In the center of Shiraz is a most remarkable building. Standing timelessly amongst the city’s bustling streets is a vast sand-colored ancient citadel called Arg-e Karim Khani. It’s not the sort of thing you expect to see in a city center and looks instead as if it should be situated amongst rolling sand dunes being used as a desert stronghold. Constructed in a vast high-walled square, its basic but imposing structure is beautifully accentuated on each of its four corners by forty-five-foot high circular towers embellished with decorative patterned bricks. On its southeastern side, the fortress’s tower has an interesting architectural anomaly, in that it leans over at an insanely sloping angle, reminiscent of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It is said, although I’m not sure I believe it, that experts from the more famous leaning tower once visited Shiraz to offer their expertise to help correct it, but after a thorough examination, the Pisa boys admitted defeat as the slope was just too great for them. It was the first site that Verity and I stopped off to visit together.
Inside the fortress was a sign announcing, THE EXALTED STATURE OF KARIM KHANI CITADEL AMUSES EVERY NEW TRAVELER FOR A LONG TIME WHO ARRIVES IN SHIRAZ. The structure had previously been used as both a prison and part of the royal courtyard, although not at the same time. I quite liked the idea of its dual use, and whilst walking around imagined a similar scheme in Britain, where maybe the royal family could use the exercise area of Wormwood Scrubs Prison as a courtyard at weekends and a group of inmates could go stay at Buckingham Palace—something I’d be all in favor of.
Although the citadel contained little of interest within, its vast internal courtyard was a welcome sanctuary away from the bustle of the streets outside and had many attractive exotic plant displays. After a good gander at these and around the building, Verity and I got a cab to the Aramgah-e Sa’di or Tomb of Sa’di.
This was a lovely place dedicated to renowned Iranian poet Sa’di that contained a charming mausoleum set in a picturesque and peaceful garden. It had a relaxed and very reverent atmosphere despite the fact that it was crawling with Iranian tourists. Sa’di’s marble tomb was attractive, as was the building it was housed in, but it was more a place to come to relax and soak up the atmosphere rather than stand in awe at the architecture.
It had a nice selection of books on Iran at a little kiosk, which Verity and I browsed through before heading into what for me was the star attraction of the place, a little underground tea shop. This was beautifully decorated and had a delightful fishpond in the center. Its interior was wonderfully cool, which was more than welcome as today was blisteringly hot. I had a cool pomegranate juice whilst Verity indulged in a very strange Persian dessert. It consisted of that classic combination—ice cream, Jell-O, and soft squidgy savory noodles. I gave it a try but didn’t like it one bit. But taste, or lack of it, was no reason to eat or abstain from something as far as Verity was concerned. So long as it had a cleansing effect on her negative toxins, she was happy to tuck right in.
After two juices for me and more strange culinary combinations for Verity, we headed to the coach station so I could prebook a ticket to Yazd. I would have flown, but according to my guidebook there was no airport in Yazd (or so I thought until I got there and discovered one had been built since the book’s publication).
The bus terminal was heaving with people, and as I walked through its crowded interior, loads of bus operators tried to steer me in the direction of their particular company’s travel counter. I wasn’t having any of it and was determined for a bit of luxury on this trip so went straight for the Rolls Royce of Iranian bus companies and over to the Seir-o Safar counter. The helpful man there was dressed up like an airline pilot and spoke good English. He was the bearer of bad news, though, and informed me that all his coaches to Yazd were fully booked tonight.
This wasn’t what I wanted to hear; the last thing I fancied was spending the night on some death trap of a bus for such a long and arduous journey. He recommended another operator and said that their coaches were “okay,” although obviously not up to the superior quality of his. I wasn’t going to take his word on it, and before booking the ticket, I got the guy behind the recommended counter to confirm for me that the bus I’d be getting was the same as the nice modern Volvo pictured on the wall behind him. I repeated the question three times to be on the safe side. He was so determined to convince me he was legit and that I’d be getting a Volvo, that he got up from behind the counter and walked me out to where the coaches were parked. He pointed out the relevant one and said, “Volvo, yes?” It was indeed. I booked a ticket with him a moment later. With this in hand, Verity and I got on the move again.
We strolled to the town center via the city’s ancient bazaar, which was full of weird and wonderful sights. I particularly liked the shops selling sugar, which had chunks of the stuff purposefully solidified into phallic objects that looked for all the world like big sugar lump dildos.
We stopped by a man with a huge silver urn selling tea so Verity could get herself one. Never one to pass on a chay myself, I indulged again and handed over the money to the man with the urn. I was amazed at the lack of change I received from my substantial note and was sure I’d been ripped off. Verity was likewise convinced and said to watch closely when the next Iranian paid for a cup, to see how much they were charged. A group of three turned up and ordered tea, but before they had the chance to dip into their pockets, the tea man muttered something to them in Farsi. I was very suspicious of this, and even more so when the three seemed to give me a slight appreciative nod of the head. It was as if he’d said, “Don’t worry about this one, lads. The foreigner has paid for all of you and the rest of the bazaar.” There was no way of proving this, though, and in dollars or British pounds, the cost didn’t amount to much, so we ambled on our way.
Not far on, we popped into a bookshop for a browse around. On the spur of the moment, I said to the shop assistant, “Modern Tacking!” and was led to a huge section of the store dedicated to Germany’s answer to the Beatles. There was an array of Modern Talking material on offer, ranging from quality hardback books to cheap photocopied pamphlets with terrible spellings and rather dubious translations of their lyrics. These were hilarious and had vast sections edited out, presumably because they were deemed inappropriate. One song’s title had even received a seeing to and only “My ****, **** *****” remained. It must have been a racy number, because nearly the entire track was blanked out as well, making it almost indecipherable. Verity and I flicked through a couple of these pamphlets and were in stitches at some of the lyrics.
I couldn’t control myself and bought one of these and one of their sturdier Persian-to-English translation books. They were both outstanding.
I took this literature, along with my copy of Hafez that Pedram had given to me, to the tomb of the great man. Like the tomb of Sa’di, Hafez’s resting place was situated in a lovely garden that had a very tranquil atmosphere. His mausoleum was more modest in size and was an octagonal pavilion structure with an internally tiled decorative dome in a kaleidoscope of patterns and colors. The most amazing thing about the place was the absolute reverence with which people treated his tomb. It was as if a revered saint were buried here, not simply a poet who had strung a few ditties together. People would walk up and bow their heads, touch their hearts, and reverently place their hands on the tomb. Iranians sure do take their poetry seriously.
We both sat down in the park, and to fully appreciate Hafez’s work, we had a look at his book together. Now I mean no disrespect to my Iranian friends, and maybe the translation of the book was incorrect, but the verses seemed to all rhyme in a very similar fashion to Modern Talking’s lyrics. To test this theory, Verity and I selected a passage from each book, which we read aloud for the other to guess which one it was from without looking. It wasn’t easy. Perhaps this accounted for the huge popularity of Germany’s finest in Iran. And I wondered if, in years to come, Iran would have a mausoleum dedicated to Modern Talking, where thousands of pilgrims would flock to pay their respects and sit and read their lyrics. It wouldn’t surprise me, and I’ll bet good money on there being one for Chris de Burgh just as soon as he snuffs it.
It is said that if you want to know your destiny, you should open a copy of Hafez and it will be revealed to you. I tried it with Hafez and with Modern Talking. This is what I got, and I’m not saying which is which:
In a quest to find a good eating establishment, Verity dipped into her guidebook, wherein she discovered a fascinatingsounding location called the Restaurant Mir Mohanna. Here it was apparently possible to get a shark kebab served by identical twins dressed rather eccentrically as indistinguishable sailors. This sounded my kind of place, so I lobbied hard with Verity for this option. She wasn’t convinced and favored a more traditional upmarket place called the Soofie Traditional Restaurant. In the end, though, I won through and off we went to go see the salty sailors. It took a while to get there and turned out to be a complete waste of time, as according to a kindly old chap we met there, the restaurant had been closed for years.
We got in a cab and went to Verity’s option instead. Or to be more accurate, we went to a restaurant that sounded vaguely similar to the one we’d asked the taxi driver to take us to.
It might not have been the place we selected but it was nice enough and the food was okay, if a little on the raw side—my chicken kebab sported a few splatterings of blood. Verity of course went for the funny herbivore option. It was strange to again be in a nice restaurant and unable to order a bottle of wine, especially as we were in Shiraz, home of the famous Shiraz grapes used around the world for wine of the same name. We made do with an Iranian Zam Zam cola instead.
Since we were both heading to the same city next and had had a good laugh together, we agreed to meet up again in Yazd, at the most popular hostel there, the Silk Road Hotel. After our meal, we spent the rest of the day window-shopping along the main street, where we discovered a rather interesting baseball cap for sale depicting an Australian flag but with the word PORTUGAL emblazoned across it. I didn’t buy one, but I wish now that I had, as it would have made a great present for one of my Aussie friends. When it was time to go, I said a quick “Adios” to Verity, grabbed my gear, and got a cab down to the bus terminal.
It was dark by now, but it was another tantalizingly hot and sticky Middle Eastern evening. I went to the counter where I’d bought my ticket from and inquired which bay I needed. The man I’d spoken to earlier was now no longer here, and a colleague of his pointed me in the direction of the correct bay. On arrival there, I was astonished to see not a shiny new modern “Volvo,” as promised, but a beat-up old rust bucket that didn’t look like it could make it to the other end of the terminal, let alone a few hundred miles. I couldn’t believe it and was just about to go voice my discontent when it reversed out of the bay and in its place pulled up a shiny new “Volvo.” This was more like it.
Whilst waiting to board I was approached by a friendly man who spoke good but extremely fast and slightly quirky English.
“Ah, you are Englishman from England. I like the Englishman very much!” he said. “I once have English gentleman stay with my family. His name Mr. Montgomery Fielding; he is frightfully frightfully!”
I laughed.
I didn’t get the guy’s name, but he was a real character and introduced me to his son called Reza, who was twenty years old and catching the same bus as me.
“You will sit next to my son on bus and stay at my home in Yazd as my guest,” he stated simply, as if it was totally normal to offer accommodation to complete strangers met at the local bus station only moments before.
Being fully aware of the refuse three times rule of Iranian social etiquette, I did so to check if the offer was genuine—it was. In many ways, this typified the unbelievable hospitality shown by Iranians toward foreigners, and although I was initially surprised at his generosity, I really shouldn’t have been. His son, he explained, was a student and spoke only a little English, so it would be good for him to practice with me. He assured me that Reza would be more than happy to look after me in Yazd and show me around the place. He apologized for not being able to do this himself and explained that he wasn’t catching the bus but staying in Shiraz for a week on business.
One of the destinations in Yazd he said Reza would take me to was a Zoroastrian fire temple. I asked him if he was a Zoroastrian. He said he was and then told me a little bit about the religion’s beliefs, in particular about the earth, the trees, and the water being sacred. I liked that and him very much.
Reza and I both sat at the front of the bus and, although his English wasn’t great, we just about managed to communicate. After some labored conversation, he pulled out his DVD collection, which was contained in a little zip-up wallet. With a mischievous grin, he pointed to one of the disks and said, “Super film!”
At first I didn’t understand what was on the disk, but after a while I managed to ascertain that a “super film” was in fact a porn movie. I asked what the penalty for having this would be. He struggled with the words but answered with exactly the right ones, saying, “You put in cage for maybe two or three year.” That was quite a risk to take for a bit of porn, no matter how super it was. Although I’d planned to sleep on the bus, it didn’t really work out like that as we talked, or struggled to talk, to each other most of the way.
We arrived in Yazd much earlier than the bus was due and got to the terminal at about two in the morning instead of four. Reza gave his older brother a quick call, who came to pick us up in a beat-up old Land Rover. Even at this hour, his brother didn’t seem in the slightest bit tired and was very enthusiastic to meet me. He introduced himself as Ashkan. Ashkan’s English was far better than his younger brother’s, and on the journey over to their house we both chatted away nonstop.
When we arrived there, I was asked to be as quiet as possible, as the rest of the family was asleep. They led me inside the front room, where about eight people were all lying on thin mattresses on the floor. I assumed I would be doing the same, but Iranian hospitality being what it is, I was shown instead to an empty room that I had all to myself. I didn’t want to try to refuse their generosity and risk waking someone up, and what’s more, there would have been no point in trying anyway, so I just whispered a quiet thank-you. Reza brought me a similar mattress to the ones the family were using and a big thick blanket. He closed the door and bade me goodnight. Moments later I was asleep.
In the morning, I was introduced to the rest of the family, who were all female and, apart from their mother, were much younger than Reza and Ashkan. Being the men of the household, the brothers didn’t lift a finger at breakfast, which was served for us by their adorable little sisters on a plastic mat on the floor of the main room. We had boiled eggs, bread, real honeycomb, yogurt, and olives.
After breakfast, I was keen to go sightseeing, but I didn’t want it to seem like I was setting the agenda, so I waited for the brothers to make a suggestion on where to go and what to do. Their suggestion was to go check out their PC in the room next door and for them to give me a full demonstration of how it worked.
What was it with young Iranians and their computers?
The computer was clearly their pride and joy and was fully rigged up to the Internet. They had downloaded loads of music videos and other crap, like fake WWE wrestling, all of which they were determined to show me. So my introduction to Yazd was not a tour of its splendid cultural and historical sights, but a couple of hours of watching stupid redneck wrestling nonsense and the likes of Britney sodding Spears shaking her butt about. This was all very kind of them to show me some prime examples of refined American culture, but it wasn’t really what I’d come to Iran or to Yazd for. I’d come to Yazd because it was the country’s quintessential desert city, sandwiched between the Dasht-e Lut desert in the south and the Dasht-e Kavir desert in the north. As deserts are one of my favorite environments, it appealed greatly. It is also home to the biggest Zoroastrian community in Iran, and has the country’s finest old city, which is still inhabited. Yazd was described by Marco Polo as, “a very fine and splendid city and center of commerce.” Yazd has always been renowned as a weaving town and was famed for its wonderful silks long before Marco Polo journeyed through on one of the multiple silk roads. After the Arab conquest, the city became a major stopping point along the caravan routes to India and Central Asia, and as a result its goods and crafts traveled far beyond the borders of Iran.
I eventually managed to convince the brothers to show me some of this fascinating city, and after I showed them the photos of Yazd in my guidebook, they agreed to take me to a Zoroastrian fire temple. We all piled into the Land Rover and headed off. It was another roasting day with a big blue cloudless sky that seemed to stretch for eternity. What I saw of Yazd on the way to the temple I really liked. It had leafy tree-lined streets, beautiful and strange-looking buildings, and was neither an overcrowded chaotic city nor a quiet deserted backwater.
We arrived at the Ateshkadeh Fire Temple just as Mr. Private Jet and the rest of the British pensioners from the Persepolis tour group were leaving and boarding a private coach outside. I waved a quick hello but didn’t want to enter into a conversation with them so walked on past.
The temple was a modest-looking building set in a small garden with a little circular pond out the front and a Zoroastrian winged symbol above the main entrance. The attraction of the place was its “eternal” flame, which has reportedly been burning since AD 470 and is situated behind a big glass case. In 1174, the flame was moved to the nearby desert settlement of Ardakan and then onto Yazd in 1474. It is kept going by attentive priests who regularly feed the fire with almond and apricot wood.
Although I found the temple mildly interesting, I can’t say I was taken aback with amazement at the place. We were confined to a small hallway overlooking the fire and, apart from a few paintings of Zoroaster on the wall and the flame itself, there really wasn’t much else to look at.
We got back in the Land Rover and drove to a far better Zoroastrian site just outside of the town called the Towers of Silence. Here in the dusty barren desert were two huge circular towers on top of adjacent rocky hills. In days gone by, these had been used by Zoroastrians to place their dead so the vultures could feed upon them. It looked an ancient and delicate site, but that didn’t stop the brothers burning around doing doughnuts in the Land Rover, whilst I got out to look at the towers.
There was a fantastic view from the top, with mountains and desert in one direction and the city in the other. Also of interest at the site were the remains of several other ancient buildings, including a big well with a domed roof, which was scrawled with Persian graffiti. Next to this were two towers called badgirs. Badgirs, or wind towers, can be seen all over Yazd and are an ancient means of air conditioning designed to redirect the slightest of breezes down into rooms below. The towers consist of a main chimneylike trunk which houses a number of ingenious shafts, special air shelves, and flaps that direct hot air out of the building and air cooled over a pool of water into the building. Although not as effective as modern air conditioning, the badgirs do have a discernable effect and are far healthier than the modern equivalent as they keep fresh air circulating and don’t use electricity.
I had a good look around the main site and clicked off a load of snaps before going to look at the domed well where the badgirs were situated. Leading into the side of the well’s dome was a little pitch-black tunnel. I moved along inside this almost completely blind as my eyes had yet to acclimatize to the darkness after the brilliant sun outside. I stopped just in time before the tunnel ended abruptly and dropped straight down into the well itself. It gave me a bit of a shock. I flicked some pebbles down to see how deep in went. It wasn’t huge, but it was more than big enough to break a leg or two. I thanked my lucky stars I’d stopped in time. I went back and found the brothers, who were now launching the Land Rover off a natural ramp-like mound of earth. It’s a wonder it didn’t kill the suspension such was the force they were landing with—a fine testament to good old British engineering.
We drove back to their house, where Ashkan dropped Reza and me off and explained that he had to leave us for a few hours so he could go do some studying. Inside, Reza treated me to more fun and games on the computer, this time in the form of a DVD of female American wrestling. It was terrible and so clearly faked, but Reza loved it and asked me sincerely, “You think real?”
I think not.
When his sister came into the room he immediately turned it off and sent her out.
“For woman, it is not allowed,” he said to me with a smile.
After a painfully long dose of “wrestling,” we settled down to a late lunch prepared by Reza’s wonderful mother. I was very grateful for her kindly preparing a meal, but my heart sank when I saw what it was—vast industrial quantities of kidney and liver chopped up and mixed with rice. Now I’m not a fussy eater, but I absolutely detest both liver and kidney. And I don’t just mean that I’m not particularly enamored by them, but that I bloody loathe the stuff, nearly to the extent of gagging at the very thought of eating it, let alone actually eating it. But as much as I detest liver and kidney, I wouldn’t dream of turning down a meal so kindly prepared, so I took a deep breath, tried to compose myself, and had my first tentative mouthful. I tried to swallow immediately in an attempt to stop contact with my taste buds, but it was simply impossible to get the stuff down without a good few chews to break it up. Even then, it seemed to wedge in my twitching gullet and travel down at an agonizingly slow speed.
It was simply disgusting and I felt seriously ill. I did my best to give little fake smiles to Reza’s mother as if to say, “Yum yum, this is good.” It wasn’t easy. In an attempt to help the stuff on its way, I took huge swigs of cola with the kidney and liver and masticated it all into a squishy pulp before swallowing. This made things a little easier going but not much, as believe me, a liver and kidney “cola float” is a far from a refreshing beverage. Coca-Cola may have occasionally flirted with the idea of cherry and vanilla flavors, and even that weird Tab Clear stuff, but I don’t think the powers-that-be at Coke PLC will ever detect a niche gap in the market and consider bringing out “Liver and Kidney Cola,” perhaps with the slogan, “It’s offally good!”
It took a long while, but I eventually cleared the plate and finished the last mouthful with a sigh of utter relief. I smiled at Reza’s mother as if to say, “Thank you, that was delicious”—big mistake! She grabbed my plate and then, to my abject horror, started piling on an even larger second portion. I have no words to describe how my spirit dropped on seeing this, but I guess winning the lotto and then losing the ticket must be a close feeling.
It was far harder to get through than the first portion, but eventually, after what seemed like an eternity, I made it to the end. This time, I purposefully left a little on my plate to indicate I was full. After the meal, I felt so bad I had to brush my teeth and lie down for a good hour to recover. Luckily, Reza was having a siesta anyway so no suspicions were aroused.
In the late afternoon, after Ashkan had returned with the Land Rover, Reza and I ventured out again, this time accompanied by his little seven-year-old next-door neighbor, who wanted to tag along with the big boys. He sat in the back of the Land Rover with a big smile from ear to ear. We stopped at one of the architectural highlights of Yazd, and one of the most distinctive buildings in Iran, the Amir Chakhmaq Complex.
The Amir Chakhmaq Complex is a three-story structure with two towering minarets, many beautiful sunken alcoves, and sparkling white and blue tiles. It is used as a sort of grandstand to watch theater performances in the square below of the Ta’zieh, or passion play, commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hossein. It is situated in the heart of Yazd across from a little park containing a pond and a fountain. Reza dropped me outside the complex and told me to meet him in the park opposite in half an hour, after he’d found a place to park.
I bought a ticket and went inside the towering structure. It didn’t really have any internal rooms, as it was an open-fronted building from which to observe the world below. Not only could you climb up to the structure’s open roof on the third floor, but also to the top of its massive minarets. To scale these, I had to negotiate, in near total darkness, a painfully narrow spiral stone staircase twisting all the way to the top. I stepped out onto a rather rickety-feeling platform at the summit and was bowled over by the breathtaking and unforgettable view. I could see for miles all the way across the ancient city’s mud-brick houses with their distinctive badgir wind towers to a vast sea of rolling sand, which looked as if it was straight out of the film Lawrence of Arabia. The dunes led to the base of a sprawling and rugged sand-colored mountain range many thousands of feet high. This was all bathed in the orange glow of the descending sun, which was just disappearing over the horizon. The evocative sound of the call to prayer rang out from the many mosques of the city, creating a vibrant and tingling atmosphere. Down below in the park, children were playing, people were chatting, and a group of soldiers reclined on the grass using their backpacks as pillows. Everybody looked so very happy, and there was a subtle yet perceptible feeling of contentment in the dry desert air. This seeped into and saturated me to the extent that I felt I could stay perched up here forever. The whole scene was so magical, but it was also so typical of the Iran I had come to love. I stood up here and wondered if, when I got back to England, anyone would believe me that this was the real Iran.
I spotted Reza and his little friend sitting in the park eating ice cream, so I headed down to see them. I bought myself an ice cream and joined them just as the colored lights of the square were turned on. Here we sat enjoying the atmosphere and just watching the world go by.
One thing I really wanted to do in Yazd was to go out into the desert and, if possible, to spend a few nights there under the stars. Yazd was going to be my final destination in southern Iran before I started the long journey north again, so I was keen to make it a good one, and was more than willing to splash out on an expensive desert tour. This was something it was wise to pay a little extra for, as the last thing I wanted to do was end up on a budget desert excursion that wasn’t properly prepared. Before leaving the U.K., I had read that the Dasht-e Kavir desert was one of the hottest in the world, and that it had nearly finished off Alexander the Great and his army, so it was not a place to take lightly by cutting corners on cost. Reza said it was possible to book desert tours through the Yazd Internet café and agreed to take me there.
After sending Ricardo a quick e-mail to find out where he was, I inquired about the tours. The Internet café only did local day excursions, but I wanted to get right out there and into the thick of it, so they directed me to a nearby hotel where there was a guide who organized longer trips. The guide was a friendly young chap who spoke perfect English and explained that he only did overnight tours for groups of four or more, so I would have to find three others who also wanted to go.
He offered a three-night, four-day excursion deep into the Dasht-e Kavir, which would visit huge white salt flats, rugged mountain ranges, and the obligatory rolling sand dunes. It was just what I was after. I took his card and told him I’d give him a call if I managed to find the necessary volunteers. We didn’t stick around in town any longer, as by now the little lad was beginning to feel tired. On the drive back home, he fell fast asleep in the back of the car. We dropped him off, then popped into Reza’s house to catch up with his brother. Here Reza handed over tourist duty to Ashkan, who immediately whisked me outside again in the Land Rover.
Ashkan was all dressed up and looking as smooth as hell in a fresh white shirt, polished pointed shoes, and smart black strides. He told me we were going to a park where we could meet beautiful girls. I liked the sound of this. We drove to a place called the “Parsian” Hotel, which was situated in a peaceful and attractive garden on the other side of town. In the garden was an octagonal pond surrounded by many raised carpeted platforms occupied by smartly dressed attractive people in their early twenties. The platforms were either all occupied by girls or all occupied by guys, but none of them were mixed. Despite this gender separation on the platforms, there were a few couples discreetly standing nearby who were chatting together and holding hands. I got the distinct impression this was a popular meeting place for young people to go on “the pull”—Persian style.
Ashkan stopped at one of the platforms to say a gentlemanly hello to a group of girls he knew and introduced me in the process. The girls were all dressed in colorful hijabs and, with the exception of one of them, were all very attractive, fit, and slim. The exception was a big scowling chunky lass who looked the spitting image of the grumpy matron who Hattie Jacques played in the Carry On films.
Ashkan and I got a platform about ten feet from theirs. After a couple of minutes, “Hattie” came over and perched herself on the edge of the platform, nearly toppling it in the process. She was forthright and to the point. “Give me gift! You give me gift!” she barked at me.
“Charming,” I thought.
Although a bit taken aback by this, I emptied my pockets for something to give her. All I had was my wallet, my “World’s Best Dad” pocket watch, and my passport. She wasn’t getting any of these. I apologized and showed her what I had. She grabbed my passport and said, “Gift!”
Like hell it was. I grabbed it back from her sausage-like fingers.
“You are scrooge!” she barked.
“Cheeky cow,” I thought, but in the interests of diplomacy I asked her politely, “What can I give you?”
“Give me chocolate. I want chocolate!”
“I bet you do,” I thought, but this was the last thing she needed!
When I told her I had none, she repeated again, “You are scrooge!” this time grimacing up her face and five chins in the process. I told her I simply didn’t have any chocolate and then said, with the intention of stumping her, “Okay, you give me gift. Give me chocolate; you give me chocolate!”
She reached into her handbag and, with a triumphant look, produced two little candies for me and Ashkan. Hattie changed the subject and now asked me which of the girls on the platform I liked—ooh, Matron!
“Well they’re all very nice, as are you,” I said lying through my teeth about the last bit.
“But which one do you like?!” she growled.
“As I say, they’re all nice.”
“Do you not think they are beautiful?”
“Oh my goodness, no, I wasn’t saying that for a second; they are all very beautiful,” I ventured.
“Then which one do you like?!” she near shouted at me.
I gave in and said, “The one with the yellow hijab.” That was it. Off waddled Hattie to do the Iranian equivalent of, “My mate fancies you.”
The girls all giggled shyly as Hattie discussed the situation with them. She returned and asked, “Would you like to marry her?”
“Well, obviously, talk of marriage is slightly premature,” I stated. She stared at me with a look of confusion on her face and then just repeated the question.
“Would you like to marry her?”
“Don’t get me wrong—she’s very nice, but I couldn’t possibly contemplate…”
“But you say you like her. You no like her now?” she interrupted.
“No, no, she’s lovely,” I said.
“You want to marry her?”
I was going to try to explain again, but then I thought, “Oh, what the hell?” and just said, “Yes, I would like to marry her.”
Off she went and returned with my fiancée, who Hattie introduced as Susan. Susan barely spoke a word of English, so Hattie did the talking for her—and by the looks of it, all the eating for her as well. Susan was twenty-two, a physics student, and as Hattie kindly pointed out for me, was also “very beautiful.” The conversation kind of ground to a halt past these basic facts, but my future wife had an idea of how to get the marriage back on track. She left for a little stall serving food nearby and returned a minute later with a romantic little present for me—a juicy, foil-wrapped double cheeseburger.
I was genuinely touched by Susan’s kindness. It was all so very pure and innocent. I thanked her and told her in Farsi that she was beautiful. She liked this a lot and in English said, “Thank you,” before Hattie ushered her back to the girl’s platform. I finished the burger and bought her one in return. Hattie was green with envy at the sight of this and licked her lips whilst salivating wildly—get your own burger, Jacquesy!
I returned to my platform, and a minute later two of Ashkan’s male friends came to join us. One of them spoke good English and explained to me that only a few years ago, young people wouldn’t have been able to meet in places like this. He said that back then it was “more forbidden” and that the rules were generally more relaxed now.
Ashkan’s friends stuck around for about an hour talking to us, and after they left Hattie and Susan returned for a chat. Susan asked me through Hattie what my name meant. I said I had no idea of its meaning, which seemed to confuse them and was probably the equivalent of someone in England saying they don’t know how to spell their name, as everybody seemed to know the meaning of theirs in Iran. Susan said that in Persian her name meant “hot” or “fire” and that in Hebrew it meant “beautiful woman.” She asked me what Susan meant in English. I just combined the two and said, “Hot beautiful woman.” They all laughed.
The girls left before Ashkan and I did, and on the way back, we drove past them in the Land Rover and gave them a polite wave. At Ashkan’s house, I was treated to a lovely meal of succulent lamb with soft buttered rice for the main course and some of the best fruit I’ve ever tasted for the second course. We had grapes the size of golf balls, honey-sweet figs, dates, and cucumber. After dinner, the phone rang and amazingly Ashkan passed it to me saying, “It’s for you.” On the other end of the phone was a girl who said hello but nothing else. I tried to communicate but it was no good, so I handed the phone back to Ashkan. He spoke to the person, then hung up.
Ashkan explained that it had been my fiancée Susan on the other end and that she and Hattie wanted to meet up with us tomorrow. This was getting out of hand.
The brothers insisted I slept in the same room as last night and I had it all to myself again. Since the computer was also in there, I was given another fascinating demonstration of it before bed. This time, it was a pirated DVD of Celine Dion, followed by some downloaded Eminem videos. Just like the Tehran lads, both the brothers sang harmoniously with Celine and then did the exaggerated rapper-style hand moves to Eminem. It was a good laugh all round, and just like Pedram and the boys, they saw no contradiction in being equally enthused with both styles of music.