application of chalk, and he was ready to begin.
I didn’t fancy my chances.
Now I’m either a good player or a bad player, and one that improves with alcohol, which wasn’t an option today, but by sheer luck I played a masterful game and beat Mr. “All the Gear but No Idea” hands down. He looked embarrassed. After this victory, everybody in the club wanted to challenge me. I even had the gratifying pleasure of pulling off a fluke victory against one of the best players in the club, or so I was told by Pedram. After everybody had had a chance to play me, we headed across the road to a little cafe where we all tucked in to buttered rice and lamb and tomato kebabs. Once again I was not allowed to pay.
Everyone now discussed where I should be taken next. The conversation was conducted in Farsi, so I had no idea what locations were thrown into the discussion, but I was expecting maybe a museum or historical site. Nothing of the sort. I was taken to a shopping mall dedicated to nothing but a load of Best Buy-style computer stores!
God knows what possessed this insane decision, and for the next hour and a half, I had to do my best to look interested in the latest laptop or PC monitor. The highlight of this bizarre outing, which predictably was not much of a highlight, was eating a takeaway sweet-corn snack from a polystyrene cup and drinking mandarin juice from a vending machine. I was pleased when it all came to an end and we got back on the road.
Thankfully, there were no more computer stores for us next, as it was unanimously agreed that we were all going to head over to Ali’s place and use his swimming pool. En route to his place, we raced around the city with the windows down and music from a cassette blaring out from the stereo—music which without a shadow of a doubt would have been on the government’s official list of prohibited tunes. It featured a woman breathing and moaning over a fast-paced techno track. Either she was panting after a brisk five-mile run in the fresh air or she was rather enjoying herself. A strange mix followed of rap, hardcore dance, and romantic ballads, which blared out at deafening volume. The guys all sang along enthusiastically and saw no contradiction between throwing up gang signs to rap songs one minute and then swaying to a slow, pensive rendition of Chris de Burgh’s “Lady in Red” the next. I thought that was great.
Iranian driving reaches its zenith of insanity and chaos on the heaving streets of Tehran. It certainly isn’t for the timid, and Pedram’s approach was anything but, with him swerving in and out of traffic, yelling at other motorists, and constantly beeping his horn at he went. It requires a certain amount of skill just to get through the day there without hitting or being hit by another vehicle.
One thing you can’t help but notice when driving around Tehran is the vast number of political murals dedicated to subjects such as Iran’s war dead from the Iran-Iraq conflict or the murder of Palestinian children by the occupying Israeli forces. These are all over the city, painted on the sides of buildings and on huge billboards along the road. Nearly all of them are very artistic and skillfully done, and range from depictions of heroic military figures gazing pensively off into the distance against a backdrop of fluttering Iranian flags, to banners of Persian text scrawled across war scenes.
As we got closer to Ali’s, we roared past a mullah, one of Iran’s turban- and cloak-wearing religious leaders, and the lads discreetly muttered abuse at him under their breath. Pedram explained that they all hated the mullahs because, as he put it, “They have closed mind.”
We came to a dramatic tire-screaming stop outside a salubrious apartment block in the wealthy northern suburbs. This was Pedram’s parents’ place. He insisted that from now on in Tehran I would stay here. They had a really nice spacious apartment, which must have cost a pretty penny—property in Tehran is far from cheap. Only his mother was in, who greeted us with a warm smile and was wearing the full, tablecloth-like chador showing only a fraction of her face. Pedram grabbed some swim trunks for me whilst I dropped off my backpack and gave Leyla a call. It was a pain to get the call to connect, but when it finally did, she gave me the good news that Ricardo had been in touch and that he was going to meet us this evening, along with her mother, at a traditional Iranian restaurant. With characteristic generosity, Pedram insisted that he would give me a lift to the restaurant. I couldn’t have asked for more. Ricardo was apparently staying in a dirt-cheap hostel in the nasty southern suburbs. I smiled to myself and felt extremely fortunate to be staying with Pedram.
Pedram’s place was nice but Ali’s was in a different league altogether. Two huge security gates opened up for us revealing a palatial, ultramodern apartment building. A beautifully tiled driveway led past several floodlit fountains showering a vast pool, and down to an underground parking area. Inside, it was like a five-star hotel with a vast lobby decorated in marble and gold, and carpeted with an exquisite red Persian rug. In the basement, there was a full gym, communal swimming pool, steam room, and sauna, which we had all to ourselves, and it’s just as well.
My leisurely swim went out the window as the order of the day was a load of wrestling, ducking, and bombing, swimming contests, and general larking about. Poor old Behzad got a lot of shit for his slack frame, and Ali thought it most amusing to get his cock out and close his legs around it to impersonate a woman. The lads thought this was hilarious. I retired to the sauna shortly after this for a much-needed bit of sanity. It didn’t last long. Everybody piled in and began flinging water all over the place. Maybe it was because I was tired, maybe because I was older than them at nearly thirty, but I began to get really bored with all the messing around and would have given anything just to be able to sit in here and relax for a bit.
The festivities came to an abrupt end when Pedram looked at his watch and realized that Cinderella was going to be late for the ball with Ricardo, Leyla, and her mother. It was dark outside now and we drove like complete fruitcakes through the crowded streets all the way from northern to southern Tehran. The city was even more chaotic than normal and all lit up with sparkling colored lights and decorations to celebrate the birthday of Imam Mehdi.
Iranian Shiite Muslims acknowledge twelve Imams who they see as the direct successors to the Prophet Mohammed and the only people capable of infallibly interpreting the Koran.
The twelve Imams are venerated much like Christian saints and everybody seems to have their favorite. I saw their images everywhere, from the inside of shops to the backs of buses. Coincidentally, I also saw many buses and other vehicles with the English word “GOD” in capital letters on their windscreens. Imam Mehdi was the twelfth and last Imam, and the only one said to be still alive. It is claimed he simply vanished inside a cave beneath an Iraqi mosque when he was still young. Shiites also believe that at the end of the world, Imam Mehdi and Jesus will return together, as a sort of tag team special, to sort the world out and reestablish peace on earth.
To Shiite Muslims, an Imam is divinely appointed and infallible, whereas to Sunnis, he can be appointed by man and is seen more as a leader of the Muslim community. Although many places in Iran are officially named Imam Khomeini Street or Imam Khomeini Square, the title is an honorary one given to Khomeini after his death by the Shiite government in an attempt to venerate him. Many Iranians I spoke to find this offensive and refuse to refer to him with this title, instead using more colorful and choice ones of their own.
We arrived at the restaurant, which was hidden away at the bottom of an attractive little staircase. The lads remained in the cars outside while Pedram came in with me to give Leyla his address. The restaurant was decorated with ornately tiled vaulted ceilings and was packed with people smoking the water pipe, drinking
Nestled in a cozy corner in the very best spot were Ricardo, Leyla’s mother, and Leyla herself. They all looked far smarter than I did making me wish I’d made more of an effort. Ricardo, the old smoothie, had even bought them a bunch of fresh roses. I greeted them all warmly with handshakes, which I figured was okay because they were friends and had spent so long in the West. Pedram passed on his address to Leyla whose mother invited him to join us. He declined the offer and explained his friends were waiting for him. After Pedram departed, Leyla said that he lived in a very expensive area of Tehran and that it was not too far from their place so we could all share a taxi at the end of the night.
It was great to see them again and we all settled down to what turned out to be a wonderful evening. We had a traditional Iranian meal called
