The House of the Mosque

by Kader Abdolah

  Aqa Jaan had received a secret message from Qom, informing him that Khalkhal had crossed illegally into Iraq and joined Khomeini.

  Khalkhal was clever. He’d gone to Iraq for a reason, no doubt sensing that Khomeini would one day seize power and realise his long-cherished dream of establishing an Islamic Republic.

  Aqa Jaan now understood why Khalkhal had abandoned his wife and child.

  On the streets, however, there was no sign of a transfer of power or an approaching revolution. The shah was experiencing the best years of his reign. In a recent interview in The Times, he’d said that he didn’t feel threatened at all and that his country was an oasis of peace.

  Fearing Soviet expansion, America was content to let the shah rule Iran. He was always the first to buy the latest American fighter planes and weapons, and he deposited a large part of the nation’s oil revenues in American banks.

  The shah was convinced that he was the best head of state the Americans could wish for, which is why he thought he could count on their unconditional support. He felt sure that they would never let him down and saw no reason to worry about someone like Khomeini, sitting out his exile in Iraq.

  And so he quietly and confidently prepared his son for that far-off day when he would accede to the throne.

  While Ahmad was throwing himself wholeheartedly into the activities of the mosque, Shahbal was preparing to go to the University of Tehran. He wanted to study Persian literature, but Aqa Jaan had advised him against it. ‘You can study Persian literature at home; you don’t need a university to do that. You have talent. Study mathematics or engineering or business administration. We already have more than enough classics in our family library. What this house needs is the spirit of modernity.’

  When it was time for Shahbal to leave for Tehran, Aqa Jaan drove him to the station. ‘I’ve noticed a couple of things, but I’m not sure if I should tell you about them,’ he said to Aqa Jaan in the car.

  ‘What sort of things?’ Aqa Jaan asked.

  ‘Well, I’ve bumped into Ahmad up on the roof a few times, standing behind the dome and smoking. He’s old enough to know whether or not he should smoke, but those cigarettes of his have a funny smell . . . like something an imam shouldn’t be smoking. He also sneaks off occasionally to strangers’ houses to smoke opium. I thought you ought to know.’

  ‘I’m glad you told me,’ Aqa Jaan said after a long silence. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Is there anything else I should know?’

  ‘Not really. Women are his weakness. I’ve noticed him once or twice in the mosque taking more liberties with women than an imam ought to.’

  ‘I’ve noticed that too. He needs to be careful. We have a lot of enemies in this town.’

  At the station he escorted Shahbal to the train in silence.

  Shahbal had not talked about his religious doubts again since the night he’d first mentioned them. Aqa Jaan had tried to broach the subject, but Shahbal wasn’t ready to discuss it further, so he left him in peace.

  Now that they were standing on the platform, Aqa Jaan wanted to tell him to be careful at the university, but Shahbal didn’t give him the chance. He hugged Aqa Jaan, kissed him and boarded the train.

  Aqa Jaan waited on the platform until the train had moved off and disappeared from view.

  Aqa Jaan kept a close watch on Ahmad.

  One evening he saw Zarah taking a tray of tea and dates to the library at an unusual hour. He knew that Ahmad was in there reading, so he followed her. Through the chink in the curtains he watched her lean over Ahmad and set the tray on his desk. Ahmad slid his hand up her blouse. She stood still and let him touch her. Then Ahmad stood up, lifted her skirt and pressed her against a bookcase.

  The next morning Aqa Jaan called Zarah into his study. ‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing amicably towards a chair.

  She took a seat, shyly.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point. I’m very happy with your work here. We couldn’t wish for a better maid. But I’m giving you a choice: you can either stay away from Ahmad, or you can pack your bags and go! Is that clear?’

  Zarah was too stunned to reply.

  ‘Is that clear?’ he repeated.

  She nodded mutely.

  ‘So which is it going to be? Do you want to stay here, or shall I send you back to your parents?’

  ‘I want to stay here,’ she said, her voice trembling.

  ‘Fine. And now get back to work. Muezzin needs some assistance, so if you’re not too busy, you can help him. That’s all. You may go.’

  That evening after the prayer Aqa Jaan asked Ahmad to walk down to the river with him. As they strolled along the banks in the waning light, he gave Ahmad a severe talking-to, making it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate his vulgar behaviour to women and that his use of opium was an affront to the mosque. If Ahmad was not prepared to heed his advice, he would have to curtail his freedom.

  Ahmad listened to Aqa Jaan in silence.

  ‘Don’t you have anything to say in your defence?’

  Even that failed to get a response out of Ahmad.

  A few days later Aqa Jaan approached the father of the oldest carpet merchant in the city to discuss the possibility of a marriage between his daughter and Ahmad.

  One month later the family of the bride held a wedding banquet. At midnight the bride was brought to the house in a decorated coach. Though one of the bedrooms on the upper floor was to be hers, the guest room had been readied for the seven nights of the honeymoon.

  Ahmad was given a week off, and the family went to Jirya, so that he and his bride could spend some time alone. Lounging round the house in baggy cotton clothing that didn’t restrict his movement, Ahmad acted like a prince who had brought his young bride to a castle.

  His wife was named Samira. At eighteen, she was a classic beauty. On the first night Ahmad charmed her and made love to her until dawn, only falling asleep when it got light.

  At one o’clock that afternoon, Am Ramazan welcomed him to the Opium Room, where the pipe had already been laid out for him. Ahmad had asked Am Ramazan to arrange for a seven-day supply, since opium was said to be an aphrodisiac.

  After Ahmad had smoked a quarter of a roll of yellow opium, he went back upstairs and crawled into bed with his bride, who was fast asleep.

  Samira bore him a daughter, Masud. Everyone was delighted with the little girl, but the house was waiting for a son and successor to Ahmad.

  People still flocked to the mosque. Ahmad’s sermons were exciting to listen to, for he was a born storyteller. He had wonderful things to say about the tales in the Koran. He transported you with the magic of his words to the past, to the time of the prophet Muhammad, who used to make love to his young wife, Aisha, on the roof of his house. One time Ahmad told the following story:

  Muhammad had declared street musicians taboo. No Muslim was supposed to listen to their music. Then one day, as he lay with his young wife Aisha on the roof, he heard music drifting up from the street. Aisha begged him to let her take a look: ‘Let me see, let me see, let me see!’ Love won out. Muhammad bent down, and Aisha stepped onto his back and peeped over the balustrade at the musicians down below.

  This was the first time an imam had ever told such a tale in the mosque, but Ahmad was forever coming up with unusual stories that left his audience spellbound. Instead of an imam, he probably should have become a storyteller, an actor who charmed the crowds at the bazaar with his tales.

  Ahmad scheduled even more trips to important religious bastions such as Kashan, Arak, Hamadan and Isfahan. Sometimes he was gone for a whole week. And yet he always came back with two bags: one filled with money and gold, and the other with love letters and presents that veiled women had surreptitiously slipped into his pockets, such as socks, vests, underwear, colognes, soaps and rings.

  Although Ahmad had promised Aqa Jaan that he would stop, he continued to frequent clandestine opium dens throughout the city.

  To escape Aqa Jaan’s watchful eye, he accept
ed as many speaking engagements as possible in distant cities. There he met men who spirited him off to their favourite haunts, where they caroused with women and smoked opium until dawn.

  In Senejan Aqa Jaan kept him on a tight leash, which is how he came into contact with the underworld. What he didn’t realise, however, was that the secret police were laying a trap for him.

  Opium had been outlawed a year ago. Addicts were allowed to collect half a roll of opium from a chemist’s twice a month, provided they were registered with the authorities. Since he couldn’t go through the legal channels, Ahmad got his supply illegally.

  One night, he and two other men were smoking opium and enjoying the company of women in the cellar of a house in Senejan, when all of a sudden the secret police burst in. They took several pictures of Ahmad, seated beside two unveiled woman and an opium kit. After planting a few more illegal rolls of opium, they photographed the scene from every angle, clapped handcuffs on Ahmad and drove him to an unknown location, where an agent was waiting to speak to him.

  Ahmad had nothing to say. He knew that he’d been framed and that it wouldn’t be easy to get out of this predicament.

  ‘You can sleep in your own bed tonight and lead the prayer in the mosque tomorrow morning as usual,’ the agent told him, ‘on one condition.’

  ‘What’s the condition?’ Ahmad asked, his voice trembling.

  ‘That from now on you and I will keep in touch, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘No, I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘In that case things are going to get complicated, because I’ll have to send you straight to jail, where the morning edition of the paper will be brought to you at breakfast with your picture plastered across the front page. Maybe then you’ll figure out what I mean.’

  It was a long night. Ahmad wept soundlessly. He hadn’t expected his life to take such a terrifying turn.

  When dawn finally arrived, the agent came to his cell. In the meantime the photographs had been developed, and he showed one of them to Ahmad. ‘What’s it going to be?’ he asked. ‘Shall we have some copies made, or shall you and I have a little chat?’

  Ahmad had no choice. If the picture of him with the two unveiled women and the opium was published in the newspaper, his career would be over, and he would bring shame upon his family. So he went with the agent to his office, where he was given a chair and asked to fill in a form. ‘Provided we can reach an understanding, this will take only five minutes,’ the agent said. ‘After that I will personally escort you home. What we want you to do is simple. We want you to keep in close touch with Qom and to pass on whatever information we ask for. That’s all.’

  Half an hour later a car delivered Ahmad to the gate of the mosque. He stepped out. ‘You’ll be hearing from us,’ the agent said, and he drove off.

  Several months went by and nothing happened. Ahmad hoped and prayed that the secret police had merely wanted to scare him into submission. They had not forgotten Khalkhal’s campaign against the cinema and the riot he’d triggered during Farah Diba’s visit. No doubt they were trying to take revenge by holding Ahmad hostage.

  He hoped they’d dropped the idea of using him as an informer, because he wasn’t cut out for the job. It would be highly inappropriate for him, as an imam and as a person. But what kind of information could he pass on if he had to?

  He knew that the secret police were blackmailing him so he wouldn’t stir up trouble. Their little game had worked. He no longer dared to say anything about the shah or the rumblings in Qom.

  He cautiously allowed himself to feel happy again, and his fears gradually faded. But one evening, just after the prayer had ended, he suddenly saw the agent kneeling beside him in the prayer room.

  ‘How are you?’ the man whispered, with an intimidating smile.

  Horrified, Ahmad turned to see whether Aqa Jaan was sitting in the row behind him. He wasn’t.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked in a low voice.

  ‘As you know, Qom is in an uproar again. We want you to go there, make the rounds of the ayatollahs and find out what’s going on. I assume you still have my phone number?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ahmad said, his face ashen with fear. He leaned over and touched his forehead to the ground, as if he were continuing his prayer.

  When he sat up again, the agent was gone.

  With trembling hands, he slipped on his aba and hurried home, his shoulders hunched as if he were in the grip of a fever.

  The first thing he did when he reached the house was to go into Aqa Jaan’s study and fall to his knees. ‘Save me, Aqa Jaan!’ he wailed. ‘I’ve been framed!’

  Aqa Jaan, astonished at the sudden outburst, stared at his nephew.

  ‘The secret police have taken pictures of me! Dirty pictures, with women, opium! They want me to go to Qom and be an informer. If I don’t, they’ll publish the pictures in the paper!’

  Aqa Jaan sat speechless in his chair. This was the last thing he’d expected. ‘Where did it happen?’ he finally asked.

  ‘In a cellar here in town.’

  ‘The opium isn’t a problem, but who were the women?’

  ‘Siegeh women.’

  ‘The secret police are trying to even an old score. Have you cooperated with them in any way or worked for them before?’

  ‘No! Never!’ Ahmad said.

  ‘Have you ever passed on any information to them?’

  ‘No, none!’

  ‘I repeat,’ Aqa Jaan said, with emphasis, ‘have you ever told them anything?’

  ‘No, I haven’t said anything. I haven’t done anything,’ Ahmad replied.

  ‘Consider yourself lucky, because if you had, I would have kicked you out of the house this instant. However, if we act quickly, I think we can keep the damage to a minimum. Don’t breathe a word of this to anyone. In the next few months I’ll make sure you’re never left alone. I’ll go down to their headquarters tomorrow and see what I can do. They need us to keep the peace in Senejan, so they’re not about to print those pictures in the paper. They’re just using them to blackmail us. Don’t say a word. And no matter what happens, stick close to me.’

  ‘I have another confession to make,’ Ahmad said. ‘I can’t preach a sermon without smoking opium first. I’m sorry, I know how much this must hurt you.’

  ‘It does. It pains me even more than your other news,’ Aqa Jaan said sorrowfully. ‘Anyone can make a mistake, but your addiction is an insult, a humiliation to us all. I can’t bear to think that the imam of our mosque can’t preach unless he’s smoked opium first. You’ve hurt me to the quick. I’m not going to compromise on this, you’re going to have to kick the habit, even if I have to lock you in a cage. From now on you’re not to step foot outside this house unless I say so!’

  The next day Aqa Jaan cancelled all of Ahmad’s appointments and called the family doctor to ask if he could come in for a confidential chat.

  Going directly from the doctor’s office to the headquarters of the secret police, he demanded to see the director immediately, even though he hadn’t made an appointment. He was ushered into the office and seated in a big leather armchair. The director showed him the photographs of Ahmad. Aqa Jaan had no choice: he had to make a deal. He promised to keep the mosque free of the trouble that was now plaguing Qom and, in return, the director agreed to keep the photographs in his drawer.

  That evening Aqa Jaan opened his journal. ‘The imam of our mosque is addicted to opium,’ he wrote. ‘We are in for hard times.’

  Quiet Years

  A long time passed in relative tranquillity.

  Aqa Jaan got Ahmad back in line by making him follow a strict set of rules and not letting him travel to other cities by himself until he was sure that he had conquered his addiction.

  Though the matter of the photographs had been taken care of, Aqa Jaan thought of it as a turning point in the history of the mosque.

  At first Shahbal came home from university at least once a month, and then his visits t
apered off. Sometimes he phoned Aqa Jaan at the bazaar, but all they did was talk about business: ‘How are you? How’s the work going?’

  ‘What can I say? The world has changed, my boy. We need a man with new ideas. I’m getting old.’

  ‘You? Old? You’re not old!’

  ‘Well, maybe not old, but old-fashioned. You can’t compete these days at an international level with the traditional methods we use here. Study hard; I need you. We’ll talk about it the next time you come home.’

  But when Shahbal did come home, it was late at night, and the next evening he’d take the night train back to Tehran, so there was never any time to discuss the carpet trade and the bazaar.

  Shahbal had not yet told Aqa Jaan, but he was no longer interested in business and certainly not in carpets. At the university he had joined an underground student movement – a different group from the one he’d been involved with in the Red Village.

  He soon found himself appointed to the editorial board of the clandestine student newspaper, where he felt at home. Since he wrote well and was more mature than his fellow students, he was quickly regarded as a man with leadership potential.

  Shahbal had changed, but so had the world around him. The bazaar, which used to play such an important role in Senejan, had been relegated to the sidelines. Persian rugs were no longer the determining factor in either the economy or in politics; their place had been usurped by gas and oil.

  Aqa Jaan had once wielded a great deal of power in the bazaar, and the authorities had always held him in high regard. Now they had grown so bold that they dared to send secret policemen to the mosque and to suggest that the imam be used as an informer. The mayor used to call him at least once a week to maintain contact between the bazaar and the local government, but the new mayor hadn’t even invited Aqa Jaan to his inaugural banquet, much less phoned him. Some of the other merchants had been invited, however, which meant that the regime was attempting to destroy the unity of the bazaar. Meanwhile the bazaar was losing its dominant position as the producer of carpets. Several new carpet factories had sprung up in the city. In the old days no one would have dreamed of buying a cheap factory carpet that reeked of plastic, but nowadays everyone seemed to have one.