by Dina Bennett
To reach where I’m standing, that chickpea of opium would have come from the opposite direction, most likely starting in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan, twin to neighboring Kandahar Province in terms of opium-producing stature, but closer to Iran. It could have entered anywhere along Iran’s 1,923-kilometer-long eastern border with Afghanistan, a national boundary so porous it would shame a sieve.
Like me, it would have moved by vehicle. While that might sound disturbing, I’m relieved not to have to compare myself to an opium chickpea arriving in the northeast, which could have travelled in the stomach of a donkey or a camel. Regardless of mode of transport, to reach Ghalat our sample chickpea would have jounced across 1,200 kilometers of terrain so rough even Genghis Khan and Tamerlane complained about it.
While I had to be satisfied with lamb heart kebabs from roadside grills, the transiting opium provided the equivalent of an endless Sunday brunch for Iran’s military and government, reputedly heavily involved in its trade. We’re talking profits from 540-plus tons of raw opium consumed within Iran each year, a quantity that awards Iran the silver medal (second to Afghanistan) for most addicted country in the world.
A chickpea of opium is enough to send a novice smoker into a haze for twenty-four hours. For an addict, smoking one chickpea would be like Usain Bolt saying he’s going to jog around the block for exercise. Why bother? Three opium nubs are what you’ll need to get you started on the day. This will cost you fifty cents. To maintain a high-quality stupor, you’ll smoke three times a day. Despite my C+ in high school algebra, even I can calculate how quickly the gluey black opium paste will not only stain your lips brown and rot your teeth but gnaw away at what little income you have.
Continuing our walk, we amble up a cobbled lane of beige stone, past a tree whose slender branches droop heavy with the blood red globes of ripe pomegranate, through a low arched tunnel funky with sheep droppings, emerging into sunlight dappled by orange persimmon trees, then into a narrow alley, ducking under a low doorway where stands Shahpur, blue shorts exposing his bony knees, his concave chest heaving with an occasional cough. He peers at us, red-rimmed eyes crinkling in his long stubbly face, hair sticking up in tufts as if, though it’s 11:00 a.m., he’s just risen from a wild night of restless dreams. His smile is immediate, and so I see that his upper teeth are gone, rotted, fallen out. One lone long one remains, stained as brown as bark, clear testimony that Shahpur has made friends with opium in a big way.
I’ve met many unusual people on the road, though never where or when I anticipated. During our driving days I always feel a bit like I’m going rogue without really wanting to. Often my cell phone won’t work and I become creepily aware of the literal truth that no one knows where I am. So it’s as yin seeks yang, that I seek the secure predictability—and connectivity, and hot shower—of a nice hotel at day’s end. If we can find one. Regardless, I long to shake hands with the next day’s unpredictability, because that’s how I’ve had some of my most memorable encounters, from the ex–Black Panther who invited us for barley beer on his farm near Lake Tana, Ethiopia, to the vodka-swilling Kyrgyz who pulled me into a dance circle at his reunion in Naryn, on the road to Kashgar in China. And I’ve been around men like Shahpur before, too, in 2009 when I was in Nagaland, the foothills of eastern India, steps away from the Myanmar border—which I stepped over, just to make the point that I could. There, in the headhunter village of the Konyak people, a cluster of addicts occupied the back room of the thatch hut of our hosts. Everyone treated them with affectionate nonchalance. Now and then one would wander into the surrounding bamboo forest toting a homemade black powder rifle, in search of bush meat for the pot, whose contents were freely shared with them at each meal. Mainly, though, they stayed close to their pipe.
For those three days and three nights I tried to convince myself to smoke opium. “This is your chance. Don’t pass it up,” the adventurous side of me said. “Yes, but remember what happened when you tried to drink barley beer. And that was just barley beer,” the easily cowed side of me answered. “If they felt like sharing they would have,” I countered. “You’re a woman. A foreigner. They wouldn’t dare suggest it,” I replied. And so it went until the last night passed and it was too late. I was filled with regret as well as disgust at having missed a perfect opportunity. After many more years that saw me traveling through countries like Myanmar and China, both of which hold elite status in the world of opium production and use, I figured my days of bumping into opium addicts were long gone. Wrong.
Shahpur covers his heart with his right hand in the Iranian gesture of grateful welcome, then sweeps it round to present his café with its several small tables, assorted wood benches, and a decor of nomad weavings, artistically twisted branches, and old farm implements. The place is empty but expectant, breathless as a high school senior awaiting her prom date. Right now, the quiet fairly roars in my ears, as if I’m the only one who’s noticed the date should have been here hours ago and just may not show. Even the neighbors must be away. The rusty pink child’s bike leaning against a gray-washed stone wall speaks of abandonment instead of the life-giving force of childhood laughter.
Come up these stairs to my home, Shahpur gestures. Have tea with me. And so we do, leaving our shoes on the threshold. With windows and doors open, Shahpur’s small rooftop living quarters are cool and fresh. Red Persian rugs cover the floor and hard rectangular cushions line the walls around a brick fireplace where lounges a plush toy leopard. A few wedding photos adorn the mantel piece, along with one large silver-framed photo of a black-haired toddler. I peer into Shahpur’s bedroom, bare except for a floral fleece blanket on the floor. It’s in the bedding equivalent of fetal position, rumpled and discarded when Shahpur moved onto his body-sized terrace amid pots of dying herbs, perhaps to cool off a night sweat.
Shahpur wishes us to sit against the wall cushions as honored guests, but we’ve not only seen the portable gas burner on the floor in front of the kitchen, but noticed there’s a tin stew pot simmering on it. Wisps of spicy lamb perfume curl from under the lid. I cannot resist local foods and that rich, meaty odor is tempting to me. Sit politely against the wall when we can all inhale delicious steam? How absurd would that be?
We ignore Shahpur’s entreaties and join him cross-legged on the floor, except Bernard whose legs can’t pretzel like the rest of us. We’re circling the wagons, in a manner of speaking, around what turns out to be abgoosht, colloquially called dizi, an Iranian stew of lamb, potatoes, tomato, chickpeas, turmeric, and dried lime. Pointing backward on his watch, Shahpur confides it’s been simmering now for twelve hours. Lifting the lid as only I can do when I’m shamelessly hungry, I see a rich red-gold broth spiked with all the requirements. But no chickpeas.
Shahpur pours us glasses of tea, puts some crude blonde tobacco—more branch than leaf—in his qalyan, and settles himself on the floor for a smoke. Closing his eyes, he draws deeply, the soft bubbling of water in the hookah like an old aunt muttering about her nephew’s bad habits. He takes several drags, then opens his eyes and breaks into song. It’s a village ode to a local man, Shahpur’s strong tenor ringing out in the small house. From the way he wags his head with his eyes twinkling, the lyrics are raunchy. And then, surprise, he belts out “Ay Berrrrrnarrd!” launching into a four-line refrain with three repetitions, at each mention of Berrrnarrd, his winks and smile getting bigger and broader. He draws out the last note, spreading his arms wide to encompass Bernard, me, the dizi, life in general, perhaps opium in particular, his one stained tooth prominently displayed as he bursts into proud laughter.
When Shahpur inspects his stew, the smell is so intoxicating we are determined to linger over our tea until lunch is the only possible next step. But he needs no prompting, expressing deep gladness at the unexpected company now filling an empty day. He scrounges two more potatoes for the stew, my cue to offer my services for KP duty. Peeling, dicing, then tossing them in the pot, we return to our floor positions as they sof
ten in the bubbling broth, all of us companionably attentive to the Arctic segment of Planet Earth playing on the flatscreen TV. Once, the TV might have been evidence of flush times in the teahouse below, but now it’s the only item of value in the house, holding pride of place on a scratched wood bureau facing the kitchen. Though the Iranian station broadcasts the show in an endless loop, we ooh and point over and over again as a polar bear tumbles with her cubs, orcas team up to kill a whale, and a wolf pack drags down a caribou calf.
All of this would be charming if it weren’t becoming apparent from what I see around me, and from the melancholy into which Shahpur seems to sink when he’s not “on,” that he’s smoked his way into a downward spiral of loss and solitude. Our companion tells us Shahpur’s wife has left and taken their boy to Shiraz, ostensibly for school, but likely also to get the boy away from his father’s habit. Now there’s little to spare even for a handful of chickpeas for his stew. Despite that opium smoking is a sociable endeavor, the house sighs with emptiness and loss.
Shahpur smokes until it’s stew time, which begins with us taking a small portion each in order to leave enough for Shahpur’s evening meal. Appalled at our meager helpings, he mines deep in the pot, ladling a more generous heap of neck bones, potatoes, and broth into each of our bowls. Our spoons make poor work of extracting the delicate meat clinging around their boney harbors. Shahpur shakes a vertebra at me with his hands, shreds of meat clinging to its angles and orifices, then, despite his lack of teeth, brings it to his mouth to illustrate I should eat with my fingers. But this is Iran and it’s been difficult enough not turning my headscarf into a food catcher at a fork-and-knife sort of meal. It would be impossible to acquit myself with dignity when slurping a dripping bone from a stewpot. I stab my spoon at the neck bones with renewed intensity, determined not to waste a scrap.
Having shared food, we’re now proven friends, inspiring Shahpur to offer his qalyan to Bernard, man to man. I’m interested in the qalyan myself, hoping maybe there’s a little something-something left in the bowl. But a woman’s lips on a man’s pipe? No doubt there’s a page or two on that in the Koran, but in plain English it’s this: not going to happen.
Bernard fails to coax even a teaspoon of smoke from the pipe, transforming Shahpur into an imitation beetle, on his back, legs kicking, hacking with laughter. He squats by Bernard’s side to illustrate with pursed brown lips the slow, steady drag of a dedicated professional. Bernard mimics, then explodes in a vigorous coughing fit, the cloud of cool smoke around his head evidence he got a double lungful.
As Bernard politely puffs I secretly hope for one of those opium chickpeas to make an appearance. Given the chance this time, I’d definitely try it. Instead Shahpur succumbs to a new bout of emotion, this one inspiring him to recite the poetry of Shamseddin Mohammed Hafez, beloved fourteenth-century poet from Shiraz. He selects one of the over five hundred ghazal Hafez wrote, his tone evoking all the melancholy, love, and longing of this complex poetic form so ideally suited to being declaimed in Farsi:
Where is the touch of breeze and rain?
Where now the beaming of the sun?
This was a noble lovers’ town,
This soil the country of kind men.
Inspired by the poem’s lyrics he repeats them, eyes closed, head lifted in rapture. At the end he folds his arms around Bernard, resting his head on Bernard’s shoulder, stained mouth wide with the joys of poetry and friendship. He pours us two small glasses of cloudy amber liquid, home-fermented from his own grapes, some of which float in the bottom of my share. I swallow a mouthful. It is sweet and musty yet it burns going down, a fiery forbidden Iranian essence filled with Shahpur’s passion.
AFFLICTION
PREAMBLE
I am not a hypochondriac, though my capacious travel first aid kit might imply otherwise. It takes up the entire right-hand corner of my suitcase. So vast is it that I have a three-page list to remind me what each item is for and how to use it.
On the prescription side are four antibiotics, including one in both pill and eye drop form, to treat any bacterium intrepid enough to infect me outside or in. There’s atropine to petrify even the remotest hint of diarrhea, relaxants for when muscles become violently disarranged, painkillers that would get most doctors arrested, even the morphine tablets prescribed for my dog when he was dying of bone cancer. I’ve made a note to myself not to mix the morphine with the muscle relaxant, as the two drugs are like ex-lovers at a cocktail party … happier separated and not mixed with alcohol. Why arouse conflict when peace is so much more, well, peaceful.
Then there are my sacks of over-the-counter remedies: one for colds containing the comforts of Robitussin and Theraflu, a bottle of every analgesic in existence, antihistamine tablets, stomach upset tablets like Alka Seltzer and Ex-Lax, clove oil (watch Marathon Man to understand this), plus throat lozenges and nasal spray. And a digital thermometer to tell me exactly how sick I am before I get better.
My minor wounds bag contains two types of antibiotic cream, anti-itch unguent, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and mercurochrome for disinfecting any bit of abraded skin, plus an assortment of coverings from Band-Aids and butterfly closures to moleskin, gauze pads in three sizes, second skin, burn coverings, tape, vet wrap, and ace bandages. After a recent bout with two types of fungus that took up residence in my left little toe while I was around Myanmar, I now also have a tube of anti-fungal cream so expensive that it took my insurance company a month to approve. To manage the minor surgery these materials imply I have a small toolkit containing hemostats, tiny sharp scissors, and a pair of vicious tweezers. I used to have a suture kit as well, but I donated that to a clinic in Jinka, Ethiopia which needed it more than I did.
I’ve gotten all these drugs legally, mainly by being just ill enough for a doctor to prescribe a remedy of which I only need to avail myself for a day or two. Some people can’t bear to throw away old newspapers, junk mail, or empty egg cartons. Me? I’m a travel drug hoarder, especially when it comes to painkillers. When Bernard or I have surgery, we fill the prescriptions for post-op pain immediately, and toss those sturdy brown plastic bottles with the aggravatingly secure white tops directly into our travel stash. Though I study maps and skim guide books before each trip, nothing convinces me better that I’m well prepared than the bulge and heft of my dark blue medicine bag, with its laminated cheat sheet of what to use when. It’s like a stuffed Thanksgiving turkey, holding only goodness within.
It seems easier to add to the kit than to take out. Yet in my nearly ten years on the road it seems I’ve swallowed maybe five pills from the stash. This could be because of my reluctance to self-diagnose, or because I never sicken or injure in the way I’ve anticipated. The sack goes out, comes back, is stored in a sink-side drawer till the next trip, and like a prized sourdough, improves via the unguents and capsules added to it each time something needs treating back home.
So why bother? I’m not sickish, nor do I spend time before a trip worrying about getting ill. I have too much else to be anxious about. In truth there is a strong element of contradiction in me. Though I am someone who believes fiercely in creating my own destiny, at the same time I have no doubt that my tarot reader is the most powerful woman I know when it comes to communicating with the cards. I can just as easily sob when I hear Chopin as I can rock out to the Grateful Dead, exulting at the magical music of both. I love dressing up for the opera as much as I love putting the same clothes on day after day, knowing that I won’t meet anyone I know and those I do meet will not care how I’m dressed.
Despite being the pragmatic atheist, I travel by the mantra scribbled somewhere in my subconscious travel guide: “Go forth prepared for the worst so that only the best will happen.” So often has my blue first aid kit traveled that it deserves its own passport. I have said to myself, “I could fit a lot of clothing in place of all those meds I never use.” But I know the moment I depart home without it, the djinns of medical misfortune will descend upo
n me. Being prepared means not just having enough white shirts, it means that without a doubt my medical kit is the only thing standing between me and misery.
Toes
PUCóN, CHILE, 2008
My new doctor friend enters the antiseptic operating room. His white coat blends so seamlessly with the white floor tiles, cupboards, and sterilized mat on which nestle the diabolical tools of his trade that his head seems to float. A nurse briskly clatters the rolling tool tray toward the foot of the operating table, keeping up a peppy banter that’s supposed to put me, the patient, at ease. But I am not at ease. I see through her ruse and stay committed to letting my mounting nervousness escalate. Bernard paces, then stands shifting his weight from foot to foot, unsure where to place himself. Should he stand by my head holding my hand and in other ways distracting me with his French version of chitchat, inserting a “ma cherie” here, a “tout va bien” there, to assure me I am well cared for? Or can he proceed immediately to what he’d prefer, which is standing at the gurney’s foot to see exactly how this doctor is going to separate my bruised big toenail from the nail bed to which it’s defiantly clinging?
Bernard is never at ease when I’m sick or in pain. I learned this during my ten-day tussle with flu during our first year together. As I lay sweating in bed with my eyes closed he became fussy, self-soothing by plying me with so many questions about what I needed or what he should do, that I felt both loved and annoyed. Still, I know I am a lucky woman to have a husband of over thirty years whose concern for me is a constant. It’s because of that love that his desire to do something meaningful for me is sorely tried when my only request is an extra ice cube in my ginger ale. On the other hand, his unhappiness when I’m under the weather is one of the intangibles that helps me heal faster.