There is nothing more true-blue than a pastor of a small town making a sincere speech directly at you in a room full of forty people as if they aren’t there, and expecting an uncomplicated handshake deal to come of it. And there is nothing more exactly Iranian than to sit there nodding agreeably. That’s that tarof I told you about—the polite self-annihilation. The way of saying, “In your glory I turn to elemental dust, and hope only that it does not make you sneeze.”
