On the Noodle Road

by Jen Lin-Liu

  Mr. Sanjar married a woman through family introductions and recently she’d given birth to twins, a boy and a girl. “We were blessed by Allah! What about you? Do you have plans to have children?”

  Not quite yet, Craig and I answered from the backseat.

  He scrutinized us in the rearview mirror, his eyes darting from me to Craig. He brightened. “You look so European and she looks so Chinese! Your children will be beautiful. You take one apple tree and you put it on a different one and you get . . .” Searching for the word, he held his hands above the steering wheel, connecting two imaginary branches, as we sped down an expressway at seventy miles an hour.

  “A hybrid?” Craig offered.

  “Yesh!” he shouted, thumping his hands on the steering wheel. “And you get better apples!”

  It was late afternoon by the time Mr. Sanjar exited the highway and steered us through Mashhad. Iran’s second-largest city was known for a shrine where the religious figure Imam Reza was buried. Just as we arrived at our hotel, our stomachs began to rumble. Craig asked if our guide could recommend a good restaurant—maybe even a teahouse, which we’d heard were popular places to eat, as in Central Asia.

  “Oh no,” Mr. Sanjar said. “Teahouses are not for ladies.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Men might give you the ‘evil eye.’ You might feel uncomfortable. They are not family establishments,” he declared. “I know of one teahouse in Iran that is acceptable for ladies. Later in the trip, I will take you there.”

  There was one teahouse in the country acceptable for ladies? This seemed to affirm my fear that Iran was worse than Central Asia. Across Asia, I’d noticed that teahouses were mostly the domain of men, a reversal of the European tradition, but Mr. Sanjar was the first person to tell me that I should not visit one. Though it sounded more like a strong recommendation than an outright order, it made me wonder exactly how much authority our guide had over us. Our travel agency had connected us with Mr. Sanjar, but we suspected he worked for the government, too.

  Mr. Sanjar discussed “the program,” which I’d arranged with the travel agent. After Mashhad, we would make a V across the country, stopping at the desert oases of Yazd and Shiraz before visiting the key cities of Esfahan and Tehran. From the capital, we would fly back to Beijing for the winter. Sometime earlier in the trip, I’d decided to break up the journey and would continue with Turkey in the spring. In all, we would travel more than 1,400 miles in his small sedan.

  At first, my travel agent, Bahar, didn’t know what to do about my request for cooking classes. She’d never had a tourist interested in Persian cuisine. Foreigners wanted to see points of historic interest, like ancient Persepolis or the iconic Imam Square in Esfahan, Bahar said. But it had taken just a quick explanation that I was an experienced cook and a few words of lavish praise for Iran’s culinary offerings before she agreed to help arrange classes across the country. Mr. Sanjar said he would be available to translate during them and to guide us around town. He added that he often ate meals with his guests, but he would give us some “free time.” Having almost always traveled independently, neither Craig nor I was enthusiastic about having a guide, let alone a government minder.

  After we checked in, Mr. Sanjar yawned and told us he’d ordinarily accompany us to dinner but that he was tired from the driving. We quickly assured him we’d be fine on our own and hit the streets of Mashhad. It was a densely built city, and its streets bustled with people of all ages and range of dress, particularly the women. The more conservative wore the chador, the black head and body covering that reminded me of a nun’s habit. They looked like giant ink blots, their smocks covering even their handbags. But other women seemed to take the restrictions on dress as a challenge in creativity; they wore tight jeans and high-heeled sandals that revealed their painted toenails, a suggestive contrast with their head scarves and trench coats. Many of the women managed to look elegant and stylish. Some store windows displayed mannequins that wore dresses with spaghetti straps and even lacy lingerie.

  The food shops attracted my attention, too. From a spice shop wafted the scent of cinnamon and black pepper. A butcher hacked away at large chunks of lamb fat. Rows of lamb and beef skewers took up the window of one shop, while across the street, people waited for freshly baked flatbread to roll out of an oven’s slow-moving conveyor belt. Specialty shops carried small containers of red saffron threads and dried fruits like barberries and apricots.

  As we gawked at our surroundings, passersby in turn stared at Craig and me. We were no longer in a place where at least one of us appeared to belong. Through most of China, I could blend in, while in Central Asia, Craig, with his sandy brown hair and blue eyes, could pass as Russian. But here the prevailing features were thick eyebrows, pronounced cheekbones, and large, dark eyes, though more often than I expected, locals had fair skin or green eyes.

  “Where are you from?” an old man buying nuts in one store asked in fluent English. We hesitated for a moment, wondering if we should say, before the word “America” fell from my lips.

  “America!” he said. “I love America. I have relatives in Canada.” He told us about his visits to North America. It was the first of numerous times we were asked the question, and each time we answered it we were met with thumbs-up, smiles, even the occasional hug. Not once did we encounter a hostile reaction, even on the anniversary of the day the Iranians had stormed the U.S. embassy and taken Americans hostage, a day when the government organized anti-American rallies.

  After window shopping, we looked for a teahouse listed in a guidebook, ignoring Mr. Sanjar’s warnings. We went down an alley and a set of stairs to an unmarked basement with a locked door. A few knocks later, the door opened and, lo and behold, two fashionable ladies sat inside, trading puffs on a hookah, sitting on a carpeted divan. It was around six o’clock, too early for dinner and too late for tea, but we ended up having both.

  We sipped strong black tea floating over sugar syrup in tulip-shaped glasses. Waiters brought us plates of novel snacks. Dried dates melted in my mouth like honey and changed my mind about a fruit I’d been lukewarm about before. Rosewater pudding was sprinkled with crushed pistachios, which in Iran were roasted to perfection, exuding equal notes of sweetness, saltiness, and butteriness and killing my ability to enjoy them anywhere else. Addictively crunchy dime-sized cookies called hajji badam flavored with cardamom and nutmeg complemented the tea as well.

  Dinner began with dizi, a traditional Iranian soup served in a heavy stone bowl. The waiter fished out fatty chunks of mutton, potatoes, and chickpeas and mashed them into a paste to make a dip that tasted like a meaty hummus. With many weeks of encountering it in plov behind me, I appreciated this new incarnation of sheep’s fat. The dip was served with sangek, long sheets of flat, thin dough baked over pebbles to form bumpy ridges. After limited Central Asian seasonings, we were happy to encounter dried oregano, which I’d mostly associated with Italy, sprinkled over a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers. A plate of leafy herbs, including basil (native to Iran), tarragon, and mint, and slices of paneer, a white and crumbly sheep’s milk cheese similar to feta, completed the meal.

  Having eaten to our hearts’ content, we lounged on the carpeted divan, taking in the surroundings. The subterranean room was cluttered with oil paintings of landscapes, ewers, and vases. Watermelons were decorative objects, hanging in mesh bags on posts like counterbalanced weights and floating in a shallow fountain, where the trickling of water competed with birds chirping in a cage and a rhythmic string tune that played through a set of speakers. As we digested our meal, we tried to process everything that had happened that day, still in disbelief we’d made it to Iran. But with every sip of strong black tea and every bite of food, it was becoming real.

  • • •

  Tense as I’d been about going to Iran, I hadn’t initially wanted Craig to come. I’d thought it might be safer to venture there on
my own, given how obviously Western he looked, not to mention his years as a serious journalist who covered politics. Of all the places on my itinerary, though, the Islamic Republic was the place Craig had been most insistent about accompanying me. Certainly he’d never wanted to go to Iran, which offered few outdoor activities and had the distinct reputation of being a pariah state. But he worried about my safety.

  How did he know his presence would guarantee my safety? I argued.

  He didn’t know, he admitted. But if I got thrown into prison, at least he would be there with me.

  I should have appreciated the romantic sentiment. But instead I ungraciously replied, “You think they’re going to put us in the same cell? All institutions in Iran are segregated by gender! Why would a prison be any different?”

  My husband disagreed. We were married. Of course they’d put us in the same cell.

  When we’d planned previous trips, we’d discussed what to see, what to pack, and where to eat and stay. This was the first time we’d discussed sleeping arrangements in a prison. After hours of argument, it was settled: if I was going to be detained, tortured, and imprisoned, my loving husband would be there for the memories.

  Toward the end of our time in Central Asia, the suspense about what we’d encounter in Iran spilled over into tension. The paranoia-inducing atmosphere of Turkmenistan didn’t help. We argued about what to send back to Beijing before crossing into Iran. I wanted Craig to ditch his expensive camera along with other electronics, lest authorities think he was a photojournalist; he resisted, saying that plenty of tourists nowadays carried professional-looking cameras. (He turned out to be right.) We argued about how we’d represent ourselves. I finally agreed that he could say he was the owner of my cooking school, a suggestion I’d initially bristled at.

  But we’d made it to Iran somehow, and we hadn’t been thrown in jail so far. The vibrancy and bustle was a stark and welcome contrast to the often stultifying atmosphere of Central Asia. We were glad, too, that Mr. Sanjar had let us venture out on our own, and hoped it was a sign that we wouldn’t be monitored too carefully. Plus Craig had been right to come along; I was grateful that, despite my obstinacy, he’d accompanied me.

  But still, there was one thing that irked me: the hejab. I was resentful that I had to wear a head scarf for the whole trip while Craig was free of the constraint—yet another privilege men were given in this world.

  “It’s only for a few weeks,” my husband said, trying to make me feel better. And hadn’t I commented just a few hours earlier on how elegant the women looked? Plus, my husband continued, in the West, the trend toward wearing less, at younger and younger ages, wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  “Wait a second,” I said. Was he actually expressing sympathy with the Islamic clerics? I did share his concern about scantily clad young girls in America. But having just spent the evening with an annoying scarf over my head and knowing I’d have to wear it for our entire time in Iran, I was in no mood to agree.

  “You’re not the one who has to wear this stupid thing!” I protested, waving the scarf at him in frustration.

  “Sorry,” he said, surprised at my vehemence. “I was just trying to make you feel better.” He reminded me that men had to follow a dress code as well.

  It wasn’t nearly as stringent, I argued. So men weren’t allowed to wear shorts. Big deal!

  “Well, who chose to come to this country?” he said. He had me there. And not only had I chosen, but my decision had dictated his: he felt he hadn’t had any option but to come along. I couldn’t exactly argue that that was chauvinist.

  • • •

  The next day, we faced another challenge: gaining entry to the dining hall of Iran’s holiest site. We’d learned about the cafeteria by chance as we toured the Imam Reza shrine that seemed as large as the Vatican, with a library and museum among the endless courtyards and buildings. Imam Reza was an eighth-century leader of Shia Muslims, the minority branch of Islam to which most Iranians belonged. After being killed by an Arab rival, he became a martyr. The shrine attracted more pilgrims than any other Muslim site except Mecca. Middle Easterners and Asians swarmed the complex, ranging from Saudi men with checkered kaffiyehs and flowing thawbs to Afghan women whose black hejabs revealed only weather-beaten faces.

  Authorities limited parts of the shrine to Muslims. Non-Muslims could tour the unrestricted areas only with a shrine employee. So Mr. Sanjar happily deposited us and disappeared, relieved of babysitting duty. Our guide was a friendly young woman named Shirin, whose plump cheeks were accented by the chador tightly pulled around her face. As a covering like hers was required for entry, she threw a chador over me and adjusted it. I felt as if I’d donned a crude Halloween costume. At the gates, a black-clad female security guard frisked me more thoroughly than the most zealous of airport personnel.

  “Mussulman?” she barked.

  I shook my head no.

  She shook her head back at me and crossed her arms. No Mussulman, no entry.

  Shirin, who’d already made it through security, poked her head back through a heavy curtain, argued with the guard, and pulled me past the curtain. “Don’t mind them,” she said. “They don’t understand the rules.”

  Once past security, we entered a complex that brimmed with spirituality. Pilgrims kissed the walls, closed their eyes, and murmured prayers as they walked. In some halls they knelt on the ground and cried over the martyr’s death as if it had happened just yesterday. Sermons blared over loudspeakers. Shirin was an excellent guide, giving us a thorough tour of the complex. Occasionally, a guard would stop us from entering a certain area. Whenever that happened, Shirin berated the guard and pushed brusquely through, pulling us along. She took us as close to the truly restricted area where Imam Reza was entombed as she could. As we walked, she told us about herself: she was a master’s student in English literature at a nearby university, and her latest paper was about Shakespeare and feminism. Like many young Iranian women, she was more focused on her career than on getting married and having children—a point of view that made Iran seem more similar to the West than to Central Asia.

  She led us into the shrine’s main courtyard just as the sun drifted behind the gold minarets and the sunset service was about to begin. More than a thousand worshippers sat in neat lines on the ground, men on the right, women on the left. Both genders prostrated toward Mecca as the muezzin sang the call to prayer with an undulating, hypnotic voice. Despite all the differences, we felt as comfortable in the mosque as we would have in a church in the American Bible Belt.

  During the service, Shirin asked why we’d come to Iran, given how few Americans did. When I told her I’d come to learn Persian cooking, she eagerly launched into the intricacies of her favorite dish, gormeh sabzi, the lamb stew with minced green herbs that I’d first had at Fariborz’s restaurant in Beijing. “And have you been to the shrine dining hall?” she asked. “You must go there for a meal.”

  The dining hall wasn’t your average tourist-site cafeteria, Shirin told us. It had an important purpose. Every day, pilgrims donated cash to the shrine for the sacrifice of sheep and cows in their name, an important Muslim tradition. Chefs at the dining hall received the lamb and beef and cooked it, serving it to pilgrims for free. The four-story building fed more than six thousand people a day, but the mosque authorities were building an extension to accommodate more visitors because meat was still going to waste. Pilgrims attached special significance to dining at the shrine. Usually tickets had to be procured a day in advance, Shirin said, but she said she’d take us there to try our luck. When the guards stopped us at the door, she pleaded with them while we awkwardly stood by, but they remained firm—the dining hall was restricted to ticket holders. Finally Shirin gave up, but she told us to come back the next day, when she would get us in.

  I woke up early the next morning and, as Shirin instructed, met her at seven o’clock at the shr
ine’s main gate. The night before, we’d told Mr. Sanjar that we planned to revisit the shrine for lunch; he was surprised, and doubtful that they’d let us in. A stop at the dining hall was never part of “the program,” he said. And as Shirin and I walked to the office where tickets were distributed, she warned of a possible issue. The man on duty that day was especially religious and uptight, and he might be reluctant to give out tickets to non-Muslims. But not to worry, she continued briskly. If anyone asked, I should say that I was a Muslim. And if they asked if I was Sunni or Shia, I should tell them that I was Shia.

  “Anything else I should mention?” I asked her skeptically.

  “Well, they might look at your passport photo and see that you’re not wearing a head scarf. If that happens, tell them you recently converted and you haven’t had time to get a new passport,” she said. She’d given the scheme quite a bit of thought. My passport photo showed my hair and my uncovered neck, making it downright risqué. Before I could object, she added, “Tell them your new name is Fatima and your husband’s name is Ali.” Those were the names of the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter and son-in-law.

  With that, we found ourselves in the office. Shirin led me past a long line of pilgrims and directly to the front, where a colleague took Craig’s and my passports. They glanced nervously at each other before the co-conspirator passed the passports on to their uptight coworker. Fatima, Fatima, I mumbled to myself. He examined the passports, flipping through the pages, reminding me of the guard at the border. But without much hesitation, he stamped our passports and returned them to Shirin, along with the tickets.