He'd been writing, eating, talking for an hour or so. The talking was constant the eating slow and the writing spasmodic. She and I occasionally responded to him, drank tea or in she's case also had a dessert.
People tell me that windows don't have feelings or a heart
But when the glass of a window is steamed up
And I'm writing with my finger on it the words “I love you”
Then the window panes start to cry.
Why did he give it to me? Was it about she? If so would she have understood it?
The computer had come out once or twice and at some stage passed to me and she. First to help she practice some English words and then for me to learn some Farsi words. Flash cards accompanied by an American pronunciation of Farsi for bottle, water, car etc.
Whether they were his words and whether he wrote them while we were at the table I'm not sure. And she sitting next to me gave no inclination either way.
I'd also shown him mine. Also a ASUS but an eepc rather than a fully-fledged laptop. He copied a program for me to put on my computer. It didn't work. This was a Linux machine. His a Windows one. The program? Maybe it was to help learn Farsi.
The patter of speech continued and so did the slow consumption of his meal.
He'd been in the secret police. He'd survived in the deserts around Afghanistan and Pakistan by befriending nomads. Much to the astonishment of his boss. Nomads are really lovely people even if they are conservative. He was no longer in the secret police. But what did he do? Was he a journalist? He laughed and said he couldn't get anything published. Iran has borders with – did he say – nine countries.
There would be surveillance cameras in this restaurant. He was persona non grata with the government. Did I know how to find full-text English books online. He couldn't find them. I should read Iraj Pezeshkzad. Was he Iraj Pezeshkzad or was Iraj Pezeshkzad his uncle? I suggested project Gutenberg.
Now he was with she – who, he says, can understand and speak English. There is little evidence of either. They spent one night together. Parents were away. With she or with someone else? Are you married? He was not and appeared never to have been. Lovers? Was she his lover. Was he talking about previous lovers? Were these his hopes or fantasies?
Dinner - or was it a late lunch? - had started about 5:00 pm after waiting for me to finish what I was doing at an Internet café.
He'd poked his head over the terminal and said without introduction lets have dinner I'm starving. I'd only just walked in but said I would but I didn't know how long I would be. He would wait.
He packed up his laptop but soon after he poked his head over again and said you must be a writer. Are you a writer? You are taking a long time. No, are you? And he must have taken out his laptop again. For the rest of the time I was in the café he was using his computer for something. Writing I suppose.
Have you read Iraj Pezeshkzad? A famous Iranian author. TV show. My uncle Napoleon. No I hadn't although I'd recently met a man who had adopted that name. But for unrelated reasons.
Here let me show you and he found the Wikipedia article. I downloaded it while I was at the café. Probably he and Pezeshkzad were not the same person. Pezeshkzad was writing before the Iranian revolution. I guessed he was now 35. Probably a young teenager then. But was Pezeshkzad his uncle?
He helped me get my printing done and, having indicated I had finished, he put his suit coat over his arm and introduced me to she. A young woman who'd just entered the café but not to use the machines but to come with us to the restaurant.
She was more conservatively dressed than required of a woman in Iran but was she otherwise conservative? He was very well-dressed. Why? His day seemed mainly to involve the Internet café and lunch with she [and now me]. It was also a public holiday.
It was the day before celebrating Fatimah's birthday. We crossed the street and ducked under banners put up for the birthday. Here you can experience an Iranian celebration. Was that said in a snide way? And was it aimed at the celebration? Or the people who celebrated?
We went to one of those Iranian restaurants whose entrances are hidden either up stairways or down them. This one was an upstairs restaurant. I'd never find it again. He went ahead and I indicated to she that I would go last but she deferred to my age. I had to precede her.
Australia is very wet he said. Partly. And I attempted to explain a drought in some areas. Did he ask me anything else about Australia? He told me she finished her degree three years ago. Was he her lecturer? And now was hoping for a scholarship to get into Tehran university. What was she going to do?
The restaurant still had quite a number of people in it. Eating. Rice. Ice-cream. All well-dressed though not all in suits like him. Some of the women had their scarves well back on the top of their heads. Some coloured. Not a conservative lot.
He disappeared every now and again. Halfway through the main course, after dessert and once or twice in between. Was it to take a call? Were there other people in the restaurant that he was taking to? I couldn't see. Maybe it was just to go to the WC.
The other people left in sudden groups. The young women almost without scarves were there one moment and gone the next. I have to go too I said. I have friends to meet. We'll show you a short-cut but first have some tea. Which had already arrived accompanied by saffron sugar. And again he disappeared. While she and I drank tea, sucked saffron sugar and she read aloud parts of an American English text with a title like “keep the banner flying”.
Virtuous American history. I read the paragraphs first and she repeated them. Required to get US citizenship. Was she trying to get that? No he answered on she's behalf.
I told she I had to go and she found him – quite quickly. I was in a hurry and the short-cut they took me was the way I would have gone anyway. He had a limp. So we walked slowly. He bought some pairs of socks. He stopped at a kiosk for, she explained, a cigarette. And he passed us both some gum. Goodbye they said.
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Postscript
I subsequently found an article [June 2009] by an Irish journalist who received the same poem whilst in Iran. He met Muhamad [as a man in Egypt told me when I said I was looking for Muhamad, "everyone here is called Muhamad"], who gave him the poem in Isfahan but I was in Tehran when I received it.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/an-irishman-s-diary-1.781079
It's also in a blog post -Paul's Travel Blog - written in May 2008.
http://www.paulstravelblog.com/wp/?p=189