In the city’s public safe rooms, the mood is oddly uplifting. People play backgammon, entertain children, help each other—the only thing they ask for is more sleep.

From two floors underground, I close my eyes and picture the night sky alit with massive bombs and missile interceptors, parrying and reposting like swords.

It is just after dawn on October 2, 2014—two days before the start of Yom Kippur—and Tehran’s notoriously bad traffic is already clogging the roads,