Wiesel, 71, lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, a neighborhood dominated by high-rise apartment buildings. We meet in his study — a separate apartment adjacent to the one he shares with his wife — which, with books everywhere, resembles a library. Behind Wiesel’s desk are volumes of both the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmud. Above it is a picture of the house in Sighet where he was born. He looks tired, as if he’s been working all night, and at times he speaks so softly it’s difficult to hear him. Wiesel’s deep, brown eyes hold infinite layers of sadness, testament to the darkness he witnessed in the Nazi death camps during World War II.

Last night at the 92nd Street Y you told a story about an unclothed man escaping Babi-Yar, a concentration camp, who knocked on a stranger’s door and pretended to be Jesus in order to be asked inside. That’s the kind of story that none of us would have heard without you.

Well, that’s why I have to make [telling] these stories my goal. So I can testify to the world as much as possible. Some say there were 33,000 killed by Nazi Germany at Babi-Yar.

The title of the second volume of your memoirs — like that of the first volume — comes from the writings of King Solomon.

I love the joys of the ancient text. The title of the second volume is the second part of the same verse: “All the rivers run to the sea/And the sea is never full.” I cut it in half.

Why that particular verse?

Because of its meaning. The sea, which is of course infinite — I think memories are infinite. Whatever we do, whatever we say, whatever we give, whatever we write, it would still not be enough. My feeling is that if I knew all the survivor’s stories, and had done nothing else but speak about them, still the sea would not be full. My role is to write and to teach. Occasionally, if people think I can help them, I will help. Sometimes I feel I can break through. Other times I don’t break through. I have no power, but I have access to those who have power.

You have words.

And words, of course.

Where are the most frightening human rights violations occurring?

Iran. The religious fanaticism is atrocious. And then the Balkans — still they have not settled that huge disaster; it’ll take many years, maybe decades. And then we have Ireland. It’s moving in the right direction. I’m optimistic it will pick up in the Middle East. My feeling is that in the year 2000 a serious breakthrough will occur.

In what sense?

Barak is Rabin’s disciple, and I think he will provide the necessary hope for Israelis to trust that it’s possible to make peace with Syria and the Palestinians. As you can see in the papers today, it’s moving. It’s moving.

And you think it will result in Palestinian statehood?

My feeling is that this is what the Israelis are going to do. I have no idea about how they will do that, but Barak is now moving very fast. Ultimately I am sure they are ready. I am absolutely [in agreement] with Israel that Jerusalem must remain a united city as the capital of Israel. My feeling is that the doves — and Barak is a dove — would not touch it.

You went to Cambodia in 1980.

I went for the International Rescue Committee’s March Against Hunger. We had just discovered the atrocities, and we went to help the survivors. We saw the people coming through, but we were not allowed to bring them food and medicine. Aranyaprathet is a huge camp — 100,000 people were there. At least.

But you didn’t go to Rwanda.

No, I only go to places that I am called to go to if I can help by being there. In that case, I spoke with enough people who were there. It was atrocious. It could have been prevented. No doubt about it.

How could it have been prevented?

By intervening immediately. It’s the same in Sarajevo. Bosnia we could have prevented. Kosovo we could have prevented. I believe that preventing intervention of massive violations of human rights is a humiliation completely. It is a very small world today. We know what is happening in other places. It’s no more an excuse to say we don’t know.

Why is there so little intervention?

Usually it’s for political reasons, not for moral reasons. Morally the reasons are to intervene. Politically, there are other considerations — polls, votes.

In 1969, after 20 years of news reporting, you started moving away from journalism. What made you leave?

The language did not encourage me. I realized that I spent my entire life using maybe 400 or 500 words. All I had to do was change the names. Sometimes this person said, sometimes another person said. But the word “said” remained. And I said I don’t want to live like that. I worked then for such a small paper, Yedioth Ahronoth, then a poor paper and my highest salary was $400, including all the expenses. The good thing about it? The New York Times. We always used to go to the New York Times, pick up the paper in the evening and then steal a few stories.

You would report some of those stories, ones that would be appearing in the Times the next day?

Yes. [Laughs.]

Tell me a little bit about the role of the Talmud in memory — and what it gives you.

Talmud I study every day. It gives me, first, my childhood. I go back to the lessons in childhood. And also it gives me the possibility of entering the different geography and different history of 2,000 years ago, which is marvelous. You cannot study a page on Talmud and not feel the impact of all those who have studied during 2,000 years. The teachers and the disciples become your friends. You are surrounded by friends. It helps you overcome solitude.

Are the passages about your father in “And the Sea is Never Full” about dreams that you’ve had?

They are all dreams. I have dreamt a lot about my father. In the last 10 years more than before. Much more. They change, but that’s why I always take notes.

So much of your life’s work revolves around him. How do you feel about that relationship being so public?

I’m 71. It’s the end of the century. We’re coming to the end of something. Who knows if this is the last opportunity I have to say publicly how I feel about him? I was there when he died and the conversation has been interrupted and I try to continue it. I have to release things which I usually kept secret, but it’s only the tip of the iceberg. I want to continue. I want to share these experiences as much as possible with those who want to know.

You were close with Primo Levi?

Pretty close. I wrote about him. We were together on the same block in the same barracks in Auschwitz. I miss him. We had a common language. I spoke with him a few days before he died. I didn’t share his guilt. I don’t think survivors should feel guilty. Some do. Some don’t. Even those who do shouldn’t, in my opinion. The guilty should feel guilty. Not the victims. The irony is that the guilty don’t feel guilty and the survivors do.

There’s still so much hatred, even on the Web. We’ve got white supremacists, anti-Semites, Farrakhan …

Hatred is always dangerous. It’s contagious. It’s out of control, but there’s nothing you can do about this Web. I don’t know how to use the computer, but I hear. Those who deny the Holocaust [took place], they’re always there. Nobody can stop them. In some places, you know, in France, if they say so publicly, it’s a felony and one goes to jail. But not here — First Amendment. And I am for the First Amendment.

Are people more humane now?

This century, which has seen so much evil, has not changed human nature. I describe it to one person and hope they will do the same to another person. You cannot save the whole world at one time.

– Jenn Dryden

This statistic — “For three-quarters of a
woman’s child-bearing years, she is trying to avoid getting pregnant” –
really rang my bell. I cannot help but wonder why, after
attending a women’s college and volunteering at a Planned Parenthood
clinic for more than a year, this is the first time I have heard such an
inflammatory statistic. It illustrates just how dysfunctional public and pharmaceutical industry perception of this market really is.

– Jessica Mosher

Phoenix

Lacking in almost all information regarding contraception is the option of
natural family planning. This method involves educating women about exactly
how their body’s cycles function, what causes ovulation (and fertility)
and how to follow this cycle. There is a great deal of money made off of all
forms of contraception and I suspect this is why this information is so difficult to locate.

This knowledge has been truly powerful in my life. I am completely free of
the dependence of artificial hormones, doctors or nurses, drug stores and
pill-taking schedules. But the greatest benefit of natural family planning is the closeness I have shared with my partner as he has learned about my natural cycles; birth control is
something we truly share. It takes a level of maturity and communication to
practice but is not difficult. This maturity level may not be present with
teenagers, and I see this as a problem, but the reality is that sexual activity
is truly an adult activity and should not be embarked upon by kids.

If women were instructed in how to monitor their cycles, determine their windows
of fertility and avoid intercourse for a few days, I think many would choose
this over chemical hormones and their many side effects. But pharmaceutical
companies don’t make money off women who choose natural family planning, and many women don’t even know that it is an option. I suspect those in the position to make a buck don’t have any intention to educate them otherwise.

– Karen Kelly

Sharps & Flats: “On How Life Is”
REVIEWED BY KANDIA CRAZY HORSE

(08/10/99)

As a black musician, I’ve been tracking (for
too many years) a racial dichotomy in the critical
reception of pop records. Decent white artists come
out with decent records that display a precious
modicum of originality or intelligence (these are,
after all, pop records) and receive warm reviews.
Decent black artists come out with decent records
that display a modicum of originality or
intelligence and are pilloried, by black critics and
white critics alike, for (among other sins) failing to
save the planet. An example of the former would be
Radiohead and “OK Computer”; an example of the latter
would be Macy Gray’s debut.

Gray’s recording sounds just fine, as fine
as anything can sound anymore. The sound of
Macy’s voice is a real pleasure, A&R hype or not — most
definitely as fresh as just-laundered sheets hung out
in the June sunshine to dry.

Against the standards of what aural utopia is
her record “thin”? Is this the same universe that
lauds Sarah M. for her honey-toned four-minute mantras
of nice? “Thin” against a framework in which the pop
charts are little more than vertical relay races
between pimply boy groups and atom-bomb-breasted
tartlings?

Oh, I see: We expect more out of Macy because
she’s black! That is precisely why it too often sucks
to be so.

– S. Augustine

Kandia Crazy Horse seems to have it out for any artist trying to fuse the
musical stylings of yesterday with instruments and styles of today. We
cannot compare every contemporary artist with their predecessors or
classify them by their race or the racial stereotypes of their music as
the author does. Listeners should accept today’s artists for what they are;
time will judge their place in history. In New York City, there are plenty of people enjoying the music of the artists Crazy Horse trashes (including Gray, Eagle Eye Cherry, Erykah Badu and Jamiroquai).

– Gregory Heller

New York

No “Jews for Jesus” on Lycos
ASSOCIATED PRESS

(08/11/99)

The decision by Lycos to end Jews for Jesus ads due to pressure from the
Jewish community is wrong. Just because some members of the Jewish
community disagree with the beliefs of JFJ is hardly a valid reason to
prevent the group from exercising its right to free speech. The quote from
Diane Kolb that “Jews can’t be for Jesus” is blatantly wrong. Check the
history books. Nearly all of the first Christians were Jewish and, in
fact, debated strongly about allowing gentiles into the fold. Lycos will
certainly have limited advertising if they use only non-controversial
organizations or companies. I have nothing but respect for the JFJ
organization and will exercise my right to not choose Lycos as my search
engine, knowing that they resort to such unfair censorship.

– Mark Wineinger

“Jews can’t be for Jesus”? It sounds like the Anti-Defamation League needs to study its history a
little better. Wasn’t Jesus a Jew? Weren’t most of the disciples Jews?
Wasn’t most of the early church Jewish? Jews can be for Jesus. Such a
statement isn’t blasphemous or misleading. It’s what Christians have been
saying for 2,000 years.

– Kevin D. Hendricks

Sweating the big stuff
BY TARA ZAHRA
(08/06/99)

Tara Zahra’s assumption that students at elite institutions are all
children of privilege who never give thought to class issues is
inaccurate. There are many students at elite colleges who come from
working-class backgrounds, and many privileged students
who do give thought and effort to class issues. It is unfair and
patronizing to assume that student interest in labor is just another
extracurricular activity, or that students don’t wonder about college
attendance rates or admissions policies and the educational injustices that lead to them. In many cases, these injustices are acknowledged by students and they are working to change
them — in the low-profile community service and activism that Zahra mentions in
her article, but then ignores because it
contradicts her preconceived ideas.

– Heather Kofke-Egger

Monson, Mass.

“All the Wrong Men and One Perfect Boy”
BY KATIE ALLISON GRANJU
(08/11/99)

Just what the world needs — yet another book by a neurotic, self-absorbed
woman who made bad choices and is raising a child on her own. Get the
woman to therapy; don’t ratify her nutcase lifestyle by reviewing her
book. How would you like to have her as a mother?

– Kathe Moore

Will Barak stop “ethnic cleansing” of East Jerusalem?
BY IAN WILLIAMS

(08/11/99)

The subtle capitalization of the terms “East Jerusalem” and “Israeli West
Jerusalem” propagate a myth that exists only in the popular press. The
only place where there are two Jerusalems (or a single divided one) is in
the collective imagination of journalists. Unfortunately, this imaginary
division weakens Israel’s claim to its capital city, and strengthens
Palestinian claims.

Also, it is a crime of omission to write about Israel’s 1967
annexation of the eastern section of Jerusalem and not mention the
circumstances surrounding Jordan’s control of the area. When the United Nations
offered that land to Palestinians in 1947, they refused the offer, not
wanting to co-exist with a Jewish state. It was, in a sense, up for grabs,
and Jordan captured it as a spoil of the 1948 war. When Israel won the
land in 1967 it was as legitimate as Jordan’s occupation, regardless of
the opinion of “the rest of the world.” For 30 years Israel has been
the sovereign governing power in the eastern section of Jerusalem.

It is a travesty if Israel is systematically forcing Arabs to
leave the city. However, it is crucial to keep our conversation accurate,
and to present the story in its proper context in order to get to the
bottom of it.

– Andrew S. Becker

Washington

I object to the placing of the term ethnic cleansing in quotes in Ian Williams’ article. By placing the term in quotes, Salon makes it seem like there is a debate about whether or not the Israeli government is practicing ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians. But ethnic cleansing is most definitely taking place in Israel today, as it has throughout the history of that country. Palestinians are removed from their land and not allowed to return because of their ethnicity. A system of apartheid exists in Israel with separate laws for Israeli Jews and Palestinians (even if they are Israeli citizens): Palestinians have fewer rights than Israeli Jews when it comes to housing, land rights, citizenship, running for political office, political organizing, etc. I didn’t place apartheid in quotes because the term means “separateness” and that is exactly what exists in Israel.

Just because the mainstream U.S. media systematically downplays Israeli crimes doesn’t mean that they aren’t being committed. Williams criticizes the “American press” in his article for ignoring the story of Musa Budeiri. However, his own reporting is misleading and perpetuates the myth that Israel is legally and humanely dealing with the Palestinians.

– Brian Ledesma

There is no such place as “Arab East Jerusalem.” There is only
the city of Jerusalem, the undivided capital of Israel. It’s true that east
Jerusalem was partitioned in about 1948 when Jordan and other Arab nations
invaded Jerusalem and chased out thousands of its Jewish residents in a war
of aggression. It is not true that the Israeli Interior Ministry “has been
trying to … reduce the Arab population.” More
building permits have been issued to Arabs in the last five years than to Jews.
As to the complaint of Musa Budeiri regarding the lapse of his residency
visa, let us not forget that he was offered no less than full Israeli
citizenship in 1971 and he refused. He had his opportunity and turned it
down. How many Arab nations of the Middle East have
offered citizenship to Jews?

– Ivan A. Rogers

Des Moines, Iowa

Total eclipse
BY JEFF GREENWALD
(08/11/99)

A quote from the Qur’an was included in Jeff
Greenwald’s article “Total Eclipse.” The sura in question was one I studied
as part of my M.A. course in Arabic and Persian. My professor, a well-respected authority on the Qur’an, assured us that the English translation of this verse was incorrect in rendering the Arabic plural “awlia” (singular: “wali”) as “friends.” The proper meaning of “awlia” is “leaders,”
so a better translation of the verse would be:

“O you who believe! Do not take the Christians and Jews for leaders; they
are leaders of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them as a leader,
then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust
people.”

To support this correction, I would add that Muslims consider Jews and
Christians to be “People of the Book” — in other words, followers of divinely
revealed religions that precede Islam, but whose scriptures have been
corrupted over time. One of the early Islamic traditions tells that some of
the first converts to Islam who were being persecuted in Mecca fled across
the sea to take refuge with the king of Ethiopia, a Christian. He is said to
have welcomed them as people of God and belittled the differences between
their respective faiths. The early Muslim conquerors returned the favor by
giving Jews and Christians under their control complete freedom of worship.

– Philip Husband

This sudden reverse metamorphosis — from butterflies back to cocoons — was so striking that I almost laughed. The change was especially dramatic in the woman sitting next to me, Sophia, an Iranian by birth who had been living in Hawaii for two years. Sophia’s manner, so lively and playful during the five-hour flight, now took on a somber and wary mien. She was doing something she hated, to please someone else: Someone who could not be pleased.

Naturally, I was fascinated. Everything about Iran fascinates me. I’ve attempted to visit this country twice; twice my visa application was rejected. This time, I applied as part of a small group arranged by San Francisco’s Geographic Expeditions. Our chief purpose is to observe the last total solar eclipse of the millennium, which will throw a giant shadow across south Europe, Turkey, Romania, Iran and north India Wednesday. Weather permitting, we will witness totality in Esfahan — the legendary city that was the jewel of 16th and 17th century Persia.

I’ve never seen an eclipse before, and I’ve never been in Iran before, so the trip seems a good opportunity to experience two legendary states of darkness. Not that I personally think of Iran as a dark place — on the contrary, I associate it with Rumi, Omar Khayyam and the great Persian poet Hafiz. But let’s not kid ourselves. Since 1979, Iran has been an Islamic republic under the strict supervision of stern-faced ayatollahs, and the official line is invariably a rhapsody on the theme of Great Satan.

These days, though, we’re more of a bite-size Satan. For Iran, like much of the developing world, is awash in contradictions. This has been immediately apparent in everything I’ve encountered here — starting with the women on the plane. Like much of Iranian society, they seem to be living with their heart in one place and their hand in another, pulled between the poles of enthusiasm for the new and fear of the old. As Sophia said to me before we parted: “Of course we hope things will change. But I doubt they ever will.” Saying this, she bundled up her trench coat and stepped outside — into 107-degree heat.

This social ambivalence became even more apparent after we deplaned. Our eight-member group was met by emissaries and herded into a lavish waiting area filled with comfortable couches, mirrored tile and skittering woodwork. This was, a brass sign proclaimed, the “CIP” lounge.

“CIP?” I looked quizzically at Sanjay Saxena, our Delhi-born expedition leader. “Shouldn’t it be VIP?”

“No,” he replied drolly. “As far as Iran’s concerned, we’re CIPs: Commercially Important Persons.”

We would wait there some minutes, we were told, while our luggage passed through customs. In fact, it was two hours. During the interval, we were fed strong tea and served small, creamy cakes. An elderly man with a white moustache took pains to put us at ease. He offered a newspaper — the Iran Daily — which I greedily opened. Atop Page 3, I spied a short column called “Let’s Memorize the Quran.”

“Good idea,” I thought to myself. I was genuinely intrigued; I know virtually nothing of the Koran (as Westerners prefer to spell it), and was grateful for the opportunity to increase my knowledge. The passage, I noted, was from Sura 5, 51:

O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

Whoops. I turned quickly to another page, and scanned a more hopeful story:

Iran Lifts Ban on Western Musical Instruments

TEHRAN (Reuters) — Iran has lifted a two-decade ban on the import of Western musical instruments, which it has long seen as decadent and corrupt, a newspaper said on Wednesday. The moderate Iran newspaper said a state organization affiliated with the culture ministry had given the green light for the import of … flutes, pianos, classical guitars, harps, drums, saxophones and organs.

I was pleased to see that the ban on accordions remains in effect.

Just below, I spied this unlikely headline:

African Queen Plies Michigan Waters

BAY CITY, MICH. (AP) — The boat that once carted Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn around on the silver screen is plying Michigan waters. The African Queen, from the movie of the same name, will offer rides on the Saginaw River as a fund-raiser for the Saginaw Valley Naval Ship Museum Committee …

My reading was interrupted by two customs guards, who approached a member of our group with apologetic smiles. The officers muttered something to Ali, our local guide, who translated for our unfortunate companion.

“The agents wish to inform you that they found a bottle of Absolut Citron in your luggage. They invite you to watch them pouring it into the toilet, to assure yourself they are not stealing it.”

“No problem.” His eyes lit up. “Can I take a picture?”

This was a stroke of genius. I could already envision the billboard, easily visible on the Bay Bridge approach into San Francisco: “Absolut Islam.” Predictably, however, the answer was no.

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.

The one ray of hope is that we are currently in Shiraz, about 550 miles south of Tehran, not far from the Persian Gulf. Isfahan, where we will observe the eclipse, is halfway to Tehran, on the inland side of the Zagros Mountains. It’s much less likely to be cloudy. Still, the sight gave our small group a scare, and we spent breakfast debating, half-jokingly, whether we might consider catching a flight back to Bucharest.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

Shiraz is one of the most ancient cities in the world; there are reliable records of complex trading societies existing here for more than 25 centuries. The ruins of Persepolis, a sort of New Year’s resort palace that had been under construction for two centuries when it was sacked by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C., lie about 30 miles north; farther north still is Pasargadae, where the Persian empire was born three centuries earlier. There’s not a heck of a lot to admire in these ruins, and the once sylvan landscape is now parched and bare, but one definitely gets the impression of antiquity. It makes a place like New York or San Francisco — the whole of North America, practically — seem awkwardly adolescent.

Shiraz is one of those places where the idea of Persia — Persia as a state of mind — takes on real meaning. Take the name, for one thing: Shir Raz, “City of Mystery.” It was known for centuries as a place of nightingales, roses and poets. The Syrah grape originated here, and the local wine was the favorite of such poet/mystics as Sa’adi, Hafez and Omar Khayyam. These days, of course, the strongest thing you can get is non-alcoholic beer.

There are 16 universities and 59,000 students in Shiraz. More than half of them are women. And quite a few of them seem to be poets — or at least of poetic temperament. One certainly concludes as much after watching an endless stream of black-shrouded females prostrate themselves, weeping, upon the tomb of Hafez.

Both Hafez (born in 1324) and Sa’adi (1210) lived, died and were buried here in Shiraz. Between them, they more or less represent the pinnacles of Persian literature. Sa’adi was a practical sort of writer who, like Shakespeare, added a vast number of colloquial expressions to his culture. “I complained that I had no shoes,” wrote Sa’adi, “until I met a man who had no legs.” Or, “You have two ears and one mouth — so best to listen twice before speaking once.” In short, he was full of the sort of phrases parents use to torment their children.

Hafez, on the other hand, was a lyrical mystic. As a young man, he could recite the entire Quran by heart, hence the appellation “hafez,” which literally means “one who remembers.” One of the many wits in our tour group asked Ali, our imperturbable guide, if he knew the word for “one who forgets.”

“It’s actually very interesting,” Ali replied. “The word, also from Arabic, is ‘ensun’ — which also means ‘human being.’ For it is said that all humans once knew God and his teachings, but have forgotten them.”

There is a tradition, at the tomb of Hafez, that the visitor make a wish, open at random the collected poetry of Hafez and place his finger upon the page. Thus is one’s fortune revealed. Ever a sucker for such omens, I strode over to the little bookshop and located a copy of “Hafez in English.” I performed the rite without delay, with the following result:

“Twas morning, and the Lord of day/Had shed his light o’er Shiraz’ towers/Where bulbuls trill their love-lorn lay/To serenade the maiden flowers.”

The message, which reminded me powerfully of the Jabberwock, seemed to indicate no relief in my struggle against jet lag.

There are many lovely mosques and mausoleums in Shiraz. The most beautiful is undoubtedly the Bogh’e-ye Shah-e Cheragh (I only ever learned the Cheragh part). The history behind the personage honored in this shrine (i.e. the brother of the eighth grandson of the Prophet Mohammad) is maddeningly complicated, but he was called the King of the Lamp and died (or was poisoned like his brother; one never knows for sure in Persia) back in 835.

Let me interject that for an “ensun” such as myself, there is a tremendous amount of history to be overlooked if one is to enjoy Iran. The string of eras, dates, deeds, sackings, sieges, poisonings, seductions, dynasties, imams, Alis, eighth-grand-brothers and rulers named Xerxes is enough to make you throw your guidebook at the wall.

This frustration evaporates instantly, however, the instant one steps, shoeless, into that Cheragh place. It is unbelievable. My friend on this journey, Sam, told me he’d seen the place featured in a film called “Baraka,” but I cannot imagine a film could do this shrine justice. The entire interior is an intricate mosaic of tiny mirrors, covering every inch of the high walls and vaulted ceilings. Chandeliers hung in their midst; morning light poured in through the colored glass.

Sam and I entered during a mid-morning call to prayer and stood there with our mouths open. It was like falling into a kaleidoscope loaded with diamonds. I might have stayed there forever, but we suddenly found ourselves surrounded by several hundred Iranian schoolboys. Mirrors, they see every day, but two Americans — now that’s something. They massed around us, their notebooks open, begging for autographs.

Aug. 9: In the Shiraz bazaar — not the main bazaar but the “nomadic” bazaar, where women from the country shop for colorful dresses and lively applique “rusaris” (the code of dress is less strict for women who have to milk cows) — a cloth seller asked me about my impressions of Iran. “Is our country,” he asked, “as you expected from reading the newspapers in America?”

I told him that it was not. From everything I have experienced, Iran is one of the most hospitable countries on Earth. In the course of a single hour Sam and I were plied with free yoghurt, toured through the adobe alleyways of old Shiraz by a bright and ironic 16-year-old (the cloth seller’s son) and offered food samples off the plates of our fellow diners at a local lunch joint. Everywhere we roamed the locals asked after us and welcomed us sincerely. One never forgets where one is — portraits of the ayatollahs hang everywhere, frowning above the masses on their clouds of beard — but there is no air of religious fanaticism or prejudice. I’d be willing to bet that Salman Rushdie could wander the bazaars unmolested.

On the other hand, it’s not as if there is no reaction at all. At the mirrored mosque, a man approached and began haranguing me in Farsi. Ali, translating, explained that the individual wanted to know why America feels the ever-present need to meddle in the affairs of other nations; why it supports only those countries in which it has a vested commercial interest; why there is so much intolerance of the idea that a country like Iran or Cuba might pursue an alternate system of government.

These were pointed questions, and I did my best both to defuse them and to answer them honestly. I think we were able to agree, by the end of our conversation, that the winds of change may be blowing, at least as far as American-Iranian relations are concerned. Over 20,000 tourists are visiting Iran for the eclipse, and the numbers will stay large as the true season begins in the fall. In 2002, New York’s Asia Society is sponsoring an enormous show of art of Persia’s Safavid Period (1502-1722). Most of all, of course, there is the optimism generated by reformist President Khatami — and by the fact that he was elected with 70 percent of the popular vote.

There’s no question that Iran is in the midst of a tremendously exciting and delicate time. It seems the entire country is holding its breath, waiting to see what the ultimate outcome of July’s student demonstrations will be. In my first dispatch, I wrote briefly of the contradiction inherent in Iranian social life; of the fascination, attraction and loathing Iranians feel toward America and the West. The word I used was ambivalence, but Iranians are more severe with themselves. “We’re a nation of hypocrites,” one fairly conservative individual told me. “We know this. But as the political tide shifts, you will see that more and more people come around to Khatami’s side.”

People are fed up with the inflexibility of religious law, he suggested, and would love to see a change. When I asked why President Khatami had not taken a harder line — why he so quickly capitulated to the Supreme Leader by condemning the protests — my friend laughed. “It’s because he is smart. Change must occur very slowly, very carefully,” he said. Things in Iran transpire at their own pace, and cannot be pushed. “If there is one wrong move, the entire process of reform will crumble.”

Iran could have played it safe, and kept its doors more carefully guarded during the eclipse. The very fact that the government allowed so many thousands of Japanese and European tourists to enter — as well as our small American group — is a sign that the fist of suspicion may be opening. As I said to the man who cornered me near the mosque: Anything could happen. I would not be at all surprised if Khatami turns out to be the Gorbachev (or at least the Kruschev) of Iran. If so, the next U.S. president may well establish fresh diplomatic ties with the ancient and ingenious civilization of Persia.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

It is considerably later. I’m sitting at the traditional outdoor teahouse that adjoins Hafez’s tomb, sipping smoke from a hubble-bubble, a traditional Persian water pipe. The glances of the locals, curious but not disapproving, indicate that, despite occasional choking, I am not disgracing myself.

It is moments like these, really, that represent the soul of travel: times when one breaks away from the tourist circuit and finds an alcove of peace and contemplation. Time slows down, and the essence of an unfamiliar culture surrounds you without planning or artifice. These are the times when one can imagine spending weeks, or months, in a city like Shiraz — meeting the living poets, and cultivating a real understanding of the people who call this their home.

The smoke bubbles pleasantly as I draw it through the pipe; there is a lovely cherry flavor to the tobacco (or maybe the water itself is perfumed). Nearby tables are filled with men and women reading newspapers, doing crosswords (in Farsi, a daunting feat) and chatting over tea and cake. It is a measure of Iran’s sophistication that my laptop draws nary a glance.

In a few hours I will board an Iran Air jet — a tired Soviet passenger plane, worn out from years of use by Aeroflot — and journey north to Isfahan, and the rendezvous of the sun and moon.

ISFAHAN, Iran — Aug. 10: During my travels in Iran I’ve been reading a book called “Samarkand,” n historical novel by Lebanese journalist Amin Maalouf. Set in 11th century Persia, the book recounts the times of the great poet-philosopher Omar Khayyam, whose most tumultuous years began and ended in Isfahan.

Aside from drinking about half the wine available in the city, Omar of Nishipur — who, despite his near heretical views, enjoyed royal patronage — realized his dream of building an astronomical observatory; he was accomplished in the arts of astronomy as well as astrology. One of his goals was to measure accurately the length of the solar year. Not only did he succeed, but the system he developed came into use during his own lifetime — on March 21, 1079. “This officially carried the name of the Sultan,” writes Maalouf, “but in the street, and even in certain documents, it was enough to mention ‘such and such a year in the era of Omar Khayyam.’” A modification of his calendar remains in use today.

Khayyam’s legendary observatory no longer stands; it was destroyed by the invading Mongols, four centuries before Isfahan became the baseline of Persian civilization. It is astonishing to walk along the shaded streets, through the 4-kilometer-long bazaar, in the shadow of the magnificent 17th century Mosque of Emam, and realize that none of this (except for parts of the bazaar) existed during Khayyam’s time.

(Speaking of the bazaar: During my morning stroll through the millennia-old labyrinth, I ran into a 16-year-old boy who cornered me as I bargained for the local version of a Dairy Queen cone. Like many young Iranians, he was keen to practice his English. His opening gambit was potentially awkward — “Excuse me, please, but why does America think it is king of the whole world?” — but we soon settled into a discussion about the charms of Isfahan. The definitive statement came after I suggested that Isfahan is more beautiful than Shiraz. The boy frowned. “Isfahan,” he declared, “is more beautiful than Chicago.”)

One thing the Persians of Omar’s time had in common with present-day Iranians is a fascination with the heavens. Nine centuries after Khayyam performed his calculations for the Seljuk court, the city of Isfahan has gone eclipse-crazy. Eclipse banners line Chahar Bagh, the main boulevard; posters showing the fabulous blue dome of Emam Mosque surrounded by a solar corona hang in every window. At 10 this morning, with the event only 30 hours away, I wandered into a “madrase” — an Islamic university, comparable to a yeshiva — and was immediately surrounded by turbaned clerics who called to me excitedly, “Kusoof! Kusoof!”

It is an expression I’ve heard a great deal these days. The literal meaning, as clearly as I can tell, is “the union of the sun with the moon.”

It’s out there somewhere, our moon, moving inexorably toward its Wednesday rendezvous. Totality will occur at 4:40 p.m. This will be the first total solar eclipse to pass over Persia since the 1950s, long before the birth of more than two-thirds of the population. Eclipses are cyclical; they occur in the same places every 35 years or so (the next one to darken the U.S. will occur in 2017). But the fact that this is the last such event of the millennium has given this one special meaning, and tourists from around the world have converged on this ancient caravansary town to witness the spectacle. During the past week we’ve met groups from Japan, Italy, Spain, France and England, but we seem to be the only Americans. I did, however, hear a strange rumor — I have no reason to believe it is untrue — that this afternoon’s flight from Tehran to Isfahan will carry a group that includes moon walker Neil Armstrong.

The dire predictions of comet watchers, asteroid phobics and dusty infidels like Nostradamus faze the locals not at all. The imams I spoke with have no qualms about the eclipse. They will, however, recite special prayers, “like when there is an earthquake.” So one doesn’t quite know what to expect.

I must admit, though, that the high-profile chorus of doomsayers back in the USA has been a bit tiresome. It is true that Nostradamus, who has often been off in his predictions by only a letter or two, predicted that a “King of Terror” will arrive from the skies just about teatime tomorrow. But the slightest error in interpretation could give his words a very different meaning. Both Yeats and Rilke, after all, equated terror with transcendent beauty. As my astrologer friend Rob Breszny prefers to think, this millennial eclipse may deliver a breakthrough in human consciousness. Reason enough, I reckon, to be smack in its path.

The weather, incidentally, is perfect. Not a cloud in the sky. The only question is exactly where to observe the eclipse from. Sanjay, the leader of our Geographic Expeditions group, seems partial to driving out of town, and setting up camp on the mesa of a nearby mountain. He has a point; it would be fantastic to see the shadow of the moon race across the landscape as a 100-second sunset occurs in every direction at once. For my money, though, it could be equally spectacular to watch the phenomenon darken the crowded plaza in front of the city’s fantastic 17th century mosque.

In any case, the level of excitement is growing by the hour. Odd, how the sun and moon know nothing of this; to the players themselves, this is no more than the impassive dance of celestial mechanics.

Aug. 11: The longest period of totality in Iran would be 1 minute, 58 seconds, but the figure reduces dramatically as one moves even slightly away from the center line. Isfahan is a good 15 miles from that line, and totality here would run about 1 minute, 38 seconds. After paying a fortune and lugging their cameras and telescopes halfway around the world, many of the Geographic clients were understandably eager to drive toward the barren southwest, wringing as many seconds out of totality as possible.

I stayed behind in Isfahan, setting up camp in Imam Khomeini Square. Built in 1612, the vast plaza — alive with fountains and lined by craft shops — served as the center of Safavid dynasty Persia. As I stood by the fountain in front of the cream-colored dome of the “Women’s Mosque,” the high minarets of the Masjed-e-Imam gateway loomed to my left. High behind them, the impassive sun burned through the afternoon haze. A few fluffy clouds flirted nearby, providing an unneeded element of suspense.

At about 3:15 — the moment of “first contact” between the sun and moon — there was a murmur from the 200 or 300 people assembled in the shade of the mosque. Though crowded, Khomeini Square was not the crush I’d expected. I wondered if everyone really had fled, driving across the plains in pursuit of longer-lasting shadows.

The situation soon changed. By 4:15 — 15 minutes before totality — the plaza was filled with thousands of locals, the vast majority of them too young to recall the last eclipse here 45 years ago. Iranian television and radio had been vigilant — there had been warnings and instructions every 10 minutes — and no one was seen without a shadow box or mass-produced sun viewer. Some people had built ingenious contraptions for viewing the thinning sun. The simplest and most effective were small mirrors, which threw images of the crescent across the walls of the mosques and palaces. The crescent, let me remind you, is the emblem of Islam, and I doubt the symbolism was lost on this crowd.

(Iran TV’s instructions, I learned, may have been a little too alarmist; many people actually hid inside their homes, convinced that even a glimpse of the phenomenon would blind them for life. The taxi driver who brought me to the cyber-cafe where I am writing this, for example, spent the eclipse in the shower.)

The atmosphere was charged and giddy. It was probably the closest Iran will come to Woodstock: T-shirts, overpriced soft drinks and all. There were a few pointed differences: Devout Muslims spread woven mats on the grass and prostrated themselves, reciting the appropriate prayers; a small, spontaneous and very short-lived anti-American demonstration erupted near the Ali Ghapu Palace.

The Women’s Mosque is famous for changing color through the day. During the last five minutes of sun the dome hurried through a full day’s work — glowing first peach, then honey, then amber. As the world darkened, a terrified thrill swept through the plaza. Thirty seconds before totality a collective cry began to rise from the crowd, mounting to a fevered climax. I think I yelled myself as the last sliver of light winked out. The ground rippled with a weird diffraction pattern, and the sun disappeared behind the moon.

It was otherworldly, magnificent beyond compare. Venus burned near the zenith, and the cooperative clouds took on a wine-dark glow. The automatic lights crowning the minarets flickered on. A mane-like corona twisted wildly from the sun, while bright red prominences danced around its edges. I tried to view the effect with binoculars, but it was impossible; this was my first eclipse, and my hands were shaking uncontrollably.

There was a sudden, timeless silence. Then, from every direction, came the familiar Persian expression of delight, reverence and awe: “Ma’sha’Allah!” What wonders God has willed!

Never, I reflected, were words more truly spoken.

Ninety-eight seconds is not a long time. Before we knew it, Bailey’s Beads shimmered around the occulted disk, and a wink of sunlight appeared at the moon’s southeastern edge. Venus blinked out; in an instant, the plaza was flooded with light. I got the impression that people couldn’t decide whether to cheer or moan. Our collective moment had ended; there was nothing to hold us from business as usual.

Yet we had shared something extraordinary, something that can hardly be described and could barely be believed. I filtered out of the plaza with thousands of Iranian men, women and children, shaking hands and slapping backs, feeling the sort of solidarity usually brought on by moon landings, Super Bowls or earthquakes.

Somehow, the news from Iran will never read quite the same to me again.

Oddly enough, there is no particular menace to the moment.

It all happens so quickly I barely take in the interchange. It almost seems humorous: the bland smile, the smell of baking food, his weary gesturing.

For some time afterwards I still try to take it as a joke. A joke for Westerners fresh to the “madness” of Iran.

Then I wonder again if it is what he wishes. If he wants to see a jihad, “a struggle in the way of God,” continued against the infidels now beginning to infiltrate his country as tourists for the first time since the revolution. If he would really like to see my head roll.

My girlfriend and I have sat eating rice with fish, a bowl of salad with a vinegar and yogurt dressing and a plate of mint with two halved onions. It’s a typical Iranian meal in a clean, basement-level restaurant in Isfahan, the city of merchants and glass, a place renowned for its crafts and craftiness, its skillful liars.

I talk to the men who work in the restaurant, making self-effacing fun of my guidebook “Farsi” phrases: Where are you from? Hello. Goodbye. I’m sorry I don’t speak Persian (“Bebakshid, farsi balad nistam”). One man on his lunch break smiles at me from across the room. The others look on bluntly, staring slowly from the fluorescent, middle-aged weight that seems to color the whole room and drag at the heels of their boots. Moving like men in some invisibly thick soup.

We stand. Go to the cashier. “Chand-e?” I inquire. He holds up a 10,000 rial note. The money changers on Ferdosi Avenue call this “a Khomeini,” after the dead Ayatollah whose stern face stares out from it. I leave an extra 1,000 rial tip (about 20 cents). And we start to walk out the door.

That’s when the mustachioed, 40-ish man in the washed-out khaki uniform of a cleaner or a dishwasher looks at me and makes his little cutting motion to the throat.

It’s not because I’m a lousy tipper.

I’d already heard about this gesture yesterday from a Frenchman who had just visited Tehran. He wasn’t clear on the meaning of it either — if it was a joke or something very nasty indeed.

In Tehran people had done the same thing to him, but they had made a brief whirling motion about their heads as well, to signify the turbans of the mullahs (Islamic clerics), before they too slashed at their throats with their thumbs and laughed.

At first I don’t tell my girlfriend about all this symbolic throat-cutting. But eventually I have to mention my goodbye message at the restaurant as we walk off into the silence of the city’s 10 p.m. streets. It troubles her, then she says, “Perhaps they mean death to Khamenei?”

Well, do they?

People say there is much unhappiness with the rule of the mullahs in Iran. In the 1998 parliamentary elections for the Assembly of Experts, clerics ensured that the candidates who could run were predominantly conservative. Only 46 percent of the population bothered to vote. It had already been decided behind closed doors by the mullahs. What was the point?

The Assembly selects and appoints Iran’s Supreme Leader — currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the similarly named successor to Ayatollah Khomeini — who controls both the military and the security forces. This is Khomeini’s real vision of the world’s first Islamic theocracy, an indisputable leader who can interpret God’s will with an iron fist wherever and whenever necessary.

President Khatami is an anomaly in this scene, a freak victory in a landslide people’s vote that saw 76 percent of the voting population, mostly women and the young, turn out to elect him two years ago. But the conservative mullahs aren’t so impressed with a man who studied philosophy in Germany for two years, or with the Western “liberal decadence” he is encouraging.

Khatami lacks real power, yet he has popular support. He balances himself delicately on this edge. As one local told us, “Khatami says such beautiful words. Such beautiful words. But what is really happening in Iran? What is really going on?”

More recent local council elections in March suggest change by stealth. All over the country women and young people managed to get elected, a surprising defeat for the hard-liners. Despite the people’s renewed optimism, it remains to be seen whether the executives appointed by the mullahs to supervise these councils will allow them much real freedom.

And so it is that a strange tension underlines Iranian daily life, as if the impetus to open up the country is meeting a firm vice that will only allow it to expand so far. The question seems to be: When will the unstoppable force meet the immovable object?

The very word “mullah” swings in the mouth like a club. It carries weight when you say it.

Walking around the streets of Isfahan, we get very used to being stared at by people curious about Westerners in their midst. Whenever the turbaned shape of a cleric approaches, however, there is not a flicker of interest or recognition in their eyes. We do not exist. We are not here.

One feels the mullahs’ neutralizing power, the sheer stoicism of how they refuse you through the mere act of not looking and looking right through us at the same time. They simply erase us from the scenery.

Under such weight, such force of erasure, there is a terrible longing for freedom.

You sense this when you talk to the young. At first there’s pride, of course, in their country. The initial images that they paint of Iran are almost Disneyesque, 1950s pure. They’re also very aware of Western stereotypes of them as screaming, crazed religious fanatics. Most people hate this global media cartoon of them and their country and their faith. As if to counter it, people are ridiculously friendly — strangers literally invite you home for dinner, take you on personal tours of their city, give you small gifts. It’s actually a hassle to deal with all this enthusiasm and courtesy wherever you go.

But as in the 1950s, there’s a lock on the mind and the spirit. As we talk more and more to young people and they open up to us, they admit to being somehow “stuck” in their lives, often speaking of their desire for change, or of simply wanting to leave Iran altogether. They also, with a naive enthusiasm, tend to idolize the West as a dream of freedom, as a total fantasy, with all the forbidden fruits that go with it.

Within six months of coming to power in 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini made a speech declaring, “There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun or enjoyment in whatever is serious.”

It’s hard to maintain that kind of reverence when over half of your population is under 25. Iran is witnessing a youthquake, and it can’t cope with the energy. The strange thing about its youth is how common it is for them to refer to the time of the Shah with yearning and nostalgia — when they have no memory of his brutal and exploitative reign or the revolution that deposed him. It is as if they yearn for a past that never existed.

In Tehran we read a newspaper article warning that the clerics in parliament have voted to send a paramilitary group known as the Basiji into the universities to help police and suppress “liberal Western influences.” This means more than intellectual oppression. It means intimidating young people from holding hands in public and stopping women from using lipstick and from wearing their chadors pulled back provocatively onto their heads to reveal a little of their hair: all the pagan rebellions of Persian youth today.

“What will they do?” asks one Tehranian man benignly. “This is nature. A boy and a girl. It is like trying to stop running water.”

We talk to a tour guide about it all. He tells us how he wants to escape. Maybe through India. Maybe through Hungary. He can hardly go anywhere in the world, he complains, as very, very few countries will give him a visa, with a few exceptions such as India, Pakistan, Nepal and Japan. It is hard to get out. It is hard to go anywhere.

“I am 26. Two years ago I fall in love with a German girl,” he tells us. “I could not go to see her. They would not let me leave here. And Germany would not give me a visa, either.

“I was very angry. Very crazy.” He shows us pictures. Two shots of a blond, one of her sitting on a beach, another of the two of them in his car. The photos look creased and old.

“Many times I have been arrested for mixing with tourists too much. They put me in prison one week, two weeks. I say, ‘Why do you this to me? I am representing Iran to tourists in a good way. I am working hard for my country. I am contributing to my country.’”

He looks at us with a salesman’s eye. “OK, of course I do for myself as well. But I work hard. It is good for Iran, too.

“And they arrest me! So I tell them, ‘Send me away. You arrest me. You don’t like me, you don’t want me. You don’t want hard-working people. You would rather I did nothing. So let me leave this country.’ This is a crap government that wants crap people.

“They tell me, ‘You talk a lot,’ and put me in jail,” he smiles. Then laughs. “But I am not political. I don’t care about that.

“I am 26. I just want to live. I meet tourists. Sometimes I go to Goa. They tell me things,” he nods childishly, conspiratorially, alluding to the reputation Goa, India’s rave capital, has for partying and drug-fueled abandon. He wants us to understand that he knows what real pleasure is. “If you have tasted an orange and an apple, and you want the orange, you want the orange. If you do not ever taste it, then maybe you don’t know.

“I know my country is very beautiful. But it is no good for me. I am 26,” he repeats as if it is something to be astounded and depressed by — his mantra. “How can I meet girls? I am not allowed to wear a bracelet even,” he says, looking at mine as it sits heavily on my wrist. “It is too Western.

“No!” he cries out. “What sort of life is this? To get up early to work all day, to come home at night quietly and sleep like a cat. There is nowhere to go at night.

“My friend tells me I should stay. Iran is changing. Sure, maybe in five years. Maybe in 10 years. He is 35 and married. It is OK for him. But what about me now? I am 26.”

And with that outburst over, he shares his simple plans of escape: how he will sell his car, his motorbike and his rare Persian carpet. How he will go to see the girl in Germany. How he doesn’t like the cold, however, and he will wait till spring before he escapes to Europe. How Western girls on tours often flirt with him and try to kiss him even when they have husbands or boyfriends. “Why they do this? I think sometimes they want to punish their men.”

We explain to him that sometimes Western girls play games and that it doesn’t mean they are really interested in him or love him. He lights up with recognition — this is a suspicion confirmed.

“Now I understand,” he nods. “Now I understand.”

He considers himself a man of the world. He didn’t live with his family as a boy. He was brought up in the snake turns of the local bazaar, “working very hard. Very hard. Very hard like you cannot understand.”

Now life is good. He is a man on the move — or at least, on the make. But he has no freedom. He cannot fall in love. He cannot go anywhere. He cannot wear a bracelet. And there is that burning experience of two years ago, and these two photos of the girl he loves, both pictures marked with sticky tape where he has pulled them from his bedroom wall to show us. Marks that show he has pulled them from the wall a dozen times or more and told this same story to other travelers, to whomever will listen.

He unfurls his carpet, with its myriad patterns and silky blues and royal reds. He shows us where the makers wove an error into the carpet on purpose, so as not to affront Allah, since the Creator is the only one who can make a perfect thing. This is his magic carpet ride out of Iran. “I think if I sell it I can make much money. It’s beautiful,” he says a little sadly.

I try to warn him that he could be jumping into a deep hole if he becomes an illegal immigrant in Germany. For some reason his fears about the winter cold quietly depress me about his hopes. But he thinks he could just as easily fall down a hole in Iran, he says. “Anything could happen here. Anything.”

So we talk about love again. And another painful experience as a teenager, when an older married Iranian woman had an affair with him. He didn’t know she was married until after the affair had begun and she finally told him the truth.

“I told her to leave me alone. Sometimes now a married woman here in Iran will try to give me her phone number,” he says, disgusted. “This is dirty. I tell her go away, you bastard. I don’t want this.”

It’s hard not to laugh at his moral distaste, so naively expressed. “You are dirty bastard woman, leave me alone.”

He is 26 years old, going on 14. It seems to be a part of Iran’s 1950s moral atmosphere to reduce people to adolescents. For him, Iran is frustrated desire and perpetual lies behind the backs of people. He wants the girl in Germany. The dream life. The dream love. But thoughts of freedom lead him back to the emotional prison of Iran, and Iran leads him back to questions and plans and schemes to escape. Running his fingers over the carpet, thinking, looking for the error.

We talk about him over dinner that night. In that sullen, slow-moving fluorescent-lit restaurant where everything feels becalmed and exposed. Me twisting my bracelet round and round as I worry about him — till I’m given something else to keep me thoughtful.

Later still as we lie in bed, I think about the gesture at the throat. Whether it was friendly or aggressive, or even subversive, as quite a few people have quietly suggested. The end of Khomeini and Khamenei, the death of the mullahs? Or a deepening and darkening of the revolution as they fight to preserve their rule? I’m really not sure. But this to me is the hidden Iran: a thumb at the throat, a girl who can’t be loved. All blurred, hard to see, waiting for a chance.

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Epilogue: These events occurred last November on a single day while traveling in Iran. This story was basically written that same day. It captured a palpable mood that has since burst to the surface in Iran.

In the past fortnight students and their supporters have rioted in the streets of Tehran and 15 other major Iranian cities. Initially they were peacefully protesting the closure of a reformist daily newspaper called Salam, which had strongly backed President Khatami and his reformist policies. But the agenda of the students broadened into a pro-democracy movement. They chanted, “Either Islam and the law, or another revolution.”

Protests became more volatile as the army, security forces and government-backed extremist Islamic vigilante groups brutally attacked the students. There is also evidence emerging that “evil forces” inciting violent activity by the students may have been covert security agents looking to destabilize the reformist movement, thereby encouraging a more oppressive course of action and discrediting President Khatami in an apparently out-of-control situation. Meanwhile, a counter-protest or “unity rally” in favor of Islamic rule was called by the clerical establishment, drawing tens of thousands.

For the time being the streets of Tehran are quiet again. But the movement from an Islamic theocracy to an Islamic democracy will continue to simmer until the national elections in February, when progressive voting patterns stimulated by a voting age set at 15 will likely decide the course of Iran’s future. In the meantime, our 26-year-old friend has escaped to Germany — where, he writes, he has “many girlfriends now.”