Kader Abdolah - The House of the Mosque

‘Fine. And now get back to work. Muezzin needs some assistance, so if you’re not too busy, you can help him. That’s all. You may go.’

That evening after the prayer Aqa Jaan asked Ahmad to walk down to the river with him. As they strolled along the banks in the waning light, he gave Ahmad a severe talking-to, making it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate his vulgar behaviour to women and that his use of opium was an affront to the mosque. If Ahmad was not prepared to heed his advice, he would have to curtail his freedom.

Ahmad listened to Aqa Jaan in silence.

‘Don’t you have anything to say in your defence?’

Even that failed to get a response out of Ahmad.

A few days later Aqa Jaan approached the father of the oldest carpet merchant in the city to discuss the possibility of a marriage between his daughter and Ahmad.

One month later the family of the bride held a wedding banquet. At midnight the bride was brought to the house in a decorated coach. Though one of the bedrooms on the upper floor was to be hers, the guest room had been readied for the seven nights of the honeymoon.

Ahmad was given a week off, and the family went to Jirya, so that he and his bride could spend some time alone. Lounging round the house in baggy cotton clothing that didn’t restrict his movement, Ahmad acted like a prince who had brought his young bride to a castle.

His wife was named Samira. At eighteen, she was a classic beauty. On the first night Ahmad charmed her and made love to her until dawn, only falling asleep when it got light.

At one o’clock that afternoon, Am Ramazan welcomed him to the Opium Room, where the pipe had already been laid out for him. Ahmad had asked Am Ramazan to arrange for a seven-day supply, since opium was said to be an aphrodisiac.

After Ahmad had smoked a quarter of a roll of yellow opium, he went back upstairs and crawled into bed with his bride, who was fast asleep.

Samira bore him a daughter, Masud. Everyone was delighted with the little girl, but the house was waiting for a son and successor to Ahmad.

People still flocked to the mosque. Ahmad’s sermons were exciting to listen to, for he was a born storyteller. He had wonderful things to say about the tales in the Koran. He transported you with the magic of his words to the past, to the time of the prophet Muhammad, who used to make love to his young wife, Aisha, on the roof of his house. One time Ahmad told the following story:

Muhammad had declared street musicians taboo. No Muslim was supposed to listen to their music. Then one day, as he lay with his young wife Aisha on the roof, he heard music drifting up from the street. Aisha begged him to let her take a look: ‘Let me see, let me see, let me see!’ Love won out. Muhammad bent down, and Aisha stepped onto his back and peeped over the balustrade at the musicians down below.

This was the first time an imam had ever told such a tale in the mosque, but Ahmad was forever coming up with unusual stories that left his audience spellbound. Instead of an imam, he probably should have become a storyteller, an actor who charmed the crowds at the bazaar with his tales.

Ahmad scheduled even more trips to important religious bastions such as Kashan, Arak, Hamadan and Isfahan. Sometimes he was gone for a whole week. And yet he always came back with two bags: one filled with money and gold, and the other with love letters and presents that veiled women had surreptitiously slipped into his pockets, such as socks, vests, underwear, colognes, soaps and rings.

Although Ahmad had promised Aqa Jaan that he would stop, he continued to frequent clandestine opium dens throughout the city.

To escape Aqa Jaan’s watchful eye, he accepted as many speaking engagements as possible in distant cities. There he met men who spirited him off to their favourite haunts, where they caroused with women and smoked opium until dawn.

In Senejan Aqa Jaan kept him on a tight leash, which is how he came into contact with the underworld. What he didn’t realise, however, was that the secret police were laying a trap for him.

Opium had been outlawed a year ago. Addicts were allowed to collect half a roll of opium from a chemist’s twice a month, provided they were registered with the authorities. Since he couldn’t go through the legal channels, Ahmad got his supply illegally.

One night, he and two other men were smoking opium and enjoying the company of women in the cellar of a house in Senejan, when all of a sudden the secret police burst in. They took several pictures of Ahmad, seated beside two unveiled woman and an opium kit. After planting a few more illegal rolls of opium, they photographed the scene from every angle, clapped handcuffs on Ahmad and drove him to an unknown location, where an agent was waiting to speak to him.

Ahmad had nothing to say. He knew that he’d been framed and that it wouldn’t be easy to get out of this predicament.

‘You can sleep in your own bed tonight and lead the prayer in the mosque tomorrow morning as usual,’ the agent told him, ‘on one condition.’

‘What’s the condition?’ Ahmad asked, his voice trembling.

‘That from now on you and I will keep in touch, if you know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t know what you mean.’

‘In that case things are going to get complicated, because I’ll have to send you straight to jail, where the morning edition of the paper will be brought to you at breakfast with your picture plastered across the front page. Maybe then you’ll figure out what I mean.’

It was a long night. Ahmad wept soundlessly. He hadn’t expected his life to take such a terrifying turn.

When dawn finally arrived, the agent came to his cell. In the meantime the photographs had been developed, and he showed one of them to Ahmad. ‘What’s it going to be?’ he asked. ‘Shall we have some copies made, or shall you and I have a little chat?’

Ahmad had no choice. If the picture of him with the two unveiled women and the opium was published in the newspaper, his career would be over, and he would bring shame upon his family. So he went with the agent to his office, where he was given a chair and asked to fill in a form. ‘Provided we can reach an understanding, this will take only five minutes,’ the agent said. ‘After that I will personally escort you home. What we want you to do is simple. We want you to keep in close touch with Qom and to pass on whatever information we ask for. That’s all.’

Half an hour later a car delivered Ahmad to the gate of the mosque. He stepped out. ‘You’ll be hearing from us,’ the agent said, and he drove off.

Several months went by and nothing happened. Ahmad hoped and prayed that the secret police had merely wanted to scare him into submission. They had not forgotten Khalkhal’s campaign against the cinema and the riot he’d triggered during Farah Diba’s visit. No doubt they were trying to take revenge by holding Ahmad hostage.

He hoped they’d dropped the idea of using him as an informer, because he wasn’t cut out for the job. It would be highly inappropriate for him, as an imam and as a person. But what kind of information could he pass on if he had to?

He knew that the secret police were blackmailing him so he wouldn’t stir up trouble. Their little game had worked. He no longer dared to say anything about the shah or the rumblings in Qom.

He cautiously allowed himself to feel happy again, and his fears gradually faded. But one evening, just after the prayer had ended, he suddenly saw the agent kneeling beside him in the prayer room.

‘How are you?’ the man whispered, with an intimidating smile.

Horrified, Ahmad turned to see whether Aqa Jaan was sitting in the row behind him. He wasn’t.

‘What do you want?’ he asked in a low voice.