Revolutionary Ride

by Lois Pryce

  ‘It comes from the word Aryan, the Iranians are Aryan people,’ added his daughter. ‘But here in Tabriz, in the north-west, most people are Azari, Turkic people, we have our own dialect and you will see people with red hair and pale skin.’

  ‘I see …’

  ‘Now please, please, do not worry about any of this,’ said her father, butting in with an expressive wave and a twinkle in his eye. ‘We are all Iranians. There is just one important thing for you to know on your journey, the most important thing of all …’

  I prepared myself for this crucial insight. His expression turned solemn but the twinkle remained.

  ‘Whatever you do, you must never call an Iranian an Arab!’

  The whole family burst into laughter.

  His daughter, Shohreh, was in her early twenties with a kindly, studious expression behind her glasses and a warm smile.

  ‘I am so happy to meet you!’ she said, ‘I am an English teacher and I never have the opportunity to practise my English with a real English person. You know the truth, I have never met someone from England ever before today! Can I ask you some questions about your beautiful language?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I said, happy to provide assistance and feeling a pleasurable, if entirely unwarranted, glow of pride.

  ‘Thank you. So,’ she continued, taking my hand with an imploring smile, ‘can you help me with gradable and non-gradable adjectives … I think it is relating to the comparative or superlative forms, is this correct?’

  ‘Er …’

  I feared that my 1980s state schooling had not prepared me adequately for this situation. I was clearly going to have to raise my game if I was going to hang out with Iranians.

  The family went on to talk about their pilgrimages to Mecca and how difficult it was to travel with an Iranian passport, even to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj.

  ‘Everyone thinks we are terrorists!’ exclaimed Shohreh. ‘They fingerprint us when we arrive!’

  ‘I know the feeling,’ I said, and told them about my experience with the police on the train.

  ‘I know a man, an immigration officer,’ said the father. ‘He told me that some time ago the British, they decided to take the fingerprints of all Iranians who visit the UK. So now, this is why Iran does the same to you.’

  So, that is what it was all about, I thought. The tit-for-tat continues, even at this micro level. My new friends were all shaking their heads with the weariness of those who live in a climate of mistrust and intimidation. Just part of everyday life in Iran. I had related the fingerprinting story lightly, hedging my conversation topics as I was still unsure which subjects were appropriate. This family, although not hardliners, were definitely more conformist than the outspoken Bahá’ís that I had met on the Trans-Asia Express.

  Then Shohreh intervened with a more pressing subject.

  ‘So, what do you think about hijab? How does it feel to cover your hair? Is it strange for you?’

  They all turned to me, inquisitive looks in their eyes. This was the topic of the times, a source of division among not just the Iranian people and their religious leaders but between Iranian women themselves. Hijab was enforced by law in Iran, but how you wore your headscarf, I was quickly discovering, was a political statement.

  A lot of the younger women and the more obviously fashionable pushed their hijab to the limit, wearing it hanging off the back of the head or teetering on the top of a high bun, with plenty of hair on show at the front. The older women, and the religious and politically conservative, wore the chador, the long black cloak that covers the entire head and body – the name literally translates as ‘tent’. Somewhere in the middle were my dining companions, who wore their scarves tied neatly under the chin, a sign of moderate conservatism and religious beliefs.

  ‘So, does it feel weird to you, wearing the scarf?’ Shohreh’s sister pursued the line of questioning now.

  I wasn’t sure if there was a ‘correct’ answer. Should I say what I truly thought? My initial response was that the damn thing kept getting in the way and already contained a smudge of engine oil and evidence of this evening’s dinner. I made a surreptitious dab at a yoghurt stain with a dampened napkin. But that was just the start of it. Was this really the time and the place for some feminist rabble rousing? I tested the water.

  ‘Well, of course, it’s a strange sensation for me …’

  They smiled and nodded encouragingly.

  ‘You know the expression, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do?”’ I said to Shohreh and she nodded, translating it into Persian for the others. I omitted the obvious next sentence, But it doesn’t mean I agree with it.

  ‘A lot of the younger women in Iran are against compulsory hijab,’ said Shohreh, picking up on my unspoken words, ‘but the older women would feel uncomfortable without it – like for you being without clothes in public.’

  ‘Reza Shah, who became leader of Iran in the 1920s, the father of the last Shah, he made it illegal to wear the chador, and the veil,’ added their father. ‘Many people look up to him now, because he wanted to modernise Iran. Make it more like a western country. He gave women more rights, he built many roads and railways and hospitals. But not everyone wanted to wear western dress. My mother, she did not want to leave the house without her hair covered, it was like an embarrassment for her. But the Shah’s men, they would shoot people who opposed it.’

  ‘And look, now it is the other way,’ said his wife, shaking her head, as if exasperated with it all. She had my sympathy. The idea of these few powerful men deciding what millions of women should do with their hair just seemed ridiculous. So unimportant but yet so significant.

  ‘I guess it would be best if it was a choice,’ I said, and it seemed we all agreed on that.

  I offered a crumpled handful of Iranian rials, still unsure how their millions converted into pounds, hoping it was enough to cover my share of the meal, but I didn’t even get a chance to find out.

  ‘But you are our guest! You do not pay!’ they all cried.

  We entered into the usual rounds of mock argument that I associate with British politeness, and bantered good-naturedly until my host stopped the conversation with an announcement.

  ‘There is something very important you must know. This is ta’arof. Do you know of ta’arof?’ I shook my head, not recognising the word. ‘In Iran we have, this, how would you call it? It is a tradition, a custom, for politeness, it is like a great art and is always the same way. This is called ta’arof. Maybe if you take a taxi, you say to the taxi driver, “How much?” and he might say, “No, no charge, it is my great honour to drive you today” and you must say “No, I must pay you” and he says again “No.”’

  ‘Or he may say “Ghorboonet beram.” This means “I will sacrifice myself for you”,’ added his wife.

  I thought a sacrifice seemed a bit excessive, but I liked the general gist of it, and enjoyed the elaborate nature of the Iranian use of language. It wasn’t only Khomeini and Ahmadinejad who employed dramatic proclamations; it was a national trait and so terribly un-British in its appeal.

  ‘So it is like refusing out of politeness?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, but in the end he must accept.’

  ‘Right. Because otherwise the taxi driver won’t make any money?’

  ‘Yes, this is correct. But ta’arof is not only for money, it is the same for food, or to open a door and let someone walk through before you.’

  His wife joined in: ‘If you are a guest at someone’s house maybe they will offer you sweets and you say no, they offer again, you say no again, they offer once more, then the third time you take the sweets. It is always three times.’

  ‘OK, I see. We do something similar in England but not so formal, I suppose. We don’t have a name for it.’

  ‘It is very good that you understand this. Ta’arof is very important in Iran. We do not ta’arof with our very close friends or our family, but it is always with guests or even at work with our colleagues or our boss
.’

  ‘I see. So,’ I said, trying to navigate this slippery concept, ‘I have tried to pay for my dinner tonight more than three times but still you insist on paying, so what do I do now?’

  ‘Ah, but this is different, because you are our guest, a foreigner in our country. Of course you do not pay!’

  They all looked aghast again. I was confused.

  ‘Wait, are we doing ta’arof again, or what’s going on?’

  Now they were all laughing so hard the waiter came over and a spirited exchange broke out between him and my host, who was handing over handfuls of notes. They seemed to be entering into another round of ta’arof but eventually the bill was paid and my rials lived to see another day. Everyone seemed happy and I remained slightly confused but the ta’arof started up again when they insisted on giving me a lift back to the hotel and making plans to meet me the following day to take me around town.

  I protested, part in the spirit of the tradition but also aware that I had many miles ahead and the familiar white-line fever of the first few days of a road trip was gnawing at me; I wanted to get moving. I told them about Habib’s note and that my ultimate destination, Shiraz, was still a long way away, thousands of miles if I took all the detours and side trips I planned – to the Caspian Sea, into the deserts and the Alborz and Zagros Mountains, to Tehran where I had arranged to stay with friends of friends from London, and further south to Yazd and Isfahan. I insisted that I really didn’t want to trouble them.

  ‘But we must show you Tabriz!’ they insisted.

  ‘It will be good for me to practise my English,’ insisted Shohreh.

  Was this ta’arof? Did they really want to down tools to entertain me, a total stranger, or were they just being polite hosts, the product of a culture that prizes hospitality? I tried to ta’arof back with them but resistance was futile. If there was one thing I had learned on my first day in Iran, it was that you never quite know what’s going to happen next. I reminded myself of another thing I had learned from my years on the road: itineraries are futile; the fun stuff happens when you give them up and go with the flow.

  Back in my hotel room, as I settled into bed for my first night in Iran, staring up at the arrow on the ceiling that pointed to Mecca, I felt overwhelmed in the best possible way. I was all alone in a strange land but when I stared out of the window at the sprawling city and the moon over the mountains, I thought about my train-travelling companions, all back in their homes now, settling in for the night; and I thought of my dining companions this evening with their easy conversation and good cheer; and I felt waves of goodwill, like radio transmissions, being beamed in my direction from all over Iran. I tried not to think of the evil-eyed policeman and his suspicious colleagues, and of how many more of their type awaited me on the road. Instead I pulled up the bed cover, warmed from the outside by Persian polyester, and from the inside by something altogether less artificial.

  4

  Following Freya

  AFTER A COUPLE of days finding my feet in Tabriz, I awoke on the morning of departure with the twitchy anticipation so familiar at the start of a long journey. My most immediate concern, regarding navigation, was calmed by the fact that there was a bilingual road sign for Tehran at the junction outside the hotel. I could see it from my window and I had come to view it as a kind of talisman. Easy, just follow the signs. There was a time in Iran’s not too distant past when no English translation would have sullied any road sign, so I was grateful for these small concessions to outsiders.

  In the underground car park I swapped hijab for helmet and, as I started the bike, felt the rush that exists somewhere between excitement and fear. Out in the street, the excitement quota quickly evaporated and I was left with nothing but terror as I tackled the rush-hour traffic and one-way systems of Tabriz and discovered that my dependable bilingual road sign was an anomaly. I never saw another one again all day. I kept riding in the suggested direction, at first hopefully, then with all hope abandoned, as I became entangled in a multi-lane melee of beat-up yellow cabs, fume-blasting buses and the ubiquitous savaari – shared taxis that operate as something between the two and whose trade works on the basis of making emergency stops in the middle of the road every few minutes to pick up a fare.

  I had to admit it, I was stuck. I needed help. My first solution was to flag down a cab to lead me out of town to the start of the Tehran highway, but I couldn’t make the driver understand my request and we parted amicably if both more confused than before. Eventually I pulled into a petrol station, to fuel up for the long ride ahead but also hoping that someone would be able to point me in the right direction. The place was full of men filling up their cars and trucks. Only men. All of them, it appeared, extremely discomfited by my sudden appearance in their world of gender-specific roles. They stared and stared and stared. I had spent the last couple of days being escorted around town with Shohreh and her family, and in their company I had been an acceptable if unusual phenomenon, but it was their presence that had given me validation. Now I had to hold my own, as a foreign woman alone on a motorcycle. As I met their stares, it occurred to me that most of these men had probably never seen a woman riding a motorbike, ever.

  ‘Benzin?’ I said pointing at the tank, smiling weakly at a guy in petrol company overalls who was standing with the pump in his hand, gaping at me, unabashed. I had never felt so exposed and awkward. The men kept staring, standing at a wary distance in silence.

  I attempted to ask directions to the Tehran highway but my pronunciation was poor enough to perplex them even further. After a while someone grasped the problem.

  ‘Aah, Teh-ran!’

  OK, emphasis on first syllable. This was important.

  The frozen statues became animated. What man can resist being asked directions? There was much arm-waving and circular motions that I guessed indicated a roundabout, and lots of pointing and rapid Persian. I grasped a vague idea of what I should be doing and replicated their motions for approval – straight ahead, right at the roundabout? The men had abandoned their vehicles now and were gathering around while still maintaining a polite gap between us. When it transpired I had understood the directions correctly, their faces opened up into smiles and laughter and I rode away to the sound of their clapping and cheering. Maybe it was all going to be fine after all. But still, the freak-show sensation was not a pleasant one.

  Tehran was a ride of about 400 miles from Tabriz, but before I plunged into the chaos of the capital I was keen to explore the northern shores of Iran, along the Caspian Sea, and then make my way to Tehran across the Alborz Mountains. This narrow but formidable range runs between the coastal strip and Iran’s central plateau, stretching all the way from the borders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the north-west to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan in the east, and had long held a fascination for me, inspired by The Valleys of the Assassins, Freya Stark’s travelogue of her adventures in this region in the 1930s.

  A refreshingly sparsely trafficked highway transported me out of Iran’s north-western provinces, passing through barren, mountainous country. It was good to be moving again, back on the bike and easing into the familiar rhythms of life on the road. My jumping off point for the coast and the mountains was Qazvin, a bright, busy town where I was able to hole up in a slightly shabby 1970s hotel on the main street and roam with unusual anonymity, the residents seemingly distracted by a non-stop frenzy of commerce and socialising. Neon flashed outside my window, restaurants pumped out smoky meat smells accompanied by tinkly muzak versions of forbidden western easy-listening hits, and multistorey shopping centres stayed open later than I could stay awake. Women cloaked in black chadors window-shopped at boutiques offering surprisingly risqué clothing, pointing out lacy mini-dresses and tight, low-cut tops to their friends. Across the street, men, women and children alike clustered outside high-end electronics stores to admire displays of giant Samsung flat-screen televisions and, of course, the new iPhone 5, a contender for Iran’s hot topic of the moment, only
narrowly beaten by President Rouhani’s historic UN talks, which were taking place in New York and gracing all the front pages on the news-stands.

  While the inhabitants of Qazvin salivated over Apple products, I spent the evening in more analogue pursuits, poring over my maps and route-planning the next part of my journey. In the morning I was heading north out of town, taking the smaller roads that would lead me into the Alborz Mountains, following, quite literally, in the footsteps of Freya Stark. In 1930 she had walked from Qazvin along the same route I was to take now, charting the route and terrain as she travelled. Her journey had been a daring expedition to discover the ruined fortress of Alamut Castle, the former headquarters of the ancient Ismaili sect, better known as the Assassins, who had broken away from mainstream Islam and dominated this region under a reign of terror in the eleventh century. Legend had it that this cult had acquired their name from their ruthless leader’s tactic of getting his followers stoned before encouraging them to murder top political and religious leaders with trippy, weed-induced promises of a paradise full of nubile young maidens in exotic gardens. These bloodthirsty stoners lapped it up and soon became known as the Hashishiyun, named after their drug of choice, and giving root to the English word, assassin.

  The Alborz Mountains were less intimidating to the traveller these days, but they still held plenty of thrills and a certain amount of foreboding. Their valleys were cavernous and isolated, their peaks and passes high and snow-covered with only small villages dotted here and there. Once over the other side I would descend to the shores of the Caspian Sea, which sounded impossibly romantic, although this image was based on no more than a childhood spent reading C. S. Lewis books. I had very little idea of what to expect from the Caspian, but I am always drawn to water of any kind, and the idea of an Iranian corniche was exotic and exciting. As Robert Louis Stevenson famously put it, I was travelling hopefully, which he also claimed was better than arriving. I would only find out if he was right once I set eyes on the sea itself.