But the intelligence service didn’t appreciate my little game. The day of my departure, three weeks later, they exacted their revenge. At passport control, a big bearded man approached me. Ear glued to his walkie-talkie, he demanded my papers; I handed them over. He grabbed and rifled through them perfunctorily, then took off with them, weaving through a crowd of passengers. After a half hour, I heard my name over the loudspeaker. This time, it was the airline: the last call before they closed the gate. And then, I shuddered. I shuddered at having played at defiance. I shuddered at being without my documents, with no control over anything. I knew at that instant that the worst could happen. The worst would be to disappear at the airport and reappear, a few days later, in a prison cell. It was a classic technique. Other travelers before me had experienced it. On the loudspeaker, my name crackled again. I looked at my watch. I had only fifteen minutes until takeoff. The minutes rapidly dissolved. Ten minutes. Five minutes … “Here you go!” I jumped at the voice of the big bearded man. He had reappeared, my passport in one hand, a photocopy of all its pages in the other. “Here you go!” he repeated, handing me my ID. “This time, we’ll give you a chance to catch your flight.” I snatched my passport like a thief, saying nothing, neither “thank you” nor “good-bye.” I ran as fast as I could toward the plane. I followed the long corridor, took the escalator as quickly as possible, leaped onto the Jetway, and then dove into the aircraft. I was the last passenger aboard. My heart was beating furiously. I cursed the bearded man. I cursed all of them. These people had a talent for playing with one’s nerves, fully aware of the unease they left in their wake.
* * *
My Iranian misadventures were not unique. They melted into the white of that winter of 2004, one of the harshest Iran had ever experienced. That winter, the snow enveloped Tehran in a thick, cottony veil. On Valiasr Street, the wind had ripped the last leaves from the plane trees. During my three-week trip, I noticed that the promise of reforms had also flown away for good. Following the local elections of 2003, the conservatives had swept the legislative elections in 2004. It made you wonder whether the cold was influencing the political mood or the other way around. I remember shivering when I saw that antidepressants were flying off of the shelves of the pharmacy. Iranians were consuming them without moderation, like so many antidotes for seasonal affective disorder. Even Sepideh, my mischievous young friend, had given in to the pessimism. She had also achieved her dream of becoming a reporter with flying colors. Her valuable investigations of street children and of women in Ilam Province committing suicide by ingesting cement turned the best Iranian journalists green with envy. Still, under redoubled censorship, the daily newspapers were closing one after another. And Sepideh was sick of changing newsrooms as often as one changes a shirt. Her future looked unclear—violent, unpredictable, and dangerous. Like her colleagues, she never left home without slipping a toothbrush into her bag. “In case I get arrested,” she told me one day when we met at our favorite coffee shop in Tehran, before I went back to Iraq.
During my nights in Baghdad, once the day’s reports had been sent off, I often thought of her, my gaze fixed on the ceiling. I was passionate about reporting on Iraq, was by the side of the man I loved, and was finally making a living from my profession by freelancing more, but Iran constantly occupied my thoughts. Sometimes, for hours on end, I tortured myself with thoughts of not being able to work there anymore. I thought of the rebellious students. I dreamed of Qom, Bandar Abbas, Shahr-e Rey. I remembered the little beggar in Tehran, a canary on his shoulder, Hafez’s verses in the palm of his hand. I also thought about you, my invisible grandfather. You would have been a precious comfort in those moments of uncertainty.
And then, one morning in the spring of 2005, almost at the same hour as the day’s first bomb, the news I had stopped hoping for came in an email: “Your press credentials have just been renewed. Come by to pick up your pass when you like.” The message was signed by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Without explanation, nothing asked in return. Dozens of times I reread it, thinking it must be a fake. But it was true: they were inviting me to return to Iran to cover the coming presidential election. A few days later, Borzou also received some good news: the Los Angeles Times had offered him a position as permanent correspondent in Baghdad. The offer was attractive, difficult to refuse. What to do? Stay in Iraq? Return to Iran? Heavy-hearted, we split the difference: for him, Baghdad; for me, Tehran. And for us, vacations in Jordan in between assignments.
HE NOTICED ME FIRST. He was going by on his motorcycle, at the end of my street. A Honda, what all the Basij militiamen ride when they roam the city from north to south. Mahmoud, the martyrophile, hadn’t changed, with his chinstrap beard, dark pants, and nylon shirt.
“Che khabar? What’s new?” he asked, giving me the uncomfortable impression that he may have been on the lookout for my return.
It was May 2005. There was something almost improbable about our reunion. Since our dinner in Darakeh, a little before I contracted my Iran Fever, we hadn’t seen each other. Tehran is a vast labyrinth. One is easily incognito there, lost in a crowd of twelve million anonymous onlookers. Was our meeting a simple coincidence?
“We’ve moved. Now we live in the same neighborhood as you. See you soon, inshallah!” he hurried to say, as if he had read my thoughts.
And he disappeared into traffic.
The next day, he called me to politely invite me over for tea. I accepted, curious about the coincidence. Indeed, we were neighbors. Their new apartment was a few minutes’ walk from mine, behind Pasdaran Avenue. When I arrived, I immediately noticed that two large sofas had replaced the traditional floor cushions. There was even a wooden table in the dining room. The decor was modern. More colorful. Nothing like the austere ambiance of their former home. In the bedroom, which could be seen from the hallway, the large tiles depicting the two Supreme Leaders had disappeared from the wall. My look of surprise didn’t escape Mahmoud.
“It’s the ‘Fatemeh’ touch,” he said, with a grimace seeming to signify that this new layout wasn’t in keeping with his taste.
“Do you like it?” a feminine voice followed.
I turned around. Head wrapped in a towel, Fatemeh had just emerged from the bathroom, trailing a sweet musky odor in her wake. Nonchalantly, she threw the towel on the sofa, revealing a new haircut, shorter and streaked with highlights. She was squeezed into a black T-shirt, and her silhouette was narrower. The loss of a few pounds suited her marvelously.
“What … What a transformation!” I replied, hesitating to compliment her on all these changes.
Mahmoud was quiet. His silence betrayed some discomfort. As if the emancipation of his wife damaged the image he wanted to project of their relationship.
“Praise God, she still wears the black chador when she goes out in the street,” he interjected, to save face.
Then he quickly changed the subject:
“So, what’s new with you?”
I didn’t really know how to respond. I was still wondering why he had invited me over, what he really wanted from me. At moments like this my paranoia came back at a gallop. I decided to keep quiet about my problems with the press pass.
“Well, I’m married now, too!” I announced, to divert their attention.
“To a French guy?” Fatemeh asked eagerly.
“No, an Iranian.”
“Moborak! Congratulations!” Mahmoud exclaimed with an approving look.
He, the nationalist, the living martyr, the fierce supporter of a homeland he worshipped to the extreme, was smiling again, probably proud deep down to see that Iran had rubbed off on the heart of such a Westerner. When I told him that Borzou was stationed in Baghdad, a new spark lit up his gaze.
“Ah, Iraq,” he said in a dreamy tone.
Iraq, that country he had been too young to fight against, continued to haunt him. He confided in me that since the American intervention, he hadn’t missed a single event. Like many Iran
ians, he had welcomed the fall of Saddam, a lifelong enemy, with relief. But the prolonged presence of the United States in a neighboring country worried him. For him, there was a hidden Manichean plan to occupy the entire region. Convinced that Iran was the next target in this “Western crusade,” he said he was ready to take up arms if need be. That war would finally be his war, his generation’s, the war he had been awaiting for so long. Furthermore, he confided in me that the Basijis had resumed their military training, which had been less frequent in the past few years. In a big suburb of Tehran, they were wielding Kalashnikovs again, readying themselves for a lopsided war. He found it necessary to prepare for the worst.
“And you?” he asked me, “you’ve lived in Iraq; what do you think of all this? What kinds of weapons are the GIs using? Is their firepower as invincible as they claim? In fact, would you be generous enough to share some photos you took there?”
His questions immediately took me back to Mr. Fingers. Was this a hunt for military information, at the behest of the intelligence service? Or legitimate questions from a half-shahid obsessed with everything to do with war?
His curiosity made me uneasy. I had to change the topic. To the coming presidential election, for example. Khatami was nearing the end of his second term. The names of the candidates to succeed him were starting to circulate: Mostafa Moin, the former education minister who had resigned after the repression of protests in 1999; Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the pragmatic conservative; Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard now tempted by politics; Ali Larijani, the former director of the state television network.
“And you,” I asked him, “who are you thinking of voting for?”
“Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!” he replied without hesitation.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. An unfamiliar name. Very little was known about the die-hard Islamist, except for the restrictions imposed on the Tehran City Hall, where he had presided since 2003: a ban on municipal employees wearing short-sleeved shirts; a ban on men using the same elevator as women; music concerts in cultural centers replaced by Quran-reading competitions … Mahmoud didn’t seem to see any drawbacks to any of that; in fact, the opposite. For him, Ahmadinejad was a godsend. He idolized his religious fervor, his simplicity. He told anyone who would listen that his preferred candidate was the humble son of a blacksmith. Ahmadinejad had recently dressed in a garbageman’s uniform to prove his closeness to the people. He had even promised to “put the oil money on the sofreh,” the traditional mat used for eating on the floor. Furthermore, his home was not cluttered up with useless Western furniture. They ate on the floor, with the same simplicity as in Mahmoud’s former home in Darakeh.
“And on top of that, he fought in the Iran-Iraq War!” insisted Mahmoud.
For him, it was the ultimate achievement, even if Ahmadinejad’s role within the Basij was shrouded by a troubling mystery. Rumor had it that he had a penchant for brutality against his adversaries. But to my host, these were all superfluous details. Mahmoud immediately identified with this Everyman, a model child of an “Islamic Revolution” that he supported 100 percent. For a week, he had been organizing meetings in his mosque in Darakeh to introduce the “real Ahmadinejad” to a wide audience.
“He’s the kind of man we need to stand up to America!” he proclaimed.
I was curious to know how Fatemeh planned to vote. I wondered if she was leaning toward another candidate, as a large number of Iranians were. Or if she shared her husband’s enthusiasm for Ahmadinejad. Silent, she had listened submissively without showing the least emotion. I turned toward her.
“And you,” I asked. “Do you agree?”
She seemed taken aback that I would ask her such a question; she had grown up submitting to decisions made by men—father, brothers, husband. During Mahmoud’s political diatribe, she had simply played with her wet hair. Now she took a deep breath and said:
“I’m not convinced he’s the person we need.”
Turning back toward her husband, she wore a mischievous smile, as if she had suddenly freed herself of a burden, as if, for the first time in her life, she had fully assumed her right to ask herself questions, to not endorse everything her husband said. Her right to be different.
“MY CONDOLENCES!” On the phone, I immediately recognized Sepideh’s voice, drowning in sobs. It was Saturday, June 25, 2005. She was incapable of speaking, still in shock from the unexpected victory of Ahmadinejad. The unlikely president, the Islamist with a goatee and a shapeless jacket, the same man Fatemeh had reservations about, had just won the election. The news came at dawn. Stunned like so many others, Sepideh saw the news as the end of the Iranian Spring.
Yet she had chosen to believe in an impossible seasonal awakening. In the first round, on June 17, she voted for Moin, hoping the former minister of higher education would bring an honorable end to the political impasse solidified by the conservatives. But numerous Iranians took refuge in abstention. After the euphoria of the early Khatami years, they had shunned the ballot box, a protest vote against the political allies of “the Angel” in whom they had placed all their hopes. For them, the season of change had passed. Given the wide spectrum of candidates, no one thought the most radical, Ahmadinejad, had the slimmest chance. In the second round, he found himself in an unexpected face-to-face with the former president, Rafsanjani, who had led the country after the war with Iraq, and who was also said to have profited off the backs of the Iranian people. The matchup wasn’t very encouraging, and the liberal press rushed to make a comparison with France, where, three years earlier, Jacques Chirac faced Jean-Marie Le Pen. With a jolt of panic, Sepideh and her colleagues had crisscrossed the city, going from place to place to encourage abstainers to vote for Rafsanjani. “A vote by default,” she had conceded.
Fatemeh had also voted for Rafsanjani. The day of the second round, she had invited me to accompany her to the polling station. She had even insisted that I follow her into the voting booth, so she could fill out the ballot beneath my eyes. I felt in her the pride of a woman discreetly emancipating herself from her husband, the sign of a country pursuing, despite everything, a transformation in the shadow of the regime’s crackdown. At night, back at home, I found hope again; I was convinced that all was not yet lost. With people like her or like Sepideh, Ahmadinejad had no chance of winning. Especially given that Rafsanjani had gone so far as to send his supporters parading down Valiasr Avenue on Rollerblades, handing out red roses—a symbolic gesture that would surely seduce a lot of young people. But that didn’t take into account all the Mahmouds of that other Iran, to whom we Western reporters had less access but who came to the polls in droves. Far from the cameras, they had managed to activate their networks of Basijis, Pasdaran, mosques, and Islamic associations. In comparison with Khatami’s lovely poetical flights of fancy, they used simple, concise language and promises of social services that appealed to the destitute and the traditional classes. Ahmadinejad was someone who stood up to the West, against America, someone who promised to turn nuclear power into an instrument of national pride.
When Sepideh called me that Saturday, June 25, to inform me of Ahmadinejad’s victory, I understood everything all at once.
“I’m so sorry,” I replied to her tears. “You never know; maybe he’s not as terrible as they say.”
My words rang false, sounded tactless. Between two sobs, she unleashed on me:
“You’ll see. It’s going to be hell. Hell!”
Sepideh had seen it coming. In the weeks, months, and years to follow, the new president would paint Iran in black. At lightning speed, he reactivated the nuclear program, declared a war of words on America, and set off an international frenzy with calls to wipe Israel off the map.
“WINE OR VODKA?”
Moses Baba, his head emerging from behind a mountain of trinkets, brandished two jerry cans, one filled with a red juice, the other with a beverage as translucent as spring water.
“So, wine or vodka?” he repeated in his mischie
vous voice, inviting me to sit.
Moses Baba had long performed his ritual of illicit ta’arof, his way of resisting. As soon as a visitor popped a head in the door of his small shop, he would immediately pour an aperitif before proceeding to his array of “treasures”: old Torah manuscripts, Persian mosaics flanked by the Star of David, Quranic calligraphies, rugs from Isfahan, Qajar dynasty paintings. Often, he assigned them an age as unverifiable as his boast of being honored with a visit from the French actor Alain Delon during the time of the shah. It was over that anecdote that we had hit it off at the beginning of my time in Iran. In a French tinged with a Farsi that reminded me of yours, he told me of his nostalgia for the past, the “golden age” of his small business, when Western tourists still rushed to Iran, a time when his little community, which then included seventy thousand souls, lived in peace on that predominantly Muslim land. A serenity lost in 1979, the starting point of a massive exodus of Iranian Jews to Europe, the United States, and Israel. Moses Baba was the only one among his close relatives to have stayed, with the exception of one brother, Elyas, who refused to speak to him because of a silly financial dispute.
I had unwittingly taken advantage of this familial conflict without realizing it. Like Moses Baba, Elyas was an antiquarian, a niche profession popular among members of that religious minority, denied access to civil service jobs. Coincidentally, Elyas had a boutique on Pasdaran Avenue, opposite your street. I often stopped there, despite his grumpiness, because I knew that you used to go there to bargain hunt. I imagined your eyes riveted to the Persian miniatures that paid tribute to the feminine beauty ruined by the obligatory headscarf. With each visit to Elyas’s, I surrendered to the temptation of a ceramic bowl, a kilim, or small bronze birds. My purchases made Mamani balk; she saw them as superfluous expenditures. Au contraire, I told myself, becoming Iranian also meant reappropriating a tiny part of your country’s heritage.
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