Iranian Rappers And Persian Porn (29 page)

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.

A
lthough Susan and Hattie wanted to meet up with Ashkan and me today, I was determined not to go through with it, as I simply didn’t want to get her into any trouble with the law. It was all very well for me to take risks, but I didn’t like the idea of Susan being accused of anything untoward with a non-Muslim male, despite how innocent it all would have been. With this in mind, I told Ashkan that when I was in Shiraz, I had arranged to meet up with a friend of mine (Verity) who was arriving in Yazd today, and because of this I wouldn’t be able to meet the girls.

He understood and said that he had to go to university for a couple of hours, so it would have been difficult to meet them anyway. This was good news; I had a few things to organize today, including finding three people to come on my desert tour. I hoped that if I could meet up with Verity, she’d also be keen to come along on the excursion. I also needed to find out about train times going north and had been told it was necessary to book these long in advance. Reza kindly took me to the train station to make the necessary inquiries.

It was an interesting situation at the station, as the girl behind the counter spoke far better English than Reza, but he was reluctant to let her speak with me and seemed determined to prove his linguistic skills were up to the task. He struggled valiantly to translate for me but couldn’t do it, and I don’t think he even grasped exactly what I wanted to find out. In the end, he admitted defeat and the girl explained all I needed to know. He apologized to me for not being able to help. His brother’s English was far better than his, and I think it annoyed him that I had near-normal conversations with Ashkan, but with him it was much more basic. I told him a white lie and said he’d actually been a lot of help with the translation. I don’t think he understood this either.

I booked my train journey heading north and opted for a first class ticket, which I was delighted to learn was an overnight sleeper train with cabins and beds. I’d never been on anything like this before and imagined it to be very sophisticated and Orient Express-like. To me, it sounded the sort of train Roger Moore would catch in a James Bond film with some gorgeous Soviet spy, and in my rather deluded head, I imagined a similar scene in a couple of nights time, with my own spacious cabin, a magnum of champagne, and a busty Bolshevik to entertain.

Whilst leaving the station, I nodded a little hello to two Western backpackers I saw getting off the train who nodded likewise in return.

Like his brother, Reza also had to go to university today, so he offered to take me into town before he went. As I fancied a bit of a walk, I asked him to drop me on the main road heading into town so I could do a bit of sightseeing on the way. When he pulled over, I thanked him for the ride and said I’d catch up with him some time in the evening.

Whilst walking down the road, a guy on a moped pulled over and said hello to me in English and asked where I was going. I hadn’t really made up my mind as to my destination yet but was considering going to a famed prison of Alexander the Great, so said, “Alexander’s prison.”

“Jump on,” he replied, so I did. I loved the fact that in Iran a complete stranger would happily stop and offer me a lift, even when I hadn’t asked for one, then go out of his way to take me to my destination, and all simply because I was a foreigner and, as he saw it, a guest in his country. I say this sincerely: Iranians are the nicest people I’ve ever met. It was just so easy to get to know people there that I can never imagine being lonely in Iran.

We shot off on the bike at a suicidal speed, weaving in and out of the traffic as we went. I held on with one hand and with the other secured my hat on my head so it didn’t go flying. He dropped me at the prison, wished me well, and was gone as quickly as he’d arrived.

Outside the prison was a group of five young guys all around twenty years old who were hanging out together. Just like my friend on the bike, they came up and started talking to me without any prompting whatsoever. Two of them spoke good English and, after going through the normal list of introductory questions, asked if I would like to come for a drink with them. I politely declined and explained that I was going to have a look inside the prison first. They said that the prison wasn’t up to much and recommended I didn’t waste my money. They were right.

It didn’t take more than fifteen minutes to browse around, and there was very little to see. It looked nothing like a prison; in fact, it didn’t really look like anything in particular, being little more than an old building with a few empty rooms. It had once had an infamous reputation and was written about by Hafez, but it was very hard to picture it back then as there were no cells or any sign that it was once used to incarcerate people. I left and found the guys still messing about outside.

They asked me if I would like a lift anywhere in their car, which predictably was a Hillman Hunter. I took them up on the offer and got a lift to the main square. In the car, there was a lot of good-natured banter, and when we got to the square, I was surprised to find they apologized for this and said they hoped they hadn’t made too many jokes at my expense. They were a nice bunch of guys. I thanked them, assured them it was fine, then strolled down to the Internet café that I’d briefly popped into the night before.

I had a reply to the e-mail I’d sent Ricardo, who was now in Pakistan after visiting the remains of the ancient city of Bam, which had been devastated by an earthquake in 2003 that killed up to 40,000 people. He wrote: