Kader Abdolah - The House of the Mosque

Nosrat’s function could be compared to that of a malijak , a fool, in the court of the ancient Persian kings. The fool was the only one who had access to the king’s private chambers and was free to say and do whatever he pleased, as long as he kept the king amused.

‘What’s the name of that television network?’ Khomeini had asked him once.

‘Which one?’

‘That American network. The one that interviewed me a couple of times.’

‘You mean CNN?’

‘Yes, that’s the one,’ he said.

‘What about it?’

‘Oh, nothing. I’ve been told that the presidents of major countries have televisions in their offices and that they’re always tuned to CNN.’

‘That’s true. I’m surprised you don’t have a television.’

Khomeini had neither a radio nor a television in his study. The news was always brought to him in written form.

‘I assume they speak only English on CNN?’

‘There’s also an Arabic channel. It’s like CNN, except that it broadcasts the news in Arabic,’ Nosrat told him. ‘I’ll bring you a television set, and you can watch it in your room.’

The next day Nosrat brought in a portable television and set it up in Khomeini’s clothes cupboard, where no one would be able to see it. He showed Khomeini how to turn it on and off, and how to change the channel.

‘As long as it’s tuned to the Arabic channel, it will be fine,’ Khomeini said in a furtive whisper, as if this were some kind of covert operation.

Several weeks later Nosrat received an unexpected call from a CNN reporter who knew about Nosrat’s close ties to Khomeini. They agreed to meet in a teahouse by the station. Nosrat told him about his work, and at the end of the conversation the reporter asked him cautiously if he might be interested in making a documentary about Khomeini.

‘What did you have in mind?’ Nosrat enquired, surprised.

‘A human-interest story.’

Nosrat’s jaw dropped. For a long time he’d been thinking of doing something along those lines, but had decided it couldn’t be done.

‘CNN wants a thirty-minute special devoted to Khomeini’s private life,’ the reporter said. ‘Of course we’d pay you a fat fee in American dollars.’

Nosrat wasn’t interested in the fee, what appealed to him was the human-interest angle. This was probably the opportunity of a lifetime, but he’d never be able to pull it off.

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘He’d never give me permission to film him.’

‘You can always try,’ the reporter replied. ‘Think about it, and let me know if there’s anything I can do.’

‘Okay,’ Nosrat agreed.

The scenes he wanted to film were already running through his head. He was so excited that night he couldn’t sleep. He would have liked to talk it over with someone, but didn’t dare, for fear that he’d jinx the project.

One night, while Nosrat and Khomeini were strolling along the lake behind Khomeini’s house, Nosrat regaled him with information about satellites. He explained what they were and how they worked, and told him that, thanks to such technological advances, people could now see the president of the United States live on television, sitting in the Oval Office and drinking a cup of coffee.

‘Human beings are curious,’ he went on. ‘And to satisfy their curiosity, they invent things like satellites and launch them into space. They want to know everything about everyone, including you. For example, where you live, how you live and what you eat. There’s nothing wrong with curiosity.’

Nosrat tried to lay the groundwork for his request, but he knew that the moment he said ‘CNN’, the word ‘America’ was sure to follow. He was afraid that if he broached the subject, he’d no longer be welcome, that Khomeini would order him to pack up his equipment and go.

But he was too obsessed by the idea to stop. He always had his camera with him, so that night, after he’d come into Khomeini’s room and switched on the TV for him, he surreptitiously pressed the red button on his camera and filmed Khomeini, sitting barefoot on the floor behind the door of his wardrobe, secretly watching television.

Over the next few months, Nosrat filmed dozens of short fragments: Khomeini walking along the lake and looking at the ducks, sparrows chirruping as they flew past his head, Khomeini stumbling over a log and his turban falling off and rolling into the lake, the ducks paddling over to the turban and plucking at it.

In one of the scenes Khomeini is lying ill in bed. He’s sleeping on his side, with his face turned towards Mecca, exactly as the dead are laid to rest in Islamic graves. His wife comes into the room. She gently feels his forehead, then leaves without saying a word.

In another shot you see him pacing up and down in his living room. He goes over to the sink, washes his hands, takes out his Koran and intently studies one of the pages. When he’s through, he picks up his pen, writes a few lines, puts the note in an envelope, seals it and calls his wife. ‘Batul!’

She comes in. ‘Make sure the general gets this,’ he says, and he hands her the envelope.

She takes it, tucks it beneath her chador, and hurries out.

It didn’t take long for Khomeini to realise that Nosrat was surreptitiously filming him. And Nosrat, for his part, was sure that Khomeini had tacitly given his consent.

One day the CNN reporter phoned Nosrat. ‘I haven’t heard from you, so I guess you decided not to accept our offer.’

‘I’ve got some great footage,’ Nosrat blurted out.

Fifteen minutes later the reporter was at his door.

Nosrat was so enthusiastic he didn’t realise he was being monitored by the new secret police. It never occurred to him that they might know about his contacts with CNN.

The reporter came in. Nosrat made some tea, slid one of the tapes into the video recorder and sat down.

The reporter couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘Fantastic!’ he said.

Before they’d viewed even half the tape, five armed men lowered themselves onto the balcony from the roof, kicked in the door, stormed inside and arrested Nosrat and the reporter. Two of the men were ordered to search the house. Anything remotely suspicious was packed into boxes and carted off.

The CNN reporter was deported the next day. Nosrat was put in a cell to await further questioning. Only then did he discover that the secret police were taking the matter much more seriously than he’d thought. He knew that he’d taken huge risks and that the charges were serious, but he was counting on Khomeini to bail him out.

Nosrat did his best to convince the interrogator that he had a great deal of respect for Khomeini and had been motivated by genuine regard.

He explained that the footage was of historical value and therefore an important part of the country’s cultural heritage.

He stressed that it had never been his intention to sell the material to the Americans, but that he had acted solely out of his love of cinematography.

He swore that he had remained faithful to both Khomeini and his camera.

And he hinted that Khomeini was aware of the fact that he was being filmed and that he could prove it if necessary.

Nosrat’s defence seemed plausible. And they would have believed him if they hadn’t discovered another tape in his house — a tape so shocking and beautiful that Nosrat hadn’t known what to do with it. He’d hidden it behind the beams in his studio in the hope that no one would ever find it, and had promptly erased it from his mind because the thought of discovery was too awful to contemplate. Now the secret police had found it.

‘Be careful, Nosrat,’ Aqa Jaan had frequently warned him. ‘Women are bound to be your downfall.’

Nosrat was always on the lookout for a special woman, whose beauty he could capture on film. It had never occurred to him, however, that that woman would turn out to be Khomeini’s wife.