Road to Persepolis

'It's hot,' I remark carelessly. It's 38ºC and there is no air-conditioning in the car. If my guide Fateme is suffocating in her heavy grey overcoat and navy blue headscarf, she doesn't show it. (I have no 'legal relationship' to her in any Shariah-compliant sense - but we haven't been stopped or arrested by the morality police. Yet.)

'It is hot,' she agrees, fanning herself with my National Geographic. 'When I was young, I used to complain about the summers. "But without the heat," my father would say, "how will the dates and watermelons ripen?"'

A time and a place for everything.

'Your father is a poet and philosopher,' I say, approvingly.

'You also are a philosopher?' Fateme asks me. 'You studied sociology?'

'Oh no. I was a very boring and serious-minded young man. I studied law.'

'But you are interested in different people and places?'

'Yes.'

'What do you know about Iran?'

'Enough to know that you can't always believe what you read about it in the press.'

I also mention Marjane Satrapi's film and the Forgotten Empire exhibition at the British Museum some years back. Fateme isn't aware of the former, but has heard of the latter.

'When I see an article like this,' says Fateme, gesturing at the cover of the National Geographic, 'it makes me proud.' I smile. I had picked up the magazine at Sharjah Airport, and the feature article in this month's edition is quite serendipitously entitled 'Persia: Ancient Soul of Iran'. There is a beautiful photo-essay of the sites we are to visit: Parsagadae, Persepolis and Naqsh-e Rostam. 'You will see all of them today,' says Fateme to me, as we thumb through the article. Then she browses through the other articles. She finds a picture of a bare-chested young man releasing turtles on a beach. 'Here,' I say, gently confiscating the magazine so she doesn't find the picture of couples kissing in a Muscovite square. Instead, I show her the delicate landscape pictures of rural Japan - a stark contrast to the sere countryside we are passing through (but 'like the mountains near Tabriz', Fateme thought). Then, with a perverse schoolboy glee, I decide to show her the picture of a monkey being grilled in an African market. Its charred hands look preposterously human. Fateme winces, and I hurriedly put the magazine away. 'Bushmeat - ghastly,' I murmur, by way of apology.

'Smell the rice,' says Fateme, as we drive through a patch of green paddy fields.

I draw a deep breath, but catch only the scent of the baking upholstery of the car.

'So what about you, Fatima? Are you a student?'

'Yes. I have studied science, but in October I will go to Tehran to study women's rights.'

I hadn't realised that was an option, and express surprise.

'In Iran, women can be lawyers, but they cannot be judges... But Tehran is a long way from Shiraz, so my family will be sad.'

'Do you have any friends in Tehran?'

'I have an uncle and his family. But I will make new friends.'

And I sensed she would do.

Fateme - you will probably never read this, but your intelligence, courage and optimism are admirable. I wish you well for your studies!