DICTATORSHIP
From: Sofia Isfahan
Cu@ 10:00 music schooclass="underline" -)
THE FOLLOWING DAYS always begin with a text message containing brief instructions and a meeting place, followed by a colon, dash, and closed parenthesis. Orders and a smiley face—Sofia must be a good teacher. “I am the perfect dictator,” she says when I bring up her nonconsultative style of planning the day.
The music teacher, Mr. Amini, has borrowed a guitar especially for me, a Yamaha, Made in Indonesia. The strings are so old that they have traces of rust in some places. We wait in a kind of reception room.
From nearby I hear the sound of applause, three times within a short interval. I ask myself what kind of activity has triggered that amount of enthusiasm. Then Mr. Amini rings the school bell; it is precisely 10:45. “Let’s go!” he says, beckoning me to follow him.
We cross the courtyard and enter a hall. Some fifty schoolkids are sitting on yellow plastic chairs and are looking, full of expectation, toward the entrance. A single piano stool is on a raised stage with the obligatory Ayatollah Khomeini/Khamenei double portraits as a backdrop.
I walk toward the stage and again applause resounds; the previous times were just the trial runs. When I agreed to run a guitar workshop I had imagined two or three children asking me to show them the finger placement for G major or the chords to “Hotel California.” Big mistake.
I sit down on the piano stool. Silence; expectant faces. A black hole forms in my stomach and tries to suck in the rest of my body, which would be a wonderful opportunity for me to disappear. I feel a strong pull, but unfortunately, I am not sucked away. Sophia sits at the back of the hall and positions her cell phone camera. Mr. Amini gives a short address and then, with a flourish of his hand, gestures to me. More applause. Never before have I been so frantically applauded just for showing up—maybe that is the best metaphor for Iranian hospitality.
“I will play two classical pieces by the Spanish composer Francisco Tárrega,” I announce. I tune the guitar, giving me a few valuable seconds, and off I go with sweaty fingers. The piece is called “Lágrima,” tears. Actually, I can play this piece in my sleep. I falter at two points, but nothing particularly bad. I continue with “Adelita,” almost perfect, and now things are running smoothly, applause with stamping of the feet. The next song, “Someone Like You” by Adele, is a safe bet. Adele is popular everywhere in Iran. More applause.
Mr. Amini asks if anyone has any questions.
A small boy with horn-rimmed glasses sticks his hand up. “Can you play something heavier?”
The black hole reappears and sucks and sucks to no effect.
“If you can dance to it, then sure,” says Mr. Amini, the skillful diplomat.
“Okay, I’ll give it a go,” I say. And so it comes to pass for the first time in the history of the music school an improvised rendition of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” is adapted for classical guitar. On average every fourth tone is wrong, but, to compensate, I am loud—and heavy. It’s almost impossible to listen to it without moving to the beat. Fifty young boys in school uniform, however, manage without effort.
Restrained applause, and a few words of thanks from Mr. Amini. I have survived, and the children can go back to their classes.
“You were good,” says Sofia.
Inside the magnificent throne room, murals depict fighting warriors on elephants, musicians strumming their instruments, and kings receiving other kings. We are sitting outside on the steps in front of the Chehel Sotoun pavilion, next to dumb-looking stone lion statues. To anyone eavesdropping, our conversation would sound a bit weird. “The tree is beautiful. The woman is pretty. The man is important,” says Sofia in German. “I am not normal. The child is not exact. The tomato is free. I am free. We are free. The man is free. The woman is exact. That is positive.”
“Where did you learn these funny sentences?” I ask.
“I copied them from an online language class.” She had transcribed the words neatly into an exercise book and is now reading them out.
“I don’t think it was a good web page. No one says, ‘The woman is exact,’” I explain.
A European family with a small boy, probably about five, walk by. He is wearing huge sunglasses and a small baseball cap.
“Oh my God, is he cute!” squeals Sofia. “Do you think I could ask them if I can take a photo with him?”
She has already run to the bewildered parents and grabbed the child and given me her cell phone. I snap away as she kisses the boy on his cheeks. He seems a bit overwhelmed, since nobody asked him about this. Sofia gushingly thanks the parents.
“He wasn’t that cute, a bit chubby,” I say, trying to provide a slightly more objective viewpoint. But she is glowing, as if the tourist family had just told her she had won 10 billion rial in the lottery.
“Nonsense, he was awesome! Now I absolutely must go to Europe.”
Mothers, hide your children.
“Are they all so cute there?”
“At least. You should have seen me at five.”
“Sure! Come on, let’s practice languages.”
Not only Sofia’s language skills but also my research project on love and marriage are making progress in Isfahan. For lunch I meet up with Massi, a very relaxed, pleasant soul with a black headscarf, who works as a broker at the stock exchange and occasionally as a tourist guide for official guests of the city. We go to a bistro in the Armenian quarter with waiters wearing black suspenders on white shirts. On the tables are tissue boxes from Hermès, and hanging from the ceiling are some mobiles, which on closer inspection turn out to be designer lamps, one consisting of dozens of yellow painted teapots, the other of knives and forks.
“Oh, so you’re staying with Ahmad,” says Massi. “He’s crazy. I don’t think anyone in Isfahan has as many guests.” Massi is also very actively involved with couchsurfing and has organized many meetings. “Ahmad was arrested once because he was walking through the city with a foreign girl. The police threatened to withdraw the license for his shop, which is why he erased his profile. Now he only gets guests through friends.”
“Have you ever had trouble with the police?” I ask.
“Not up to now, luckily. I don’t think about it much. But some policemen showed an acquaintance of mine photos of one of our meetings in the park. That kind of thing is intimidating.”
We are served Caesar salad and brightly colored smoothies. We could have been in any trendy neighborhood in any European city.
“I have a problem, and I would like to hear your opinion,” says Massi suddenly.
“Sure, what is it?”
“I’m wondering if I should get married soon, I’m twenty-nine. I have gotten to know a nice man; he has a good job. He has just applied for a position with the State Department in Tehran.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“He is quiet, and I’m an extrovert. We can’t get along with each other so well. We’re too different. He loves me, but I don’t love him. At least not yet. I have no idea how I can make a decision. In Iran it’s always the men who make the first move. Who knows if there’ll be another opportunity.”
“How long have you known each other?”
“We’ve met three times.”
I almost choke on a salad leaf.
“And when did he propose?”
“Before the first date, on Facebook. We met at an official function and then became Facebook friends.”
“Why are you in such a rush to get married?”
“When an Iranian woman lives alone, there’s a lot of gossip and rumors. I’m getting pressure from my family. I shouldn’t wait more than two years.”