Kader Abdolah - The House of the Mosque

‘You’re a grown man,’ he said. ‘Put it in your pocket and don’t tell him about it. You don’t owe anyone an explanation! I have something else for you, too, something no one in Senejan has ever seen.’ And he handed him a tiny gadget with a set of wires.

‘These are earphones. When you want to listen to the radio, you put them in your ears. Stand up and I’ll show you how they work.’

Muezzin hesitated. Nosrat put the radio in Muezzin’s pocket, threaded the wires under his sweater, stuck the earphones in his ears and switched on the radio.

‘Can you hear it?’

‘Yes!’

‘Excellent! And remember, if anyone asks you what it is, don’t answer!’

Ever since then Muezzin had gone everywhere with his earphones in, and when anyone asked him what those things in his ears were, he didn’t answer. After a while everyone got used to them and assumed they were some kind of extension to his dark glasses.

At the end of the forty days of mourning, the men of the family gathered together in the Opium Room. They sat round the brazier and smoked with Kazem Khan.

The grandmothers had taken seven opium pipes out of a trunk in the cellar and had warmed them in the embers.

The men smoked opium, sipped tea, sucked sugar crystals and reminisced about Alsaberi while the smoke spiralled up out of their mouths and drifted through a half-open window.

The women were in the dining room, smoking a hookah. Zinat was the only one who wasn’t there. Ever since Alsaberi’s death, she had spent hours in the mosque’s library, reading. Aqa Jaan was aware of it, but had decided to let her cope with her grief in her own way.

Before it got dark the men took a walk by the river, then went to the mosque to hear Khalkhal speak.

During the last few weeks, Khalkhal had spoken in the mosque every Friday. As these sermons were intended to let the worshippers get acquainted with him, he had deliberately chosen neutral topics. He was waiting patiently for the right moment to show the men of the bazaar what kind of a man he was and how the pulpit could be used as a weapon when the need arose. But the time was not yet ripe. Until the shadow of Alsaberi’s death had passed and he’d won everyone’s trust, he had to keep a low profile. Tonight he was planning to talk about Alsaberi and focus on the long history of the mosque. Aqa Jaan had provided him with the necessary documents a while ago and he had examined them in detail.

After their walk, the men performed their ablutions in the hauz and hurried over to the mosque. It was customary for the men of the family to stand at the door and welcome the guests.

The grandmothers had repeatedly warned the women that it was time to go, but they were still in the dining room, eating fruit, drinking tea and smoking the hookah. After Aqa Jaan had issued his final warning, the grandmothers bustled into the dining room. ‘The prayer, ladies!’ they chided. ‘Hundreds of women are waiting for you in the mosque and you’re sitting around smoking a hookah! Hurry, or Aqa Jaan himself will come and fetch you!’

Fakhri Sadat flung on her black chador, and the rest of the women followed her to the mosque. Zinat emerged from the library and trailed along behind the others.

The only person who had so far failed to arrive was Nosrat. Still, he usually turned up unexpectedly: he never phoned, he never knocked, suddenly you’d see him standing in the middle of the courtyard or strolling past the rooms, snapping pictures of everyone when they least expected it.

He hadn’t come to Alsaberi’s funeral. They hadn’t been able to reach him by phone and the telegram had arrived too late. But he’d let Aqa Jaan know that he would be home tonight for sure.

Now that everyone had gone to the mosque and the house was quiet, the grandmothers washed their hands and face in the hauz and sat down on the bench, beneath the lantern.

‘I don’t feel like going to the prayer,’ Golbanu said.

‘Let’s rest here for a while before they all come back,’ Golebeh replied.

Since Alsaberi’s death, they’d had no reason to be in the library, and because they weren’t close to Khalkhal, they didn’t dare to go in when he was there. As long as Alsaberi had been alive, the library had been their private domain. Khalkhal had robbed them of that. They disliked him because of it and longed for the day when Alsaberi’s son would finish his training and be installed as the mosque’s imam.

‘Alsaberi was like a pearl that slipped through our fingers,’ Golebeh said. ‘Khalkhal is arrogant. He struts around like a sultan, keeps his distance from everyone, and doesn’t even sit with the other men. He’s the most conceited imam this house has ever had. He holes himself up in the library and expects Kazem Khan to come to him . Aqa Jaan knew it from the start. It was sensible of him to send Khalkhal back to Qom to get his identification papers.’

The grandmothers were greatly offended, and now with Alsaberi gone, they realised that they weren’t going to live for ever either. They had been so busy with the funeral that the last few weeks hadn’t been too awful. But what would they do when all of the guests had gone?

Since Khalkhal had taken over the library, they’d been forced to spend their days and evenings in the kitchen, but they couldn’t stand being cooped up there much longer. If they couldn’t escape to the library occasionally, the house would finish them off for good.

More than once they’d decided to pour their hearts out to Aqa Jaan. But why bother? They realised that the imam’s death was the end of an era.

Sometimes they went into his empty bathroom and wept silently.

Kazem Khan was their only hope. Yet he too was getting old. When he died, the light would go out of their lives for ever.

The grandmothers sat on the bench by the hauz for a long while without talking. The sky was clear; one by one the stars came out. They could hear the bats squeaking. A stranger looking down at the two figures from the roof of the mosque would no doubt assume they were statues.

They would have fallen asleep if the silence hadn’t suddenly been broken by a rustling in the darkness by the trees. ‘Did you hear that?’ Golebeh whispered to Golbanu.

Kazem Khan, they thought, might have stayed in his room instead of going over to the mosque.

They padded over to the Opium Room, but the door was locked. From the courtyard came a muffled giggle.

‘What was that?’

They hid behind the cedar tree and listened to the sounds of the night. Again there was a girlish giggle. This was followed by the opening of the door to one of the guest rooms. ‘It’s probably Nosrat!’ Golebeh whispered.

‘Mercy!’

They caught sight of a silhouette in the light coming from the room and recognised Nosrat’s shadow.

‘When did he get home? Why didn’t we see him? And who’s that woman?’ Golebeh exclaimed.

A woman in a black chador was briefly visible in the green glow of the minarets before being engulfed again by the darkness.

‘Maybe it’s that woman from Tehran.’

‘No, that rascal never stays with anyone for long. Besides, the woman from Tehran was short; this one is tall and has on a chador. It’s a different one.’

‘What are they doing?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

Nosrat led the girl over to the courtyard steps.

‘Come on, sweetie,’ he said to her.

‘I’m not going up on the roof! I wouldn’t dare!’ the girl said, laughing.

‘Don’t be scared,’ Nosrat said. ‘Nobody’s going to see us. They’re all busy reciting their prayers. The house is empty.’

‘I’m not going up there: it’s too high!’ she said.

‘Why’s he taking her up to the roof?’ Golbanu whispered.