For the Love of Mohammad (chapter 2)

Here is the SECOND chapter of a book I have been working on for a while. It is partly autobiographical partly biographical, about a small but significant part of my life as a young western girl living in Iran between 1976 and the 1980's during the end of the Pahlavi reign, the Islamic revolution and war with Iraq. It is also about my dear friend and ex-husband, Mohammad who is collaborating with me on the book, (with me acting as his ghost writer) as he desperately wants his own story told along side mine. Mohammad is well know for his Persian dance in Iran and in Iranian communities around the world.

The book is written in two voices, Mohammad's and mine. The first chapter is the introduction to Mohammad which some of you may have read, chapter 2 is an introduction to me, how I came to be in Iran and my first impression of the country. I hope you enjoy reading and look forward to any comments. Thank you.

For the Love of Mohammad

Chapter 2

JEAN

It was a surreal moment. Walking down the hot, dusty, traffic-choked street and noticing the back end of a donkey sticking out from behind a high-rise building. I took a second glance, just to be certain, and sure enough, when I reached the end of the street, the front half of the donkey came into view. I discovered a little old man with a sun-shrivelled face selling oranges out of two baskets slung over the donkey’s back. Dangling from a long chain gripped tightly in the little man’s hand was a pair of weighing scales. With the other hand he piled oranges into one pan, and then tossed a couple of weights onto the other side. I watched, fascinated, as the scales swung precariously in the air, and I wondered about the accuracy of this purchase. The customer didn’t seem at all concerned; she had no intention of paying the full price anyway. The oranges were thrown into her shopping basket, no need for wrapping, and after some frantic arm waving and loud haggling in a language I was yet to understand, the woman placed a few rials in the little man’s grubby hand and off she bustled, with one side of her chador gathered up and tucked firmly under her arm. This incident stuck in my mind, having tickled my sense of the ridiculous; it sealed the deal for me - I was definitely far from home and anything even remotely familiar.

This was August 1976. I was nineteen and found myself in a Middle Eastern country which until a few weeks ago had been just another name from a long forgotten geography lesson. Iran.

I was young and naïve, knowing very little (and caring even less) about world affairs and politics. Little did I realise that Iran at this time was a dormant volcano - quiet and unassuming on the surface, yet bubbling and seething underneath. The inevitable eruption would occur just two years later, and the Islamic Revolution would mark the end of the Pahlavi Dynasty, but for now Iran was still ruled by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

I was in Iran on a contract with the Iranian National Ballet. After graduating from the Bush Davies School of Performing Arts in England, my dream was to perform all the classical ballets, Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, with a professional ballet company. I attended an audition at the Dance Centre, now known as Pineapple Studios. The studio was packed with hopefuls and there was barely room to move. Somehow after sweating my way through a gruelling two-hour audition, I was one of four dancers to be offered a contract. I went home elated and my mother and I looked up Iran on the map. Two weeks later, my parents bravely hid their anxiety at seeing their teenage daughter plunged so suddenly into the big wide world. They waved me off at the airport, and I boarded an Iran Air flight to Tehran. Apart from a day trip to France at the age of four, I had never been abroad, and yet I set out that day with all the aplomb of a seasoned traveller.

In 1976 Iran Airlines maintained extremely high standards and my first flight was probably one of the best flights I have experienced to this day. The air hostesses were elegant and immaculately dressed. They appeared to have just stepped off the catwalk (it saddens me that in the 21st Century the airline has regressed to enforcing upon its female staff the wearing of hijab). The food and service was top notch, with free drinks (including alcohol) and a hot towel to freshen up before disembarking.

The three other dancers were Judith, Helen and Mauno. Mauno was around twenty-six but we three girls were roughly the same age. I hadn’t met any of them before the audition but I became better acquainted with Judith as we sat together on the long plane journey. She was timid and extremely pretty, with long lustrous hair and large dark eyes; she reminded me of Bambi. I believe she was even more naïve than I was, if that was possible, nervous and wide-eyed about everything. Helen, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, had a street wise look about her. Her standard expletive was ‘Fuck’ and her laugh was so coarse and rasping it was hard not to imagine that she smoked at least one pack of cigarettes a day. Mauno was originally from Finland, and had short blond hair, chiselled cheek bones and ice blue eyes. With his tight trousers and a purse tucked neatly under one arm; his homosexuality was glaringly obvious (how he survived Iran I’ll never know). In case the reader is wondering, I was petite with dark-brown shoulder length hair. My large dark eyes were my best feature and I accentuated them with lashings of mascara and eyeliner.

We were met at the airport by three suited and official-looking men who collected our passports and led us straight through the security check points. Feeling important, although slightly worried about the confiscation of our passports, we tagged along. We came to understand later that these intimidating looking men were members of Iran’s intelligence agency, SAVAK. They assured us our passports would be returned in two weeks, with our visas.

Having collected our luggage, we were taken out to meet our mini bus driver, Gazi, who gave us our first white-knuckle drive through, what came to be affectionately known as, Tehran Traffic. Drivers in Iran seemed to have complete disregard for any type of Highway Code or safety guidelines, and drove with one hand permanently depressing the horn. Men on mopeds didn’t even bother with the road - they drove down the pavement, scattering pedestrians in all directions.

Our first of many jaw-clenching journeys delivered us to the luxurious Roudaki Hotel, which was to be our home for the next couple of days while we waited for the American dancers to arrive; after which, we were told, we would be taken to rented apartments. Gazi, short, rotund, bespectacled and jolly, who seemed to survive on a diet of Vodka and cigars, took us straight to the hotel’s bar for a night cap before we retired to our rooms. I discovered that a Vodka and Lime in Iran was not the same as a Vodka and Lime in England. Served in a tall glass, over plenty of ice, was a generous slug of Vodka mixed with Seven Up, and topped with a piece of lime, but I wasn’t about to complain - it went down a treat. In fact I’m sure it was my daily Vodka and Lime which protected me from the dreaded ‘Tehran Tummy’ which all the other foreigners succumbed to at some point or another.

The next day the American dancers arrived and we were all introduced. Based on five minutes of getting to know each other (barely enough time to find out each others names), we had to decide who we would like to share an apartment with for the rest of the year. Mauno was befriended by a couple of the American guys, and Sam, a strapping 26 year old from Florida, honed in on us three English girls like a bee to a honey pot. He seemed as safe a bet as any, and we accepted the offer.

After checking out of the hotel we were given another hair-raising ride through Tehran by our personal chauffeur Gazi along with one of the suited men. In our little family groups, we were dropped off at various apartment buildings scattered within central Tehran. Our apartment was on Sanai Street and was somewhat of a let down after the luxury hotel.

The living room was spacious with green felt floor covering. We later discovered that this was known as mocket and that Iranians covered it with thick Persian rugs. We didn’t have any. The furniture was made up of a shabby mustard coloured couch with two matching (and equally shabby) arm chairs, a battered coffee table, and a black and white TV showing mostly Iranian TV channels (the only channel in English had a permanent snowy effect over the picture). The thick curtains were a drab mustard colour, to complement the couch. The whole apartment felt dusty and oppressive and had that not-lived-in-for-a-very-long-time smell. I opened one of the curtains to let in a bit of sunlight. As I drew the curtain to one side, out flew one of the most disgusting and loathsome bugs I had ever seen. It flew straight at me making a loud rustling and whirring noise as if annoyed by my intrusion. Its armour plated body was huge and rusty brown, and the long feelers protruding from its head waved at me menacingly. I screamed, and Sam proved himself the hero by stamping on my attacker. There was a crunching sound and a thick yellow substance oozed from its body as it writhed around with legs twitching and jerking in all directions. Sam ground it deeper into the green felt floor. This was our first encounter, but unfortunately far from our last, with the Middle-Eastern cockroach or suesk. Our tiny bathroom and puke-green kitchen were to prove a popular hang-out for the cockroaches which made their way into the apartments via the drains.

Our kitchen was equipped with only a few plastic plates and cups (the type you’d take on a picnic) and the bathroom was bare and uninviting. There were only two bedrooms, each with two mattresses. I took one bedroom, Helen and Judith shared the other and Sam moved one of the mattresses having decided to turn a corner of the living room into his own little nook. He took one look at the stained mattresses and advised “I wouldn’t sleep on those until you’ve deloused them”. We had no sheets anyway, nor towels or food come to that. We needed to go on a shopping trip, for which we had very little money and were further encumbered by not speaking a word of the language. This wasn’t a day trip to France where we could get by on a few words our memory could drag up from school French lessons - the native language in Iran was Farsi. It couldn’t be more…foreign. We also hadn’t a clue where we were or where to find a shop which would sell the basic items we needed. Our suited escort had taken off long ago, to drop the other poor saps at their own humble abodes, so no help there.

Feeling that at least there was strength in numbers, the four of us set off in the sweltering heat to see what we could find. We were glad of each other’s company and being young and full of bravado we laughed a lot - we were all in this mess together. Being mostly desert, the air was dry and Iran’s streets were hot and dusty with heavy, constantly honking traffic spewing pollution into the mix.

We noticed the dubes on Tehran’s streets with a mixture of interest and distaste – they made up an open drainage system which ran along the side of the road. There was the occasional small bridge across the dube but most of the time you just had to leap over in order to cross them. This was okay in summer, but winter in Iran brought heavy snow falls which piled up in the dubes making it impossible to gauge how wide they were and getting it wrong meant falling in and finding yourself standing thigh deep in snow and sludge. When it rained, the water gushed down the dubes like a small river, carrying leaves, debris, the occasional dead rodent, and once, to my astonishment, a cardboard box of newborn kittens which I rescued and begged each of my friends to adopt.

We managed to find two local shops. Outside one was an array of brightly coloured plastic goods - buckets, bowls and jugs. Inside, was a conglomeration of household products, none of which seemed to have a fixed price. The price, we discovered, was however much some fool could be persuaded to part with. Being new to both the currency and the bartering system, we left the store laden with useful items (including flea powder for the beds and bug spray in preparation for another cockroach attack), but with somewhat lighter wallets.

The second shop sold a selection of groceries, and we departed with bags full of basic food supplies, having paid an exorbitant price for a few eggs. We trudged back to Sanai Street and played house, unpacking and trying to make our shabby and slightly sordid apartment feel like home. Still not having any sheets, we gave the mattresses a good dousing with flea powder and spent the first night sleeping on the couch and armchairs.

The next day, Gazi showed up with his mini bus to take us for our first glimpse of the theatre and dance studio in which we would be rehearsing and performing for the next year - Roudaki Hall Opera House.

Roudaki Hall was breath taking. The seven storey building in its own private grounds was surrounded by exotic flower beds and elaborate fountains – this was a theatre fit for the King. The architect was Armenian-Iranian, Dr. Eugene Aftandillian. The opera house was built under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts. Completed in 1967; it had taken ten years to build. The foyer was floodlit marble and the huge stage was equipped with all the latest theatrical and electrical devices. The auditorium, which could seat 1,600 was decorated in red, white and gold and dominated by the magnificent Royal Box.

The first two floors of the building were taken up by the stage and dressing rooms. The third floor was occupied by the orchestra, and the fourth floor by the folk dance company. The Iranian National Ballet occupied the fifth floor and our rehearsal studio was huge, with ceiling to floor mirrors running the length of the room. Directly above us was the opera company and on the seventh floor was an exclusive restaurant where champagne and Russian Caviar were consumed in abundance by selected guests on opening nights.

The Iranian National Ballet had been founded in 1967/8 under the artistic direction of Robert de Warren. Sponsored in part by the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, it was hoped the ballet and opera would fill a major gap in Tehran’s cultural life. The ballet company began with just a dozen dancers, and by 1976 had expanded to forty six, one third of who were Iranian the other two thirds were mainly from America, England and Russia. Some of the world’s finest choreographers were hired to teach their ballets to the company.

The director of the Iranian National Ballet at this time was Ali Pourfarrokh. Our first performance, a mere three weeks away, was to be American Ballet Theatre’s, Giselle. Sally Ann Wilson came to teach us the choreography and ABT Principal John Prince performed the lead role of Albrecht.

Throughout the rest of the year we had the honour of working with

• Nicolas Beriosov, performing several of his ballets - Swan Lake, Graduation Ball, Scene de Ballet and Spectra de la Rose;

• Patricia Neary, who came from New York City Ballet to teach us Balanchine’s Serenade;

• Ann Heaton, who taught us her Coppelia;

• John Butler, the amazing choreographer of Carmena Burana; and

• Birgit Cullberg, the famous Swedish choreographer, taught us her ballet Miss Julie.

Nowhere else in the world could a dancer hope to work with so many outstanding people in such a short space of time, and all under one roof!

Culturally idealistic as this seemed, there were problems. Roudaki Hall nestled in all its splendour in central Tehran, was seen by many as another thorn in the side of the Iranian people. The average Iranian could not afford to purchase even the cheapest of seats and the poor certainly did not benefit from this cultural advancement. The audience was drawn from the rich upper class and the tens of thousands of skilled foreign workers who occupied Iran at that time - yet another grievance, as unemployment for the Iranian populous grew. The Shah wanted to modernize and Westernize Iran, but his regime included an overly ambitious economic programme which caused bottlenecks, shortages and inflation.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s regime was known for its autocracy and for a disregard of the religious and democratic measures in Iran’s constitution. The Shah was seen by many as being beholden to a non-Muslim Western power (the United States) whose culture was having a significant impact on Iran. The Shah’s regime was thought to be oppressive, corrupt, brutal and overly extravagant. Small wonder, then, that there had already been demonstrations against the Shah as early as 1968, but of course I was oblivious to all this historical tension.

In 1978 strikes and demonstrations against the Shah were to paralyze the country but in 1976, young and innocent, I had no idea of the impact this would have on my own life.