Restless Me - The Journal of World Travel

If acquaintances had fears about not being able to find the particular proverbial ditch by the side of the road in which many were certain I'd be left in Iran, they didn't need to worry -- they had only to follow the trail of books that I was leaving behind. I left behind history, politics, language and religion, but kept poetry -- specifically a book of poems by the mid-fourteenth century Persian poet Hafez.

Hafez is so beloved in Iran that it is said that more copies of Hafez's work are sold in the country than copies of the Koran. Hafez's poems are like a literary kaleidoscope, each rereading of the deceptively simple words seems to reassemble differently, revealing something new.

It was from Hafez's tomb in the city of Shiraz that I was returning when I spotted Jasper's motorbike parked outside of the Hotel Estaghle, where I was staying. Although I was surprised, it was pleasantly so. When we had parted in Esfahan, it had been with an exchange of email addresses and a warm handshake. I had not expected to see him again.

We spent the next days in Shiraz meeting for breakfasts of hard-boiled eggs, carrot jam and toast, and visiting the city that Hafez is said to have only left but once in his life. Among the places we visited was the Bogheye Shah-e Cheragh, or shrine of the King of the Lamp (the brother of the eighth grandson of the prophet Mohammed). Only women who have chadors are allowed inside, but it is also possible to rent one at a small expense, and in my case, a bit of personal dignity. The chador that I rented was white with tiny patterned flowers, and when I draped it over both my manteau and backpack and I looked vaguely like Casper the friendly Muslim ghost.

Nonetheless it worked to get me inside the shrine, where hundreds of thousands of small, mirrored tiles lined the walls and ceiling, giving slivers of reflections back in a fractured brilliance. A sheet separated the men's and women's sides, and an Iranian took me through both sides. Although I was hesitant to follow, not one of the men, who were deep in prayer, voiced any objection to my presence.

At the tomb, I watched a woman cry, the black ink of her chador spilling around her. Traveling is a bit like painting a picture by negative space; you become defined by what you are not; what you have not experienced, and it is also, at the same time, a gradual chipping away of those spaces. That could have been me. It still might be me. I might be you. You might be me. I found myself envious of the comfort that she was able to find there.

When we returned to the hotel, Ali, the young desk clerk, asked us if we wanted him to get us some vodka. We said yes and gave him eight dollars for two cans of black market vodka. That night, on the roof of the hotel, we sat on a mattress covered with a worn, soft faux animal print blanket, and Ali brought the vodka out on a thin blue plastic tray. We brought our glasses together in a toast and drink.

Well, almost.

Immediately after taking his first sip, Ali turned his head and spit it all out in a spray of not-veiled-at-all disgust. He had never had vodka before, he told us. It turned out that my Dutch companion was likewise, also not a fan of vodka. As a firm believer in the manifest destiny as applied to alcohol, I finished my drink and then the rest of both of theirs. This solution proved to be satisfactory to all.

At some point, Ali politely got up to leave. We urged him to sit back down, to stay, but he feigned that he had to go back to work. Although Jasper and I were not together and found ourselves often telling people this, our disavowal of a relationship only seemed to reinforce people's belief, including Ali's, that we were romantically involved.

Earlier that afternoon, while Jasper and I had been walking through the trees at Bagh-e Eram (Garden of Paradise), an elderly gardener had grabbed at Jasper's hand and then at mine. At first we were alarmed, but we quickly relaxed once we realized that the gardener simply wanted to let us know that we could hold hands in his garden. That was not an occurrence unique to Shiraz. Throughout the country it seemed that love, or, at the very least, the desire for it, was marching through on tiptoe.

I first heard its gentle footsteps in the mountains north of Tehran while waiting for a telecabin that winced its occupants up Tochal Mountain. When the operator asked the young man in front of me if he wanted a specific color of telecabin -- for there were dusty yellows, blues and reds available -- he laughed and said that he did not care what color the cabin was, so long as the windows were tinted. He was with a girl and it was clear that they were not married.

All over the country, its foot tapped impatiently in the confessions of young Iranians who told me about their boyfriends and girlfriends who their parents didn't know about. Ali, too, had a girlfriend that his parents did not know about. Love may not be able to conquer all anymore, but it appears to be a worse biological threat than anthrax could ever be; stubborn, hopeful, and infectious.

That evening, I found there was no one that I could confess what I was feeling to when the night ended too quickly. Hafez was there though, and I read his poems until I finally fell asleep. Next