Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran (2 page)

I rang my aunt’s bell and was admitted to the quiet courtyard of her building, the familiar figure of the Afghan doorman emerging from the shadows to help me with my bag. “Welcome back,” he said softly. “Inshallah this time you will stay with us long.”

I
still can’t believe you’re here,” my friend Nasrine said, tapping her nails against a bowl of carrot jam. She was also a journalist, and we’d
worked together often during my trips in the past three years, crossing the city for press conferences and demonstrations. Sometimes we held conversations of great seriousness, discussing how the Islamic Republic cultivated the loyalty of its citizens through networks of subsidies, low-interest loans, and mercurially dispensed social freedoms. More often, we holed up with a refrigerator full of chicken schnitzel and watched Merchant Ivory films, comparing nineteenth-century and Persian styles of courtship (the two bore marked similarities, chiefly in the pursuit of the advantageous marriage). Together we also indulged in a secret pastime, which we called, rather sheepishly, our portable disco. This meant piling into Nasrine’s Korean hatchback, turning the music up loud, and cruising Vali Asr Boulevard—the wide, tree-lined artery that runs north-south through the city—listening to the Tehrangeles-based pop duo Kamran and Houman. This activity was deeply shameful, considering our age (we should have been at dinner parties with other thirtyish professionals, making polished remarks about Iranian cinema and the government), but it was how thousands of young Iranians entertained themselves, and it made us feel at one with Tehran’s Thursday nights, which belonged to the city’s youth.

The phone rang, interrupting our breakfast chatter.

“Salaam,
welcome back,” a familiar voice greeted me. It was Mr. X, I realized uneasily. I pointed to the receiver dramatically, trying to communicate to Nasrine who was calling. I had called his mobile the previous day, the first day of my arrival, wishing to hurry along our inevitable contact. He had not picked up, but had likely deduced from the number who was calling. As reluctant as I was to see him, I did not want to begin working without his permission. As my official government minder, Mr. X was perhaps the most important person in my Iranian life. The regime charged him with maintaining a file of my conduct as a journalist, alerting me to the red lines of coverage (marking subjects as taboo or discouraged), and attempting to secure my “cooperation.” This euphemism meant that during times when the security-obsessed regime felt particularly vulnerable, I would, so it was hoped, report the opinions and behavior of journalist and diplomat friends to the government, and disclose the identities of anonymous sources.

Though Mr. X occupied such a central place in my work life, the institution ostensibly charged with dealing with foreign reporters belonged to an entirely different branch of government. The foreign press office of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance issued journalists’ credentials and handled the numerous bureaucratic details involved in writing even the simplest story. If I wanted to visit a seminary, meet the foreign minister, or travel to a sensitive border region, I would need the press office’s approval and assistance. During especially busy times, reporting an election or a cover story, for example, I might call its staff as many as ten times in one day. But although the press office—run by sensible, hardworking people who understood the news business—nominally handled journalists’ affairs, it was really Mr. X and his employer, the Ministry of Intelligence, who had final say over whether a reporter was permitted to work. Even I had a hard time understanding the balance of power between the two, and perhaps they did as well.

When I lived in Tehran during 2000 and 2001, my relationship with Mr. X was a complicated dance of avoidance, in which I would refuse to do any of the things covered by “cooperation,” and he would try through alternating tactics of intimidation and persuasion to bring me over to his side. We met quite regularly, perhaps every two months, and for a long while he behaved like a controlling husband. He wanted to know every last detail of my life—where I went, who I met, what I heard and said—and grew suspicious and nasty when I could not recall (or would not disclose) information with sufficient accuracy. He knew all about my friends, and would sometimes drop their names casually (“Wasn’t it Jon who introduced you to Simon?”) to convey just how much he knew about my social life. Once, for no particular reason I can remember, he went so far as to make a macabre joke about my committing suicide. I was stunned. I hadn’t expected such malice from Mr. X, whose immaculate plaid shirts and close-cropped hair made him look harmlessly preppy.

The physical locales of our meetings—secluded, anonymous apartments, empty hotel rooms in unmarked establishments—created the theater of intimidation Mr. X so cunningly used to his advantage. He knew that it frightened me to meet in such places, and also that I
could not refuse to go. If I screamed, no one would hear; if I called on my mobile phone for help, it would take forever to describe where I was. I could easily be transported elsewhere against my will without anyone noticing. The first time one of my journalist friends met Mr. X in an unoccupied, furnished apartment, she arrived before him and, terrified, rushed about finding all the kitchen knives and hiding them under the furniture, so that she would be prepared once he arrived.

Though his presence was undeniably creepy, Mr. X strove to be more than just a menace. Sometimes he behaved almost sociably, softening the expression in his brown eyes and asking politely after my family. He had on occasion actively facilitated my reporting, going out of his way to clear some bureaucratic obstacle to a trip, or authorizing an outing whose permissibility seemed in doubt. If anything went wrong, he said, I could always call him. Once he even suggested I help him assess foreign correspondents who applied for visas to Iran, blackballing those whose work I considered biased. I demurred, of course. The chance to keep my journalistic rivals out of the country was bait, a message that I could stand to gain if I put my scruples aside.

In late 2001, in the aftermath of September 11 and President Bush’s labeling Iran as part of an “axis of evil,” Mr. X demanded to vet my stories before publication and insisted on knowing the identities of my anonymous sources. He threatened to revoke my press credentials if I refused. Unable to elude him any longer, I chose to stop reporting from Iran and move to New York.

I had written openly about Mr. X in my book, violating many taboos at once: I revealed that such meetings took place (most journalists in Iran had a government minder, though they never admitted it), disclosed their content, and, perhaps worst of all, described in a book of nonfiction the secret thoughts I imagined he harbored. Part of me felt relief at having exposed him, voiding the insistent admonitions that “
no one
must know of our meetings.” Mr. X now existed on the page, and this somehow took away the power of secrecy he had always cultivated. But surely he would be furious and seek to avenge himself.

“Yes, this afternoon is convenient for me.” I hoped that my dread didn’t show in my voice.

We spoke only long enough to plan our meeting. Nasrine volunteered to take me, and I coached her in the code that I had used with my former driver, Ali, who had taken me to so many of these meetings. After ten minutes, she was to call my cell phone. If I answered, “Yes, I’ll be back in time for lunch,” it meant there was no cause for alarm. “I’m going to be late, don’t wait for me,” meant something had gone terribly wrong, and that she should immediately start making emergency calls and try to rescue me.

Nasrine stopped the car at the top of the street, and pressed my hand before I stepped out. My heart beat swiftly as I searched for the hotel Mr. X had described, and my mind whirled with grim possibilities—Mr. X could permanently ban me from reporting in Iran; he could confiscate my passport and bar me from leaving the country (even the state equated an overlong stay in Iran with incarceration); send me to a court that might then send me to prison; or, in my direst imaginings, immure me in the room and inflict unspeakable punishments.

I passed up and down the street’s length twice more, and even asked two passersby, but no one had heard of the apartment hotel. Suddenly I remembered that Mr. X had given me a building number as well as the hotel’s name, and with that I quickly found it—six stories of unmarked white cement. What sort of hotel was this, unknown to the neighborhood and mysteriously unlabeled? Its anonymity seemed to confirm my most hysterical suspicions. My hands began to shake, and before I summoned the courage to climb the stone steps, I breathed deeply and told myself young women from California were not typically victims of political murder.

Someone buzzed the door open from inside, and I entered a small lobby presided over by a young man in sandals. I never knew what to say in such situations. In the past, Mr. X had often summoned me to meet him at secluded (though clearly marked) hotels, with instructions no more precise than “Be there at two
P.M.
” The truth—“Hello, my name is Azadeh and I’m here to meet a government minder whose name I’ve been told never to repeat aloud, although we all know it’s a pseudonym anyway”—sounded awkward.

“They’re waiting for you in apartment five on the second floor,” the young man said, sparing me. I said thank you and gazed at him
with a winning expression, one that I hoped radiated innocence and established me as a productive, indispensable member of the global community, the type of person he should definitely try to help, should he hear screams from apartment five.

The elevator door opened onto the second floor, and I adjusted my headscarf before a hallway mirror, tucking strands of hair away, as though such attentions might somehow influence what would happen to me. Mr. X opened the door and ushered me inside. Such empty, furnished apartments—the type of place where Japanese businessmen would stay to negotiate oil deals that Washington would later veto—lent a bizarre, corporate coziness to the setting.

“Would you like tea or coffee?” Mr. X asked, busying himself in the kitchen. He poured us both tea, and then took a seat at the dinner table across from a plate of cream puffs. Eating pastry under duress was another hallmark of my meetings with Mr. X. During our initial encounters I had refused to eat anything, reluctant to provoke the nausea I usually felt. But this caused him offense, and I began to accept whatever I found on the table, eager to win his good humor.

His shirt was buttoned to the top, and his hands, hairy and blunt, fiddled with a pen.

“I have read your book,” he began. “And the question I have is this: what is this
ash-e gooshvareh
[earring stew] of which you write? We have no such stew.”

It was a dish I had mentioned my grandmother once made while visiting California. Like so many Iranians, perhaps a third of the country, she belonged to the Azeri ethnic group, whose cuisine included many unusual, laborious recipes distinct from Persian cooking.

“It’s Azerbaijani,” I replied.

“Okay.” He looked unconvinced.

Someone knocked at the door, and Mr. X opened it to admit his partner, whom I had described in my book as Mr. Sleepy. In our meetings he was usually either asleep or menacing, the bad-cop foil to Mr. X’s slithery inducements and intimidations.

We spoke very briefly about my book tour. Mr. X offered me a cream puff. And then he made a gesture of wrapping up his papers.

“We would like you to know that we consider your book worthy of appreciation,” he said.

I sipped tea silently, waiting for the condemnation that would surely follow. But Mr. X and Mr. Sleepy began smiling openly, as though they were having tea with a favorite aunt.

“So didn’t people ask you, if Iran is so repressive, then how do you write these critical articles and travel back and forth?”

“Yes, I was asked this all the time. And I told people that Iran tolerates some measure of dissent, that this is what makes Iran so special.” I went on to describe Iran as an island of Persian practicality in a sea of brutal Arab dictatorships.

I could tell from their expressions I had replied well. It occurred to me that just perhaps, they both enjoyed appearing in a book, albeit as henchmen of a repressive regime.

“It is true, we are enlightened people, and we believe in democracy, freedom of expression.”

“Of course.”

“So do not be worried. Go back to America, and tell them we are democrats.” He leaned forward, and began gathering his papers in a sign that we were finished. “You are yourself proof.”

“Thank you,” I said, picking up my bag. Then I said goodbye, walked out the door, and ran out into the sunny street. I inhaled the diesel fumes, the waft of fried herbs in the breeze, and felt triumphant. This country, my sad, troublesome homeland, perhaps it wasn’t altogether as bad as everyone thought.

On the way back to the car I stopped at a headscarf shop and bought Nasrine and me pretty cotton veils in celebration. As I recounted the conversation to her, though, it sounded entirely too easy. Perhaps Mr. X really was as accepting as he’d seemed. Or perhaps my book had angered him, and he would punish me in time. For the moment, I simply accepted his approval as a blessing. When I got home, I phoned everyone I knew to gloat.

That evening, I shared my good news with my aunt’s neighbors Lily and Ramin Maleki. Mr. Maleki was Iran’s most accomplished translator of English literature, a gentle, erudite man who in the fantasy
Iran of my imagination would hold the post of minister of culture. Lily, his beautiful wife, was a publisher and writer of considerable charm. Their home was a salon for writers, directors, and intellectuals, as well as a place where you could discuss Samuel Beckett, smoke indoors, and be offered all manner of delicious sweets, from fresh maca roons to walnut-studded nougat. They were as excited about my nonpariah status as I was.

They invited me to stay to dinner, one of the quick, delectable meals Lily fashioned out of a quintessentially Iranian cookbook,
Ashpazi az Sir ta Piaz,
an exhaustive collection of recipes—from Indian curries to Persian puddings—compiled by an Iranian writer who cooked his way through a long prison sentence under the Shah.