The House of the Mosque

by Kader Abdolah

  Khomeini was the leader of the Shiite world, a man who could move millions of people with a single speech, but he was lonely. He spent all day, sometimes all week, by himself in his study.

  He was a charismatic leader, and in turn everyone was always doing their best to impress him. Everyone except Nosrat, that is. Nosrat tried to be himself, in the hope that it would bring him closer to Khomeini.

  Khomeini knew nothing of maths and lacked even the most rudimentary knowledge of physics, but he was curious about such things as light, the moon, the sun and space exploration. He was particularly interested in meteorites.

  Nosrat, the akkas – the photographer – brought Khomeini into contact with a wondrous world he had never known before. He transformed Khomeini’s lonely nights into colourful and captivating nights in which he could forget his troubles.

  The first thing Nosrat did when he came into Khomeini’s room was to take off his jacket, hang it on the coat-rack and start talking about whatever films he’d brought along. ‘I have a couple of short films for you tonight,’ he began one evening. ‘Unique documentaries about the life of two animal species. One is about the social hierarchy of ants, and the other is about apes. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy them. You’ll be amazed at how much their behaviour resembles ours! After that, I have a fascinating film about the rocks floating around in space. There are billions of them, and every once in a while one of them crashes into the earth. It’s brilliant!’

  Khomeini looked at him in surprise. Even his own son didn’t feel this much at ease in his presence. He had heard that artists were a different breed, but Nosrat was the first artist he’d ever met.

  Nosrat’s function could be compared to that of a malijak, a fool, in the court of the ancient Persian kings. The fool was the only one who had access to the king’s private chambers and was free to say and do whatever he pleased, as long as he kept the king amused.

  ‘What’s the name of that television network?’ Khomeini had asked him once.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘That American network. The one that interviewed me a couple of times.’

  ‘You mean CNN?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one,’ he said.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. I’ve been told that the presidents of major countries have televisions in their offices and that they’re always tuned to CNN.’

  ‘That’s true. I’m surprised you don’t have a television.’

  Khomeini had neither a radio nor a television in his study. The news was always brought to him in written form.

  ‘I assume they speak only English on CNN?’

  ‘There’s also an Arabic channel. It’s like CNN, except that it broadcasts the news in Arabic,’ Nosrat told him. ‘I’ll bring you a television set, and you can watch it in your room.’

  The next day Nosrat brought in a portable television and set it up in Khomeini’s clothes cupboard, where no one would be able to see it. He showed Khomeini how to turn it on and off, and how to change the channel.

  ‘As long as it’s tuned to the Arabic channel, it will be fine,’ Khomeini said in a furtive whisper, as if this were some kind of covert operation.

  Several weeks later Nosrat received an unexpected call from a CNN reporter who knew about Nosrat’s close ties to Khomeini. They agreed to meet in a teahouse by the station. Nosrat told him about his work, and at the end of the conversation the reporter asked him cautiously if he might be interested in making a documentary about Khomeini.

  ‘What did you have in mind?’ Nosrat enquired, surprised.

  ‘A human-interest story.’

  Nosrat’s jaw dropped. For a long time he’d been thinking of doing something along those lines, but had decided it couldn’t be done.

  ‘CNN wants a thirty-minute special devoted to Khomeini’s private life,’ the reporter said. ‘Of course we’d pay you a fat fee in American dollars.’

  Nosrat wasn’t interested in the fee, what appealed to him was the human-interest angle. This was probably the opportunity of a lifetime, but he’d never be able to pull it off.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘He’d never give me permission to film him.’

  ‘You can always try,’ the reporter replied. ‘Think about it, and let me know if there’s anything I can do.’

  ‘Okay,’ Nosrat agreed.

  The scenes he wanted to film were already running through his head. He was so excited that night he couldn’t sleep. He would have liked to talk it over with someone, but didn’t dare, for fear that he’d jinx the project.

  One night, while Nosrat and Khomeini were strolling along the lake behind Khomeini’s house, Nosrat regaled him with information about satellites. He explained what they were and how they worked, and told him that, thanks to such technological advances, people could now see the president of the United States live on television, sitting in the Oval Office and drinking a cup of coffee.

  ‘Human beings are curious,’ he went on. ‘And to satisfy their curiosity, they invent things like satellites and launch them into space. They want to know everything about everyone, including you. For example, where you live, how you live and what you eat. There’s nothing wrong with curiosity.’

  Nosrat tried to lay the groundwork for his request, but he knew that the moment he said ‘CNN’, the word ‘America’ was sure to follow. He was afraid that if he broached the subject, he’d no longer be welcome, that Khomeini would order him to pack up his equipment and go.

  But he was too obsessed by the idea to stop. He always had his camera with him, so that night, after he’d come into Khomeini’s room and switched on the TV for him, he surreptitiously pressed the red button on his camera and filmed Khomeini, sitting barefoot on the floor behind the door of his wardrobe, secretly watching television.

  Over the next few months, Nosrat filmed dozens of short fragments: Khomeini walking along the lake and looking at the ducks, sparrows chirruping as they flew past his head, Khomeini stumbling over a log and his turban falling off and rolling into the lake, the ducks paddling over to the turban and plucking at it.

  In one of the scenes Khomeini is lying ill in bed. He’s sleeping on his side, with his face turned towards Mecca, exactly as the dead are laid to rest in Islamic graves. His wife comes into the room. She gently feels his forehead, then leaves without saying a word.

  In another shot you see him pacing up and down in his living room. He goes over to the sink, washes his hands, takes out his Koran and intently studies one of the pages. When he’s through, he picks up his pen, writes a few lines, puts the note in an envelope, seals it and calls his wife. ‘Batul!’

  She comes in. ‘Make sure the general gets this,’ he says, and he hands her the envelope.

  She takes it, tucks it beneath her chador, and hurries out.

  It didn’t take long for Khomeini to realise that Nosrat was surreptitiously filming him. And Nosrat, for his part, was sure that Khomeini had tacitly given his consent.

  One day the CNN reporter phoned Nosrat. ‘I haven’t heard from you, so I guess you decided not to accept our offer.’

  ‘I’ve got some great footage,’ Nosrat blurted out.

  Fifteen minutes later the reporter was at his door.

  Nosrat was so enthusiastic he didn’t realise he was being monitored by the new secret police. It never occurred to him that they might know about his contacts with CNN.

  The reporter came in. Nosrat made some tea, slid one of the tapes into the video recorder and sat down.

  The reporter couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Fantastic!’ he said.

  Before they’d viewed even half the tape, five armed men lowered themselves onto the balcony from the roof, kicked in the door, stormed inside and arrested Nosrat and the reporter. Two of the men were ordered to search the house. Anything remotely suspicious was packed into boxes and carted off.

  The CNN reporter was deported the next day. Nosrat was put in a cell to await further questioning. Only then did he discove
r that the secret police were taking the matter much more seriously than he’d thought. He knew that he’d taken huge risks and that the charges were serious, but he was counting on Khomeini to bail him out.

  Nosrat did his best to convince the interrogator that he had a great deal of respect for Khomeini and had been motivated by genuine regard.

  He explained that the footage was of historical value and therefore an important part of the country’s cultural heritage.

  He stressed that it had never been his intention to sell the material to the Americans, but that he had acted solely out of his love of cinematography.

  He swore that he had remained faithful to both Khomeini and his camera.

  And he hinted that Khomeini was aware of the fact that he was being filmed and that he could prove it if necessary.

  Nosrat’s defence seemed plausible. And they would have believed him if they hadn’t discovered another tape in his house – a tape so shocking and beautiful that Nosrat hadn’t known what to do with it. He’d hidden it behind the beams in his studio in the hope that no one would ever find it, and had promptly erased it from his mind because the thought of discovery was too awful to contemplate. Now the secret police had found it.

  ‘Be careful, Nosrat,’ Aqa Jaan had frequently warned him. ‘Women are bound to be your downfall.’

  Nosrat was always on the lookout for a special woman, whose beauty he could capture on film. It had never occurred to him, however, that that woman would turn out to be Khomeini’s wife.

  The interrogator laid the tape down on the table in front of him. Nosrat paled when he saw it. He knew that the game was up and was gripped with fear.

  What had he seen in the old woman that had made him suddenly, reluctantly, let his camera roll?

  Batul was the wife of the most powerful man in the Shiite world, but she herself was utterly powerless.

  Nosrat couldn’t explain how it had happened, but that powerless woman had silently forced him to film her, to record her movements, to preserve her image so that one day she might be shown to the world.

  All her life Batul had worn a veil. No stranger had ever seen her hair, her hands or her feet. And that is why she sometimes felt the need to show herself.

  At first Nosrat hadn’t realised what was going on. When he knocked on the door of their living room, Batul always opened the door and welcomed him with a smile. She was about twenty years younger than Khomeini, which you could clearly see in her face. She assumed the role of a gracious hostess – something devout wives didn’t ordinarily do – and yet Nosrat knew she wasn’t doing it because of him, but because of his camera.

  Batul was beautiful, and she wanted her beauty to be noticed. She yearned to be seen through the lens of a camera.

  Her wish was the same as that of every other Iranian woman who had suffered centuries of male oppression and had never been given the chance to display their beauty.

  She and Nosrat had reached a tacit agreement. He filmed her in silence.

  Thousands of pictures of Khomeini had been printed in the newspapers, but not even one small photograph of Batul had ever been published. It was as if she didn’t exist.

  One scene on the videotape showed Batul standing by the window and looking out at the lake. She had exchanged her black chador for a milky white one with blue flowers. Nosrat zoomed in on her face, on the silvery hair that could just be seen. Then she slowly let her chador slip down to her shoulders. It was a revelation.

  But it was another scene that sealed Nosrat’s fate. The door to Batul’s room had been standing ajar. He had filmed the room, showing in the corner a single bed and a night-stand, on top of which lay a small hand mirror and a blue tin of Nivea.

  The interrogator picked up the video recorder and slammed it down so hard on Nosrat’s head that Nosrat crumpled, unconscious, to the floor.

  After that it was silent.

  Silence spread across the land.

  Saddam Hussein stopped bombing the cities, and Khomeini no longer consulted the Koran to decide whether or not to advance further into Iraqi territory.

  Silence reigned supreme. There were no more executions, and no more assassinations. Everyone was tired. Everyone needed a rest.

  The First to Come

  By the mountain!

  Is this sorcery?

  Is this sorcery

  Or are you blind?

  By a book inscribed

  On an unrolled scroll.

  By the much-visited house.

  By the canopy raised high.

  By the swirling sea of fire.

  Woe, that day, deniers of truth!

  The mountain, the mountain!

  How many years had passed by? How many months had elapsed?

  Who had come? Who had gone?

  No one kept track of the years any more, and there was no point in counting the months. Time stood still for the grief-stricken, for the dead and for those who mourned them.

  It also stood still for those who gardened to forget their grief and those who prepared hallowed dishes so their sorrow could be divided into more manageable portions.

  The country seemed to be at rest. And yet one person, a man with a loaded gun tucked into his belt, was now riding through the desert on a camel so that he could mete out justice to the judge.

  Once that had been done, the sorrow might truly come to an end. Only then would time again be set in motion and would we see how many years had passed since some had come and some had gone.

  During the long period of silence, Khomeini gradually lost his memory. One day he no longer recognised even those closest to him.

  Rafsanjani and Khamenei, the key men in his government, seized power and gradually forced Khomeini into the background.

  Khalkhal had been the first to realise that Khomeini was becoming senile. One day he had knelt beside him and noticed with a shock that Khomeini no longer knew who he was.

  Khalkhal was the only person at the top who operated independently. He was seen as an extension of Khomeini. As long as he was under Khomeini’s protection, he was powerful, but without it, he was nothing. It was time for him to step down.

  Besides, the wave of executions had served its purpose. The regime had flexed its muscles sufficiently. It had driven the Iraqi occupier out of the country and eliminated the opposition. Now stability was called for. There was no more need for a judge as hated as Khalkhal.

  The regime would have to find him another position, though that would be far from easy. Many people in the Mujahideen and the leftist movement knew about his role and about the heinous crimes committed on his orders. They were lying in wait, hoping to assassinate him.

  If he’d been able to choose, he would have gone back to Qom to teach Islamic law at a seminary, but that was out of the question now. He knew that his mission was coming to an end, just as it had for Khomeini.

  Khomeini wasn’t dead yet, but he belonged to the past. Khalkhal had no future, and the present had no need of him. He would have to go back to the past. The only question was how.

  Fortunately, Khomeini’s successors did find a way to send Khalkhal back to the past. The Taliban were busy setting up an Islamic regime in neighbouring Afghanistan, using force to impose an antiquated sharia on the country.

  In those days there were close ties between the Taliban and the ayatollahs in Iran. They met from time to time to discuss how to go about strengthening their position against their common enemy: the West.

  The regime came up with the idea of offering Khalkhal’s services to the Taliban. After all, the fanatical Taliban would consider him an asset.

  It was a perfect solution, and Khalkhal eagerly accepted it. The Taliban’s extremism appealed to him, so he packed his bags and, disguised as a merchant with a hat and a beard, took the train to the border city of Mashhad, where he spent the night at an inn. The next evening a Taliban fighter picked him up and drove him – now clad in traditional Afghan garb – across the border and on to Kabul, where the leader of t
he Taliban gave him a warm welcome and offered him a house.

  Khalkhal’s life changed completely. He was now able to breathe more freely. Officially he worked for the Municipal Archives. In secret, however, he was an important figure in the Taliban hierarchy.

  He enjoyed the anonymity of Kabul. At last things were quiet enough for him to devote more time to Islamic law. He spent his days in the ancient library of the Municipal Archives, studying the Islamic documents that had been sent to him specially from the royal libraries of Saudi Arabia. After a few months he married an Afghan woman and began to adjust to married life.

  He was happy. His new life suited him. He walked freely through Kabul and went into the shops, something he’d never done before. He also spent a lot of time visiting his in-laws. No one knew about his past. To the outside world, he was an Islamic researcher writing a book on the history of Islam.

  He didn’t realise that people were still looking for him and that his crimes had not been forgotten.

  Shahbal was one of the people searching for Khalkhal. Unfortunately, the trail had gone cold.

  Only three members of the steering committee of Shahbal’s party were left. The others had all been arrested or executed or forced to flee. During the last hurried meeting of the remaining members, Shahbal had been ordered to liquidate Khalkhal. Later it appeared that this was the last decision ever taken by his party.

  Shahbal was anxious to avenge Jawad’s death. He couldn’t forget the long cold night in the mountains when he and Aqa Jaan had gone in search of a grave. The humiliation was unbearable. He had to do something, or he’d never have another peaceful night. Only after this deed had been done would he be able to pick up the thread of his life again.

  Since the shooting of Ayatollah Araki, no one in the family knew where Shahbal was. Aqa Jaan thought he’d fled the country and was living in Europe or America.

  But Shahbal hadn’t fled. He was still in Tehran. He’d grown a beard and was driving one of the city’s many orange taxis. It was too risky for the members of the underground movement to drive their own cars, so they generally relied on taxis to get them where they wanted to go.