The House of the Mosque

Nowruz

Along with spring comes Nowruz, the Persian New Year. Originally a royal feast, the lavish celebration of spring dates back to the first Persian kings.

Spring cleaning begins two weeks before Nowruz. To welcome the new season, wheat is sown on plates and the sabzeh — wheat sprouts — are placed on the table. New clothes and shoes are bought for the children to wear on their visits to relatives, especially grandparents.

The women of the household are in charge of the preparations. Only when everything has been arranged to their satisfaction do they devote some time to their own appearance.

In the house of the mosque a few extra people had been brought in to help the grandmothers clean the house for Nowruz. An elderly hairdresser had also come over to beautify the women. Her job was to cut their hair, pluck their eyebrows and remove excess facial hair.

She had been doing this for more than fifty years. The first time she had come — she must have been about ten or twelve — had been in the company of her mother. Later, when her mother died, she took over the business. Before long, she had become a confidante of the women of the house.

Whenever she was there, certain sections of the house were off-limits to the men. The women’s laughter could be heard all day long. They walked around the house without their veils and crossed the courtyard with bare legs. The grandmothers pampered them, bringing them lemonade, hookahs and other treats.

The hairdresser told them the latest gossip. Since she made the rounds of the wealthiest families in the city, she had a good idea of what was going on in the women’s world. She always arrived with a suitcase full of perfume, hair dye, make-up, nail scissors, hairpins and other products that were for sale. Her wares were not the run-of-the-mill kind you could buy in the bazaar. Her son was a migrant worker in Kuwait, and every time he came home, he filled his suitcase with exclusive products for his mother’s clients.

Today she had come to cut the hair of Fakhri Sadat, the wife of Aqa Jaan. Fakhri Sadat was popular in the well-to-do circles to which she belonged. Sometimes she helped the grandmothers in the kitchen or sewed clothes for her children. When they were small, she read out loud to them. In fact, she spent most of her time reading, especially the books and women’s magazines that her brother-in-law Nosrat brought her from Tehran.

During the autumn, when there was a spell of good weather, she trapped migrating birds. On those days the grandmothers went down into the cellar and helped her bring up a snare — a large wicker basket attached to a long rope. Then Fakhri Sadat scattered some grain in the courtyard, sat in a chair by the hauz and waited for the birds. Eventually a flock of birds flew in from the other side of the mountains and landed in the courtyard. When a bird pecked its way into the basket in search of food, Fakhri Sadat yanked the rope, and the snare snapped shut.

Fakhri Sadat kept the trapped birds for several days in the Bird Room. She fed them, talked to them, examined their feathers and sketched the intricate patterns on a sheet of drawing paper. When she was working, everyone tiptoed around and talked in whispers. Afterwards, when the drawings were done, she set the birds free.

The hairdresser had just finished waxing Fakhri Sadat’s legs when the crow flew down and perched on the edge of the roof, cawing loudly to bring its news.

No one knew how old the crow was, but references to it in the mosque’s archives went back a century. The crow was part of the house, like the dome, the minarets, the roofs, the cedar tree and the hauz, whose water it drank.

Fakhri sat up. ‘Salaam, crow!’ she said. ‘Do you have good news? Who’s on the way? Who’s coming to see us?’

As evening fell, the caretaker emerged from the mosque. Behind him was Imam Alsaberi, dressed in festive clothes. They usually entered the house through the courtyard gate, but today they went up the stone steps and walked across the flat roof — perhaps because it was made of a mixture of desert clay and plants that gave off a delightful smell in springtime.

‘Do I have time for a quick nap?’ Alsaberi asked the grandmothers when he reached the courtyard. ‘I don’t feel well.’

‘Yes,’ Golbanu replied, ‘you’ve got about half an hour. We’re waiting for Aqa Jaan. When he gets home, we’ll go to the banquet room. At midnight we’ll all meet in the courtyard for the New Year’s prayer. Meanwhile, we’re going to lay a few carpets on the ground. I’ll wake you up in time.’

A taxi stopped in front of the gate. The children raced outside. ‘Uncle Nosrat’s here!’ they shouted.

Fakhri Sadat opened the window of her second-floor bedroom and looked out. Nosrat wasn’t alone; he had brought along a young woman. Fakhri flung on her chador and went downstairs.

Nosrat and the woman came into the courtyard and were met with a stunned silence. The young woman wasn’t wearing a chador! She did have on a headscarf, but it was pulled back so far that her hair was visible.

The grandmothers, looking out from the kitchen, couldn’t believe their eyes.

‘How dare he bring a woman dressed like that into this house!’ Golbanu cried.

‘Who is she?’ asked Golebeh.

‘I don’t know. Some slut!’

Zinat Khanom, the imam’s wife, and her daughter Sadiq joined the group. Shahbal watched the scene from the window. It was brave of his uncle to bring along an emancipated woman, he thought. He admired Nosrat for ignoring tradition and rebelling against the antiquated customs of his family.

This was the first time in the long history of the house that a woman had crossed its threshold without a chador or any other kind of veil.

They stood there, gawking. Should they welcome her or not? What would Aqa Jaan say?

Darkness had just fallen, but in the lamplight the grandmothers could see that the woman was wearing sheer nylon stockings. You could actually see her legs!

Nasrin and Ensi, Aqa Jaan’s daughters, cheerfully kissed their Uncle Nosrat.

‘I’d like to introduce you to my fiancée,’ Nosrat said. ‘Her name is Shadi.’

Shadi smiled and greeted the girls.

‘That’s wonderful news!’ exclaimed Nasrin, Aqa Jaan’s eldest daughter. ‘When did you get engaged, Uncle Nosrat? And why didn’t you tell us?’

‘Engaged?’ Golbanu said to Golebeh. ‘What does he mean, engaged?’ She jerked the curtains closed. ‘He’s lying, the rascal. He’s not about to get married. He’s brought that slut from Tehran so he can have some fun. Where’s Aqa Jaan? He’ll soon put a stop to this!’

Fakhri Sadat kissed the woman. ‘Shadi,’ she said. ‘What a lovely name! Welcome to our home.’

‘Where’s Aqa Jaan?’ Nosrat asked. ‘Where’s Muezzin? Where’s the imam? And where’s Shahbal?’

‘Aqa Jaan hasn’t come home yet, but Alsaberi is probably in the library,’ the imam’s wife told him.

‘I’ll go and surprise him,’ Nosrat said, and he headed towards the library.

Fakhri Sadat led Shadi to the guest room, and all the girls followed them.

The grandmothers waited in the kitchen, where they could keep an eye on the gate. The moment they caught sight of Aqa Jaan, they called out, ‘Nosrat’s here!’

‘Good,’ he said happily. ‘Just in time for the New Year. So my younger brother hasn’t forgotten us. Our celebration will have an added glow tonight.’

‘There’s something else, though,’ Golbanu said anxiously.

‘What?’

‘He’s brought a woman with him.’

‘He says they’re engaged,’ Golebeh added.

‘That’s good news. At last he’s come to his senses.’

‘Not quite,’ Golbanu said. ‘She isn’t wearing a chador. Just a skimpy little headscarf.’

‘And nylons,’ Golebeh added softly.

‘Nylons? What are nylons?’

‘Long transparent stockings. They make your legs look bare. That’s the kind of woman he’s brought to this house. Heaven help us! Luckily it was dark when they arrived. Imagine if he’d walked past the mosque with her in the daytime! Tomorrow everyone in the city would be saying, “A woman in nylon stockings is staying at the house of the mosque!”’

‘I’ve heard all I need to,’ Aqa Jaan said calmly. ‘I’ll talk to him. I want you to welcome her as usual and give her an ordinary pair of stockings and a chador, in case she wants to go into town tomorrow. You have so many beautiful chadors. Give her one of them as a gift.’

‘I don’t think they’re engaged. He’s just brought one of his girls along,’ Golbanu said.

‘We don’t know that,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘Let’s hope they are engaged. Where is he now?’

‘In the library, I think, or else in Muezzin’s room.’

Aqa Jaan knew that his younger brother had stopped praying and that he was forever rebelling against religion and tradition. But now that Nosrat had brought home a woman, he hoped he’d make an effort to fit in.

‘It will all work out,’ he told the grandmothers, and went to see Muezzin.

‘Dinner’s ready!’ called Golbanu.

‘Children! Dinner’s ready!’ called Golebeh.

Everyone gathered in the banquet room.

After the women had seated themselves on the right side of the massive dining table, the men entered in their festive clothes.

Fakhri Sadat introduced Shadi to Aqa Jaan, Alsaberi and Muezzin.

‘Welcome, my daughter,’ said Aqa Jaan. ‘If we’d known that Nosrat was going to bring his fiancée, we would have organised a dinner in your honour. Still, just having you here is a celebration.’

Imam Alsaberi greeted her from a safe distance. Fakhri Sadat described her to Muezzin. ‘Tonight we have at our table a woman from Tehran. She’s different from the women in Senejan and very different from those women you visit in the mountains,’ she said archly. ‘Her name is Shadi and she’s beautiful, with lovely dark-brown eyes, brown hair, gleaming white teeth and a charming smile. Tonight she’s wearing a pretty white chador with green flowers, which was given to her by the grandmothers. What else would you like to know?’

‘Ah, so she’s beautiful!’ Muezzin said, and he laughed. ‘Just what I would have expected from Nosrat!’

The grandmothers came in with a burning brazier, into which they threw a handful of esfandi seeds that filled the room with a fragrant smell, while the girls carried the food in from the kitchen.

‘Aren’t we going to wait for Ahmad?’ Alsaberi asked.

‘Forgive me,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘I was so excited at seeing Nosrat that I forgot to give you the message. Ahmad phoned me at the bazaar and told me he wouldn’t be coming. They’re having their own celebration in Qom.’

Ahmad was Alsaberi’s seventeen-year-old son. He was in Qom, studying to be an imam with the great moderate cleric Ayatollah Golpayegani.

The grandmothers had cooked a delicious New Year’s dinner, and everyone lingered at the table. After the meal the girls brought in sweets made specially for the occasion.

The women had accepted Shadi and were bombarding her with questions about Tehran and the female half of its population. Shadi had brought them presents: lipstick, nail polish, nylons and fancy bras. The men, finding that they were no longer welcome, retreated to the guest room.

It was nearly midnight when one of the grandmothers announced, ‘Ladies! It’s time to get ready for the New Year’s prayer.’

Nosrat moved closer to Shadi. ‘What do we need to do to get ready?’ she asked.

‘Nothing. I’m not interested in all that mumbo-jumbo,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘They’ll have to pray without me. I’m taking you to the library instead.’

‘Why, what are we going to do in there?’

‘You’ll find out,’ he said. He grabbed her hand, led her on tiptoe past the cedar tree and softly opened the library door.

‘Why don’t you switch on the light?’

‘Shh, not so loud! The grandmothers see and hear everything. If they find out we’re here, they’ll swoop down on us like two ghosts,’ he said, and he began to undo the buttons of her blouse.

‘No, not in here,’ she whispered, and gently pushed him away.

He put his hands around her waist, pressed her against the bookcase, then lifted her skirt.

‘No! It’s spooky in here.’

‘It’s not spooky; it’s thrilling. The ancient spirit of our house is here. For the past seven hundred years imams have been preparing themselves for prayers in this room. It’s a sacred place. A lot of things have happened within these hallowed walls, but not this. I want to make love to you here, to add something beautiful to the history of this room.’

‘Oh, Nosrat,’ she sighed.

He lit the candle on the imam’s desk.

‘Nosrat, where are you?’ Golbanu shouted from the courtyard. ‘Hurry, the imam is ready!’

Two large carpets had been spread out in the courtyard so the family could pray. Everyone was there, except for Nosrat and his fiancée.

‘I told you he’s a rascal,’ Golbanu said. ‘He sneers at the mosque every chance he gets, but I won’t let him. He simply must come to the prayer!’

‘Where could they be?’ Golebeh asked.

They turned their heads towards the library.

Quietly they crossed the courtyard. The library windows were rattling. Or were they imagining it? No, the curtains were moving too.

The grandmothers tiptoed over to the door, but didn’t dare open it. They knelt cautiously by the window, looked through the gap between the curtains and saw to their surprise that the imam’s candle, which they never lit, was now burning brightly.

They cupped their hands over their eyes and peered into the room.

The bookcases were jiggling slightly in the candlelight. The two women were so startled by what they saw next that they simultaneously leapt to their feet.

What should they do? Should they tell Aqa Jaan?

No, that wasn’t a good idea, not on a special night like this.

But what should they do about the unforgivable sin taking place in the library?

Nothing, they told each other with their eyes.

Like generations of grandmothers before them, their duty was to pretend that nothing had happened. They had been entrusted with so many family secrets they had long ago learned to lock them in their hearts and throw away the key. No, they hadn’t seen or heard a thing.

The imam had already begun the prayer. The rest of the family was lined up behind him, facing Mecca. The grandmothers slipped in unnoticed beside the other women. The house was silent. The only sound was that of the imam’s prayer:

Allaho nur-os-samawate wa-alard

mathalo nurehi kameshkaatin feeha…

He is light.

His light is like a niche with a lantern.

The glass is like a shining star,

Lit by the oil of a blessed olive tree.

Its oil is almost aglow.

Light upon light!