The House of the Mosque (35 page)

Ahmad was led out from behind an improvised green curtain. He looked frail and unkempt. It had been weeks since he’d had any opium, and it showed in his lined face and stooped shoulders. He looked like an unwashed tramp. If the judge hadn’t announced his name, nobody would have recognised him.

The crowd stared in disbelief at Ahmad Alsaberi, once their beloved imam, the man who used to receive hundreds of love letters.

First the judge called for silence, then he began to read his verdict: ‘Ahmad Alsaberi has been found guilty of collaborating with the secret police of the former regime. Of collaborating with Satan! This is an act of treason against Islam and against the mosque that he was appointed to serve. However, because he doesn’t have any blood on his hands, he has been sentenced to only ten years in prison!’

There were gasps and cries from the crowd. Again the judge called for silence, then resumed his reading: ‘The offender is hereby relieved of his duties. Since he will no longer be allowed to work as an imam, his robe and turban have been taken from him.’

Ahmad trembled in his filthy shirt.

‘Because he was the imam of the Friday Mosque, and was therefore expected to set an example to others, he will be given an extra punishment,’ the judge said. He paused, then suddenly exclaimed, ‘Bring in the donkey!’

The guards led a white donkey out from behind the stands.

There were mutterings from the crowd: ‘What are they up to now? What are they going to do to him?’

The donkey took one look at the mass of people and refused to take another step. The guards had to push it onto the platform.

Aqa Jaan recognised the animal. It was Am Ramazan’s donkey!

Just then a group of militants wearing green headbands bearing the words ‘Soldier of Khomeini’ came bursting into the square, shouting, ‘God is great! Death to the henchman of the shah!’

Above the tumult, the judge cried: ‘The offender is to be seated backwards on the donkey and taken to the Friday Mosque. This is a merciful punishment for a man who has defiled his imam robe!’

There was a shocked silence. Everyone stared in horror at Ahmad, who kept his eyes glued to the ground.

Aqa Jaan took out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow. He couldn’t believe they were actually going to make Ahmad ride backwards on a donkey through Senejan!

Ahmad had admittedly done some foolish things, but Aqa Jaan didn’t believe he’d ever been a henchman of the shah. It would be totally out of character. But why didn’t Ahmad speak up? Why didn’t he object? Why didn’t he defend himself?

Aqa Jaan pushed his way towards the platform. ‘Ahmad!’ he cried loudly. ‘You’re not a traitor! Defend yourself!’

Everyone stared at Aqa Jaan.

‘Say something!’ he cried, louder this time.

At the sound of Aqa Jaan’s voice, Ahmad seemed to snap out of his trance.

‘Quiet!’ the judge ordered.

‘Speak up, Ahmad!’ Aqa Jaan said.

‘Quiet!’ the judge ordered again.

Two guards came over and seized Aqa Jaan.

‘Wake up, Ahmad! Say something! Do it for me! Do it for us! For the mosque!’ Aqa Jaan shouted as he tried to shake off the guards.

‘You’re the imam of our mosque, defend your—’ he cried. But before he could finish his sentence, one of the guards twisted his arm behind his back and pushed him to the ground, face down.

‘Ahmad! Do something for us!’ he called, as the guards held him down.

Two of the merchants from the bazaar ran up and dragged Aqa Jaan out from under the hands and feet of the guards, then led him back to where they’d been standing.

Ahmad, summoning all his strength, raised his arms in the air and addressed the crowd. ‘I swear by the Holy Koran that I am innocent!’ he cried.

‘Be quiet!’ the judge ordered.

‘I swear by the mosque that I’ve never been a henchman of the shah!’

‘Shut up!’ the judge roared, truly angry now.

‘I have never—’ Ahmad began. Just then two guards grabbed hold of him and started to lift him onto the donkey, but the animal shied away. One of the guards jabbed it so hard with his rifle that the donkey stumbled and fell, then scrambled to its feet again.

An old man wearing a green headband and holding a weapon stepped forward. He stroked the donkey’s head, then held the animal still while the guards hoisted Ahmad into the saddle.

Aqa Jaan couldn’t believe his eyes. The old man in the uniform was Am Ramazan! Their former gardener had become a soldier in the Army of Allah! It was inconceivable. Am Ramazan had not only let them use his donkey to humiliate Ahmad and break his will, but he had even volunteered to hold the animal still.

He ought to be ashamed of himself. Why, he still had the key to their house! How could people change so quickly?

Aqa Jaan was so upset that he began to chant the Al-Mursalat surah like a madman:

The donkey moved off. Ahmad was weeping soundlessly. Someone threw a stone that hit him in the head.

Aqa Jaan could bear it no longer. He ran after the donkey and hurled himself in front of it. ‘Stop!’ he said to the crowd. ‘You can’t throw stones! He hasn’t been sentenced to a stoning! Where’s that accursed judge?’

One of the guards gave Aqa Jaan a shove, which sent him sprawling to the ground. But he got back up again, with surprising agility for a man of his age, and ran towards the donkey.

The guard stuck out the lower end of his rifle and blocked the way.

Another stone was thrown. This one struck Ahmad’s right ear. Aqa Jaan took out his Koran, thrust aside the guard and ran over to Ahmad. Positioning himself in front of his nephew, he held up his Koran and shouted, ‘In the name of this book, do not stone him!’

The guard snatched the Koran out of his hand and hit him across the face with it. The blow sent Aqa Jaan reeling, but he quickly regained his balance. He grabbed Ahmad round the waist and tried to drag him off the donkey, pulling so hard that they both fell to the ground.

While two of the guards were lifting Ahmad back onto the donkey, the other guards were kicking Aqa Jaan. Their heavy boots thudded into his stomach, back and legs.

The donkey trotted off towards the mosque, and the crowd followed along behind.

Aqa Jaan lay curled up in agony, chanting:

He placed his palms on the ground and rose painfully to his feet.

I
n the beginning was the Cow. The rest was silence. At least that’s what the ancient Persians believed, which is why the columns in the old Persian palaces in the province of Fars are crowned with the heads of cows.

When the Cow died, the rest of creation emerged from her body. Plants and animals sprang up out of her flesh.

After a while this belief disappeared and was replaced by others. Fire became sacred and the Cow faded into the background.

Fires were still burning brightly in the fire temples in the mountains when Zoroaster, the first Persian prophet, was born in Yazd. Zoroaster announced that neither the Cow nor Fire was to be worshipped. There was one supreme deity, he said, and he gave him a name: Ahura Mazda. Fire became the symbol of Ahura Mazda on earth. The prophet also presented his people with the holy book of Zoroaster, the Avesta.

Centuries later, Muhammad proclaimed Islam. The ancient Persian beliefs were suppressed and the Fire was extinguished.

The Cow and the Fire have not been worshipped for fourteen hundred years, but they still live on in the Persian spirit.

Islam had created a rift in Aqa Jaan’s family. For the past eight centuries the house had been united in its struggle against the enemies of Islam, fighting the battle from the pulpit of the mosque. Now, for the first time, the family’s foe was Islam itself.

The revolution had more or less ended, but Shahbal still hadn’t come home.

Nosrat was doing well, working day and night to carve out a position for himself as an Iranian filmmaker in the new Islamic Republic. He didn’t have time to come home. He didn’t phone any more either.

Zinat had thrown herself so zealously into Khomeini’s brand of Islam that she was rarely at home. She broke off all contact with the family. They had no idea what she was doing.

Muezzin, who didn’t feel well, went on trips more and more often.

Jawad was often away from home. Though he didn’t tell his family, he was spending much of his time in Tehran, where he was in touch with Shahbal. He’d always secretly sympathised with the leftist movement and with the struggle that Shahbal was now actively engaged in.

‘Why don’t you come home?’ Jawad asked Shahbal.

‘When Khomeini was living in Paris, he promised to tolerate others. Now that he’s in power, he’s forgotten his promise. To him, leftists are blasphemers. There’s no room for dissent in his regime, so we’ve toned down our rhetoric and gone underground. Khomeini can’t be trusted.’

Nasrin and Ensi, the daughters of Aqa Jaan, also decided to leave. They were hoping to find a place in Tehran. No woman in the family had ever lived on her own before, but Nasrin and Ensi were no longer content to sit at home and wait for a husband.

Fakhri Sadat had always been protective of her daughters. She hadn’t insisted that they attend mosque regularly, and she had sent them to the best schools in Senejan. After secondary school, both girls had gone on to teacher’s training college. In the normal course of things, they would have graduated by now and be working as teachers. But schools and universities had shut down when the revolution began. When they re-opened, Nasrin and Ensi weren’t allowed back in.

The new regime had unleashed a cultural revolution in factories, offices, schools and universities. Anyone not considered Islamic enough was sent home. Nasrin and Ensi were the first students in their class to be dismissed, mostly because of Ahmad’s disgrace and Aqa Jaan’s spirited defence of him.

For a while the girls went on living at home, but there was no future for them in Senejan.

‘Nasrin and Ensi want to move to Tehran,’ Fakhri Sadat announced to her husband one night as they were getting ready for bed. ‘They’ve come to me to ask me what I think.’

‘We can’t send two young girls to Tehran by themselves!’ Aqa Jaan said.

‘What are you planning to do? Keep them here for ever?’

Aqa Jaan didn’t reply.

‘They have no future here. You’ve got to let them go.’

A few days later Nasrin and Ensi went to see Aqa Jaan in his study and told him that they wanted to find jobs in Tehran and that he shouldn’t try to stop them.

‘All right,’ said Aqa Jaan, ‘I won’t stand in your way.’

So they moved to Tehran, where they found rooms with a former classmate.

Aqa Jaan continued to go to the bazaar every day, but things had changed. The men, who had all grown beards, spent most of their time competing for the mullahs’ favours. Insolence had become the norm; no one showed Aqa Jaan the slightest bit of respect. Ever since his office boy had started coming to work in a militia uniform, Aqa Jaan didn’t dare phone anyone when he was in the room.

In the past, when he had gone to the villages to check up on his workshops, he had always been given a royal welcome. Now the villagers didn’t even come out to say hello.

One day an old friend of his from Isfahan stopped by and found him bent over the papers on his desk. Aqa Jaan had aged so much he was unrecognisable. He had turned into a broken, grey-haired old man.

He tried to keep working as usual, but his heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t have the energy he once had either, so he started going home earlier and pottering about the garden. Sometimes he went down to the cellar and spent hours poking around. One day Fakhri Sadat went looking for him. ‘What have you been doing down here all this time?’ she asked.

‘I’ve never had the time to look through these trunks.’

‘That’s enough for today. Go and wash your hands. I’ve just made tea.’

He washed his hands and face in the
hauz
and went into the kitchen to drink tea with Fakhri.

‘Be patient,’ Aqa Jaan advised her, when she began to moan about her children’s future.

‘How can I be patient when all three of my children have left home with no future prospects and we don’t even know where they are half the time?’

‘Our children are not the only ones. Thousands of others are suffering the same fate. That’s how life has always been and always will be. The only remedy for that is patience.’

‘Your faith gives you the strength to be patient, but it doesn’t help me. I’m weak and filled with doubts. I hardly dare to say it, but I doubt if God sees our struggles.’

‘Be strong, Fakhri. Don’t stray into the darkness. You need to hold on to your serenity.’

‘Everyone acts out of self-interest, everyone tries to protect his own territory. You’re the only person who’s always been honest, and where has it got you? The cellar! You used to be the most important man in the bazaar, your word was gold, and how do you spend your time now? Rummaging through the junk in the cellar!’

‘I wish you wouldn’t put it like that,’ Aqa Jaan said, stung.