by Stephen Orth
“Did you know that Modern Talking come from Germany?”
“Really? I learned English from their lyrics,” answers Yasmin.
“Then your English is surprisingly good.”
“Don’t you like Modern Talking?”
“I can think of two hundred German export products that I’m more proud of.”
“They’re famous in Iran.”
The Mick Jagger behind the wheel, who is actually named Farsad, joins in: “We have to listen to singing mullahs every day. Compared to them, Modern Talking sounds good.” An interesting point.
Despite this, he shuffles to another singer, Hayedeh, a Persian cross between Maria Callas and Adele. “If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in the bar, and drinking and talking to God,” she sings. The lyrics remind me of Hafiz, who also managed to connect the pleasures of alcohol and divine experience. But even without such provocative words Hayedeh would be banned in Iran—women are not allowed to sing alone because the rulers fear it might give men stupid ideas. Shortly before the revolution in 1979 she emigrated to Los Angeles, where she was able to write her songs and record her albums without fear of censorship. “After a concert in January 1990 she had a heart attack and died at age forty-seven,” says Yasmin. “The funeral was followed by millions on TV, and all Iranian businesses were closed for the day.”
I am relieved to see that Yasmin prefers this music to German pop of the 1980s, and she passionately sings along (of course that is also forbidden, and it seems to irritate our driver somewhat).
If you want to recreate the beauty of a cab ride through wild Kurdistan you should type “Hayedeh Zendegi” into YouTube, shut your eyes, and imagine an adventurous, winding road over a pass between snowcapped mountains and gas trucks and kebab stands on the roadside, with shepherds in baggy pants and stone walls with paintings of patrol cars and scenic views of the Iranian plateau and villages that seem to have been slapped onto the steep mountainside. Houses are built like steps, so that the flat roof of one acts as part of the foundations of the neighbor above.
Border trade must be immensely important for the settlements in the Paveh region; otherwise, no one would come up with the idea of building villages on such steep slopes. We see many military outposts painted in camouflage colors with No Photo signs hanging on the walls. With their rounded towers they remind me of desert forts from the Middle Ages. They are not only important to the government because of the proximity of the border, but Tehran also feels uneasy about the Kurds, as many of them dream of independence. The skies are gray, and it is drizzling a bit.
“I love rain,” says Yasmin. She jiggles her shoulders in time with the music and clicks her fingers.
“When you move to Germany you will think differently,” I say.
“Definitely not. It’s so refreshing. Azim’s neighbor named his daughter Baran, which means ‘rain.’”
“Poor girl.”
“I don’t understand you. There’s plenty of sun, and you just sweat the whole time.”
“The Germans are so crazy about the sun that they produce happiness hormones at the smell of suntan lotion.”
“You’re weird. Try wearing a veil the whole day in the heat here.”
“Which sky color is more beautiful: blue or gray?”
“Definitely gray.”
“You’re weird, too.”
From: KOREK
Welcome to Iraq. Feel at home while you roam on Korek Telecom network. For inquiries please call +9647508000411
The Kurd village of Nowsud with 1,500 inhabitants is so close to the border that our cell phones connect to an Iraqi network. We stop for a kebab. On the main street some riders approach, hooves clattering on the asphalt as they gallop. Mustached men in white trousers, using heavy dust-coated cloths for saddles and no stirrups, stretch their legs forward for balance. Some of them have one or two horses or mules behind them on lines, fully laden with bags and bundles beneath their saddlecloths. If most of them weren’t wearing Adidas sneakers, I would feel transported back a hundred years.
“Smugglers,” says Yasmin. “They go up in the mountains at night and cross the border. The police know all about it, but for a little baksheesh they turn a blind eye.”
“What do they bring?”
“Alcohol, cosmetics, household goods, all sorts of things that you can’t get here.”
“Do you think I can photograph them?”
“Sure.”
I go to the roadside, pressing the shutter button time and again; the men are simply too decorative to ignore. Yasmin, too, takes some snaps on her cell phone. One stops and asks whether we are from the government. Yasmin says we are just tourists. “Then you can take as many photos as you want.” A soldier with a machine gun wanders around in the middle of the caravan, so the problems with the government don’t seem to be too serious.
Judging by what is on offer at the market stalls, the smugglers bring stuff across the border that you can easily live without. Or maybe the goods that arrive by horseback obtain a special aura that makes them irresistible. Okay, they do sell food processors, vacuum cleaners, and pots and pans, which could be useful. But they also offer soap with extract of snakes and snails that’s supposed to be good against acne, “Green Berlin Tea” with a picture on the label of what looks like an Indian plantation, with veiled women pickers in front of the Brandenburg Gate. And Star Wars characters as garden gnomes.
HAJIJ
Population: 300
Province: Kurdistan
THE POLICE
OUR TOUR ENDS with two men in traditional Kurdish costumes, who introduce themselves as policemen and ask to see our passports. You would think that at a market specializing in illegal products they would have something better to do, but that of course is a very European viewpoint. In the East the coexistence between racketeers and law enforcers allows for considerable diversity.
They certainly don’t look like public servants: one of them is wearing a khaki shirt, the other a pink shirt. I am immediately alert. In Kurdistan there are fraudsters who pretend to be policemen to swindle tourists. You can get a lot of money for a European passport on the black market because they can be used to escape from Iran—at least if there is some resemblance to the rightful owner. So before traveling they would need to go to a hairdresser to match the hair style and color.
I would love to help refugees, but I need my passport myself. So I lie and tell them it is in my hotel. I show them a photocopy of my passport that I always have on me. The larger of the two men, the guy with the khaki shirt, takes the sheet and shakes his head. “Get in,” he says, pointing at Farsad’s yellow taxi. He sits on the passenger seat, and his colleague climbs into a silver Peugeot 405 that I hadn’t noticed until then. Two soldiers with machine guns are sitting on the back seat of the Peugeot. So they really are policemen.
The police station, whose gate we pass through five minutes later, also looks real. We are led to the entrance. In the courtyard there are two Toyota pickups, and an armed guard patrols the roof, his right thumb on the rifle sling, his left hand fisted behind his back. One of the soldiers tells Farsad that he should reprimand Yasmin for showing her hair beneath her veil. Farsad obeys, but it was not necessary. Yasmin, who was walking right next to him, had already taken the hint.
We are then taken to the interview room. All backpacks are searched. The “Bad Cop” and the “Good Cop” start questioning us. We tell them lots of lies, and I hope that no one notices that the tea cup in my hand is shaking. Finally, the brawny official scrutinizes my camera. He scrolls through the pictures I’ve taken in the last couple hours. A rider on a horse. Two riders on two horses. One rider with three horses. I must have appeared to him like a Japanese tourist in New York, indiscriminately holding the camera in front of passersby and snapping just because they look American.
“Why so many pictures of riders?”
“We don’t have costumes like this; they’re magnificent. Anyway, I have to take a lot of pictures whe
n people are moving to get one that isn’t blurred,” I answer truthfully. If this were a German police station, I might have added, as a watchful citizen, that an occasional glance under the saddlecloth might be interesting. At a German police station I would be fairly sure that nothing nasty would happen—the rule of law will sort it out. I haven’t robbed or killed anyone. In a country where after a traffic accident people prefer to sort things out among themselves and no woman would dream of going to the police after being raped, things look different. Where are the lines between amateur photographer and spy, between naive holidaymaker and alcohol-consuming criminal? If “Khaki Man” scrolls further he will find pictures of Azim’s whiskey bottle, of the battlefields of Ahvaz, of the nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Then there will be some answering to do.
But he stops scrolling. After 250 pictures of riders, even the hardest cops become tired. Allah bless the smugglers and their horses. He passes my camera back. He finishes his handwritten report and fetches an inkpad, and I sign the report with a print of my right index finger. We are free, and being free feels pretty damn good, in Iran more so than elsewhere.
“I was scared shitless,” says Yasmin, as we sit in the taxi. “Luckily, they didn’t find the battlefield pictures. Those guys weren’t particularly bright.”
“Have you often been questioned by police?”
“Of course. Once they questioned me about the BDSM group. I had to show them all my e-mails and Facebook posts, very private stuff. That was nasty. But they released me in the evening.”
Our destination for the night is Hajij, and we arrive at dusk. From an aerial perspective the village is shaped like a crescent moon, from the side like a series of steps. Blocks of red stone houses nestle on the slope like oversized rows of amphitheater seats, and there are people on every rooftop terrace, watching people observing other people on other rooftop terraces, or the cows being driven to their stalls, or the Sirwan River flowing in the valley below. Grandmas and grandkids, mothers and fathers—the whole village seems to be on its feet, a wonderful atmosphere. We ask about accommodation and are shown a simple room. A carpet and a socket are the only furnishings. In front of the door there is a mulberry tree. I lodge with Farsad, the cab driver. Yasmin gets a room of her own.
To: Mona Hamedan
Hi Mona, thanks for your message on cs! I might go to hamadan the next days—do you have time to meet or could you even host me for 1 night? Would be great! Cheers, stephan
From: Mona Hamedan
Stephan how old are you? Are you alone? Or coming with your wife?
When in Hajij do as the Hajijs do, so up to the roof it is. Of course, we are immediately invited to tea on one of the public balconies. The women wear long red robes with delicate floral designs. The men have mustaches that would make American actor Sam Elliott turn green with envy, and old men move about with carved walking sticks with rounded handles. Compared to the people here the smuggling riders were wallflowers. In ten years, buses full of Japanese tourists will come to Hajij.
The tea donor, in a gray Kurdish overall, introduces himself as Moharram and is a kind of village elder. He gets his wife to bring a second and third round of hot drinks from the apartment, and afterward a delicious ash soup made from chickpeas, lentils, and spinach.
“Why are Iranians so incredibly hospitable?” I ask Yasmin.
“Possibly because at some time in their lives they’ve had bad experiences with their compatriots but never with foreigners,” she suggests and laughs.
“In Germany it’s the other way around. According to surveys, it is precisely the places where there are fewest foreigners that hostility toward foreigners is greatest.”
We are interrupted as Moharram tells us about his village. “Thirty years ago there wasn’t a road here; you could only reach us on horseback,” he says.
“Do people here ride to Iraq to smuggle back goods?” I ask.
“No, we are over an hour away from the border. But it’s a lucrative business. You can earn 300,000 toman per person per night.” That is about seventy-five dollars. In Hajij there is little work, which is why he is hoping for more tourists.
“A few people have found jobs on the construction site of the Daryan dam project.”
“Which project is that?”
“They are damming up the Sirwan River. In two or three years the water will rise in the valley. The lower rows of houses will have to go. In earlier days there were two hundred houses here, and soon it will only be half that amount.”
“Why do they need the dam?”
“To improve irrigation of the fields, and a power plant is in the planning. On top of that, less water will flow to Iraq. But the construction project has one big disadvantage.”
“Which is?”
“A couple years ago Hajij was famous for being a completely nonsmoking village. Even TV teams came here to make reports about us, but after the construction workers arrived, almost everyone started smoking.”
The muezzin of Hajij calls to prayer at a quarter past eight. He warps the sound a bit, and a slight echo reverberates from the semicircular village.
“Ten times better than Modern Talking,” I say to Farsad.
From: Mona Hamedan
Why don’t you answer?
To: Mona Hamedan
I’m 34 and I’m coming alone. Is that ok for you?
From: Mona Hamedan
yeah it’s ok, are you married or single?
The next day we reach the last point of our shared travels, one hundred miles farther on, in the town of Marivan. Yasmin will take the night bus from here to Tehran, and I had planned to travel on to Isfahan until Mona from Hamedan contacted me after hearing that I was in Iran from a couchsurfing forum.
She sent me her cell phone number and on the spur of the moment invited me to visit Hamedan. Her profile shows a Middle Eastern beauty in a low-cut black dress and quite a lot of lipstick. I immediately see through the attempt of manipulating male viewers with such imagery, and it leaves me completely cold. But I do intend to stick to my plan of letting the natives influence my choice of route.
To: Mona Hamedan
I’m single, what about you?
From: Mona Hamedan
Ok no problem im 22 & i’m single too:) can you send your pic for me now? I wanna see you.
The sections of my brain responsible for emotions are happy with the dialogue. The somewhat smaller sector, where “logic” and “keeping a cool head” reside, not so. An attractive woman who doesn’t mess around—there has to be some catch. In a movie when a spy smells a trap, he doesn’t let his counterpart know it. I feel pretty reckless on sending the requested photo because I’m behaving as if I think everything is beyond suspicion.
How to flirt in Persian
•Dooset daram: I love you.
•Zanam mishi?: Will you marry me?
•Jigareto bokhoram: I want to eat your liver (an expression of great affection).
•Khoshgele: beautiful woman
THE PRINCE
OUR HOST IN Marivan, Ehsan, wears a polo shirt and designer jeans, and turns out to be a passionate winemaker and a Persian prince.
“Have you been to Shiraz? The castle in the middle? My great-, great-, great-, great-, great-, great-, great-, great-grandfather Karim Khan Zand lived there. He is a descendent of the Iranian ruler of the late eighteenth century.”
“Stephan wants to be the Shah of Persia,” says Yasmin. I had almost forgotten our bit of fun in the Golestan Palace in Tehran.
“Then I will have to kill you,” says Ehsan. “How about two droplets of poison in the ear, like in Hamlet?”
The prince has style; you have to give him that.
“I would like to try some of your wine first,” I say fawningly.
“I’ll get it later,” he says. “You can count yourself lucky; it’s the best wine in western Iran. We make 160 gallons a year. But I have to teach you one rule.”
“Sure, what is it?”
�
�When I say, ‘What time is it?’ the right answer is: ‘Wine o’clock.’ Can you remember that?”
“Sure. Can I take a shower?”
“You can save your energy. Islamic traditions state that it’s customary to wash the body directly after death.”
“Oh.”
“Nonsense! Of course you can shower.”
He drives to the city and returns two hours later with a four-pint plastic container filled with a dark red liquid. “What time is it?” he asks.
“Seven thir… er… wine o’clock!” I answer, and he flashes a satisfied grin. I don’t know the other wines of western Iran (there are rumors of a wine-making facility near Urmia, producing beverages just for the diplomatic service in Tehran), but this is pretty damn good. Dry, fruity, a slight hint of blackberries. The aftertaste, however, is a bit furry, and my gums feel numb.
“The first sip always gives me a bit of a jolt,” says Ehsan and refills our glasses. “Now each of us could get eighty lashes as punishment.”
“What does the winemaker get?”
“Four years in prison per gallon. That would be 640 years for me.”
“Even for princes.”
“Even for princes. Did you know that it’s very easy to mix poison into a bitter drink, like wine?”
“No, I hadn’t really thought about it.”
He looks rather theatrically at his wristwatch. “You have about two hours—that’ll give you time to think about it.”
“Hey, the thing about my shah ambitions was a joke. You can have the job.”
“Too late.”
From: Mona
I saw our piC now i remember you from your profile stephan, you look awesome and cute:-)
Dying with a love note from a mysterious beauty in my hand would be a bit too Shakespearean, so I decide to survive the drink. Or did Ehsan sprinkle the antidote into the next glass of wine, or the one after that? We chat for many hours, and the prince proves to be a highly intelligent conversationalist with a devastating sense of humor, aristocratic self-confidence, and impressive expertise in illegal indulgences. (“The best hash comes from Karaj, near Tehran, and it’s four times as strong as what Europeans call hash.”)