The House of the Mosque

Mahiha

Khalkhal had taken his bride to Qom. No one knew where the couple lived. The family hadn’t expected him to keep it a secret, but they decided not to make an issue of it.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Aqa Jaan. ‘The door of our house is always open to them.’

Although Khalkhal had completed his imam training, he still didn’t have a permanent position in a mosque. Once you had your own mosque, you could support yourself. Until then you had to make do with a modest allowance from your ayatollah.

Aqa Jaan had offered to finance him, but Khalkhal had refused. Still, by calling on his vast network, Aqa Jaan always managed to find a mosque where Khalkhal could fill in as a substitute imam.

Sadiq came home from time to time, but Khalkhal had forbidden her to give her address to her family. Occasionally she complained to her mother about her new living arrangements. The house was small, the atmosphere was oppressive and she hadn’t managed to make any contact with the neighbours. ‘Everything is so different in Qom,’ she told her mother. ‘People shut themselves up in their own homes with their own families, and the doors and curtains are always closed.’

‘It’s all part of adjusting to a new life, especially when you’ve moved to another city, not to mention a religious bastion like Qom. Khalkhal is young. He’s just finished his training and doesn’t have a permanent position yet.’

‘I know, but Khalkhal is different from any of the men I’ve ever known. He’s not like my father, he’s not like Aqa Jaan, and he’s not like Uncle Nosrat. I don’t know how to get close to him. It’s hard to have a real conversation. There are long, awkward silences when he’s at home, and that scares me. He doesn’t talk to me and I don’t know what to say to him.’

‘You shouldn’t compare our life in this house to that in yours. This house is old. It’s taken centuries for it to develop a rhythm of its own. But your house is that of a young imam with no history. You have to work at creating a home, at making it warm and hospitable, at seeking contact with your neighbours and showing your husband that you love him and are interested in him.’

‘It’s easier said than done, Mother. I can give him my love, but the question is whether he wants it.’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

‘I don’t know!’

Sadiq was showered with love when she came home. They bought her shoes and clothes and gave her money and sent her back to Qom with her bags full.

When Khalkhal went off to another city to fill in as imam, he sent Sadiq home to her parents, and when he was finished, he came to collect her. Sometimes they left on the same day, and sometimes they stayed a week, in which case they slept in the Dome Room.

The Dome Room had a balcony, a kind of filigreed wooden porch, where you could sit and marvel at the shadows cast by the dome on the opposite wall — the same wall out of which the ants had once crept.

Eight hundred years ago, when the house had been built, the architect had designed a room especially for the imam of the mosque. The delightful play of sun and shadows went on all day until twilight. At first all you could see was the shadow of the dome on the wall, but then the silhouette of the minarets came into view. Later the dome disappeared and only the minarets remained. Sometimes the shadow of a pigeon, a crow or a cat was projected onto the wall in the vivid evening light. At dusk the mosque cats liked to sit on the balcony and stare longingly at the bats swooping above the hauz.

In nice weather you could put a rug on the floor of the balcony, add a few pillows and sit there reading a book or drinking tea. The guests who occupied the Dome Room were always free to do as they pleased, which is why it was the ideal spot for Khalkhal’s visits. He would stay there all day. The grandmothers would bring him food, and everyone else was careful not to disturb him.

Shahbal was the only one in the family with whom Khalkhal had any contact. He was often invited to eat with him. Shahbal had been fascinated by Khalkhal from the start. He’d met lots of imams, but Khalkhal had something the others lacked: he was full of new ideas and talked about exciting things. Shahbal liked to listen to him and to discuss a wide variety of topics.

Khalkhal was well informed. He talked about America as if he knew it like the back of his hand. He explained how the Americans had taken control of Iran and how they ruled it from behind the scenes. He told him how the Americans had first gained a foothold. ‘It was like this. America was becoming a superpower and wanted a military base in Iran that could be used against the Soviet Union. But Mossadegh, our democratically elected prime minister, was a progressive politician and a nationalist. He didn’t want to give the land to the Americans, but they were getting impatient. They were afraid the Soviets would invite Mossadegh to Moscow and reinforce his anti-Americanism. So the CIA came up with the idea of staging a coup, and the shah went along with it. The plan was for Mossadegh to be assassinated. The Soviet Union got wind of it, however, and told Mossadegh. He arrested the pro-American military officers who supported the coup and had the shah’s palace occupied. The CIA managed to whisk the shah away in a helicopter in the nick of time, and he was flown to the US in a fighter jet.’

‘That’s fascinating!’ Shahbal said. ‘I’ve never heard that before.’

‘You won’t find it in your schoolbooks,’ Khalkhal said. ‘The history you’re being taught is based on lies.’

‘What happened next?’

‘To realise its global ambitions, America needed Iran. Our country occupies a strategic position in the Middle East and also shares nearly twelve hundred miles of border with the Soviet Union. So the CIA staged another coup, and this time they had the backing of several Iranian generals. Two days later, when everyone thought it had all blown over, Mossadegh was arrested. The generals seized control of the Parliament, and American tanks were parked at every major intersection in Tehran. Hundreds of criminals and prostitutes were then sent into the streets to wave around portraits of the shah.

‘The next day the shah, with the help of a group of CIA agents, was reinstalled in his palace. The shah is a puppet. We have to get rid of him and the Americans.’

Shahbal got goose pimples when he listened to Khalkhal’s impassioned descriptions of historical events.

The last time they ate together on the balcony, Khalkhal told him about the armed struggle of the ayatollahs against the regime. He described the historic day when Ayatollah Khomeini, who had incurred the wrath of both the shah and the Americans, had fought back. Many young imams had been killed that day. Many more had been arrested, and Khomeini had been forced into exile.

Shahbal had often heard the name ‘Khomeini’, but he knew almost nothing about the man. He must have been about seven or eight years old when the uprising occurred. On his next visit Khalkhal promised to bring him a banned book, which contained an accurate account of the history of the ayatollahs’ resistance movement in the last few decades.

That evening Khalkhal said something about prisons that made Shahbal rethink his ideas. ‘No one’s afraid of going to jail,’ Khalkhal said. ‘It’s become a kind of university, especially for young activists.’

It was a novel concept. Shahbal had always thought of prison as a place for criminals.

‘Political prisoners aren’t like ordinary prisoners,’ Khalkhal said. ‘They’re people who fight against the regime, people who are embarrassed by the presence of the CIA in this country. They’re the most intelligent people, the ones who want to take the fate of the country into their own hands and radically change the political system. That’s why the regime arrests them and keeps them in a separate wing, but then they’re all thrown together, sometimes ten or twenty to a cell, and they meet people from all walks of life: students, artists, imams, politicians, leaders and teachers, as well as people with new ideas. They start talking and discussing things, so the prison cell becomes a university, where you can learn all kinds of things. Can you imagine what happens when you put so many intelligent people together in one cell? They swap stories and listen to each other’s experiences. Before you know it, you’ve joined them. Some people go in like a lamb and come out like a lion. I know lots of political prisoners — friends of mine, young imams, members of left-wing or right-wing underground movements. Have you ever heard of these movements?’

‘No.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, in this house, in this city.’

‘Not much. I go to school and to mosque.’

Khalkhal shook his head. ‘I knew it. Nothing’s going to happen in this city. It’s weak. All over the country people are gradually turning against the shah, but Senejan is blissfully asleep. What else can you expect from a city with such a weak Friday Mosque? What does Alsaberi do all day in his library? Nothing, except let the grandmothers wash his balls! It’s a shameful waste of this big, beautiful mosque. It’s had a brilliant past. A history. It’s time it had a fiery speaker. Do you know what I’m saying?’

Shahbal lapped up Khalkhal’s words. He thought of Khalkhal as great and himself as small. He wanted to ask questions, but didn’t dare. He was afraid of sounding stupid.

One time he’d hardly said a word all evening. Then, suddenly, just as he was about to leave, he blurted out, ‘I’d like to show you something.’

‘What?’

‘My stories,’ he said hesitantly. ‘I write.’

‘How interesting! Show them to me. Have you got them here? Read one out loud.’

‘I don’t know if they’re any good.’

‘I wouldn’t know either, but it’s good that you write. Go and get your stories!’

Shahbal went to his room and quickly returned with three notebooks, which he modestly handed to Khalkhal.

‘You’ve written quite a lot,’ Khalkhal said in surprise as he thumbed through them. ‘I knew you were clever from the moment I laid eyes on you! Pick one of your stories and read it to me.’

‘I’ve never shown them to anyone before,’ Shahbal said. He flipped through a notebook until he found the page he wanted. ‘I hardly dare to read it, but I’ll do my best.’ And he began to read: ‘Early one morning, when I was going to the hauz to wash my hands before the prayer, I noticed that the light wasn’t on in my father’s room. It was the first time this had ever happened. He was always awake before I was and always went to the hauz before I did, but that morning everything was different. The mahiha — the fish — which usually darted through the water when they saw me, weren’t moving, and their tails were all pointing in my direction. Brightly coloured scales floated on the surface, and there was blood on one of the tiles. I realised immediately that something was wrong. I ran to my father’s room, pushed open the door, switched on the light and—’

‘Very good!’ Khalkhal said. ‘You can stop now, I’ll read the rest on my own. You have talent. Leave your notebooks with me. I’ll look at them later.’

He went down to the courtyard and walked over to the hauz, where he stared at the sleeping fish in the glow of the lantern. A light was on in the library. The shadow of the imam fell on the curtain. He quietly opened the gate and went outside, towards the river.