Qom, Iran, 1995
Lecture topics at the
hawza ’ilmiyya
were not limited to masturbation. We also learned
about temporary marriage.
This is a Shiite-only concept designed to satisfy the urges of young men without
plunging them into the depths of sin. Temporary marriage—
sigha
in Persian—allows
a consenting couple to marry each other, under a time lock. When the agreed period
is over, the marriage is automatically voided, which saves time, not to mention messy
divorce papers.
This was a fascinating world: legal sex.
There were, of course, rules and strictures. A virgin girl would need the permission
of a guardian—a forbidding obstacle—and a normal marriage dowry must still be paid.
And should the temporary marriage lead to actual intercourse, the girl would have
to wait three months before embarking on her next contract.
In practice, this meant virgins were well out of our league. We needed to approach
mature women.
In pursuit of such wonders, us boys would often go to the holy shrine under the pretence
that we were there to pray. Women were covered head to toe; we could hardly see their
faces, let alone make out their shapes beneath the black drapes. So we’d approach
a woman at random, gently grab her long hijab and whisper: ‘Excuse me, miss, would
you like some temporary marriage?’
The response was often, ‘Go away, I’m sixty-eight years old.’
Unfazed, we’d move straight on to the next-closest woman. ‘How about you, miss? Would
you like some?’
Temporary marriage could last anywhere from thirty minutes to a lifetime. It was
used by many honest men to get to know a girl—sinlessly, and legally, before they
would commit.
Some imams, however, exploited this religious loophole to establish and run underground
brothels. It made almost perverse sense: with the dowry rule, the women needed to
be compensated anyway. Clerics had the perfect cover. Their line of work allowed
them to converse with women openly, and no one would think twice.
They also held lectures at the local mosques divided by gender, and had exclusive
access behind closed doors. It was easy to see how some clerics took advantage, effectively
becoming an imam version of a pimp. They’d sit behind a large desk, covered with
Koranic verses, and humbly offer their services as a ‘marriage celebrant’. A selection
of temporary wives was just behind the other door.
It was a legitimate practice only to a point. The three-month waiting period between
marriages meant there was no possible way that any cleric had enough girls to satisfy
demand. The Monkerat ran undercover operations, but they rarely led to arrests. They
presumably enjoyed these operations quite a lot.
We stayed away from these seedy places, not because we were afraid of getting caught,
but simply because, for all our bluster,
we were afraid of real sex and the guilt
we knew would come crashing down on us. We could ask scores of women at the shrine
for temporary marriage; we always knew their answer would be no. What would we have
done if some woman had turned around and consented? I really had no idea; I still
don’t.
One solitary occasion, without the protection of my friends, I pulled on the hijab
of a young woman in her twenties and popped the question, as I always did. She turned
around, smiling, and whispered: ‘And if I said yes, little boy, what would you do
to me?’
I stared at her like a stunned piece of taxidermy for what felt like eternity. Then
I bolted as fast as I could out of the courtyard.
Beyond the fantastical loophole of temporary marriages, girls were vexing. They were
distracting and satisfying, a happy-crazy drug. They were hypnotic and impossible,
always just out of reach.
The barbershop was a blessing and a curse. It was the only place that could legally
display pictures of Western women—and thankfully, because school required us to keep
our hair so short, getting haircuts was as common as going to the shrine.
The catalogues were full of ’70s hair models with gorgeous, fiery hair, flowing,
tantalising, hijab-free. I would flick through these catalogues while waiting for
my turn, and find myself going crazy with all this eyeball-fuel. I would long for
the barbers to take ages, cutting other boys’ hair and chatting among themselves.
It gave me more time to subtly masturbate under the sheets. I know I’m not the only
boy who took such drastic measures.
It was impossible to talk to one of these creatures in public, or look at one longer
than a few seconds at a time without getting
caught by the Piety Police. And Mum
was just as watchful as the Monkerat.
A series of diligent strategies had to be meticulously executed. I needed a solid
reason to get out of the house, get up the mountain with my cousins, and devise
them. As always, the shrine came to my rescue.
‘Mum, can we go to the shrine tomorrow?’
‘Such a good boy,’ she replied. ‘But you’ve been spending so much time at the shrine.’
‘Oh.’ Shit. ‘Have I?’
‘What’s going on?
Sowmeh
, maybe you should do some study.’
‘But Mum, you’ve always said God comes before anything else.’
‘I have never once said that. You’re thinking of your father.’
‘You say eggplant, I say eggplant,’ I replied. This was the Iraqi version of
potato–potarto
.
She relented. ‘Okay, you can go. But come back right after your prayers. And make
sure you pray for your father, too. Aqdas Khatoon—our neighbour—says they eat human
beings in the desert and feed the remains to the kangaroos.’
I was out the door before she knew it, my horny cousins in tow. We caught a bus to
the shrine, for due diligence.
It was tradition to kiss the door to the shrine upon entry. We weren’t planning to
enter, but we kissed the door anyway, and asked the Prophet’s granddaughter to forgive
us for the lies we’d told, the lies we were telling and the lies we were planning
to tell. Then we were off to the mountains, where there were no police or mums, the
one and only place where nobody but God could castigate us.
We climbed hastily; winter’s days were short, and daylight was essential if you wanted
to make it back down in one piece.
In the enclaves we’d once used to store our fireworks,
we’d planted other kinds of contraband—survival supplies, canned tuna, firewood,
gloves, torches, spare batteries. The snow-covered mountain was one giant refrigerator,
perfect for chilling drinks.
It also made the trek vastly more difficult, which was great news for us: it meant
we were the only three stooges in Qom crazy enough to be on this exact patch of earth
at this exact time in the history of the universe.
Once we reached the temple, we performed our ablutions and our afternoon prayers
and got down to our strategic business. I felt reckless—like the mobsters I’d seen
in Western movies, going to the woods to discuss a hit. I knew there were no bugs
here, no possibility of surveillance. It was only us, the smell of rocky snow, and
God—and maybe Prophet Khezr’s irate spirit.
I laid out my plan, excited. My cousins responded with silence. I could hear the
ants gossiping about our stupidity beneath the rocks.
‘I
love
it,’ said Musty.
Medhi nodded too.
The only thing left was to climb down and do a test drive.
And that was how we found ourselves standing outside the all-girls school.
We were here to gawk at girls. And maybe even talk to them. First we’d need to find
Jack’s magic beans and grow some magic balls with them. For now—no talking, just
gawking. Maybe not even gawking, if we couldn’t get Medhi to shut up. He was worried
we’d get caught and deported to Iraq. We wasted a lot of time dealing with Medhi’s
nervous breakdowns. Our fathers were war heroes, we told him. They’d never send us
to Saddam.
The three of us lurked incongruously by the school gates, which were very tall, and
blocked our views. But the girls’ school was extremely close to Ma’sooma’s temple—a
spectacular
pilgrimage destination, allergic to all sin. The last place the Piety
Police would expect three boys to do any gawking. It was the perfect crime.
To complete the look, I went to Hajji’s, the local grocer, a tiny shop, pungent with
spice. The plan was to hide behind a gigantic newspaper—you know, like they do in
the movies.
Hajji knew me. He looked at me with grave suspicion. ‘Since when do you buy political
tabloids?’
‘It’s for Dad,’ I said.
‘But your father buys the
Arabic Times
.’
‘Er, yeah, he’s improving his Farsi.’
‘Hasn’t he gone away or something? You know, to that far country?’
‘Yeah, he wants me to collect them. Every edition.’
I paid nervously and ran back over to Musty and Medhi. Our itinerary was very simple
and very stupid.
Underneath their black hijabs, all those masses of fabric, we might be lucky enough
to see a strand of hair, or even make eye contact. Whoever achieved this would be
known as ‘the dude’.
The bell rang, the gates opened—and a swift kick struck my rib cage. We looked like
three uncouth perverts to everyone on the street, and the Monkerat responded with
lightning speed. One officer punched my face so hard it bent into a shape I hadn’t
even come across in a mathematics class. He turned me into a walking Picasso piece.
They swept us, quickly, unfussily, into an unmarked sedan and sped us towards the
Entezami station. The Entezami were
cops too—but of the military variety. They had
martial ranks and carried machine guns.
They wore green uniforms, black beards and faces devoid of smiles. When they were
through with us, we lay bruised and bloodied in the wet basement of the station.
But, crazily enough, we were laughing—we were on the biggest high. We had done it.
We were all
the dude
. We weren’t virgins anymore.
Before the cops swept in, two girls had just had time to flash us. One had lifted
part of her headscarf, pretending to adjust.
‘I saw a blonde tip,’ Cousin Musty whispered.
‘Get out of here! You’re a legend!’ I screeched back, sweating and pulse racing.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘On a scale of one to blonde, she was about 8.5 heaven. She was
just like the American girls.’
My mind went back to the street near the holy shrine. I reassembled the scene in
my memory.
In my preferred version of events, the wide courtyard was empty. The turban festival
had ended, shopkeepers had shut up shop, schoolteachers were on vacation—and there
were no Piety Police. Only the larks floated by the gold dome of the shrine.
An angel stood across the road, covered in her hijab. Suddenly, like a caterpillar
coming out of its cocoon, she flung open the hijab and exposed so many hair strands
I could die a happy young boy, in this cement-smelling basement.
The moment outside the shrine had been just that: a moment. But I painted and repainted
it, a languorous mural in my mind.
I was dragged out of the reverie when the cops came for Musty. We hadn’t planned
this far ahead; we hadn’t believed we’d get caught. What if each of us gave a different
alibi?
He gave me the lowdown later on:
A fist smashed across his jaw.
‘Why were you loitering around a girls’ school?’ barked the cop.
‘I have come from Yazd,’ he told them. ‘Check my ID. I’m not from this town. I was
looking for a boys’ school. I got the address mixed up.’
The officer threw Musty out. Now it was Mehdi’s turn. Mehdi immediately fell to tears.
‘Please don’t tell my father. I’m so sorry. Please don’t deport me to Iraq. I just
wanted to check out the school for my sister, to see if she should enrol next year…’
The cop whacked Mehdi once more for good measure and unceremoniously bundled him
out. Before we got a chance to talk, it was my turn.
‘And what’s your excuse, motherless, two-legged mule?’ he asked me.
‘My name’s Osamah and my mother is still alive, sir.’
This was the wrong answer. Whack. He punched me in the jaw. Strangely, my face filled
with an anaesthetic sensation.
I tried again. ‘We were there because I had to pick up my sister from school.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ he asked me.
I sensed I’d misspoken. ‘I mean
chaperone
pick up, not rude pick up. That’s my sister
we’re talking about.’
‘I see. And what is her name?’
‘Um, what?’ And finally I broke down, sobbing. ‘Sorry, sir. I lied, I have no sister
at that school, please forgive me…’
The first punch hadn’t made me as numb as I imagined, which I learned firsthand when
the officer’s fist met my face again. It was decided I had to pay a higher price
than my cousins, because I’d initially insisted on the lie. The officer brought me
into a separate chamber and began to lift me up by the ear.
I writhed in pain, then blurted: ‘Sir! Are you telling me when you were my age, your
dick never moved for a girl?’
The Entezami officer stopped, bewildered. Then his face slowly changed. I’d never
seen a human angrier—in life, films or cartoons. He howled, and then came down on
me with a wrath worthy of scripture. He struck me wherever there was flesh and bone.
The harder he hit me, the more convinced I was that he probably had played with
himself a few decades ago. He just couldn’t admit it because of his uniform.
In our conservative society, you were far better off relying on hidden contacts,
silent codes—something less ostentatious than hanging around outside a girls’ school
with a newspaper and dark shades.