Kader Abdolah - The House of the Mosque

‘Not that I can think of.’

The office boy came in and ushered the imam to the door.

That evening, when Aqa Jaan was lying in bed beside Fakhri Sadat, he suddenly chuckled.

‘What’s so funny?’ Fakhri Sadat asked.

‘Nothing. I was thinking about the substitute imam. He’s a simple man, with lots of ambition, but he has no idea how to realise his dreams.’

‘So you’re laughing at the poor man?’

‘No, not at all. I appreciate the fact that he wants to make something of himself. It’s just that he has the build of a peasant.’

‘You can hardly blame him for that,’ Fakhri Sadat said, smiling.

‘You’re right. But I know from experience that you won’t get very far without talent. It’s not enough to have the lamp — there has to be a genie inside. I won’t bore you with the details, but, you know, he set his turban at an angle and said, “I’d like to elevate the tone of my sermons.”’ Aqa Jaan roared with laughter.

‘You are laughing at him,’ Fakhri Sadat said.

‘No, I’m not really, I’m just feeling happy. Everything is going the way it should. The mosque is doing well, the imam is right for the job, the business is rolling along as usual, and the new design is finished and it’s beautiful. Orders are pouring in and people can hardly wait to see our new carpets. Everyone wants them. It’s going to be a good year. Besides, we’re all in good health. What more could anyone want?’

He turned and laid his hand on Fakhri Sadat’s breasts. ‘Plus I have you,’ he said, ‘and I’m in the mood for love. What more could a man want?’

Fakhri Sadat batted his hand away, turned over on her side and lay with her back to him. He slipped his hand underneath her nightgown and caressed her bottom. ‘Take off your nightgown,’ he said softly. ‘I want you naked.’

Fakhri Sadat pulled the blanket over her head. ‘Are you crazy?’ she said. ‘What’s got into you that’s made you want me naked?’

He pressed his hand between her warm thighs and whispered:

My thirsty lips

Search yours.

Take off my clothes

Embrace me.

Here are my lips,

My neck and burning breasts.

Here is my soft body!

‘What did you say?’ Fakhri Sadat said in surprise. She pushed back the blanket and sat bolt upright in bed.

‘It’s a modern poem,’ he said, and kissed her neck. Then he carefully pulled her nightgown over her head and lay her down on her back. ‘If I recite the poem,’ he whispered, ‘will you repeat it to me?’

‘No, I won’t. You’re scaring me. What do you want?’

‘I want you .’

Fakhri Sadat closed her eyes.

One Wednesday evening, when the family was gathered together, Zinat told them a magical tale:

And Allah fell in love with his creation. He fell in love with the stars, with his Milky Way, with his sun, with his moon and especially with his beautiful Earth. He was so proud of the Earth that He wanted to go and live there himself. But how could He do that?

One night Allah had a brilliant idea. He asked his messenger Gabriel to go down to Earth and bring him back some clay. Gabriel did as he was told, and Allah fashioned a man out of the clay, exactly as He wanted him to be. Then He asked the spirit to enter the body, but the spirit refused. The spirit thought he deserved something better than a body made out of clay. So Allah appointed Gabriel as his go-between.

‘Step into that body!’ Gabriel ordered the spirit.

The spirit refused.

‘I order you in the name of Allah to step into that body!’ Gabriel said.

‘Now that you’ve invoked Allah’s name, I will,’ said the spirit. And with a shiver of distaste, the spirit stepped into the body. As the spirit was passing through the chest, the man unexpectedly stood up, then lost his balance and fell over.

Allah smiled. ‘He hasn’t learned how to be patient,’ Allah said to Gabriel.

The man was given a name: Adam.

Adam sat in the same spot for seven days and waited. Allah sent him a golden throne studded with jewels, a silk carpet and a crown. Adam got dressed, put the crown on his head and seated himself on the throne. Then the angels lifted Adam and his throne onto their shoulders and carried him down to Earth. At that time Creation was 1,240 years old.

Wednesday evening was storytelling time. Every Wednesday the family ate together, then listened to Zinat. The grandmothers lit the candles, switched off the lights and passed round a bowl of nuts.

Zinat Khanom was a born storyteller. She had a warmth in her voice that made you want to listen to her. Her stories were drawn from old books, particularly those with extensive interpretations of the Koran. The Koran is a stark, but highly evocative, book. The stories are never told in great detail. As a result many books have been written to explain and flesh out the bare bones of the stories, and it was from these books that Zinat drew her inspiration.

For the most part Zinat was quiet and withdrawn. Nobody knew about her storytelling talent until the day she told a couple of children a short story she knew by heart.

After her son Abbas had drowned, Zinat had taken refuge in her room. Only when she became pregnant again with Sadiq had she emerged from her self-imposed isolation, venturing into the courtyard more often and going to help the grandmothers in the kitchen.

After Sadiq’s birth, Zinat was plagued by so many fears that she couldn’t sleep. During this time, the grandmothers never left her side. They were her main source of comfort and strength. Night after night they sat by her bed until she fell asleep.

When Ahmad was born, her fears were rekindled. One day she handed the baby to Golbanu. ‘Watch him for me!’ she said. ‘I’m afraid of losing this child too. I’m going to the mosque. I need to pray.’

Since then Zinat had gone faithfully to the mosque every day.

When Alsaberi was still alive, he used to retreat into his own world in the library and not get involved in the life of his wife and children.

Zinat’s children thought of Aqa Jaan as the head of the household, which is why they called him ‘Father’.

After Alsaberi’s death, Zinat spent hours and hours in the library of the mosque. Everyone thought she was going to the mosque to mourn the loss of her husband, but she was actually preparing for a new phase in her life.

At first she kept to herself, but later she met a couple of women in the mosque who took her along to their devotional meetings.

An odd thing happened to Zinat Khanom when she became a widow. All of a sudden she seemed to have been liberated, though no one could have said from what. Before then, she had felt like a balloon whose string had become snagged on a tree, but now she felt herself soaring into the sky. It was a wonderful — and terrifying — feeling.

The moment the summer holidays began, she gathered up her children and went to her parents’ house in the mountains, where she hoped to find some peace.

Zinat had never thought of Alsaberi as a real man, as a husband. He had been more of an imam than a family man.

When she compared her marriage to Fakhri Sadat’s, Zinat realised that she didn’t have a family life. Instead, she was merely a woman who had given birth to a son, a successor.

Fakhri Sadat had Aqa Jaan, and she had a real life. Zinat’s bedroom was on the same floor as hers. Late in the evening, when she walked past Fakhri’s door, she invariably saw Aqa Jaan lying beside his wife in the reddish glow of the nightlight. And sometimes she heard Fakhri giggling in the middle of the night.