The House of the Mosque

All-Wise

The house was shrouded in grief, as though a black chador had been drawn over it. No one talked, no one cried, no one broke the silence. Except for one person who chanted the All-Wise, All-Knowing surah over and over again:

Oh, you, you are possessed!

There is nothing, but we have its treasures with Us,

And We send it down only in fixed measures.

We send forth the pollinating winds,

While they are heavy laden.

All-Wise! All-Knowing!

It is We who give life and death.

It is We who know those who came before

And those who shall come after.

Sorrow wilted the plants, a few of the fish floated belly-up in the hauz, and the old cat died on the roof of the mosque.

Meanwhile, there had been a wave of executions. The opponents of the regime were buried outside the cities, at the foot of the mountains. No one was allowed to visit their graves. The eyes of the nation were focused on the martyrs at the front. Week after week, hundreds of bodies were transported to the cities during the Friday prayer.

The crow was the first to break the silence in the house. It flew up into the air and cawed loudly, signalling the arrival of a visitor.

Fakhri Sadat was in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Lizard opened the front gate.

An unknown man in a worn suit and hat came in and walked towards the hauz.

Fakhri Sadat stared in surprise at the stranger walking so calmly past her window.

The man stopped by the hauz and stared at the fish. Then he strolled around the courtyard with his hands behind his back, pausing first by the stairs, then peering through the window of the guest room, and at last continuing on to the Opium Room, where he tried the door to see if it was unlocked.

Fakhri Sadat opened the kitchen window. ‘Are you looking for someone, sir?’

He didn’t answer, but moved in the direction of the library.

Fakhri wanted to run after him and find out what he was up to, but she was frightened.

‘Muezzin!’ she called. ‘A stranger is wandering around the courtyard! Will you come up here and find out what he wants?’

Lizard, who had been lying under the tree and keeping an eye on the visitor, scuttled down to the cellar to fetch Muezzin.

The man disappeared behind the tree, where Fakhri couldn’t see him.

Suddenly she heard a loud banging noise.

Muezzin came up from the cellar, holding his walking stick, with Lizard at his side.

‘A man in a suit and a hat just went towards the library. I think he’s trying to break down the door,’ Fakhri Sadat said. ‘Can you hear him?’

Muezzin hurried over to the library. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he demanded. ‘Who are you? You can’t just come barging in here!’

Fakhri Sadat put on her chador and went outside. The man was pounding a rock against the door, trying to smash it in.

‘What does he look like?’ Muezzin asked Fakhri Sadat.

‘I can’t see his face. He’s standing in the shadow.’

‘Does he have a beard?’

‘I don’t think so. All I can see is his hat.’

Muezzin started to go over to him, but Fakhri stopped him. ‘I think he’s mad! He might be a tramp!’

‘Go and get Aqa Jaan!’ Fakhri said to Lizard, who had clambered up the tree, where he was monitoring the man’s every move.

He leapt from the tree to the roof and disappeared.

Muezzin brandished his walking stick. ‘Who are you?’ he repeated. ‘What are you doing here?’

There was no answer.

‘Stop that, you idiot!’ Muezzin said. He waved his walking stick again. ‘Stop banging on the door, you bastard, or I’ll beat the shit out of you!’

But the man didn’t stop. Muezzin was about to hit him when Fakhri Sadat cried, ‘No, don’t! He’s mentally ill!’ And she dragged Muezzin away by his coat.

Only when Aqa Jaan arrived on the scene did the man stop pounding. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked. Since the man was standing in the shadow of the library wall, Aqa Jaan couldn’t see him very well. ‘What’s your name, sir?’

There was no response.

‘Step away from the shadow so I can see you,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘Give me your hand, I won’t hurt you, I’m just going to lead you out of the shadow.’ Aqa Jaan calmly took the man by the arm and led him into the sunlight.

‘Would you like something to drink? Are you hungry?’

The man’s eyes filled with tears.

Those eyes were familiar…

‘Allah, Allah!’ exclaimed Aqa Jaan. ‘Fakhri, it’s our Ahmad!’

Muezzin reached out to touch him. He ran his fingers over Ahmad’s hat and down his face, then pulled him close and wrapped him in his arms.

Fakhri Sadat laid her head on his shoulder and wept. ‘Oh, Ahmad!’ she said. ‘Our Ahmad! Let’s go inside. What have they done to you? How dare they! Come, everything will be all right.’

Aqa Jaan unlocked the library door for him, but Ahmad didn’t go in. Instead, he shuffled over to the guest room, opened the door, went inside, took off his shoes and sank down on the bed.

‘Let him sleep,’ Fakhri said to Aqa Jaan and Muezzin.

Khalkhal had arranged for Ahmad’s early release from prison, but the life had been drained out of Ahmad. After his arrest, his wife and child had gone back to live with her parents, and her influential father — a staunch supporter of the regime — had arranged a divorce and seen to it that his daughter had been awarded custody of the child. Ahmad had been robbed of his fatherhood.

The next morning Fakhri Sadat called him for breakfast, but Ahmad was still unresponsive. So she went to his room, helped him out of bed and brought him outside, where she lovingly washed his hands and face in the hauz and led him to the library, so he could see that the door was now open.

He went in and shuffled past the bookcases, running his finger over the spines of the books. He switched on the antique reading lamp on his desk and touched his chair, but didn’t sit down. Then he went out again and shuffled over to his old room, where he looked at his bed, his chair and his notebook — the one in which he used to jot down his ideas for the Friday prayers — and then sat down on the bed.

He sat there all day, staring vacantly into space. Aqa Jaan brought him some food and tried to talk to him, but he could see that Ahmad wasn’t ready to talk, that he needed to be left alone for a while.

That night Ahmad packed his suitcase and left.

Lizard saw him leave and hurried over to alert Aqa Jaan. But it was too late. He had gone.