Athena, Yusef and I had pledged to give some money to the poor so that our trip would be sorted. On our last night in Tehran (Friday 22 August), Hossein’s niece and nephew came round to say goodbye, so I grabbed the chance to put the money pledge in an envelope and send it over to my sister-in-law to pass on to a relative and on to the poor.
As I scrubbed the cooker ready for our departure early the following morning, I was going over the adventure we had with this year’s Greek holiday. Then I remembered what happened the previous Thursday (14 August) when Hossein’s brothers and sisters and their families and we four took a picnic in a park in central Tehran by way of a goodbye.
I sat on a bench with two of my sisters-in-law. A beggar came by holding a small box with folded pieces of paper in the one hand and a parakeet on the other. Each paper carries a lyric poem, a ghazal, by Hafez, Iran’s most famous mystical poet, and an augury relating to the poem and presumably giving advice to the reader of the augury. Without warning, the deaf-and-dumb beggar put the parakeet on my hand and proferred the box to it; I was startled, felt some humidity on my hand, motioned to the man to take the bird away. It picked out an augury and the man indicated that I should take it.
I can’t remember the poem, but the augury said: a journey is on the cards, but it will be problematic; however, the problems will be solved by giving money to charity.
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