by Jill Worrall
Then it was our turn on the bridge. We rumbled onto the wooden deck and the truck lurched towards the midway point. When we reached it both men suddenly turned to me and pointed to the headscarf. ‘Yes!’ they shouted, grinning.
My hair disappeared from view, and other than when I was in my hotel room at night, and during the occasional high wind or when I stood on a trailing scarf end, was never seen again during my stay in Iran.
When we reached the far bank, the driver pulled over at a small, grey concrete building, outside which was parked a black four-wheel-drive vehicle. I started to open the door but the driver, using the other half of his English vocabulary said ‘No’, and instead mimed that I should wind down the window. I obeyed and he then pointed at my passport. What did he want me to do – throw it out? But then I noticed, standing below me, was an Iranian immigration guard. I handed him my passport and immediately the driver put the truck into gear and began to drive away. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘My passport!’ I shrieked, but he shook his head and kept driving. I looked back out the window in time to see the border guard walking towards the four-wheel-drive vehicle and passing my passport in through the driver’s window.
Great, I thought. I’m in a country almost everyone I know thinks I’m mad to visit and after less than five minutes my passport’s been hijacked.
By now the driver was slowing down outside a sleek modern building, its smoky grey mirror-glass windows looking out blankly across an expanse of tarseal. This appeared to be the main Iranian immigration office. He signalled for me to get down.
‘My bag?’ I enquired.
‘No,’ he said.
‘I need my bag,’ I said, trying to sound masterful.
‘No,’ he repeated.
The other passenger leaned across me and opened my door. I climbed down and resignedly watched the truck drive away, my bag bobbing gently on the tray.
Scarf, hem and heart trailing I went up the steps into the building. It was gleaming new, the floors shiny and pristine – but not a soul to be seen anywhere.
I looked in the doorways of several offices that led off the main hall, but they were all empty. I couldn’t even hear any sign of life. I had no passport (and thus no visa), no bag and appeared to have been abandoned. The intrepid traveller was verging on tears. I stood in the middle of the hall, devoid of ideas, sticky with sweat and defeated.
There was a small cough behind me. I turned and a tall clean-shaven man with short, curling dark brown hair and an earnest expression leaned down to look under my headscarf which had slipped down low over my forehead. As upset as I was I couldn’t help but notice his to-die-for eyelashes.
‘Jill?’ he said, ‘I’m Reza, your guide. Welcome to Iran.’
‘They’ve taken my passport and my bag’s disappeared,’ I blurted, immediately ashamed of sounding both pathetic and paranoid at the same time.
‘Wait here just a moment, I’ll be back.’
Reza disappeared through a doorway and once again I was marooned in silence. He came back a few minutes later.
‘Here is your passport and your driver has just delivered your bag to the back door – he did not want you to have to carry it up the front steps. Let us do the formalities and then we will go to Mashhad. I think you will manage in that coat. I did not expect someone looking quite so, well, fundamental.’
As first impressions went I was doing badly. Weepy, suspicious, ungrateful and looking like a bedraggled black shuttlecock, I looked closely at Reza as we headed at a fast clip for the door and was not surprised to see him looking thoughtfully into the distance. He was probably trying to think of a prior engagement (not easy in such an isolated place) or whether he could claim to have mistaken me for another tourist.
Suddenly he stopped in his tracks.
‘But, before we go much further, I think, maybe we will go and have some lunch?’ Unbeknown to both of us at the time, he’d set a pattern for many of our future journeys – the principle that exploration and travel could only be improved by a succulent kebab, a good cup of tea, a puff or two on a qalyan and the occasional saffron ice cream.
Two Wings of a Nightingale is the story of our recent travels through a country with a Persian soul and an Islamic heart, a population with a public persona and a private life – a nightingale with two wings to keep it aloft and singing.
1
SAFFRON ICE CREAM
Mashhad
Those unable to grieve, Or speak their love Or to be grateful, those Who can’t remember God As the source of everything, Might be described as vacant wind, Or a cold anvil, or a group Of frightened old people Say the Name. Moisten your tongue With praise. And be the spring ground, Waking. Let your mouth be given Its gold-yellow stamen like the wild rose’s.
Sanai, 12th century Persian poet
We are pilgrims. We are pilgrims in the holiest city in Iran and we’re trying to finish our saffron-flavoured ice creams quickly so that we can enter the shrine complex.
Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, manages to combine spirituality with just a whiff of English seaside resort. Here it’s possible not just to recharge yourself spiritually but you can also to replenish the household supplies of saffron, perfumes and prayer beads. In fact, you can shop until late and pray all night if you wish – Mashhad’s shrine to Imam Reza is open 24 hours a day, every day.
Imam Reza (Ali ibn Musa al-Rida) was the eighth Shia imam. Iranian Shias believe there are 12 imams or leaders who are direct descendants of the Prophet Mohammad’s cousin and brother-in-law Ali (who to Shias is the first imam). It is this core belief that separates them from the Sunni Moslems who dispute the right of Ali’s descendants to be Islam’s leaders. Instead, Sunnis believe that the Prophet’s followers and friends were the rightful people to select his successor. To them Ali is simply the fourth Islamic caliph or ruler. Incidentally, the 12th imam is also known to Shias as the absent or hidden imam, who will appear again in the days of judgement and resurrection.
Imam Reza, a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammad, was born in about AD765 in Medina. A charismatic man, he became the eighth imam when he was 35. Shia Moslems believe he was poisoned by a rival spiritual leader, Caliph Ma’mun, in about AD818. His burial site (known as Mashhad or place of martyrdom) quickly became a pilgrimage site and today it’s the most important in Iran. He is the only one of the 12 imams to be buried in modern-day Iran. More than 14 million Shias from all over the world visit it every year. Along with the shrine itself, the vast precinct contains religious schools, mosques, libraries and museums.
Mashhad, with its pilgrims and glittering shrines, is not actually the start of my 8000-km journey around Iran following the routes plied by the caravans of old, but it represents the beginning of my love for Iran and my first steps on its soil. Its significance is intensified for me because it is also close to the place where I met Reza for the first time – a meeting that has led to a lasting and deep friendship.
When Reza brought me here that first time, I’d been in Iran less than 12 hours and was floundering in a sea of the unfamiliar. My memories of that visit include being refused entry to the shrine precinct by a wizened elderly lady on duty at the women’s security gate.
‘Moslem?’ she enquired.
On my reply, she waved me imperiously out the way I’d come. I’d felt unaccountably inadequate and had to summon Reza back from the land of the believers to sort things out. Non-Moslems are allowed into the massive shrine precinct; it’s the inside of the shrine itself that is forbidden to non-Moslems.
As we walk towards the shrine on this second visit, we reminisce about Reza’s remonstration with the guards from the other side of the thick Persian carpet that hung down over the entrance to the women’s checkpoint.
‘The problem is,’ says Reza, ‘that people from all over Iran and of all ages and backgrounds volunteer to work at the shrine. They do it to show their love for Imam Reza but sometimes they do not know the proper regulations, although they can
be very enthusiastic about the rules.’
We stop outside the ice-cream shop. Reza orders saffron-flavoured cones. Along with its spiritual importance to Shias, Mashhad is the centre of saffron production and many of the shops that line the main thoroughfares leading to the shrine are stocked with packets and jars of the dried squiggly anthers of the crocus flower. Taking saffron home to family and friends is a pilgrimage tradition.
Although it’s after 10 pm the footpath is crammed with people. Tiny stores festooned with strings of prayer beads, blue evil-eye pendants and posters of Imam Ali and other religious heroes are doing a roaring trade. There are street vendors, too – we pass four young men, their arms encircled with a dozen watches, while nearby a man has attracted an attentive audience as he unwraps a roll of sparkling headscarves.
About a hundred metres in front of the shrine the road transforms into a roundabout. Traffic is careering around it – cars merging with the flow with just centimetres to spare while pedestrians dart through the chaos.
Reza prepares to launch us into the maelstrom of speeding metal.
‘Just stay beside me and keep moving. I can’t take your arm because it is not customary here,’ he says, with a faint trace of irony.
Apparently, the authorities would rather I was flattened by a pilgrims’ bus than risk any physical contact between unrelated men and women. We dodge between car bumpers, seemingly invisible to the vehicles’ drivers. It’s up to us to avoid them, not the other way round.
Close to the shrine two long pedestrian ramps lead to the main gates. The ramps are separated by a vehicle underpass that is choked with traffic travelling right under the holy site.
It’s only at the top of the ramp that I remember I have not brought a chador with me. Without the all-encompassing piece of fabric I won’t be going any further than the gate. I am wearing hijab, but my Iranian manteau (a mid thigh-length light coat) and headscarf are not sufficient here.
It would take us an hour to make the round trip to the pilgrims’ hotel where we are staying. Reza stands, thoughtfully stroking his chin, then suddenly makes a run for the security booth at the top of the ramp.
Reza’s style of running is one of his many endearing characteristics. It’s the Irish dancing equivalent of running – while Reza’s lower half runs, his upper body stays almost motionless. He glides to a stop outside the booth and begins a conversation with the guard. At one point, Reza turns around and points in my direction and they both contemplate the unsuitability of my attire.
The guard disappears from view but returns straight away with a cloth bundle that he hands to Reza.
‘What a kind man, Reza says. ‘He has lent this to you. Can you remember how to put it on?’ he concludes, unfurling the sprigged blue cotton and almost completely circular chador.
Last time I was here we had to stop a woman passer-by to help me don the garment. Working out the intricacies of a chador is not something Iranian males get much practice in. But this time I’m determined not to have to ask for help.
I hold the chador out behind me and let it drop over my head, gather up a handful of fabric in my left hand and catch the edge on the right side with the same hand and grip it tight under my chin. This frees up my right hand for keeping the rest of the chador from gaping lower down. But of course now that both my hands are occupied, my shoulder bag promptly starts sliding down one arm.
Satisfied that I have the chador mostly under control, Reza checks for any sign of escaping hair. My hair is thick, blonde, unruly and unused to being tamed. It’s always trying to make a break for it from the confines of my headscarf. So far it’s behaving.
We head for the gates – Reza to the men’s security check, I to the women’s. I’m nervous; I don’t want to be rejected again.
I haul back the thick carpet over the entrance and step in. This time it’s a young woman in her early twenties sitting there behind a wooden table. I open my chador to uncover my bag and she leaps to her feet. I’m going to be evicted.
She walks around to my side of the table, reaches up with both hands and rearranges my chador. And smiles.
‘Welcome,’ she says.
She signals for me to go through. Halfway to the doorway her companion calls out to me. She’s older, sterner, and I’m guessing she’s not so sure about letting me in. But when I turn back to her she’s gesticulating at my forehead, and signalling that I’ve covered up too much of my face.
Reza and I walk across the slippery smoothness of the first marble courtyard. Minarets and domes glitter under the spotlights and a loudspeaker broadcasts the voice of a mullah singing verses from the Koran. The Imam’s shrine is surmounted by a golden dome and flanked by two golden minarets – stunning in daylight, breathtaking at night.
A man driving a floor-polishing machine is weaving his way around the groups of pilgrims heading in the same direction as us. Giggling teenage girls are struggling with their chadors – clearly they also are more used to wearing the manteau.
‘They look more foreign than you do,’ observes Reza. ‘You are managing your chador just like my grandmother.’
I know he means it as a compliment, but I raise my eyebrows at him.
‘But of course, I mean, when my grandmother was just 20,’ he adds hurriedly.
We have reached another doorway where we take off our shoes. Reza hands them to a cloakroom attendant wearing gloves. There’s a strong smell of hot feet in the air. Thick Persian carpets cover the floor of the prayer hall beyond the shoe station. People are sitting, praying here. The aroma of feet is replaced by the heady scent of rosewater. We sniff, trying to locate the source.
Reza points to a small machine about the size of a toaster sitting on a table in front of a mirrored pillar. Every few seconds it puffs rosewater into the air.
‘It’s the perfume of the Prophet,’ Reza says.
We weave through corridors, the chador around my face giving me tunnel vision so that I lose my sense of direction. We stop in a wide corridor – there are few people here but I can hear a murmur of voices. They ebb and flow like the tide, but the intensity of the sound never wavers.
‘We are outside the shrine – do you want to go in?’ Reza asks.
‘But I can’t,’ I squeak, caught by surprise.
‘Yes, I think you can. I know what is in your heart. Go.’
I know that if I go I am on my own. There are separate entrances to the shrine itself for men and women, so Reza will not be able to shepherd me through this experience.
‘I’ll meet you out here in 15 minutes,’ he says, heading for the men’s entrance and not giving me any time to think up more excuses.
The long anteroom I step into is so crowded with praying women it is difficult to find space on the carpet to place my feet. Others are sitting in clusters, reading the Koran or talking quietly. I am unsure which way to go. Understandably, Reza’s knowledge of the women’s section is a little sketchy. But I can hear that insistent whisper of voices to my left and so, picking my way through the crowd, I turn to follow it.
I step through two massive silver doors and am brought to a standstill, literally dazzled, blinded by the light. The interior of the shrine is completely covered in tiny mirrored tiles that glitter in niches, cascade from stucco stalactites and magnify the light emitted from a shimmering chandelier suspended above the Imam’s tomb.
Directly ahead is a partition that separates the men from the women and slightly to the right the women’s portion of the gold-latticed bars of the tomb itself. Or at least I can see glimpses of it. An undulating mass of black chador-clad women is clinging to the bars, praying, weeping, and kissing the metal.
A woman appears in front of me, wielding a multicoloured duster.
‘Where are you from?’ she asks in English.
I reply in Farsi (Iran’s national language, which is also known as Persian). She smiles.
‘Moslem?’ I smile.
‘Where is your husband?’
I wave vaguely
in the direction of what might be New Zealand or simply the corridor. She reaches out and takes me by the elbow. I’ve come to a halt right where dozens of women are trying to move towards the tomb and another stream of pilgrims are returning to the prayer hall. Is she going to frogmarch me out through the praying ranks of the faithful? Waving her duster (which is the shrine attendants’ highly visible badge of office) she leads me to the side, against the curtained glass barrier.
‘You will be good here,’ she says. ‘Welcome.’
I close my eyes. Now that my reeling visual senses are quietened it is the emotional impact of the shrine that washes over me. Prayers of hope and pleading, murmurs of joy and awe, muffled sounds of weeping and whispered secrets. The atmosphere is as charged and overwhelming as the deluge of silvery sparkling light is awe-inspiring.
From the men’s section a man’s voice rises above the hum of several hundred others, singing in Farsi. Spontaneously, the crowd – men and women – join in, the sound reverberating around the mirrored space, drawing all of us up into the dome, closer to heaven. A shiver races up my neck.
A writer is supposed to observe, to take mental notes. I try but when I close my eyes now, I can’t see architectural details – only silver and white light and the sense of adoration and loss that seep into the senses.
I retrace my steps, only to be halted by another duster-waving guardian.
‘You are from?’ she asks.
I reply and tell her the shrine is very beautiful. She extends a hand and strokes my cheek. There are tears on it.
Reza is waiting outside.
‘How was it?’
‘I don’t know what to say. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life. I was caught by surprise.’