64

He lived in a southern district of Tehran; a journey, he said, that would take us around an hour from the airport. We drove there in his sparkling white Paykan. He told me proudly that it was nearly fifteen years old, but it looked almost new. His father had lovingly maintained it. The taxi really belonged to his dad, but now he was ill and Ali had had to interrupt his studies at Tehran University to drive it and help make ends meet.

He seemed like a decent enough lad. As we left the airport behind, I apologized for the trouble I’d caused him with his mates. They’d gone one way in the car park and we’d gone another. When they’d parted, you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife.

As we drove through the desert on the southern approaches to Tehran the rift still seemed to hang in the air like smog.

After a long silence, Ali finally sparked up. ‘Do not feel bad, Mr Manley. The thing that unites us is our mutual interest – planes, aerospace, technology. We get on, but they are not like me. There are – how do I say? – differences between us.’

‘You’re all geeks like the rest of us, aren’t you? What’s not to like?’

‘I am a Kurd, Mr Manley.’

‘A Kurd and so a Sunni, eh?’

With both hands on the wheel he shrugged and smiled.

‘Not much going for you here, is there?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘A minority in my own country, Mr Manley. Qasim and Adel, on the roof, do not feel this way themselves, but their families certainly do. Their fathers do not like them to spend time with me.’

‘Know the feeling, mate.’

‘I do not feel Kurdish. I consider myself an Iranian, a proud Iranian. But not everyone looks on me the same way.’

‘Know that feeling too, Ali. Almost like being invisible sometimes, yeah? They want to get in your taxi because they want a lift, but don’t really want to be seen with you . . .’

We passed another poster of Bush with vampire teeth. Ali kept his eyes on the road, glancing occasionally in the rear-view. ‘Do you believe Iran will go to war with the West?’

It was already, but in a cleverer way than he was thinking. ‘Dunno, mate. You?’

‘Our economy, Mr Manley, is deteriorating and unemployment is a disease. I believe it is one of the key reasons why our rulers are spoiling for a fight with the West. When your world is falling apart, it is always preferable, is it not, to blame someone else? Especially Great Britain.’ He looked across to me for some encouragement.

‘Always. It’s what people do.’

He liked that. ‘My father always says that if you trip over a stone you can be sure the British man put it in your way.’

It was a fair one. The Brits had been the main colonial power in the region for two hundred years. There was bound to be a lot of resentment. I’d be pissed off too.

‘My father says that you are more cunning than the Americans and you use them as glove puppets. That’s why Bush is on all posters and no British man.’

‘I don’t think we’re that clever, mate.’

‘Maybe, but I believe that our government is determined to have a war with the West and that there is very little that ordinary Iranians can do about it.’

‘Sounds like you’re not much of a fan.’

‘We Iranians lost over six hundred thousand people in eight years of war with Iraq, and millions more were injured. The war was not started by Iran – it was Saddam Hussein. He invaded Khuzestan province. In the name of Allah, in the name of Holy War, the mullahs sent millions of Iranians to the front.

‘I studied history at university, Mr Manley. I know about conflict – trench warfare, poison gas, wave upon wave of young men cut down by machine-gun fire. So I think Iranians should have had enough of it, but the lessons of the past are easily forgotten. I am not afraid of you, Mr Manley, but Qasim and Adel are. They believe what they are told – that Israel and the West want Iran’s destruction. When they see a foreigner, it frightens them. They think foreigners bring trouble for them. You’re not going to bring trouble for us, are you?’ He turned to me.

‘No, mate. I’ve got enough of my own.’

He smiled. ‘That’s good, Mr Manley, because my father was a warrior in the war and I would fight also for my country. I may not be a fan of my government but I would never do anything to hurt Iran.’

‘Call me Jim.’

We pulled off a main drag and manoeuvred our way down a cobbled alleyway, narrowly avoiding the people walking on both sides of us. This wasn’t the London-, New York- or Paris-priced part of town. There was no pavement. Waste water ran in an open channel along the middle of the street. Tall houses with shuttered windows cut out most of the light.

It was coming up to six o’clock. The modern supermarkets and malls I’d seen in the north of the city had been replaced by holes in the wall – dark, dingy shops that seemed to sell everything from car batteries to carpets.

The people we passed were dressed more traditionally than the Iranians I’d seen in the central and northern part of the city. There were lots of turbans and women in chadors. But I wasn’t getting the stares I’d expected. Just like the housing estate I’d lived on as a kid, it didn’t matter what colour you were or where you came from. The one thing that bonded people here was that we were all in the shit.

‘Where are we?’

‘Bazaar Mahfouz. It is part of the Tehran bazaar. It has ten kilometres of covered stores and alleyways. It is, I believe, what you call a maze and where we live is just a tiny part of it. Jim, you have nothing to fear.’

I wasn’t worried. I felt quite at home in any low-rent area.

He smiled and turned into a narrow cul-de-sac. He parked alongside a wall and switched off the engine. ‘From here, we walk.’ He opened the boot and removed a canvas cover for the Paykan. ‘This is the Kurdish-Sunni part of town. Everyone leaves us alone here.’

That made my day. With luck it would keep Majid off my back.

I helped him pull the cover over the roof, then followed him out of the cul-de-sac and into a covered alleyway lined with yet more shops.