Majik was smiling. So was his mother, his sister-in-law, his brother, his father. His little niece just played away. Majik had just met his probable wife-to-be for the first time and, everyone agreed, it had gone very well. His mother glowed with the triumph of a job well done, her brown face the only relief from the relentless black of the great tent that was her chador. His father, a small, grey, elderly man, sat across from them, smiling at his wife. He had just bought her a love token in recognition of her achievement - a line from a love poem written in curving Arabian calligraphy.
We were in the beautiful Iranian city of Esfahan, sitting in the tea-room of the Abassi Hotel. Antonioni made his film, The Arabian Nights, there, but the virtual life of that movie couldn't hold a candle to the triumph of hope before us.
With that characteristic openness and friendliness to the stranger of the Iranian people, Majik explained he was 32 and his probable wife-to-be was 19. He was studying business administration at university in Canada, but had come home to find a wife. Before doing so, he had discussed this quest with his mother, as is still traditional in Iran, and she had picked out the girl for him to meet.
He expected he and the girl would soon be married, and she would come to Canada with him until he finished his degree. Then they would return to Esfahan, where he would work in his brother's jewellery manufacturing business. His future lay smooth before him, mapped to the horizon. Love's young dream.
"When she gets a taste of the freedom women have in the West, she will react against being the traditional Iranian wife. She'll get restless and soon they'll be divorced. It happens all the time. These guys go abroad, find they can't trust Western women, come home, find a wife, bring her back to the West, and bang . . . it's over," spoke a yellowed voice of experience, later. He too was Iranian. He, too, had been away. He had also come home and married at 32. But he had stayed in Iran.
It was very clear during that tea-room scene where the command centre lay. It focused entirely on the mother - upsetting yet another preconception about that old and complex country which has inspired so much assumption in the West. Incorporating Persia and populated by the original Aryan people - hence the name Iran - it was already an ancient, sophisticated civilisation when most of us were still in mud cabins up the mountains.
The Iranian woman is boss in the home. It is her domain. But she has the same public rights as a man. She can vote. She can divorce. She is entitled to (free) education up to and including third level - half of Iran's third-level students are female. She can hold public office, and women do so in the current administration. Contraception is freely available - Iran has its own condom factory - as is abortion, in certain circumstances. But government minister or not, the home still remains a woman's responsibility.
Meanwhile, her sisters in Western-backed Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are not allowed to vote, never mind hold public office. In Saudi Arabia, they are not allowed even to drive, and may not be looked at by a man. But, as in those countries too, women are not allowed to sing, or dance, in Iran.
Googoosch, a popular female singer in the Shah's time, was banned from public performances in Iran after the 1979 revolution. In line with deeply resisted attempts at liberalisation by the current regime of President Khatami, she has been allowed to leave the country recently to perform in Canada.
And men never shake a woman's hand. That too is haram - forbidden - even when women are members of a group at a meeting. At its conclusion, the men on both sides shake hands but the Iranian men will just nod to the women present.
It is all about sex, not equality. And the most ascetic sort of sex consciousness - that of the elderly academic cleric - with its passion for bruising the body to pleasure the soul. An indication is the doctoral thesis of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. There, apparently, he found it would not be a sin if, during an earthquake, a man's aunt fell on him from the upper floor of a collapsing house and she became pregnant as a result. But it would be sinful for a man to sit on a seat still warm after a woman had been sitting there. Lustful thoughts and all that.
Under the terms of this sort of Islam, nudity is always haram, even between husband and wife. Even in the marriage bed. And intercourse must be complete before the woman orgasms, lest that too would promote lust. Sex, for both genders, is strictly about biology, not pleasure. Forget all that hocus-pocus about relationship enhancement. And children must never see even their parents' legs uncovered.
And so, in the endless war against lust, women must be covered from head to toe. This, apparently, is a practice which precedes Islam. It was rooted in the nomadic lifestyle then dominant, when women were fair game for marauding gangs. Even women visiting Iran must dress from head to toe. However, under relaxations by the Khatami regime, women can now ride on the back of motorbikes, even if their hips are then clearly discernible.
Most Iranian women don't seem to have problems with wearing the chador. Even during the more liberal dress code days of the Shah, 70 per cent of them chose to do so. It's just the way it is.
"No, I don't mind wearing it. I've been doing so since I was nine," said 25-yearold university student, Farzaneh Tajic, at the National Museum of Iran in Tehran, her blue jeans showing beneath. She is a student of English translation and carried a book titled The Irish Short Story. Her favourite was "His Oedipus Complex" by Frank O'Connor. Many of the female students wear make-up.
But the 26-year-old woman artist at a Tehran gallery felt very differently. She wore a scarlet three-quarter-length coat, coloured scarf and, the ultimate act of rebellion, she shook hands. "Most Iranian women are very depressed and sad . . . they don't have any freedom. Even when it is very warm, we have to wear the chador in the street. There is no privacy," she said. She hopes to go to Europe to further her art studies.
On the gallery wall, was one of her paintings. It was titled Tragedy. A large lush green canvas featuring two sad figures at its centre drawn in a primitive style, it might have been titled "After Munch".
And then there was Kish. It is an island in the Persian Gulf which is being developed as a resort, aimed mainly at Iranians who currently go to nearby states to holiday. To a Western sensibility, it is one of the most absurd places on earth. It carries gender apartheid to hilarious lengths. There are separate beaches for men and women, including husbands and wives. Women must wear the chador at all times, even in the water and though temperatures can be 40 degrees or more (with humidity around 80 per cent). Men can wear short sleeves, but they cannot wear shorts. One tiny sealed-off beach on the island allows men and women be together. It is the "foreigners' beach", which is used mainly by ever-decadent embassy staff, from Tehran.
There is a nightclub on the island, called Picasso. Only men can go there and it serves only soft drinks, as alcohol is banned everywhere in Iran. A used-car salesman type insisted otherwise. Alcohol was available "as long as you keep quiet", he said, "in orange juice". He had been to such a place on the island the night before and was thinking of buying it. He was from Tehran but felt Kish was the future. He wanted to get into business there. He might even create a golf course.
He was speaking while awaiting a flight to Tehran at Kish airport. It was crowded with people taking back to Tehran large numbers of TVs, videos and vacuum cleaners, from the duty-free Paradise I and Paradise II shopping malls on Kish, with their Western-style designer goods at more than Western-style prices. Kish is an infant Gran Canaria that has yet to start crawling. For now, it's building site.
The daughter of the former president, Hashemi Rafsangani, is in charge of development on the island. According to local lore, she is from a remarkably talented family. One brother, it is said, handles distribution for Daewoo cars in Iran. A sister runs a hospital in Tehran. While another brother is believed to handle distribution for Coca Cola in Iran. This latter brother is said to be particularly ingenious. It seems there was a problem when it emerged the base for Coke's Middle Eastern distribution was in Israel. He could hardly import the concentrate from Israel. So it was arranged the concentrate would be re-exported to Spain and be imported from there to Iran.
Meawnhile, Rafsangani himself is currently holder of the splendid title "chairman of the Expediency Council" in Tehran. His right-wing, clerical-dominated JRM party candidate was defeated by Mohammad Khatami in the 1997 presidential election. Its candidates, including Rafsangani himself, were unsuccessful in the parliamentary elections last February, and it has since decided not to put up a candidate in the presidential election next May.
However, right-wing members of the judiciary have closed 23 newspapers and magazines, most of them pro-Khatami, and jailed as many journalists since April this year. They are being blamed for the JRM party's problems with voters. Included is journalist Ebraham Nabavi, who pleaded guilty - with some zest - in court last month to ridiculing top officials. He told the court he was solely responsible for what he had written. "I never listen to editors because I believe I know more than they do," he said. He is due to be sentenced this month.
But if there is a tide in the affairs of men, in Iran it is towards liberalisation. In a country where the population has doubled to 69 million in 15 years, and where an estimated 85 per cent are under 27 - 44 per cent under 15 - this is hardly surprising. The young have enjoyed the relaxations of the past few years and want more.
They are a post-revolutionary generation wishing for the things and freedoms of the post-modern world. Though they live in a country where there is no personal taxation, education is free to third level, up to 70 per cent of the cost of healthcare is free - with provision for those who cannot afford the additional 30 per cent - staple foods are subsidised, and petrol costs less than 10 cents a litre. Milk is more expensive, costing about 13 cents a litre.
However, the standard of living is low. Teachers and policemen earn about $100 a month, with doctors, engineers and civil servants make about $200 a month.
Meanwhile, censorship is rife with the country's six TV stations and all its radio stations controlled by a minister answerable only to the "Supreme Leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, over the head of President Khatami. During the last presidential election campaign, they broadcast only edited selections from Khatami's speeches. Despite this, he won a massive vote. The same people still control the media in Iran as then, ensuring back-to-back broadcasts of black-turbaned or white-turbaned clergy presiding at rallies or prayer services. But there is lots of sport, mainly soccer and wrestling.
They tell a joke in Tehran about a man who wanted to dump his black and white TV and buy a colour one. "Why do that?" asked his perplexed neighbour, "there are only black turbans and white turbans."
They like to joke in Iran. Privately. Especially about the clergy and politicians. They call Rafsangani "The Shark", partly because he has no hair. There's the story about him swimming in the Persian Gulf when a school of sharks moves in for the kill before recognising him. "Ah, the son-in-law," says one shark, before welcoming him. And the former president's languid speaking style has given rise to some hilarious imitations.
After visiting the sumptuous Shah's palace in Tehran, a local man spoke of the corruption of the Shah's family. The conversation shifted to current times. Animal Farm, he commented on reports of corruption in high places once more, in a plus que ca change tone. Everything changes, everything remains the same.
A growing private enterprise cadre is emerging in Iran. It is coming primarily from the Revolutionary Guard - a force of devout young men set up to protect the revolution - and currently accounts for the five per cent of the economy which is not state controlled.
They are men who, generally, are aware in advance of what is to be privatised and have set up structures in anticipation to take control of and own the new companies. This also suits the leadership, which trusts such men before others. Such men and their families.
All revolutions end in failure, whether enacted for God's sake or that of the people; many Iranians have come to that view. Even some, it seems, among the guardians of the revolution. The sooner it is fully realised at the top in Iran the better for its warm, generous, and good-humoured people.