over the conversation after a few sentences. Someone selling kebabs is so enchanted by her that he promptly conjures up a cousin (with lots of gel in his hair and the top button of his shirt open), who drives us to our next destination, the Dowlat Abad Garden. His car is a black Mazda sports car with black leather seat covers. In one of the side pockets there is a bottle of cologne. The passenger seat is more like a passenger lounger, and the center console a light-blinking monster with a navigational aid the size of an iPad.
“Phew! I wouldn’t have got in without you,” Laila says.
“Without your Persian, I wouldn’t be here, either,” I reply.
“We’re a super team,” she says and laughs.
“I think our driver fancies you; he was ogling you in the rear-view mirror.”
It’s Murphy’s Law of love that from the moment people start a relationship, they automatically become one or two degrees more attractive to the opposite sex. Shortly after saying goodbye to “Mazda Man” a group of conscripts in camouflage uniforms hanging around at a ticket window wave Laila over. They ask if they can take a photo with us. According to Laila, the most handsome guy is named Bijan and is twenty.
“Sports car drivers, men in uniform—aren’t there any clichés that are below you?” I ask.
“Yes, authors,” she says. And we haven’t even been married twenty-four hours.
Five minutes later she is no longer laughing, as a black-veiled young woman walking arm in arm with a female friend greets me with: “You’re beautiful, handsome!” and offers me gaz, a sugary confection with pistachios, a specialty of Isfahan. She is named Elaheh, is quite pretty, and tells me that she is studying medical sciences in Isfahan before grinning and sashaying back to her companion.
Now it’s Laila’s turn to look at me critically. With an innocent look I try to give the impression that I didn’t do anything, and that I have no idea what’s just happened.
We walk through the 250-year-old gardens of the then governor, past cypress trees, pomegranate shrubs, and an artificial watercourse that splits the compound in two. It is dominated by a hexagonal reception palace with pretty pavilions, colored glass windows, and the tallest badgir wind catcher in Iran, 110 feet high. A couple horizontal timber struts have been added for stability, which the pigeons are thankful to use as perches.
From: Iran
hi,whereisyounow? Pleasecome, harat.iamfrendsmobina. iseeyourpicture
“Laila, there’s something else.”
“Yes, what’s up, then?”
“I’ve got two admirers, and I need your help.”
“Interesting.”
“Can you translate a few questions?”
“You’re crazy.”
To: Iran
Salam mina, khubi? Chand sall dari? Shoghlat chie? Tu waghte azad che kar mikoni?
There is little left to mention of Yazd, except that large amounts of the cold dessert faloodeh, made from thin noodles and a semifrozen syrupy mixture of sugar and rose water, cause stomachaches, that there are unique circular raised structures on which the Zoroastrians used to burn corpses, and that camel goulash tastes exactly the same as any other goulash.
In the course of our fake marriage, we have quickly developed routines and behavioral patterns that take other newlyweds years to hone.
Breakfast. I yell from one buffet table to another: “Where shall we sit, honey? Our usual place?”
It is a bad mistake in a foreign country to feel too secure about not being understood. I get an irritated, quizzical look from a tourist sitting at a nearby table before she quickly turns her head away. On passing her table I glance down and notice that she has just written ALEMANIA on the bottom right-hand side of a postcard, so for sure she knows my language.
After so many nights in private apartments I can’t really enjoy staying in a hotel, even if the bed is much more comfortable than any carpet. The friendliness of the staff feels different from the friendliness of my hosts because I pay them to be nice to me. They are the sellers, and I am the buyer, hoping for good value for my money. If the quality is not right, then I get annoyed. If the price is right, I’m happy. I have different expectations from a one-hundred-dollar room than from a twenty-dollar room. The psychology of a couchsurfing visit is very different, as I can only win. I don’t pay anything, so I expect no more than a six-square-foot sleeping space. Up to now I have had much more than that every time.
From: Iran
salamshafa.khubam.shomakhube.madaram14sal.shnmachandsal dare? manmeravam madrese
I ask Laila to translate. She looks at my cell phone and starts laughing. It takes a while until she gets her breath back: “Hello, Shafa. I’m well. How are you? I’m fourteen. How old are you? I’m still at school.”
“Oh, maybe the love of my life isn’t waiting for me in Harat, after all.”
“Yes, I agree,” says Laila.
LOST IN TRANSPORTATION III
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN YAZD and Shiraz we decide to hitchhike for a couple hundred miles. A spectacular failure. Not because no one wants to give us a lift. The first car that we wave down stops (we waved because the usual raised thumb ritual is considered an offensive gesture, at least by the older generations, so the chances of a lift are low).
The driver introduces himself as Gorlam and indicates that we should hop in. “I live just around the corner. Would you like some tea?” he asks. After half a mile he stops in front of a whitewashed house with a flat roof.
In the living room Gorlam’s four-year-old son, Iman, is doing a couple circuits on his kiddie bike. The wall is decorated with sayings from the Quran and photos of well-dressed sons with well-dressed wives. To one side of the room there is a kind of bathtub full of potted plants. When Iman pauses from his circuits he proves to be incredibly talkative but unfortunately fails to understand that I haven’t got a clue what he’s saying. Fatimeh, his mother, brings a plate of huge slices of melon. Gorlam says that he has to go quickly to his office; he works for the highways department. We talk to Fatimeh, or rather Laila does, and I just sit around. People who can only say car, fish, and elephant farts in Persian automatically become outsiders and observers in such situations.
Laila explains where we come from, how beautiful it was in Yazd, and that we are now heading for Shiraz. “We’ve known each other for two years and have been married one year,” she fibs.
It is more difficult to explain what hitchhiking is all about, although we had looked up the word ootostop beforehand. The concept doesn’t seem to be known here. Fatimeh, anyway, doesn’t react to it. “You have to take a cab to Safa Shahr and then take a bus to Shiraz,” she explains. “You can spend the night here and then take the bus tomorrow morning. It’s not so tiring.”
It is only just 1 PM, and we would really like to be on the move. Staggering hospitality is not compatible with the wish of traveling more than half a mile today. But Fatimeh remains indefatigable. She offers to call her sister, who works in a hotel in Shiraz and can organize accommodation for us. Laila says that we already have a room. If we had begun to explain our idea of sleeping at the homes of locals we only met on the Internet, our benefactor would have thought us completely mad.
Fatimeh serves up tea and goodies, and she asks whether we would change our minds and stay for somethi
ng to eat. We politely decline but decide to wait for Gorlam’s return before traveling on.
All in all we spend 2.5 hours with the nice family. At the end we film a video message with a cell phone and are asked a further six times to share a meal with them. As we turn them down for the sixth time, Fatimeh and Gorlam are visibly disappointed. They ask again if we are really sure we can manage without a hotel in Shiraz and whether it might not be better to stay overnight with them.
Back on the road it doesn’t take a minute before the next lift is offered. This time the car turns out to be a cab, but there is already one passenger, and we can travel the three or four miles to the next village for nothing. Our fellow passenger, Mohsen, a math teacher, gets out of the cab with us. He also wants to go a short way toward Shiraz and suggests that we share a taxi, as there is no other possibility of making headway. He also reacts with a puzzled shaking of the head to the term ootostop. We agree to share, and so after 2.5 miles in three hours, our Iranian hitchhiking adventure draws to a close. It would have been quicker to walk.
SHIRAZ
Population: 1.5 million
Province: Fars
HIDE-AND-SEEK
BE QUIET AND don’t speak English on the street; otherwise, the neighbors will hear you,” says Saeed. “It’s forbidden to take in foreigners.” He jumps out of the car, looking left and right like a burglar, and unlocks the steel door to his apartment in southwest Shiraz. Then he waves to us to quickly come in. We snatch our backpacks and scurry to the entrance. Saeed’s friend, who picked us up in the city center in his car, says goodbye and disappears into the night.