Iran: The security man in the dark-green uniform called me back after I'd cleared the X-ray machines at Mehrabad airport. What, I wondered, had I done wrong this time?
"Where are you going?" he intoned. "Paris," I said, ticking through a mental checklist: visa extension in order; perhaps my headscarf had slid back too far? A smile burst over the gruff, bearded face. "Then say hi to Chirac for me!" the giant said cheerily, no longer a menace. The Islamic Republic of Iran never ceases to surprise me.
My visit began less propitiously. Late on a Friday evening, I was taken out of the immigration queue and held for an hour with monosyllabic orders: "Sit. Wait. Follow."
This puzzling interlude ended in a small office where my fingers were coated in black ink and rolled one by one, then all together, over a fingerprint card. I was not even offered a tissue to wipe my inky digits.
"Sorry," the immigration officer shrugged before letting me go without explanation.
For years, I learned a few days later, the US has systematically fingerprinted every Iranian entering America, so Iran decided to retaliate in kind. Jaafar Panahi, the famous film-maker, objected and he was chained to a chair. I met educated Iranians who refuse to travel to the US, to avoid what they see as humiliation.
Mohamed, my driver, is so religious that he kissed a tiny Koran and rubbed it on his forehead repeatedly for protection during the two-hour drive to Qom. Yet he says the tragedy of his life was his failure to emigrate to America.
Outside Jamkaran shrine, nine-year-old Malika Baraghi's family prayed for the return of Mehdi, the 12th Imam. When I asked the pretty child what she wanted to do when she grew up, she answered: "Go to America!"
These Iranians' American dream has no relation to George Bush's hope of "regime change" in Iran.
Mernoush and Danoush are well-to-do housewives in their early 30s. They wear tight jeans and designer sunglasses and frequent a coffee shop in Jam-e-Jam centre, a western-style food court over a supermarket selling imported goods.
Like most of the affluent Iranians I met, Mernoush and Danoush also hold Canadian citizenship. If a war starts, they'll go to Toronto. They're nostalgic for the Pahlavi monarchy, but they don't trust the US. "I'm afraid they'll make Iran like Iraq," says Danoush, sipping her cappuccino. "Bush wants to exploit the Third World and boss everybody around," Mernoush adds.
"Write this down," Danoush dictates to me. "The Iranian people love their country. They don't want the US to make decisions for them. That's a kind of freedom too."
The housewives dislike president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but say he's genuinely popular. How do they know, I ask, trying to imagine these fashionable ladies outside north Tehran. "Our maids tell us," Mernoush explains. "They adore him. He raised wages by 10 per cent in March."
In Iran, every observation has its paradox. I've never seen the capital so prosperous. Shop displays glitter with luxury clothes and elegant furniture. Restaurants like Le Boulevard and L'Entrecôte offer gourmet meals at European prices.
Despite huge import taxes, late model French and German cars ply Tehran's monstrous traffic.
This veneer of prosperity is the result of high oil prices. Last week, as oil rose to a record $75 a barrel, Mr Ahmadinejad said the price still wasn't high enough.
But the oil money conceals economic paralysis induced by the fear of war.
"My husband is a builder," says Mernoush. "His construction sites have ground to a halt since Ahmadinejad's election." Danoush's husband owns a plastic factory. "There's no business, and taxes have shot up," she says.
My friend Roya seems to embody Iran's contradictions. When I first met her 15 years ago, she was a convinced revolutionary. Now she's a restless mix of questioning, criticism and national pride. Iranian men are hopelessly sexist, she told me when I arrived, saying she despaired of ever seeing gender equality in Iran.
But, a few days later, when someone asked what I thought of the status of Iranian women, Roya was enraged by my answer. My sin? Comparing Iran with nearby Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Little matter that I said Iranian women were far better off.
"Our women are doctors, lawyers and entrepreneurs, and you dare compare us to Afghans and Saudis!" Roya shouted at me.
"You westerners are all alike - you can't see beyond the little piece of fabric we wear on our heads."
I suspect the Persians' disdain for Arabs goes back to the seventh-century Arab conquest, which Islamicised the country.
"France good. Italy good. America good," a hotel porter told me, emphatically, adding: "Arabs bad."
An Arab businessman married to an Iranian woman regards the Islamic Republic with affection and a certain wariness.
"Iranians hang a beautiful necklace round your neck," he says. "Every day, they pretend to adjust it, tightening it as they do so. At the end, without your realising it, you've been strangled."