Eastern Horizons by Levison Wood

Author:Levison Wood
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781473676282
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2017-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

12

A Pilgrimage

‘Farengi welcome’ announced the flickering neon sign above the door of the Shiraz hostel in Esfahan. Farengi is one of those odd misnomers that have taken hold as a result of some ancient slang. It comes from a mispronunciation of the medieval name Frank and dates back to the time of the crusades, when the Germanic Frankish kings were dominant figures in European politics – they gave their name to both France and Frankfurt. When the crusaders invaded the Near East, the local Muslims decided they all looked and sounded the same and forevermore, Europeans became known collectively as the Franks. The name spread throughout the Islamic world, and to this day it is the common term used for white Europeans everywhere from Bosnia to Malaysia in all its regional variations, franj, afraji, ferenghi, barang, farang.

It was still six in the morning and despite feeling cold, dirty and exhausted, I had walked the five kilometres from the bus station to the city centre in an effort to clear my head after a long, sleepless night on the bus. I marched through the streets in a trance-like state, weary and barely conscious of the city closing in around me. There wasn’t a soul in sight and my eyes remained focused on the cracked pavement that unfolded in front of me, until I happened to glance up and see that stuttering invitation.

The door was closed and after banging solidly for over a minute, I gave up. The Persians weren’t early risers, especially during Ramadan. I was too tired to walk any further, so I curled up on a bench outside, wrapped in my coat to ward off the morning dew.

I woke to the sound of giggling. Two elderly Iranian women dressed in full chador had sat on the end of the bench and they were keeping a watchful eye on a little girl, who was playing by herself. I sat up with a jolt, momentarily embarrassed, and attempted a dignified smile to the closest lady. She just stared at me with grey, vacant eyes. Looking at my watch, it was quarter past nine, and people had begun to fill the streets. A few old men hobbled around and the shopkeepers were dragging out their wares. A cat screeched angrily as a bucket of dirty water was ejected from the shadows of a garage.

By now the hotel was open and I asked for a room at the reception desk. The manager, a round forty-year-old, who had the look of an Italian waiter, showed me to a dormitory and even said that he would change my traveller’s cheques for the painful commission of twenty per cent. I had no choice but to agree and handed over fifty dollars.

I spent a small part of my winnings in a little tea house next door, where a few less pious Iranians were ignoring Ramadan with some vigour. With a stomach full of flatbread and honey, I set off feeling cheerful to a nearby park and watched

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