by Lois Pryce
I have an almost pathological aversion to retracing my steps, but there was no way around it on this occasion. Slithering back down the mountain was a lot quicker than struggling up it at least, and I pressed on past Hotel Alborz with just a swift glance, wondering if I would be spotted making my predicted retreat. As I examined alternative routes to the coast I now had to accept that I would most definitely be riding in the dark, something I was fanatical about avoiding, especially on roads like these and especially with Iranian drivers thrown into the mix. I found myself back at the evil eagle roundabout, but after that I ended up confused by the usual map versus ground conundrum, and it was several hours later, with nightfall upon me, that the mountains gave way to lowland and something that passed for civilisation appeared ahead. I was so relieved that I didn’t mind the thin clear air of the Alborz being replaced with diesel fumes, and when the small clusters of mud buildings that lined the outskirts turned into a street with shops, a petrol station and a rundown hotel, I couldn’t have placed it on a map but I no longer cared.
It took me the whole of the next day to wend my way around and over the mountains on snow-free roads to the Caspian coast. Away from the main highways a theme was emerging – due to my useless maps, the lack of road signs and overstretching my ambitions, it seemed I was fated to end each day riding in the dark, vaguely lost in a blur of confusion, frustration and exhaustion. How bloody hard can it be to find the Caspian Sea? My sense of direction told me that if I kept going I would hit the main east–west highway running along the coast. I eventually came to a set of traffic lights and my tourist’s heart jumped for joy as I spotted a road sign in English. It was for a town the name of which bore no resemblance to anything on my map, which only confused me more, but I was used to that by now. Never mind, there was hope! This was the Caspian corniche, where I was supposed to have been twenty-four hours earlier. I rode for several miles through sprawling towns that all merged into one another, until I spotted a row of bright lights and what looked like a large municipal building on a hill where there was clearly some kind of activity, with cars coming and going. Iran’s nightlife is not always obvious, but shops stay open late so my instinct was to find people, and from there somewhere to hole up for the night. The Caspian coast was by all accounts littered with hotels from its golden era as a pre-revolution holiday resort, and I guessed I would find somewhere to stay easily enough. I was suddenly desperate to stop. The adrenalin that had spurred me on over the Alborz had leached out of me, replaced with exhaustion so deep that it seeped into my bones. I feared I would fall into a crumpled heap as soon as I stepped off my bike.
Cresting a hill, the glittering lights that had been beckoning me appeared suddenly in the most dazzling display, illuminating a grand, white wedding cake of a building atop the hill. I could do nothing but stop and gasp at the sight before me. If this was a hotel, it was a mirage of the highest order, my own version of the drug-induced fantasy world of the hashishiyuns. Judging by its style – a blocky but imposing 1930s design approached by a wide, sweeping staircase – it dated from the era of Reza Shah, first king of the Pahlavi dynasty and father of the last shah. I guessed I had stumbled upon the family’s Caspian holiday palace. This meant I was in the town of Ramsar, where the Iranian royal family used to come during the summers to escape the heat of Tehran and indulge in hunting and shooting in the nearby forests. I examined my maps, getting my bearings, and turned and stood with the palace behind me, trying to catch a glimpse of the Caspian Sea. It was too dark to see anything except the black sky and the faint silhouettes of palm trees, illuminated by streetlights, tall and still in the cool night air.
Turning towards the palace, I climbed unsteadily from the bike and forced my wobbly legs up the steps towards the entrance, where an oversized and ludicrously ornate chandelier glowed through the front window. There were a few people milling around but when I walked up to the door I found it locked and upon peering through the window I could see that this was not a building in regular use. The glass panes were smeary and a thick layer of dust had settled on the gold and velvet chairs inside the reception room. The interior had a tired air, threadbare and a bit grubby, like the fossilised boudoir of a long-dead but once glamorous great aunt. I surveyed the scene around me and on closer inspection saw that the exterior paint was peeling too and the grounds were a little overgrown. So here was the lavish world of Reza Shah, the military man who had taken control of a ‘backward’ nation and whipped, cajoled and forced it into the modern age. I wondered how, in 1979, the palace had escaped the destruction of the revolutionaries, who had happily felled statues of both shahs, father and son, as well as attempted to erase the Pahlavi legacy by renaming landmarks and streets. Maybe they had intended to colonise his many palaces and residences for themselves; I figured even the most hardline of clerics would have fancied getting their hands on this place.
It was strange to see this token of the old era still obviously held in some regard by the current government. The relationship between Iran’s religious establishment and its royal family had always been uncomfortable, dating back centuries, with the religious leaders acquiescing to the royals most of the time. But inevitably the brutality, excesses and the cosying up to western powers would prove too much to bear for devout Iranians, and the nation erupted in protests and riots. The 1979 revolution was of course the most famous and explosive example of this dissatisfaction, but it wasn’t the first time the masses had shown their disdain for a corrupt shah. Back in 1906, a series of protests resulted in the creation of the first Persian constitution. A parliament was formed for the first time in Iran’s history, but it did little to stop the royal dynasties carrying on their tradition of extravagance and inequality, although they did tone it down a touch from the heyday of the eighteenth century, when the royal establishment included an extensive harem of various wives, daughters and concubines, plus approximately four thousand slave girls. I had to concede that the highlife of Iran’s twentieth-century royals looked relatively austere in comparison.
Intrigued to catch a glimpse of how the Pahlavis had lived, or at least holidayed, I descended a flight of steps, towards a chink of light through a half-closed door, and came upon a wholly different scene. Below stairs the basement of the palace had indeed been colonised by a new generation of Iranians. But these were no angry, flag-burning Islamic fundamentalists. It seemed I had stumbled upon the hippest hangout on the Caspian coast. Low lighting, arty prints and achingly cool music set the scene for Ramsar’s beautiful people to lounge gracefully on sofas and cushions amidst a blur of qalyān smoke. It was a young mixed crowd and I was struck, not for the first time on this trip, by the natural good looks and effortless poise of the Iranians. As gazes were lifted towards me – all tight T-shirts and immoral spiky hair for the boys and long lustrous locks and thick make-up for the girls – I was aware of being very pale, grubby and hopelessly, haplessly British to my very core.
‘Is the palace open to the public?’ I asked a young guy who had come down the steps behind me.
‘Not all of it, not anymore. It was a hotel for a long time but it’s been closed for years, it’s a museum now. Is this your first time in Iran?’
I nodded and he smiled, sweeping his arm to display the scene.
‘This is how things used to be, before the Islamic Republic. This was the palace of the Shah. Almost as beautiful as your Buckingham Palace, yes?’
He gave an endearing grin. He was a child of the revolution, too young to remember those days, but I guessed he had picked up this theme from his disillusioned parents or by the osmosis of popular opinion. Thirty-five years of intimidating and dreary Islamic rule had created a rose-tinted view of the pre-revolutionary era. The arrests, the intimidation, the decadence of the elite, the horrors of SAVAK; it had all been forgotten, replaced by a revised, romantic version of the good old days. Among Iranians of a certain age and class, the swinging sixties and seventies are recalled with a poetic yearning nostalgia; an era of
mini-skirts, freedom and hedonism. ‘I haven’t had a glass of wine since 1979,’ one man had told me at a petrol station in Qazvin; ‘I miss the 1970s,’ he had added with a mournful, faraway look. Many people I spoke to turned misty-eyed at the mention of the last Shah, and in particular his glamorous wife, Farah Pahlavi, who signifies everything that is now outlawed for Iranian women. There are Facebook pages dedicated to them both, each boasting thousands of followers, and in the flea markets and antique shops of Tabriz I had seen banknotes, stamps and coins bearing the Shah’s image selling for high prices. The man who in my lifetime had been ousted for being a spineless puppet of the USA, was fast on his way to becoming an Iranian icon.
‘This part is still a hotel,’ the young guy was saying, pointing in the direction of what looked like Ramsar’s answer to the Arndale Centre, a 1970s concrete extension that would no doubt have set the original architect’s teeth gnashing.
I strolled through the grounds and entered the lobby, guessing it would be out of my price range but curious to see what Persian Brutalism looked like. It certainly smelled like the 1970s, and the decor had survived long enough to have passed through tackiness and come out the other side with a certain vintage charm. It would have been built a few years before the revolution, with all the optimism of that mid-century era and no inkling of the dramatic events that were about to transform this country. But at the reception, as expected, the only thing that had moved with the times were the room rates, and so I wandered back to my bike, all of a sudden overwhelmed by exhaustion, hunger and wet feet. As I stood staring at my map, wondering what to do next and trying to talk myself out of an overpriced night of nylon sheets and an avocado bathroom suite, a car pulled up next to me and a young man stepped out, all eager grins, and from the passenger seat, his consort, another beautiful Iranian woman, waved with a shy smile.
‘Welcome!’ said the man. ‘Where are you from?’ He was examining my bike’s licence plate. I told him how I had come from London and had just arrived in Ramsar after crossing the Alborz.
‘Do you need somewhere to stay tonight?’
‘Well, I …’
‘Please, come! Don’t stay here, this is very expensive. Come with us, we have an apartment just a few minutes away, with a spare room. We are going there now. We will eat and you can rest and take a shower. It will be no trouble!’
He placed his hand on his heart, and bowed his head slightly. ‘My name’s Hossein, my wife, Leila. Please come, it will be our honour.’
I paused only for a moment. Heck, they could be the Iranian version of Fred and Rose West for all I knew, but my old travel instincts were kicking in and I had a good feeling about them. I jumped on the bike and followed their car down the hill.
‘We come here at weekends, we live in Tehran during the week,’ Hossein explained as we entered an apartment complex, passing under a security barrier. It was obviously a high-end development but there was a half-empty, wind-blown feel about it, as if its residents had not fully settled in.
Unlike most of the Iranian women I had met so far, Leila was quiet and shy, leaving Hossein to do the talking while she prepared food in the kitchen. He explained how they had lived and worked in Canada for several years but had recently decided to return to Iran.
‘Why did you want to come back?’ I tried to not sound too surprised, but the idea of leaving a secure life in a progressive, liberal democracy for an uncertain economic future under an oppressive regime seemed to fly against common sense, or at least my version of it. ‘We are all led to believe that everyone wants to escape to the West,’ I added.
‘Of course, and many do. It is hard to explain but, it is more … more, real here, the people, how they are with each other. In Canada it is cold – I do not mean just the weather,’ he laughed. ‘You can be very alone in Canada, even when you are with other people. Life in Iran, it is just—’ He paused, trying to find the word. ‘Just more, real. That is the only way I can describe it. Real.’
‘So, even with all the restrictions on your lives, and the economic problems here, the sanctions, the inflation, you wanted to come back?’
‘Yes, I know it sounds strange but in Iran I feel alive, even when I am out, walking around in the streets. In Canada I often felt alone, lonely, cut off, even with other people. It is as if they are not fully alive, there is no connection between people, or not the kind I am used to.’
‘What were you doing there for work?’
‘I am a software engineer.’ He gave me his business card, printed in both English and Persian on heavy-quality stock, with a collection of letters after his name. It reeked of highly educated, high-ranking professionalism. ‘I am what we call a “Farsi-fier”. I translate programmes, Microsoft or Adobe, that kind of software, into Farsi. Now I have my own IT firm in Tehran.’
I was suitably impressed. Intelligent, successful, worldly, sophisticated, handsome, well off, nice car, holiday home, good-looking wife. Not bad, and certainly not the image of the average Iranian man that gets much airtime back home.
‘But I also have another life,’ he added with a smile. ‘I am a part-time actor.’
The mystery of Hossein deepened.
‘Yes, I have been in some short films and television adverts. If you watch television while you are in Iran, you may see me’– he offered a shy smile that revealed his film-star white teeth – ‘advertising carpet cleaner.’ He reached into a cupboard and from behind a large hardback book of Hafez’s poetry, produced a bottle. ‘You like whisky?’
I sensed this would be an evening of surprises.
As the conversation continued and the whisky flowed, I felt relaxed in his presence. He was happy to talk openly and easily on any subject, asking and answering questions with disarming honesty, to which I replied in kind. There was no topic that was off limits, but his conversation didn’t feel intrusive and I relished the direct, non-judgemental exchange of thoughts and ideas. We looked each other in the eye when we spoke. There was no cynicism, no hedging around subjects or embarrassed laughter. This openness was something I had noticed with many of the Iranians I had met and I wondered if this was part of what Hossein meant about being ‘real’. We were speaking in almost faultless English but it felt like a different language, compared to the awkward circuitous small talk employed among strangers in Britain. The great British conversation taboos of politics and religion were fair game in Iran, too. In fact, it seemed obligatory to discuss nothing else.
As if reading my mind, Hossein turned to me and said, ‘Do you believe in God?’
I answered truthfully in the negative.
‘Really?’ He looked unusually surprised, almost unsure of how to process this concept. Although the idea of the ‘secular Muslim’ was common in Iran, it was definitely considered unusual to have no religion at all. Most people, it seemed, would describe themselves as Muslim, even if they had not stepped inside a mosque for years, never prayed, and despised their Islamic rulers.
‘You do not think that there is some kind of higher power, even if you do not follow a religion?’
I shrugged and thought about my response. ‘Well, I believe we humans are capable of much more than we probably realise. I suppose you could say that I believe in us as a great power.’
‘But what do you think happens when we die?’
‘Well, I guess that’s it.’
‘No afterlife? No heaven? No hell?’
I shook my head, almost feeling the need to apologise. He looked so surprised. But he was nodding and listening with a serious expression, consciously trying to appreciate my point of view. There was no sense of disapproval or judgement, just a genuine effort to understand.
‘So do you believe there is an afterlife?’ I asked him.
‘Yes, I think so. I hope so. You know why I hope this?’ He paused and looked me in the eye, waiting. I shook my head. ‘Because I want Khomeini to suffer. I want to believe he is suffering now, for what he did to the Iranian people, all the people he killed
and tortured and drove away from their homes. All the lives he has ruined.’
He poured another round of whisky. I had to ask.
‘But Hossein, if you are a Muslim, is it not forbidden to drink alcohol?’
He gave me a cheeky smile and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Yes, I am a Muslim. I pray, I drink whisky. I do not see a problem!’ He giggled like a naughty schoolboy and raised his glass.
Leila began a delivery of trays of food from the kitchen. Piles of watermelon, bowls of yoghurt, bread, rice, soups, stews and sauces. It kept on coming. I wondered about her life in Iran, and if she too had wanted to return from Canada, but she was shy and didn’t speak much English. She seemed happy with Hossein, and he with her; they were clearly deeply attached and touched each other frequently, which was unusual in Iran. In a country where sexuality is almost invisible in public, these two had some serious electricity buzzing between them. As the whisky bottle emptied and the dining table came to resemble the wreckage of a great banquet, Hossein’s conversation became more mystical, his language more opulent, as he continued to discuss religion, reincarnation, morals and spirituality.
‘What do you think when you see someone begging for money in the street? Do you give them money?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Sometimes I do, but other times I think, what will they spend it on? Why should I give them money that I have worked for, and then I feel like a bad person for thinking this.’
His expressive, open face looked tortured.
‘That’s probably a normal response,’ I reassured him. ‘Most people feel different things about it at different times, I suppose we can never fully understand anyone’s situation.’
‘Yes, I try not to judge people like this. But you know, sometimes it is hard. And when I see someone who is crippled or deformed, I think maybe this is punishment for their past life.’