Kader Abdolah - The House of the Mosque

‘He’s an imam.’

Sadiq turned to Shahbal, who smiled and said, ‘An excellent young imam!’

Sadiq smiled.

‘I went to Qom and talked to his ayatollah. He spoke highly of him. Your brother also approved of him. What do you think? Would you like to marry an imam?’

She was silent.

‘I need an answer,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘You can’t greet a marriage proposal with silence.’

‘He’s handsome,’ Shahbal told her. He grinned. ‘He wears a stylish imam robe and shiny light-brown shoes. He’s the answer to every girl’s dream!’

Aqa Jaan pretended not to have heard his remarks, but Sadiq had heard every word. She smiled.

‘What do you think? Shall we talk to his family?’

‘Yes,’ she said softly, after a long silence. ‘Let’s do that.’

‘There’s one more thing we need to discuss,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘He’s not at all like your father. He’s a follower of Ayatollah Almakki. Does that name mean anything to you?’

Sadiq looked over at Shahbal.

‘He’s not a village imam,’ Shahbal interpreted.

‘Your life is bound to be stormy and difficult at times,’ Aqa Jaan said. ‘Do you think you could live that kind of life?’

She gave it some thought. ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

‘On the one hand, it would be a great honour. On the other hand, it could be a living hell if you didn’t support it fully,’ Aqa Jaan said.

‘May I talk to him first?’

‘Of course!’ said Aqa Jaan.

A week later Shahbal ushered Imam Khalkhal into the guest room, where a bowl of fruit and a pot of tea awaited him.

Then he fetched Sadiq and introduced her to Khalkhal.

She greeted him, but kept standing awkwardly by the mirror. He offered her a chair. She sat down and loosened her chador, so that more of her face was visible.

Shahbal left them alone and gently closed the door behind him.

The grandmothers stood by the hauz and kept an eye on things. Fakhri Sadat, the wife of Aqa Jaan, had caught a glimpse of Khalkhal from her upstairs window. Alsaberi’s wife, Zinat Khanom, was in her room, praying that her daughter would have a good marriage. It was all she could do, since no one had asked her opinion. Her thoughts on the subject didn’t count. Fakhri Sadat was the woman who made the decisions in this house.

Aqa Jaan’s two daughters hid behind the curtains so they could see Khalkhal when he left the guest room.

The meeting between Khalkhal and his prospective bride had gone on for almost an hour when the guest-room door opened and Sadiq came out. She looked happy. She glanced at the grandmothers and went up to her room.

Shahbal gave Khalkhal a tour of the courtyard and introduced him to the grandmothers. Then Fakhri Sadat came downstairs. ‘This is Aqa Jaan’s wife — the queen of our household,’ Shahbal said, laughing.

Khalkhal greeted her without looking directly at her. Then the girls were introduced, one by one. After Khalkhal had met everyone, Shahbal took him to the bazaar, so Aqa Jaan could speak to him.

A few days later Aqa Jaan received Khalkhal and his father in his study. Alsaberi was also present. Their conversation had little in common with traditional marriage negotiations, since not a word was said about money or carpets. The bride would present the groom with a gold-embossed Koran, and she would leave her father’s house in a white chador, taking with her a collection of poems by the medieval poet Hafez. After all, everyone knew that the daughters of the wealthy families in Senejan weren’t sent to their new homes empty-handed. Of course Sadiq would be provided with everything she needed. And so the rest of the conversation was about the mosque, the library, the books, the centuries-old cellars, the blind muezzin and the cedar tree in the courtyard. Lastly they set a date for the wedding.

‘ Mobarak inshallah ,’ the men said, and they shook hands.

When they were done, Sadiq came in bearing a silver tray with five silver teacups.

The wedding was scheduled to take place on the birthday of the holy Fatima — one of the best days for a wedding. The weather would be relatively hot, but a breeze from the mountains would cool things down and make you want to take your bride in your arms and crawl under a light blanket. During the summer, most people slept on their roofs. Here and there you saw a gauzy white canopy on the roof, which is where the brides and grooms slept.

There would be a special ceremony, to which the leading families in the city and the bazaar would be invited. After all, this wasn’t an ordinary wedding, but the wedding of Imam Alsaberi’s daughter. And the groom wasn’t an ordinary teacher or a registry clerk or even a merchant. He was an imam in a black turban who came from Qom.

The day of the arusi , the wedding, had arrived.

Zinat Khanom asked her daughter to come to her room, then closed the door and kissed her. ‘Are you glad you’re going to marry Khalkhal?’ she enquired.

‘I don’t know…’

‘You should be. He’s handsome and your father says he’s very ambitious.’

‘That’s what scares me.’

‘I was scared too when I married your father. Girls are always scared when they have to leave home with a man they barely know, but as soon as the two of you are alone together, your fear will disappear. After all, a girl has to marry and leave her father’s house one day.’

Zinat Khanom calmed her daughter with soothing words, but deep in her heart she too had doubts. She didn’t know why. Suddenly the ghastly memories of her past came flooding back, though she hid them from Sadiq.

‘I still can’t believe it,’ she said to her daughter.

‘Believe what?’

‘That you’re grown up, that you’re going to marry and move away.’

‘Why do you sound so sad?’

Zinat’s eyes filled with tears.

‘I wish you joy,’ she said, and kissed her daughter.

Zinat had been afraid of losing Sadiq from the moment she was born. She was terrified of finding her dead one day — in her bed, in the garden, in the hauz .

The years of Sadiq’s childhood had been filled with anxiety, and those years had taken their toll. Zinat was terrified of going to sleep at night, because she had such horrible nightmares.

Zinat Khanom and Alsaberi were cousins. She had married him when she was only sixteen. First they had a daughter, Orza, born five years before Sadiq. When she was eighteen, Orza married a man from Zinat’s family. She now had three children and lived with her husband in Kashan.

Next Zinat had a son, Abbas. The hopes of the family had been pinned on him, for he was to be Alsaberi’s successor as the imam of the mosque. But one hot summer’s day, when Zinat and Abbas were alone in the house, a dreadful thing happened.

Abbas had just learned to walk and was merrily chasing the cats on his wobbly legs. Zinat had gone up to her room and forgotten about the boy. At some point she noticed that it was quiet outside and looked out of the window. Abbas was nowhere in sight. She raced down the stairs and saw the cats sitting by the hauz , and there, floating in the water, was the body of her son. She screamed and rushed to rescue him.

Two men, who had heard her screams, appeared on the roof of the mosque and hurried down to the courtyard to help her. They pumped the boy’s stomach, but couldn’t revive him. Zinat wailed. They turned him upside down and shook him, but to no avail. Zinat wailed. They lit a fire and held him above it to warm him. But it was too late. Zinat wailed again. The men lay the child on the ground and covered him with Zinat’s chador. Abbas, the hope of the house, was dead.

No one blamed Zinat for what had happened. But she retreated to her room, shocked and grief-stricken.