The Ministry of Guidance Invites You to Not Stay: An American Family in Iran

by Majd, Hooman

  But we were going to spend the rest of Ramadan back at our apartment in Tehran, despite the scarcity of public activities that are permissible in Iran until Eid-e-Fetr, the holiday marking the end of the fast. When we got back, Khash was particularly annoyed by the closed coffee shop at the bottom of the hill from our street, missing his daily dose of love from the girls working there, and he would point to it emphatically as we went on our walks, pleading in his babbling way for me to somehow open it up and take him inside. He was otherwise oblivious to Ramadan, since Karri or I would buy him a drink, coconut water in a Tetrapak usually (which has enthusiastic advocates in Tehran, too). He’d sometimes pour it on his pants, depending on how thirsty or mischievous he felt. And the fruit seller would always give him a banana, which he slowly devoured as we made our rounds of the shops in our neighborhood. The park he liked, which was too hot to visit much before five o’clock, and the nearby House of Cinema (a former Qajar mini-palace) had two rather nice cafés in beautiful grounds—we’d normally go there after Khash was finished playing, sometimes meeting friends; but that was also not an option during Ramadan.

  So our life, like the lives of many Iranians, became even more monotonous than it ordinarily was, but we consoled ourselves that it was only two more weeks, not a lifetime. We were invited to a couple of iftars, the nightly ritualistic breaking of the fast, but not every other night, as some Iranians are. It’s somewhat bad form to go to an iftar if one has not actually fasted, and few religious families will invite friends or family who are nonpracticing or won’t throw reciprocal iftar parties themselves. Iftar, falling well after Khash’s dinnertime and around the time he would want to go to sleep, was also an inconvenient moment to take him anywhere, although we did manage once or twice. We even had an iftar at a cousin’s lodge in Darbandsar, in the mountains, where Khash ate before everyone else and missed the mountains of food, beginning with dates, cheese, bread, and tea, that appeared on the dining table just as dusk arrived.

  After Ramadan, we finally accepted an invitation to spend a weekend at a friend’s house at the Caspian, which Karri had wanted to see and which we thought would be fun for Khash. We left by car, driven by my friend, in the early afternoon on a Wednesday to avoid the traffic jams that would occur later that evening and all day on Thursday. Khash complained most of the way for, unaccustomed to car seats, he couldn’t abide being strapped into one. When we arrived, it was too dark to see or do anything, so we bought takeout from one of the numerous restaurants in the area catering to weekenders, which was rather delicious Caspian cuisine—different vegetable stews and kebabs than in Tehran, but with the customary fluffy rice. Only in the morning, with perfect weather, did we realize that we were surrounded by hilly forests, lush greenery, and smog-free air such as we hadn’t witnessed since our arrival in the dust bowl that is Tehran. Even the mountains outside Tehran are desertlike until one crosses them completely and descends into the Caspian region—which after Tehran and after the torrid Persian Gulf was, to say the least, a delight. A hike in the hills, where my friend owned some property—formerly a tea plantation—was just as delightful, and the view of the sea, placid and inviting, was not something Karri had imagined she’d experience while in Iran. Stranger still, to foreign eyes at least, was what we saw one day at a seaside restaurant. The beach was packed with customers, and while the men with rolled-up pants dipped their feet into the water, the women sat on the sand in their manteaus and scarves, not daring to splash in the surf. Not even the many children went near the water, choosing to play well away from the tide level and seemingly not feeling an urge to jump in. It was probably good training for the girls, who would not, if the Islamic regime survived that long, be able to swim at ease in their adulthood.

  A group of women, young and old, sat on some rocks while staring at the sea and chatting to one another. The young ones’ faces were heavily and inappropriately slathered with makeup, as usual, rather than sunscreen, and one with bleached-blond hair sticking out from under her scarf, bright orange lipstick, and fluorescent orange nails appeared a little forlorn and removed from the conversation. As ridiculous as she looked, still at that moment what came to mind was what a friend had long ago told me: the Islamic Republic has forbidden fun. Khash, of course, was oblivious to this fact, playing as he did with pebbles and sand and enjoying the attention he received from camera-wielding tourists, men and women, who kept asking if it was okay to photograph him. I can’t be sure, but I do think that numerous family picture albums and hard drives in Iran include a picture of Khash as a baby, in a Tehran park, on a busy sidewalk, or at the beach.

  On the way back to the villa, we drove through a beautiful and heavily forested park—what looked like a nature preserve—with gazebos for picnickers and barbecue pits for kebab grilling. Iranians love nature, and the number of parks and green spaces in Tehran created by successive mayors, and their popularity with the citizens, is a testament to that. But they may love their cars just as much. On the wide sidewalks, right by their cars, families had set out carpets and cushions to sit on and were picnicking within plain sight of gazebos surrounded by ancient trees. A short, very short walk would have placed these families right in the middle of nature, away from the fumes of cars and motorcycles and the ugly asphalt, but being next to their cars and still in view of nature probably appealed to them more. On the drive back to Tehran (and I reluctantly drove, since my friend had to leave early, in a different car, to make an appointment in the city), all along the way on the Chalus road, which winds through mountains and valleys, we saw more of these families, parked by verdant spots and relaxing with a thermos of tea or a more elaborate repast on the edge of the road, some even camping, within spitting distance of a far more agreeable spot.

  The Caspian, which is, in a way, the Hamptons of Tehran, makes for a pleasant weekend excursion, but more for relaxation than anything else, and seeing nature is inherently enjoyable for a Tehran resident. Yet unless one is there for a party, there is nothing to do. The road that runs along the shore is dotted with the kinds of shops one sees in every seaside resort town—stores with souvenirs, gaudy children’s toys, and buckets, shovels, and beach toys displayed outside—and small restaurants and bakeries and ice-cream shops. But the image is deceptive. Little of the jollity that one might observe in seaside resorts elsewhere—families enjoying the beach, couples holding hands on a boardwalk or promenade, people dining at outdoor cafés or drinking at bars—is on display here. Instead, these things are reserved, one imagines, for the privacy of the villas and the apartments that Tehranis repair to, and probably never leave, on the weekend. There is little sightseeing, either, unless one ventures to the cities farther up the coast, where historic buildings, monuments, mosques, and churches can be found.

  But I knew that Iran offers incredible sightseeing, so once we were back home, we planned a week’s trip south, to the famous city of Esfahan and, less well known but still impressive, the Silk Road city of Yazd.

  Flying anywhere in Iran is cheap and relatively easy, but it was not a risk Karri was willing to take, since domestic flights offered by the national airline and private carriers use outdated equipment. The airplanes can barely qualify as such—the forty-year-old Boeings and Soviet-era Tupolevs have an unfortunate record of falling out of the sky, if they ever make it up there, that is. Sanctions on Iran, both the unilateral U.S. ones and more recently the UN and European sanctions, have meant that, despite its massive wealth in both the public and the private sectors, Iran has been largely unable to upgrade its fleet of civilian aircraft since the revolution—even new Airbuses are off limits due to the percentage of American parts. And far too many airplane crashes occur in a country that should have an impeccable safety record, since its pilots are as accomplished as any in the West. (Even more stringent sanctions imposed by the West since we departed have virtually cut off Iran’s economy from the outside world, which bodes poorly for transportation and much else.) The trains in Iran are a good, if time-con
suming, alternative to flying, as are the buses, which are surprisingly luxurious and ridiculously cheap.

  But traveling with Khash and all the impedimenta that this involves meant our best alternative was driving. Yazd is a five- or six-hour drive south on a highway that is essentially a straight line through the desert, once one escapes the southernmost reaches of Tehran, and since my family is from Yazd, one or another cousin would inevitably be driving there—in a very nice and safe SUV to boot—in any given month. Ali Khatami, brother of the ex-president and my cousin Maryam’s husband, insisted that he take us, as in the late summer and early fall he was driving there almost every week to see his elderly mother, who had suffered illnesses all year, and he would be taking with us my uncle’s widow, whom I very much liked and who happened to be his aunt, too. We hadn’t decided yet how we would return to Tehran, other than via Esfahan, but it was going to be either by taxi or by train.

  The drive to Yazd was easy, and Khash behaved surprisingly well in his car seat, perhaps lulled by the desert landscape, the rush of speeding along at ninety miles an hour, and the constant supply of snacks and drinks. He was a little too curious about the thermos of hot tea that every Iranian family keeps handy for any trip longer than an hour, but it relieved Ali of the duty of stopping for the obligatory tea breaks. Classical Persian music on the stereo also helped, and we arrived at our hotel on the outskirts of the old town a little tired but no worse for wear. The hotel, which I had stayed in alone before, is a converted old mansion, with acres of grounds. The man-made blue-tiled stream running through it gave Khash endless joy and us endless anxiety. But the oddest sight, one that Khash found curious and a little baffling, was that of the dwarf the hotel had hired since my last visit to greet guests; the man was barely taller than Khash and was dressed in traditional ancient Persian finery and shoes and hat, just like the other doormen. He seemed unperturbed that he might be an object of amusement if not mockery by hotel visitors and particularly their children, in a country where political correctness, as it applies to the differently abled (excepting war veterans), has seemingly not arrived. Khash kept his distance, recognizing somehow that the man was an adult but not the kind he was accustomed to seeing, and the dwarf, unlike all the other hotel employees who fawned over this farangi child, remained aloof, perhaps because of previous less-than-happy experiences with children his own size.

  Yazd, being smack-dab in the middle of the desert, has remarkable weather except in midsummer, when it is unbearably hot. But both Karri and I enjoy the desert air and the vistas, and like most desert towns, this place has a certain languorous quality that is all the more inviting after one has spent time in a metropolis. Clean air, bright sunshine, and incredibly friendly citizens—no hustle and bustle, shoving, and the generally boorish demeanor found in Tehran and other big cities, not even in the ancient Yazd bazaar. Crossing the street is a breeze in Yazd, though probably due less to the courtesy of the drivers than to the fact that there simply isn’t as much traffic. After we toured the ancient sites, seeing the old homes, and walking through the alleyways that traders of all nationalities plied centuries ago, we also wanted to see the Zoroastrian temple in Chak Chak, perched on the side of a mountain about a forty-minute drive outside of town, a mecca of sorts for Zoroastrians the world over.

  Chak Chak is named for the mountain spring that for centuries has been dripping—“chak-chak-chak,” as the Persians, or those with a Yazdi accent, say—through a boulder and nourishing a massive tree. Zoroastrians, followers of the pre-Islamic Persian monotheistic faith, believe it is the spot where the daughter of the last Sassanid king, Yazdegerd III, cornered by invading Arabs, prayed to Ahura Mazda (god) to protect her; in response to her entreaties, the mountain opened up, providing her with a hiding place. The dripping spring, according to legend, represents tears of grief for her, and the ancient tree jutting out of the rock is still believed by some to have grown from the staff that the princess leaned on.

  On the drive there through the desert, we passed the village of Ardakan, where my father was born. Our taxi driver, a man my age or slightly older, spent most of the time singing the praises of Ayatollah Khatami (Mohammad Khatami’s deceased father and onetime prayer leader of Yazd), not knowing my relationship to the family. He was at pains to describe, especially to Karri, with me translating, how different the ruling mullahs of the past were compared to today. The elder Khatami, he said, was a most compassionate man and never accepted the bodyguards that the revolution insisted he have; he freed drug addicts and even homosexuals sentenced to death by Islamic courts; he was a symbol of what was right and just about the revolution. Our driver was less sanguine about the country’s current leadership, especially in Yazd province, and particularly since Friday prayer leader Mohammad Sadoughi, married to Ayatollah Khatami’s daughter Maryam, had died.

  He also wanted to act as our tour guide, after wondering aloud why on earth an Iranian with an American wife and child would want to bring them to Iran, and to the desert at that. He told us the story of Chak Chak exactly as I knew it, except, nonsensically, he replaced the Persian princess in the legend with a granddaughter of the prophet Mohammad, a Shia escaping the Sunni hordes, who, upon hearing the voice of the angel Gabriel—the same angel who passed Allah’s message to Mohammad—tapped her cane on the ground, and the mountain opened before her. The miracle of the spring and the tree and the mountain opening he attributed to Allah’s favor for the Shia, erasing the Zoroastrian origin of the site, something he probably learned early in his life from unlearned mullahs who could not abide miracles that were not purely Islamic.

  There seemed to be no real Zoroastrians at Chak Chak, other than the guard who charged non-Zoroastrians a fee to climb the steep steps to the holy site, perhaps because most pilgrims, I was told, make their annual pilgrimage there in the spring, a two-week period when non-Zoroastrians are actually forbidden to enter. We encountered many young Iranian couples and families, as one does at any historic site, museum, or tourist attraction in Iran, but Karri mentioned how strange the setting was without the hordes of foreign tourists one sees at comparable European or Asian sites. The large carving above the temple’s bronze doors was a Farvahar, the symbol of Zoroastrianism, with the bust of a man atop a winged disk, or sun. That and our driver’s attempt to Islamicize the origins of another religion’s holy place reminded me of Iranians’ internal conflict over their history and their faith.

  Iranians are an immensely proud and supremely nationalistic people, men and women who glory in their nation’s ancient past and have always been dismissive of, if not downright racist toward, the Bedouin Arabs who brought them their faith. Even the most pious, and even some of the clerics, have been traditionally anti-Arab, which explains to some extent an Islamic Iran’s difficulty in maintaining good relations with other Muslim countries in the region. It also creates a contradiction, in revering an Arab prophet and Arab Shia saints whose people Iranians believe to be inferior. Some of the youth of Iran today, who chafe at the restrictions on their lives and disdain the theocracy that places them there, and who dislike Arabs anyway, look to their pre-Islamic past both for assurance that their nationalism is founded and as a symbol of protest against the religion that they feel was forced on them by Mohammad’s armies centuries ago and by the ayatollahs today.

  There is no greater symbol of Persian glory than the Farvahar, which was even a part of the shah’s Pahlavi coat of arms. One sees the winged sun pendants around the necks of young men and women everywhere—every jewelry shop in Iran sells silver and gold versions in all sizes. These young Iranians are not Zoroastrian, of course; nor could they convert even if they wanted to, for the religion does not allow conversion and even excommunicates adherents who marry outside the faith. And they may forget, or be ignorant of the fact, that like almost all state-supported organized religions with a clerical hierarchy, it has a sordid history, particularly in the behavior of its priests, much as Islam does in the behavior of some of its mullahs
and sheikhs today.

  We had only one social obligation in Yazd, one that we actually looked forward to, and that was to visit the Khatami family: the widow of Mohammad Sadoughi, the late Friday prayer leader; her son, also named Mohammad and who had, since his father’s passing, finally donned his forebears’ priestly garb; and Khatami’s ninety-year-old mother. Ali Khatami, who had driven us down from Tehran, was, of course, going to be present. We took a taxi from the hotel to the old city, where their ancient and beautifully restored house stood behind the main mosque, and the driver had assured me he knew the way to the former prayer leader’s house, which was all I told him of our destination. When we arrived, though, I saw that he had brought us to the wrong address.

  “That’s the house down the alley,” he said, “the Friday prayer leader.”

  I realized that even though Sadoughi had been dead less than a few months, this cabbie had moved on, having brought us to the new Friday prayer leader’s house. But I recognized the mosque across the street, so we got out anyway and crossed over, passing through the mosque courtyard and to the alley behind, where Ali came out to greet us. The Revolutionary Guard sentry post, which had been occupied twenty-four hours a day by an AK-47-wielding guardsman when I had visited in the past, was gone. The family was gathered in the informal den, including Reza Khatami, another of the former president’s brothers who had been arrested in the post-2009 election unrest and was mamn’ou-khorooj, forbidden from leaving Iran. We sat down to glasses of tea, some of the famous Yazdi pastries, and bowls of fruit.

  Maryam Khatami quickly peeled an orange for Khash, who was happy to have it as he eyed her son suspiciously. He had seen mullahs on the streets, and had already met the former president in his office, but I suspect he was curious about the robes, and particularly the turban, for he always insisted that I take my hat off whenever I wore one. He warmed up soon enough, though, and Mohammad, a bright, genial, and soft-hearted man, even enticed him into his arms. Maryam made some small talk with Karri, in broken English and the Farsi that Karri by now understood, but we mostly chatted about family, and the tone was solemn, as is expected with Iranian families in mourning, which for Yazdis lasts a full year. Reza Khatami was interested in U.S. politics, the presidential election in 2012, and whether I thought President Obama was doing a good job and whether he’d be reelected. Whatever conversation we had about Iranian politics was couched with careful words and accompanied by knowing looks and assenting nods, for we all knew that the house, where the Supreme Leader used to stay when he was in town, was in all probability, no, definitely, bugged.