Most of us have read or heard the recent reports of student riots in Tehran, the worst since the fundamentalist revolution that installed the late Ayatollah Khomeini 20 years ago. The students were protesting the closure of a liberal newspaper, Salam (which means "hello," or "howdy"). The newspaper was not publishing op-ed pieces urging men to run out and rent "Basic Instinct," or inciting women to storm the segregated swimming pools. The publisher was merely supporting the agenda of Iran's reformist president, Muhammad Ali Khatami, who has excited the popular imagination with his policies favoring personal privacy and a more lenient interpretation of Islamic law. Khatami himself is a former journalist. But the unfortunate truth is that, though he was elected with 40 percent of the vote, Khatami has little real power. It might help to imagine him as the head of a small medieval fiefdom, promising to reform the will of a pope.

Be that as it may, it was a shock to walk down the streets of Tehran on Friday -- the Muslim Sabbath -- and feel no sense of threat or menace at all. Everyone I met was helpful and hospitable, and quite willing to talk about Iran-America relations -- within limits. Even my taxi driver, who spoke perhaps 10 words of English, pumped my hand when he heard where I was from.

"Oh, America! Very good! JFK, very good!" Then he frowned, and with his right palm pantomimed an airplane nose-diving into a turbulent sea. We mourned together in silence.

I then ventured, "What about Bill Clinton?"

"Very good, very good!"

"George Bush?"

"Very good!"

"Ronald Reagan?"

"Sorry ..." he shrugged. "No English."

I spent much of the day just strolling around. There isn't much to see in Tehran -- the museums are about the only things open on Friday -- but it's a good day for protests, and I was hoping to run into some kind of trouble. No such luck. The closest I came was outside the defunct American Embassy (now a military training school), where I tried to photograph a gaily lettered mural saying, "Down With U.S.A." A guard politely hurried me along. It's a good thing he did, or I probably would have missed all the other anti-American murals along the side of the building. I was especially moved by one plaintive message, illustrated by a scowling Khomeini: "On the Day the U.S. Praises Us We Should Mourn."

I did manage to pick up a bit of the flavor of the place, and when it's all said and done -- once you've seen Salam Nuts (which I filed away in my file of great band names), Peoples' Park and a few kids hanging freshly baked bread on the fences -- the one thing that sticks in my mind is the movie posters. Think about it: How many films in developing countries, from Cambodia to Mexico to India, rely on the thinly disguised charms of a buxom love interest? In Iran, of course, you see nothing of the sort. The women wear rusaris, even in the movies. This leaves little with which to inveigle the typical male viewer, so the same formula is repeated time and again. The six or seven films I saw advertised showed remarkably similar images: a single man poised heroically against an unseen obstacle, as a helpless-looking woman cowered beneath her scarf.

Come to think of it, maybe it was the same movie.

I dined alone, typing up my notes in an ill-lit kebab salon as my fellow travelers painted the town. As I sat at my lonely table, a group of handsome Iranian men approached me. They were burdened with heavy gear: lights, cameras, cables.

"Excuse me, sir." Those three simple words, ever concealing a hidden agenda!

"How may I help you?" I was overly keen, owing to my fascination with the film posters.

"We are with Iranian International Television. We would like to make a film here, of you working on your computer. For the TV. It will show that Americans are welcome in Iran. May we shoot you?"

"Why, yes," I replied. "I'm touched. No one has offered to shoot me all day."

The producer smiled, and signaled to his crew. "Just one thing, though," I amended.

"Please?"

"No close-ups of the screen."

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Dropping into bed, jet-lagged to the point where a toothbrush weighs eight pounds, I finally noticed it: the golden arrow on my hotel room ceiling. It was, inexplicably, a comfort to me. I shifted my pillow a bit, and slept with my head pointing toward Mecca.

Recent Stories