The House of the Mosque

by Kader Abdolah

  Never before had the paper printed a picture of an imam. A photographer had been sent to the mosque, and Janeshin had been photographed on the roof, standing between the two minarets.

  The next day, when the imam saw his picture in the paper, he was so excited he couldn’t sit still. His dream had come true. Ever since he was a little boy, he’d dreamed of speaking in a big mosque. Now that his sermon and his picture had appeared in the paper, he was suddenly a local celebrity.

  According to the laws of the sharia, Zinat and Janeshin were doing nothing wrong and didn’t need to be so secretive. If a Muslim is away from his lawfully wedded wife for any length of time, he may take a temporary wife, a sigeh. But Janeshin knew that it was risky and that Aqa Jaan would send him packing if he found out.

  Zinat was uncomfortable with her status as a sigeh. She was ashamed of herself for going to bed with Janeshin in the same mosque in which her husband and dozens of his predecessors lay buried. She refused to come to him every night, as he begged her to, for fear that Aqa Jaan would find out.

  When she saw Janeshin in the daylight, she found it hard to believe that she had let him undress her and make love to her. It was different in the dark. She couldn’t see him then, she simply felt his hands, his shoulders, his back, his thrusting hips. He was as strong as an ox.

  The moment it was over, Zinat would snatch up her chador and scurry home, wanting nothing more to do with him. She couldn’t bear to hear him utter another word. But the next night, after she’d turned off the light and crawled into bed, she missed his body.

  Alsaberi, her late husband, had never kissed her breasts or bitten into her buttocks in an animal frenzy. Janeshin, by contrast, brought her to such blissful heights that she forgot everyone and everything.

  Recently he’d taken her down to the crypt, where he had undressed her and made love to her on the cold hard tombstones. She had protested, spluttering that she didn’t want to do it on the tombstones, but he had insisted, and she’d thrown her arms around him, clung to him and surrendered herself.

  ‘I’m never going to do it again, I’m never going back to that man,’ Zinat always told herself as she tiptoed back to her room. ‘It’s over. I’m lucky no one has found out. I have to stop, and I will. I’ll go away for a while, I’ll go and visit my daughter in Qom and stay with her for a few weeks. I’ll go to Fatima’s tomb to show my remorse and beg for forgiveness. Yes, that’s what I’ll do, I’ll leave tomorrow, I’ll pack my bags and go.’

  But she hadn’t gone and was now on her way to his room again.

  Janeshin heard her walking softly towards the steps. For a moment she was swallowed up in the darkness of the stairwell, then she emerged to wash her hands in the mosque’s hauz and splash some water on her face.

  Janeshin wanted to take her down to the crypt again, but she refused. Then he put his big hands around her waist and lay his head between her breasts, and she melted. He scooped her into his arms, opened the door to the cellar and carried her downstairs.

  Deep in the darkness a candle was burning on top of a tall headstone. He took off her clothes, her shoes and her socks and led her barefoot into the candlelight, where he took off his imam robe and laid it on the headstone. Out of nowhere he suddenly produced a bunch of purple grapes, which he placed on her breasts and ate one by one. The juice ran down her breasts and over her belly, and when he lapped it up, Zinat thought she’d die of ecstasy.

  They were so engrossed in what they were doing that they didn’t notice the person striding past the cellar window with a lantern.

  Janeshin was drunk, from both Zinat and the grape juice. As he lay on top of her he recited the Al-Falaq surah:

  I seek refuge with Him,

  The Lord of the early dawn,

  From the evil He created,

  And from the evil of the night,

  As darkness falls.

  He spoke and Zinat listened with her eyes closed, unaware that a man with a lantern was coming down the cellar stairs.

  Suddenly she saw a flash of light and heard footsteps. She pushed Janeshin off her, grabbed her black chador and hid in the darkness.

  Janeshin wheeled around and saw a silhouette holding a lantern high above its head.

  ‘Imam! Pack your bags!’

  The Hajji

  Aqa Jaan sent for another substitute imam, an elderly man from Saruq who took things easy, devoting many of his sermons to the lives of the Muslim saints. Aqa Jaan was satisfied. The last thing the mosque needed right now was another firebrand.

  Three months had passed by. It was now time for the pilgrims who had gone to Mecca to come home.

  Aqa Jaan was planning to celebrate the grandmothers’ return with a party, to which the whole family would be invited.

  Welcome-home parties for pilgrims were always special occasions. The house of the pilgrim was decorated with coloured lights, rugs were spread out in courtyards, sheep were sacrificed. For an entire week friends, relatives and neighbours dropped in to congratulate the pilgrims, and everyone was invited to eat. During such a mehmani, the honorary title of ‘hajji’ was bestowed on the pilgrims – a title they would proudly bear for the rest of their lives.

  Aqa Jaan wrote to Nosrat:

  Dear brother,

  You’ve been gone a lot lately. Please come home more often. I’ve invited everyone to the grandmothers’ welcome-home party, and I’m hoping you’ll come too. Try to be on time.

  The grandmothers have put their entire lives into this house, so the least you can do is be there for the most important celebration in their lives.

  The children all miss their Uncle Nosrat.

  See you soon!

  A few days later Nosrat phoned. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t come. I’ve got an important appointment. I promise to visit another time to make up for it.’

  The evening the grandmothers were expected home, Nosrat was scheduled to go to Tehran’s largest theatre, the one on Lalehzar Street, where the legendary singer Mahwash was to be performing. The theatre had hired Nosrat to take a series of artistic photographs of her, and Nosrat was determined not to miss the appointment. If his portraits turned out well, his reputation as an artist would be made.

  Mahwash was a star who had changed Tehran’s nightlife for ever. It wasn’t so much her voice as the way she moved her arms, her breasts, her hips. She was the dream of every Persian male, the symbol of an era in which women had cast off their chadors and gone outside without their veils.

  Men burned with desire as they watched her perform. She bewitched them with the movements of her bare arms and undulating breasts. Her high heels, slinky low-cut dress and red-lipsticked mouth drove them wild. She revealed the secrets that no decent Persian woman had ever before revealed to the masses of men who crowded to the theatre to see her. Tehran’s theatre owners treated her like a goddess, and photographers bumped and jostled each other to get a good shot.

  Mahwash was the first woman in the history of the country to show her breasts and wiggle her hips on stage in a conspicuously tight dress. She would raise her plump, bare arms and shake her ample behind. At a certain point she would stick out her backside and sing in her sensuous voice:

  To ke az Hend aamadi

  baa machin-e Benz aamadi.

  Aan qadr budi, aan qadr shodi.

  Jun-e man, begu,

  in kun kajeh?

  Here you are just back from India,

  Driving your fancy Mercedes-Benz.

  A nobody when you left, a big shot now.

  Darling, be honest for once and tell me,

  Do you think my backside’s too big?

  ‘No, no, who told you that?’ the men shouted happily.

  ‘Madar shuhar, my mother-in-law!’ she shouted back.

  ‘Baa tu lajjeh, she’s just jealous!’ the men bellowed in return.

  Even though Mahwash’s picture appeared in the newspapers almost daily, no photographer had ever made a portrait of her. Nosrat had persuaded the owner of the Mulan
Ruzh (Moulin Rouge) Theatre, who was a friend of his, to let him take some photographs that would truly immortalise her.

  She had agreed to receive him in her own home, because the theatre owner had assured her that Nosrat wasn’t like other photographers, that he wasn’t doing it for the money, but for her.

  Just as Nosrat was entering Mahwash’s house, Aqa Jaan and Fakhri Sadat were driving to the railway station to welcome the grandmothers. Behind them was a procession of cars filled with friends and relatives.

  The train they were meeting was full of returning pilgrims. They had been travelling for three weeks. First they’d been driven in buses from Mecca to Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. Then they’d gone from Saudi Arabia to Iraq to see the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala. The tomb of Hussein was in Karbala, and that of Ali in Najaf. Finally they’d taken a boat across the Arvand River, which marked the border between Iran and Iraq, and boarded the train that was to bring them home.

  Everyone was thinking of the grandmothers, especially the children, who were looking forward to the presents the pilgrims usually brought back from Mecca, such as watches that glowed in the dark like lanterns and alarm clocks that played sacred songs. There would be rings and bracelets for the girls, and belts decorated with proverbs for the boys. The unforgettable presents were treasured by one and all, for they weren’t ordinary gifts, purchased in any old shop, but gifts from Mecca, the city where the Kaaba, the House of God, was located. The city where Muhammad had been born and where his wife Khadijah, the richest woman in Mecca, had once owned three thousand camels.

  The train they had come to meet was a special one that stopped at every major city in the country. It had been designed with the pilgrims in mind. Green was the colour of Islam, so green flags adorned the railway carriages, green banners fluttered from the windows and every hajji had on a green scarf.

  The train blew its whistle long before it reached a city and pulled into the station, its headlights gleaming. The moment it stopped, an army band would strike up a welcoming song.

  Aqa Jaan parked his car in the square outside the station. The manager, dressed in a special uniform, welcomed him at the top of the stairs and waited for the rest of the family to arrive before ushering them into the VIP lounge, where servants offered them tea and biscuits on silver trays designed especially for the railway. Mosque singers sang melodious verses from sacred texts into hand-held microphones, while old crones tossed esfandi seeds into braziers, filling the room with a fragrant smoke. The waiting relatives treated everyone to sweets and fruit drinks, and railway employees poured rosewater out of silver jugs over the hands of the visitors.

  At last the train pulled into the station, and hundreds of pilgrims waved their green scarves at the crowd on the platform. The three railway carriages occupied by the group from Senejan stopped exactly in front of the door to the main hall. One by one the hajjis emerged with their bulging suitcases, while the manager welcomed them back over the loudspeaker.

  ‘Where are the grandmothers?’ Fakhri Sadat asked.

  ‘Still in the train, I suppose,’ Zinat Khanom replied. ‘You know them, they’re probably tidying up the compartment so they can leave it spick and span.’

  ‘Shahbal, why don’t you go and see what’s holding them up?’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘I’m afraid the train’s going to leave with them still on it.’

  Shahbal searched through the three railway carriages, but didn’t see the grandmothers. ‘They’re not here!’ he called through one of the windows.

  ‘Look in the other carriages. Maybe they got lost in the crowd.’

  It was a long train, so Shahbal ran from one carriage to the next.

  Aqa Jaan approached the manager. ‘My passengers haven’t alighted. They’re probably sitting in the wrong compartment and don’t realise they’re supposed to get out here.’

  The manager wrote down their names, went into his office and switched on the loudspeaker. ‘I have an important announcement for hajjis Golbanu and Golebeh. You should get out here. I repeat: hajjis Golbanu and Golebeh, get out here!’

  After ten minutes there was still no sign of the grandmothers.

  Shahbal came running up. ‘I’ve looked through every compartment and haven’t seen them anywhere. Maybe they got out earlier, in another city.’

  The pilgrims were leaving. When the platform was nearly empty, the engine driver climbed back into the train and shut the doors.

  The manager’s voice rang out over the platform one last time: ‘I have an urgent announcement for Miss Golbanu and Miss Golebeh. Please report immediately to the manager.’

  The conductor waited a moment, then looked at his watch and blew his whistle. The train chugged slowly out of the station, leaving Aqa Jaan and his whole family behind on the platform.

  For one solid week Aqa Jaan phoned every railway station between the Arvand River and Senejan, but no one had seen the grandmothers.

  He visited all of the recently returned hajjis, but they had no news for him either. The last time anyone had seen the two women had been in Mecca. Everyone had assumed they’d gone off with another group.

  The only thing to do was to wait for the travel guides to submit an official report, but they weren’t due back for several weeks.

  It didn’t usually rain during the summer, but a few dark clouds had gathered over Senejan and were moving towards the desert. Just as the first drops began to fall, there was a knock at the door.

  Shahbal switched on the light and looked out. Hajji Mustafa, the man who’d organised the pilgrimage, was standing by the gate with a suitcase in each hand.

  ‘Good evening. Is Aqa Jaan at home?’ the hajji asked.

  ‘Please wait. I’ll let him know you’re here.’

  Shahbal went away and came back a few minutes later to usher Hajji Mustafa into Aqa Jaan’s study.

  Hajji Mustafa put down the suitcases, embraced Aqa Jaan and launched into his tale: ‘Nothing like this has ever happened before. It’s a strange story. I can’t decide if it’s a blessing or a tragedy. It’s a blessing if they lost their way in the House of God, but a tragedy if they’re somewhere else.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Here are their suitcases. The grandmothers disappeared in the desert of Mecca like two drops of water. I searched everywhere, went to every police station, hospital and mosque in Mecca, but I could find no trace of them. They simply disappeared. Up until the last day they were part of the group and were doing fine. They were healthy and happy. Then a strange thing happened. An hour before we were to leave for Medina, they came to my office, left their suitcases by my desk, adjusted their chadors and left, without saying a word. I thought they’d gone to the bazaar one last time to buy some souvenirs, but they never came back. Here are the suitcases. I’m sorry, maybe I should have taken better care of them. Please accept my apologies. I’ll do whatever I can to find them. I promise to keep you informed.’

  After Hajji Mustafa’s departure, Aqa Jaan was left alone in the study with Shahbal. ‘I don’t believe for a second that they’re lost or are wandering round Mecca,’ Aqa Jaan said.

  ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘I think they probably hid behind the sacred curtain in the Kaaba. My guess is that they had no intention of coming back.’

  ‘But why hide?’ Shahbal asked, surprised.

  ‘They want to die in Mecca. It’s the most wonderful death any Muslim can imagine. I think the grandmothers talked it over and decided they’d lived their lives. They had a choice. They could either go home and wait to die an ordinary death, or they could die in the House of God. Anyone who dies in the Kaaba goes straight to Paradise. So what would you do if you were the grandmothers?’

  ‘I still can’t believe they decided to stay in Mecca. Why do you think they did?’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. They’ve lived in this house for over fifty years. For fifty long years they’ve been listening to ancient stories. Now they want to write a story of their
own.’

  Shahbal smiled.

  ‘Let’s open the suitcases,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘Maybe they left us a letter.’

  Shahbal opened the suitcases to find them full of gifts: watches, rings, gold bracelets, brightly coloured garments that glittered in the light of the overhead lamp – lovely gifts from Mecca for every person in the house.

  ‘This proves it,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘There are no personal belongings in the suitcases. They didn’t even pack their Mecca shrouds. Everyone dreams of buying a shroud in Mecca. It’s the first thing every hajji buys. The grandmothers must have their shrouds with them. Perhaps they’re even wearing them under their clothes.’

  ‘But what should we tell the others?’ Shahbal asked.

  ‘The truth. Please put the suitcases behind the desk and ask everyone to come in here.’

  Shahbal dealt with the suitcases and went off to find the rest of the family.

  ‘Hajji Mustafa was just here,’ Aqa Jaan informed the assembled family. ‘Unfortunately he had nothing new to report. He’s been in touch with the police in Mecca. The moment he hears anything, he’ll let us know.’

  They listened to Aqa Jaan in stricken silence.

  ‘Does this mean we’ll never see them again?’ asked Nasrin, Aqa Jaan’s elder daughter.

  ‘It’s not as though they could go anywhere,’ said Jawad, Aqa Jaan’s son. ‘The police ought to be able to find them.’

  ‘I know. Hajji Mustafa is doing all he can. Who knows, they might have taken a train to some other city. There are millions of pilgrims in Mecca, so maybe they got lost in the multitude. Still, the grandmothers have done a very generous thing: they left your gifts with Hajji Mustafa. To me, that’s proof that no harm has come to them,’ Aqa Jaan concluded. ‘Shahbal, open the suitcases!’

  Shahbal placed the suitcases on the desk and opened the lids. Everyone marvelled at the splendour and magnificence: watches, alarm clocks, gold necklaces, slippers, headbands, perfumes, colourful chadors, distinctive blouses and handbags. Every gift was labelled with the name of the recipient. For Nasrin and Ensi there were bright blouses; for Jawad a watch and a cap; for Fakhri Sadat a make-up bag; and for Muezzin a collapsible walking stick – something none of them had ever seen before. Zinat Khanom was given a volume of poetry written by poets from Mecca, Aqa Jaan a fountain pen with a picture of the holy Ali on the cap and Shahbal a watch and several yards of a navy-blue pinstripe that could be made into a suit.