The House of the Mosque Read online

  ‘To the river? But they’re expecting us at home. It’s almost dinnertime.’

  ‘I know, but it’s important.’

  So they walked down to the gently flowing Sefidgani, which was not far from the house.

  ‘Actually, I don’t know how to say this. You don’t have to give me an immediate answer.’

  ‘Spit it out, my boy!’

  ‘It’s about the moon.’

  ‘The moon?’

  ‘No, not about the moon, but about television. And about the imam.’

  ‘Television? The moon? The imam? What are you trying to say?’

  ‘We . . . er, I mean, the imam needs to know what’s going on. He has to keep up with current events. Alsaberi only reads the books in his library, and they’re old, written centuries ago. He doesn’t read newspapers. He knows nothing about . . . well, about the moon, for example.’

  ‘Make yourself clear, for goodness’ sake! What is it that Alsaberi needs to know about the moon?’

  ‘Everybody’s talking about the moon these days. At school, in the bazaar, in the street. But we don’t discuss things like that at our house. Do you know what’s going to happen tonight?’

  ‘No, what?’

  ‘Two men are going to land on the moon tonight, and you don’t even know it! Maybe it’s not important to you or Alsaberi. But the Americans are going to plant their flag on the moon, and the city’s imam isn’t even aware of it. He didn’t make a single reference to it in his sermon. He should have mentioned it tonight, but he doesn’t even know it’s happening. And that’s not good for our mosque. The mosque is where people should hear about things that affect their lives.’

  Aqa Jaan waited.

  ‘I tried to bring it up with Alsaberi,’ Shahbal went on, ‘but he didn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t believe in such things.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’

  ‘The moon landing is being broadcast on television tonight. I’d like you and the imam to witness this historic event.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘On television!’

  ‘You expect us to watch television?’ Aqa Jaan was astounded. ‘You expect the city’s imam to watch television? Do you understand what you’re asking, my boy? Ever since television came to this town, the mosque has been warning people of its evils, urging them not to listen to the corrupt shah, not to watch the Americans. And now you’re suggesting that we sit and stare at the American flag! You know that we’re opposed to the shah and to the Americans who put him on his throne. We don’t need to bring the shah’s face and the American flag into our home. Why on earth do you want us to watch television? It’s a weapon used by the Americans to undermine our culture and religion! All kinds of strange things are being said about television. It’s full of disgusting shows that poison people’s minds.’

  ‘That’s not true! Or at any rate not entirely. They also broadcast serious programmes, like tonight. You ought to watch! The imam ought to watch! If we’re opposed to the shah and to the Americans, that’s all the more reason to watch it. Tonight the Americans are going to set foot on the moon. You’re the most important man in the city, and you should see it. I can rig up an aerial on the roof.’

  ‘You want to put an aerial on our roof? You’ll make us the laughing stock of the town. Tomorrow everyone will be saying, “Did you see the aerial on the roof of the house of the mosque?”’

  ‘I’ll fix it so that nobody will be able to see it.’

  Shahbal’s request had taken Aqa Jaan by surprise. The boy knew what their position was on certain issues, but he dared to stand up for what he thought was right. It was a trait that Aqa Jaan had noted earlier in Shahbal. He admired his nephew for it.

  Aqa Jaan had two daughters and a son, who was five years younger than Shahbal. And yet when he looked at Shahbal, he saw in him the man who would later take his place at the bazaar.

  He tried to involve Shahbal in the important affairs of the house. He loved him like a son and was raising him to follow in his footsteps.

  After school Shahbal always went directly to his uncle’s office, where Aqa Jaan told him about the latest developments in the bazaar and discussed the decisions he had taken or was about to take and asked him for advice.

  Now, though, Shahbal had broached the subject of the television and the moon. Aqa Jaan suspected that the idea had been planted in his mind by Nosrat, Aqa Jaan’s youngest brother, who lived in Tehran.

  After Aqa Jaan and Shahbal got back to the house, Aqa Jaan said to the grandmothers, ‘I’ll have my dinner in the library with the imam. I need to talk to him. Make sure we’re not disturbed.’

  He went to the library and found the imam on the floor, sitting on his carpet and reading a book. Aqa Jaan sat down beside him and asked him what he was reading.

  ‘A book about Khadijah, the wife of Muhammad. She owned three thousand camels – the equivalent of three thousand delivery vans in today’s terms. Undreamt-of wealth. It makes sense to me now: Muhammad was young and poor, Khadijah was old and rich. Muhammad needed her camels – her vans – to launch his mission,’ said the imam, smiling.

  ‘That’s no way to talk about the Prophet!’ Aqa Jaan said.

  ‘Why not? Women were attracted to him, so why did he choose the widow Khadijah? She was nearly twenty years older than he was.’

  The grandmothers came in with two round trays, set them down on the floor in front of the men and went out again.

  ‘Shahbal has been talking to me about the moon,’ Aqa Jaan said as they ate. ‘He thinks you ought to look at it.’

  ‘At the moon?’ said the imam.

  ‘He says that the imam of this city ought to be aware of the developments in this country and around the world. He objects to the fact that you don’t read a newspaper, that you read nothing but the old books in your library.’

  The imam took off his glasses and wiped them casually on the tail of his long white shirt. ‘Shahbal has already told me all of this,’ he said.

  ‘Listen, his criticism is directed at me as well as you. In recent years we’ve focused entirely on religion. The mosque should introduce other topics as well, such as the men who will be walking on the moon tonight.’

  ‘That’s a lot of rubbish,’ the imam said.

  ‘Shahbal thinks you ought to watch. He wants to bring a television in here.’

  ‘Have you taken leave of your senses, Aqa Jaan?’

  ‘He’s bright, and I trust him. As you know, he’s a good boy. It’ll be our little secret. It won’t take long. He’ll remove the television the moment the programme is over.’

  ‘But if the ayatollahs in Qom find out we had a television in our house, they’ll—’

  ‘Nobody’s going to find out. It’s our house and our city. We can decide how we do things here. The boy’s right: almost everyone who comes to our mosque has a television. And although it’s taboo in this house, we mustn’t lock ourselves inside and close our eyes to what’s happening in the world.’

  The grandmothers watched from behind the kitchen curtains as Shahbal stole through the darkness and carried a box into the library.

  Shahbal greeted the imam and Aqa Jaan. Then, ignoring their curious stares, he took a portable television out of the box and placed it on a table by the wall. Next he took out a long cable, plugged one end of it into the back of the television, carried the other end outside and climbed up a ladder to the roof, where he’d already rigged up a temporary aerial. He attached the cable to the aerial, made sure it couldn’t be seen and went back to the library.

  First he locked the door behind him, then he placed two chairs in front of the television. ‘You might want to sit here,’ he said.

  After the imam and Aqa Jaan had taken their seats, he turned on the television and switched off the lights. Then he lowered the sound and gave a brief introduction: ‘What we’re about to see is actually taking place right now in outer space. Apollo 11 is orbiting the moon. The lunar module will be landing soon. It’s a histo
ric moment. Look, there it is! Oh, my God!’

  Aqa Jaan and the imam leaned forward in their seats and stared at the vehicle as it touched down on the lunar surface. There was a hushed silence.

  ‘Something’s going on in the library,’ Golbanu said to Golebeh. ‘Something important that even we aren’t supposed to know about.’

  ‘The boy climbed the ladder to the roof, hid something there and hurried back down,’ Golebeh said. ‘Then the lights in the library went out. What are they doing there in the dark?’

  ‘Let’s go and see.’

  They crept through the darkness and stopped by the library.

  ‘Look! There’s an electrical cord running down from the roof and into the library.’

  ‘An electrical cord?’

  They tiptoed over to the window, but the curtains were closed. They walked softly past the window and stopped at the door. A mysterious silver glow was shining through the crack.

  They put their ears to the door.

  ‘Impossible!’ they heard the imam exclaim.

  ‘Incredible!’ they heard Aqa Jaan exclaim.

  They looked through the keyhole, but all they could see was an eerie glow.

  Frustrated, they tiptoed away and vanished into the darkness of the courtyard.

  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 Ja
an 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.