with one of the library assistants and not surprisingly came up with fuck all. I was grateful for their help but couldn’t see why we were wasting time or why they were so adamant that the hotels in my guidebook were no good.
By chance, a professor who spoke better English than I did was also at the library. He sounded like an Oxford University don and was a charming fellow who was more than happy to translate. He told them to take me to my chosen hotel, which as far as he was aware, was an “awfully good little place,” and said he didn’t know what all the fuss had been about.
I thanked him, he gave me his card, and we set off again.
Tehran went on and on forever with very few prominent landmarks from which to get your bearings. The amount of people and traffic was something else; it seemed like all 15 million of the city’s residents were out on the streets today. We stopped at three other hotels, all of which were full, before we got to the original one I’d selected. It was also full. This wasn’t good news as it was now late afternoon, but the reception guy recommended a place around the corner. It was thirtytwo dollars a night, which was by far the most expensive place thus far on my trip, but I paid it gladly and was just pleased to have a roof over my head. I thanked the guys for their help and headed up to my room. It was absolutely fantastic. It had a double bed, a TV with BBC World, a shower room with a proper toilet, a fridge, and to top it all off, the price included breakfast. I got on the phone to Leyla who arranged to pick me up in three hours, though she still hadn’t heard from Ricardo. That gave me ample opportunity to shower and put my feet up and watch the BBC’s
The phone jolted me back to reality from a deep sleep. Predictably, it was Leyla on the line, who told me to meet her in reception. The first thing she said when I turned up was, “This is not a good area.”
Leyla told me there’d been antigovernment demonstrations near the hotel two days ago and that the police and the government’s Basji Militia had tear gassed, beaten, and arrested loads of students. The demonstration had been inspired by an Iranian exile, Dr. Ahura Pirouz Khaleghi Yazdi, who had broadcast the call to protest from a satellite station based in the United States.
She expressed her relief that I hadn’t arrived a couple of days earlier, but the journalist in me was genuinely gutted to have missed the opportunity to record the events and get some photographs.
Two of her friends were waiting in the car. The girl spoke good English but the boy spoke next to none. Both Leyla and her female friend looked very Western with makeup and jeans. Although wearing the compulsory hijab, they were of a lightweight material and covered only a fraction of their hair. We drove through the city, which was surprisingly quiet now that it was dark, and arrived at a little restaurant in the north of Tehran. It was an upmarket place and all of the customers looked very wealthy and Western in comparison to other parts of Iran, dressed in expensive-looking clothing, and the women wearing makeup and minute hijabs.
Leyla’s friends were both twenty years old and were dating each other. Although it was officially not allowed, they said it was common for young people to be in relationships and to keep it from their parents. The girl, whose name I didn’t make a note of, told me that her father had discovered her relationship and had gone crazy. He had told her to break up with her boyfriend but she had steadfastly refused. Surprisingly, she said, he had eventually come to accept it. Like Leyla, the girl had grown up abroad and had recently moved back to Iran when her parents returned (her boyfriend was Iranian). In Canada, her father had enrolled her in a Catholic boarding school, despite her being a Muslim, because he was determined to keep her away from boys.
I asked her if she would return to Canada when she got the chance after finishing her studies. I was surprised when she told me that she planned to stay in Iran forever. If she’d grown up here, I wouldn’t have been surprised, but since she’d spent most of her life in an open society, I thought it odd she’d now happily live indefinitely in such a repressive one. She explained, rather unconvincingly to my mind, by saying that the state repression wasn’t such a big deal to her personally and that she was Iranian and this was Iran.
Leyla was not in agreement with her and planned to be off within a year. Of the two, she seemed to be much more of a free spirit, and as a result I liked her far more.
It was very interesting to chat with them both and learn more about their lives and their attitude toward their government, which the Canadian girl said now just about everybody despised. I asked her then why she thought more people didn’t rebel against the state. She put it down to the Iran-Iraq War having caused half a million Iranian deaths and people not wanting to cause any more bloodshed by rebelling. Leyla added that if you stepped out of line politically, you didn’t just get reprimanded, you got killed or worse—which, of course, is a pretty effective deterrent.
When it was time to get the bill, it was no surprise that Leyla and friends wouldn’t let me chip in. They insisted that I was their guest and that in Iran it was customary for them to pay for me. It was actually becoming hard to spend any money here at all due to the overwhelming generosity people were showing me.
On the way back in the car, we drove past a special jail that Leyla pointed out. It was specifically for people picked up off the street with either a boyfriend, girlfriend, or an inappropriate hijab. Leyla told me that the police did big swoops in certain areas and arrested loads of people all at once. She said that she knew of people who’d been there and that as jails go, it wasn’t too bad, and that on the whole you just spent a night there for these offenses.
Near my hotel, Leyla spotted some cops on the side of the road. She got nervous, said once more, “This is a bad area,” and pulled up her hijab conservatively. I asked what was wrong with the area and she said that a lot of people get arrested here for being with unrelated members of the opposite sex. When we pulled up, Leyla stayed in the car and said, “Hurry.”
“Why?”
“I can’t be with you,” she said. “I could go to jail.”
I got out and went inside.
Once in my room, I got really pissed off. I couldn’t get my head around how she could have been arrested simply for being in a car with me, and I couldn’t get my head around the apparent apathy of her Canadian friend who considered it no big deal. To me, it seemed a huge deal, especially when people were getting killed and tortured for simply stepping out of line. I went to bed highly annoyed.
CHAPTER TEN
Pedram’s car swerved recklessly across the main road, coming to a screeching stop outside my hotel. A moment later, his two library-loving friends did likewise in their car, drawing several hornblasts from agitated drivers behind. It was great to see Pedram again, and after warmly shaking hands, I jumped in the back of his car, which sped off at breakneck speed.
Our first stop was a pool hall in the center of the city where we met up with the ever-cheery Behzad and two more of Pedram’s friends. Pedram explained that the party I had been invited to by his friend in Hamadan was scheduled for tomorrow night and that it should be a very good one indeed. I was delighted and couldn’t wait to go along for another illegal Iranian gathering.
The pool hall was obviously one of their haunts; nearly all the young guys inside—and there were only guys inside—knew Pedram and his friends. I was the center of attention and introduced to all the locals, a couple of whom spoke good English. It was a typical pool hall with the same dark interior and laid back atmosphere as any establishment back home, minus the alcohol of course. We decided on a game of doubles, with Pedram and me versus Behzad and one of the other guys, whose name was Ali. It wasn’t a convincing victory, but Pedram and I pulled off a win. Just when we were about to rack them up for a second game, over walked a confident-looking guy carrying his own personal cue case—always a dangerous sign—who challenged me to a singles match.
I accepted reluctantly. In no apparent hurry, and as if playing for the audience which had gathered to watch, Mr. Professional placed his cue box on the table and slowly flipped its briefcaselike locks. It popped open revealing a beautifully crafted piece of equipment. He screwed the two ends of the cue together with a quick twist of his hands, then held it to the light and looked along its length, checking for straightness.
What the fuck?
But this wasn’t the end of his little ritual. Next, he got out a strange three-fingered glove, which he purposefully slipped onto his lead hand. His knuckles were then given a full crack, the cue was given a scientific
