Lipstick Jihad (25 page)

American-style love, in contrast, seemed more tolerant, with a more gentle approach to the individual at its core. My American friends pretty much lived their lives as fresh endeavors, unburdened by the feeling that résumés and relationships should make tribal or dynastic contributions to the family. Their decisions were often private, not witnessed by the amorphous
community of
mardom
(people) under whose watchful eye Iranians seemed to exist.

I loved this Iran, with all its dysfunction and unruliness, just as I would one day love my child, even if she had had a baby out of wedlock, decided she wanted to be a musician, or told me she was a lesbian—all things that would have made my mother say “From today you are dead to me, no longer my daughter” and mean it. I cleared the dregs of pomegranate skin from the drain, and dried myself off, twisting my hair into a towel. I had made up my mind, and called Siamak to make my announcement. I'm going to vote, I said proudly. Let me call the Interior Ministry, and tell them they can now proceed with the election, he replied drily.

There was no mystery surrounding the election; the question was not who would win, but the size of Khatami's landslide. Still, the imminence of the election hung in the air, because suddenly there were
Basiji
checkpoints all over the streets. The
Basiji
style of moral policing—aggressive searches of cars, interrogations of their passengers—had for the most part been retired as part of Khatami's drive to keep the regime out of Iranians' private lives, but on exceptional occasions, like holidays and elections, the militia reappeared on the streets of Tehran. They set up checkpoints, the kind that had once been a regular feature of urban life, to remind Iranians that they existed, and that their patrons, the hard-line ayatollahs, were still in control.

The memories of what used to happen at those checkpoints were still acute for most people, who reverted to the cautiousness of life pre-Khatami. “There's no way I'm leaving the house after dark until after the election,” a friend said to me. “Stop being so neurotic,” I scoffed. “You know things are better now.” With no memories of harsher times, and after months of navigating the night without trouble, being waved through the rare checkpoint, I was blithely sanguine.

Two nights before election day, I was heading home after a day's reporting (Me: Why are you voting for Khatami? Everyone: Because there's no one better to vote for), intending to drop off Dariush, who had been taking photographs, along the way. As I approached the square near my house I thought there must be some sort of neighborhood bomb threat.

Cars were pulled along the side of the street, and everywhere men in commando fatigues strolled about, kalashnikovs in hand. Inching forward I saw it was a massive
Basiji
checkpoint, where “suspicious” cars—either expensive models, or those containing men with long hair, or both men and women—had to pull over and their passengers submit to verbal interrogation and possibly a search of their car. Being young, having a member of the opposite sex in the car, and an inch of hairline showing under my veil rendered my car a beacon of immorality. “Pull over,” growled a bearded man.

I glided my aunt's grey sedan onto the side of the road. Oblivious, Dariush continued yabbering away on his mobile.

“We're being stopped by police,” I said. “Can you please hang up?”

“How exactly are you related,” the man demanded.

I explained that we had been working together, and both of us got our official press cards out.

“If you're a journalist, shouldn't your
hijab
be more proper?” the
Basij
asked, scanning the cards.

“Should it?” I asked. “I don't see why.” I really didn't.

Dariush nudged me. “Shut up. Don't provoke him.”

Soon enough, our interrogator spotted the word “America” on my press card and became alarmingly animated. He strode over to his friends and flashed the card at them.

“We have nothing to say to an American magazine but ‘Death to America, '” he yelled, and soon his fellow
Basijis
chimed in.

In the middle of a suburban avenue, in front of a fruit stand, this gaggle of scraggly, armed men began screaming “Death to America” in my ear. It was a very stupid, Not-Without-My-Daughter sort of moment, not to mention embarrassing. “Ohmigod, what if we see someone we know?” I whispered to Dariush.

Our interrogator returned, and I reminded him primly that the
government's
Ministry of Culture had issued the press card. “Did you read that little line on the back where it says, ‘Please cooperate with the bearer of this card'?” I asked.

“We reject the Culture Ministry,” he replied, as though this was a rational answer, as though ministries, official institutions, were something an ordinary person could simply reject. All right. Not much you could say to that.

Ten minutes later, we hadn't budged. Dariush fiddled maddeningly with his mobile. I still thought the whole thing was a joke. Reporters and photographers working for foreign media were often held like this while out covering stories. It happened to us all the time. Usually you were released after about an hour, though sometimes you had to put in SOS calls to Mr. Shiravi, the deputy at the Culture Ministry press office, who patiently tracked down who was holding you, and got them to stop.

The interrogator came back and made himself comfortable leaning against the hood of the car. I tried to make small talk, thinking that at least I could use the time to do some more reporting.

“So, who are you going to vote for?” I asked.

He said he didn't know, and when he asked me, I said I too was uncertain.

“What do most people say when you ask them?” he asked.

“Well, most of them say they're going to vote for Khatami,” I replied hesitantly, debating whether it would be more stupid to offend him or to tell a preposterous lie.

“Hey listen,” he began yelling. “She's says she's voting for Khatami, and that I should too. She's posing as a journalist, but propagandizing for him, out to collect votes. Take them in.”

I was dumbfounded. In the instant it took to begin sputtering a denial, the rear door of my car had been opened and a severe, bearded face appeared in the rearview mirror. “Drive,” it ordered, from the backseat.

I steered through the summer night, following his directions, to a nearby apartment complex for retired military officers. The two twin towers bore immense, scowling murals of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei. Not a single question—“Where are we going? Why? What are you charging us with? Who's in charge here?”—was deigned with an answer.

We arrived at what looked like a
Basij
barracks, and the scattered shoes outside, dainty sandals amid Adidas sneakers, attested to the presence of hapless young people somewhere inside. We were placed in a room reeking of dirty socks, lit by a glaring fluorescent light, and ordered not to talk. Every five minutes, a man entered and confiscated something. Within half an hour my notebook and Dariush's camera were gone.

I sat crosslegged on the floor, and stared up at the walls. The room was an ode to Palestine, covered in the Palestinian black-and-white checked
scarves called
keffeyehs
and decorated with photos of Al-Aqsa mosque. The militia's job, technically, was to promote virtue and prevent vice
(Amr be marouf, va nahi be monker),
in the Islamic tradition of guarding the ethics of the community. Because they were loosely affiliated with the Supreme Leader's office, they carried ID cards, but they acted with impunity, often unaccountable even to the police.

They were notoriously corrupt. They operated in neighborhoods mafia-style, taking bribes from local shops, in exchange for allowing them to sell banned CDs. They took cuts from local drug dealers.

“Please tell me this isn't happening,” I said to Dariush in English. “Please tell me we are not in this room.” Our new captor heard me speaking English and yelled.

“If you don't shut up,” he threatened, “I'm going to put you in separate rooms.”

My hands grew clammy. If anything truly horrifying could happen to a female journalist, it would be in precisely such a situation, alone in a room with a
Basiji
interrogator.

“Can you tell me what's going on?” I pleaded.

“We're taking you to the Intelligence Ministry,” said an unshaven man in a shabby green suit and bloodshot eyes. By that time it was one in the morning of a public holiday. He sat in front of us, dialing a number, supposedly the Intelligence Ministry. “If you're going to take us somewhere, you have to tell us first,” I insisted.

If they actually planned to take us there, we would have to put up some sort of fight.

Once you were detained by the Intelligence Ministry, God only knew what would happen to you. If you were passed to Judiciary Intelligence, there could be endless interrogations, possibly a beating, possibly a sexual assault, and possibly a charge of espionage. And no one could get you out. I had seen it happen before. Seen a photographer get taken in, seen the president's office itself make official inquiries, only to be told their interest in the journalist's case would only make things worse.

“Why should you be told anything? Should you know where the Intelligence Ministry is? Do you know where CIA headquarters are?” he said. “Actually, you probably do,” casting a significant glance my way. At that comment, my gnawing nervousness turned to panic, and I reached for my
mobile phone, to dial Mr. Shiravi and beg for help. “Take out the SIM card,” he ordered. With hands shaking, I removed the tiny chip, my lifeline to the outside world.

Finally, a more senior
Basij
member arrived and took over the situation. I heard him arguing with the two men who had been handling us up until then, who had clearly been waiting for approval to take our case to the next level, whatever that might be. But he seemed reasonable, and unlike the others took no petty, sniggering pleasure in the fear on our faces, when he came in to talk to us.

“I swear, I wasn't out promoting Khatami, that man put words in my mouth,” I explained, the minute he entered the room.

“President Khatami is the light of our eyes,” he replied. “Let me sort this out.”

From outside the room I heard his voice crackling over the walkie-talkie: “No, they have press cards. She's covered properly. . . . Yeah. . . . Her veil is simple. . . . No, no makeup.” In moments our things were retrieved, and I was left explaining various terms I had jotted down in my notebook. Another search of the car produced nothing incriminating. “Nothing? Not even a tape, to justify the trouble?” teased our moderate savior. As I thanked him, and prepared to drive off, he asked a parting question: “So, who do you think is going to win?” I nearly choked. “Well, opinion polls conducted by impartial observers suggest Khatami. But what do I know?”

Leaving the barracks, we saw that the shoes were still outside. For ordinary Iranian teenagers, the evening could prove far worse than it had for us. We were picked up because we were Iranians, but released with no scars more lasting than shock, because we were journalists. As counter-intuitive as it might seem, I had the weight, however contested, of a government ministry and a foreign publication behind me. The crimes of the others there—playing music, showing hair, consorting with the other gender—could carry fines, whippings, and, always, humiliation. For all of us, the outcome was capricious.

As we drove away, I asked Dariush whether it was not a relief that under Khatami, such run-ins happened a couple times a year, instead of every weekend. He gave me a searching look. “However infrequent, I do not find any consolation in the fact that my fate is determined by the whim of an armed sixteen-year-old.”