Kader Abdolah - The House of the Mosque

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Ahmad said, and he knelt by the hauz to wash his hands.

The men seized him from behind and started dragging him towards the gate.

Ahmad struggled to free himself. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he cried. ‘Let me go!’

But the men ignored him.

Ahmad squirmed around until he was facing Mecca. ‘Help me, Allah!’

Fakhri Sadat quickly ordered Lizard to shut the gate. As he was closing it, Jawad, who had arrived home last night, came careering down the stairs.

‘Phone Aqa Jaan!’ Fakhri Sadat said to him. ‘Hurry!’

Then she went over to the men and planted herself in front of them. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she said. ‘This is the imam of the mosque! You should be ashamed of yourselves!’

At the sound of Aqa Jaan’s footsteps in the alley, Lizard re-opened the gate. He was trying to tell him something in his usual gibberish when Aqa Jaan suddenly saw two men trying to overpower the struggling Ahmad. ‘Stop it!’ he yelled. ‘Stop it! What do you think you’re doing? Let go of him!’

Muezzin also came hurrying into the courtyard, while Nasrin and Ensi watched from upstairs. Aqa Jaan pulled one of the men off Ahmad, but Ahmad lost his balance and fell over. He scrambled to his feet and was about to make a dash for the roof when one of the men kicked him so hard that he fell down again. This time the man grabbed him, shoved his knee in his back and handcuffed him.

Lizard cowered, bewildered, next to Muezzin.

Aqa Jaan tried to reason with the men. ‘I’ll bring him to the court myself. I don’t want him to be dragged off in handcuffs. I’m Aqa Jaan, you can trust me, I’ll go with you. This isn’t the proper way to do things.’

One of the men shoved him aside. Jawad quickly intervened and tried to keep his father from shoving him back. ‘Leave it,’ he said. ‘You’ve done all you can.’

‘Allah! Allah! Allah! Allah!’ Aqa Jaan exclaimed as the three men pushed Ahmad roughly into a jeep.

‘Which court are you taking him to?’ Aqa Jaan called out helplessly.

But the jeep roared off, leaving his question unanswered.

Fakhri Sadat, weeping, was led upstairs by her daughters.

Jawad tried to get Aqa Jaan to come into the house, but he refused.

‘This is a disaster,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘I have to find out where they’re taking him.’ And he rushed off through the gate.

The men blindfolded Ahmad and drove him to a secret location, which had been turned into an Islamic court only the day before.

When they removed the blindfold, Ahmad saw that he was standing in a dimly lit room. He had no idea where he was, though he knew he had to be in a cellar, because he’d counted thirteen steps on the way down.

There were no windows. The walls were covered with large strips of black cloth on which sacred texts had been scrawled in white paint.

The only furniture consisted of a table and two chairs. A green flag — the symbol of Islam — had been nailed crookedly to the wall behind the taller of the two chairs.

Ahmad was ordered to sit on the low chair. The men left him alone in the airless room, with a yellow lamp shining down ominously on his face.

For one long hour he sat there, waiting for something to happen.

The silence and the uncertainty were terrifying.

He heard a door open somewhere, and there were hurried footsteps on the stairs.

A guard came in. ‘Stand up for the Islamic judge!’ he bellowed.

Ahmad stood up. He could just make out the figure of a young imam, who promptly sat down across from him.

‘The accused may be seated!’ he snapped.

Ahmad sat down and tried to see if he knew the imam. But he was so blinded by the lamplight that he couldn’t get a clear look at his face.

‘I’m going to read out your name,’ the judge began. ‘If it is correct, you may say yes. Then I’m going to ask you a few questions to which you must reply.’

‘I am the imam of the Friday Mosque,’ Ahmad said. ‘Before you start, I would like to have my robe and turban brought to me. If not, I refuse to answer your questions.’

‘You are Ahmad Alsaberi, the son of Mohammad Alsaberi.’

Ahmad maintained a stubborn silence.

‘As an active member of the secret police,’ the judge continued, ‘the suspect has committed the worst crime an imam can commit.’

‘That’s not true!’ Ahmad burst out. ‘I haven’t done anything!’

‘We’re got the evidence in here,’ the judge said, holding up a file.

‘Then it’s been falsified. I should know whether or not I’ve done anything wrong, and I don’t have any crimes on my conscience.’

‘We have proof that you were working hand in glove with the shah’s secret police,’ the judge said.

‘You can’t have proof, because I wasn’t working with them. As an imam I have contacts with all kinds of people — everyone from beggars to the chief of the secret police. You have no doubt received reports of those contacts, but they could hardly be considered evidence in a court of law! I was the imam of the mosque during turbulent times. Whenever I gave an inflammatory speech, the secret police showed up on my doorstep and read me the riot act. A judge wouldn’t consider that to be evidence either. I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘You’re an opium addict,’ the judge replied.

‘That’s not a sin,’ Ahmad retorted. ‘Most of the ayatollahs in this country are opium addicts.’

‘We have proof that you smoked opium with top men in the secret police.’

‘True, but that’s all I did.’

‘They gave you money. That’s been documented.’

‘Only in my official capacity as an imam. People confide in me and give me money for a variety of reasons. The secret police also gave me money, but I turned every last cent of it over to the mosque.’

‘You’ve had improper relations with women on numerous occasions.’

‘I’ve had relations with women, but always according to sharia law.’

‘I have in my possession photographs which clearly show you smoking opium and cavorting with prostitutes.’

‘The secret police set me up in order to discredit me, but I…’

Up to this point he’d tried to give convincing answers to the judge’s questions, but in the harsh light of the lamp it was obvious that his hands were shaking, and that tears were oozing out of his eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

Soon he began to stutter and leave his sentences unfinished. It was the opium. He’d never kicked the habit. Instead, he’d bought a modern electrical pipe in Tehran so that he could smoke opium in secret wherever he wanted to. Aqa Jaan knew, but had decided to turn a blind eye.

If he’d had his usual fix, he would have been able to defend himself more eloquently. But they’d arrested him at the wrong moment, just when he’d been about to smoke his pipe before going to the mosque to lead the prayer.

Now that he was under so much pressure, every nerve in his body was crying out for opium. It felt like an elephant was standing on his chest.

Usually he kept a little chunk of opium in his robe for emergencies. If he’d had it with him now, he could have swallowed it and felt halfway normal, but when they hauled him off to the Islamic Court, he’d been wearing only a long cotton shirt.

In desperation, he patted the pockets of his shirt, but they were as empty as a desert.

He tried to loosen his collar so he could breathe more easily, but his fingers refused to cooperate. His forehead was beaded with sweat. His ears began to pound, the sound faded away and he no longer heard the judge’s voice. Everything went black before his eyes, and he slid from his chair.

The next morning his wife took their child and went home to her parents.