Destination: Tehran

Nothing special differentiated him from other solo travelers, no conspicuous attire, no unusual facial features, no outrageous tattoos or piercings. Sure, in retrospect, I had recognized his frenetic movement as strange. Slinging a thin backpack over one shoulder, he kept pacing in the transit area near the gate, zigzagging amid rows of interconnected chairs. Occasionally, he would sit as if he was playing musical chairs, only to jump up again and continue his trek. During one of his stops he sat two seats away from me and immediately sparked up a conversation with the girl sitting on his other side.

The girl had been on my flight from Toronto to Frankfurt. Her Bermuda shorts had since changed into long jeans. She'd soon need to cover her halter top too as we were heading to Tehran. A striptease in reverse.

"Going to Iran, ha?" His voice was squeaky.

The girl only nodded.

"Me too! After thirty-two years." He was excited by his own announcement. "I bet you weren't even born when I left."

She shook her head no and then fished out a pair of pink headphones and plugged them into her ears. I could hear Adele's voice spilling out.

But he wasn't deterred. The next time I raised my head from my Kindle I found him entertaining an old woman, outlining the enormity of something with expanding hands. Then, I received a text message from my parents in Tehran, confirming my arrival time, and I totally forgot about the man. For a while.

Once the general boarding was announced, we formed a line. The majority of the passengers were, of course, Iranians. A few foreign businessmen and a handful of daredevils willing to venture into a country that most tourists would avoid filled the crowd. I found the man on the plane, sitting next to a window seat that happened to be mine. He was going to be my companion for the next five hours.

We exchanged obligatory smiles, and then he pulled his legs close to his body so that I could slide through. Once I settled in my seat, I yanked out the plane magazine as if to show my disinterest. I wasn't very convincing.

"I'm going back after thirty-two years. You probably weren't even born."

His breath smelled, a mixture of nicotine and rotten food. I was still leafing through the magazine, and in it I found The Revenant among the flight movies. Will I be able to watch it in the air? I wondered.

"I was three, actually," I said, not certain whether that would lead to a longer conversation or a shorter one.

"Oh, you're older than you look." Flashing a knowing smile, he continued, "But not old enough to have experienced the revolution."

He said it as if the revolution divided his countrymen into two species: those who "experienced" it, and those unlucky ones born after. I returned his smile but held back any response that could provoke him. The trick seemed to work. But then he leaned sideways, toward me, as if to share some secret. The arrival of a short and plump woman in her sixties, gasping for breath, interrupted him. The glitter in her eyes meant the seat number on her boarding pass matched the unoccupied seat on the man's left. The man offered to manhandle her shiny carry-on bag into the overhead compartment. She accepted with a grateful nod.

As she descended into her seat in an unwieldy manner, a collar of golden bracelets jingled on her hand. "My daughter kept insisting on buying me a business class. I should have listened."

"Ma'am, you'll get used to it, living a few hours among us comrades," the man said, counting me as his comrade in a collusive glance.

I'm a discipline freak when it comes to long flights. There's a folder in my laptop labeled "Flight Friendly" that contains lighthearted material to read—Jo Nesbø-style thrillers. I even plan chunks of sleep meticulously in a self-devised approach to suffer the least possible jetlag during...