The House of the Mosque (19 page)

The grandmothers put on their good clothes, powdered their cheeks and donned their most beautiful chadors. Then off they went, in the direction of the bazaar.

Hajji Mustafa was an old friend of Aqa Jaan. He was also a powerful man in the city, since he had the exclusive right to arrange trips to holy shrines in other cities and to organise the pilgrimages to Karbala, Najaf, Medina, Damascus and Mecca.

His travel agency was in the middle of the bazaar. Hundreds of prospective pilgrims stopped by every day to plan their trips. The grandmothers went in, but didn’t have to queue like the others. After all, they had a personal letter for Hajji Mustafa.

They peeked through the window of his office. Although they’d seen him in the mosque only once, they recognised him immediately. He was sitting at his desk, talking on the phone. He motioned for them to come in, and they cautiously opened the door.

‘What can I do for you?’ Hajji Mustafa said, as soon as his call was over. The grandmothers handed him their letters. ‘We have a message for you,’ Golbanu said.

He put on his glasses, opened one of the envelopes and carefully perused the letter, peering occasionally at the grandmothers over the rim of his glasses. After reading the second letter, he took off his glasses and sat without moving for one long minute.

The grandmothers exchanged questioning glances.

He put the letters back in their envelopes, touched them reverently to his forehead and slipped them into a drawer.

‘Please sit down,’ he said solemnly.

The grandmothers seated themselves in the two old-fashioned leather chairs beside his desk.

Hajji Mustafa rummaged through some papers, jotted down a few words and made a mysterious phone call. Then he went out, leaving the grandmothers alone in his office without saying a word to either of them. Fifteen minutes later he came back in and took a thick ledger out of a mahogany filing cabinet. He opened the ledger and said solemnly, ‘Golbanu.’

‘That’s me,’ said one of the grandmothers, and she stood up.

He put an old-fashioned ink pad in front of her. ‘Place the tip of your index finger on this ink pad,’ he said, ‘then press it here in this ledger.’

With trembling hands, Golbanu did as she had been instructed.

‘You may be seated.’

He filled in a few lines, then said, ‘Golebeh.’

‘That’s me,’ the other grandmother said in a quavering voice, and she stood up.

‘Press here and here.’

She pressed her finger on the ink pad and then again on the line in the ledger to which Hajji was pointing with his pen.

‘What’s your address?’ he asked.

‘The house of the mosque,’ Golbanu said.

‘Do both of you live there?’

‘Yes,’ they said.

When he was finished writing, he stamped the two entries with a rubber stamp, then stood up. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

The grandmothers followed him down a hallway, through a narrow room, into a larger office and down a dim corridor, until at last Hajji stopped in front of a closed door. He took out a key, opened the door and turned to the grandmothers. ‘Please take off your shoes before entering.’

Golbanu and Golebeh found themselves standing on the threshold of an extraordinary room. Banners inscribed with sacred texts lined the walls. Rows of wooden racks were filled with battered leather suitcases. The familiar smell of books and leather gave the place an aura of holiness. An antique rug stretched from one end of the room to the other. Off to one side was a small alcove with a big stack of ledgers. The ones on the top were covered with a thick layer of dust.

The hands of the grandmothers shook beneath their chadors. They removed their shoes and went inside.

‘Sit down,’ said Hajji, pointing to some chairs grouped around an antique table. Suspended above it was an exquisite silver chandelier with seven candles. The grandmothers’ hearts soared.

‘Everything that has happened so far, everything we’ve said to each other and everything you’ve seen up till now are to be kept secret,’ Hajji said. ‘If you breathe a word of this to anyone, your trip will be cancelled.’

‘We won’t tell a soul,’ Golbanu said.

He disappeared behind a curtain and came back with two brand-new suitcases, on which a picture of the Kaaba had been embossed. He set the tan suitcases beside the grandmothers with such an official flourish that they nearly fainted from excitement.

Hajji sat down across from them. ‘Everyone at home is probably going to ask you a lot of questions,’ he said calmly. ‘But don’t answer them. I repeat, don’t answer them.’

‘We understand,’ Golbanu said.

‘On the anniversary of Fatima’s birth, the two of you are to wait with your suitcases at the entrance to the bazaar,’ Hajji said.

‘We will,’ Golbanu promised.

‘If you have any questions, now is the time to ask,’ he said, ‘because you won’t get another chance.’

The grandmothers looked at each other uncertainly. Did they have any questions? No, they didn’t.

‘Oh, wait,’ Golbanu said hesitantly. ‘I do have one. What time are we supposed to be at the bazaar?’

‘Early in the morning, just before dawn,’ Hajji replied.

Golebeh had a question as well, but she didn’t dare ask it, so she whispered it in Golbanu’s ear.

‘Excuse me,’ Golbanu said, ‘but you haven’t given us any proof. It might be good to have some kind of document with our names on it.’

‘The suitcases are your proof!’ Hajji said. ‘They already have your names on them.’

They looked at the suitcases and, to their surprise, saw their names written in big letters on a piece of paper encased in a transparent plastic holder.

‘So they are!’ Golbanu said, and she scowled at Golebeh for asking such a silly question.

‘You will receive your travel documents on the day of the trip,’ said Hajji. ‘Any other questions?’

The grandmothers exchanged glances. No, they had no more questions.

Beaming with joy and hiding their smiles behind their chadors, the grandmothers picked up their suitcases, left the travel agency and made their way through the busy bazaar.

At home they hid the suitcases in one of the trunks in the cellar and pretended nothing had happened. But the secret weighed heavily on their hearts. They couldn’t sleep; they tossed and turned for hours. The days seemed longer and the nights went on for ever. Was it really going to happen? Would they be able to pack their bags one day and set off on their journey? Were they strong enough to undertake such a long trip?

They were afraid they weren’t going to live to see the day, that they would have an accident or break a leg or die. But they had been patient for forty years, so a few more months would hardly matter.

A
group of seven men emerged from the alley. Four of the men bore a large basket, suspended from two poles, on their shoulders, while the other three walked on ahead. They were villagers from Jirya, transporting Kazem Khan to the house of the mosque.

One of them knocked. It took a while for Golebeh to open the door. ‘Yes, gentlemen?’ she said, surprised to see a makeshift litter.

‘We have Kazem Khan with us,’ one of them said, pointing to the basket.

‘Golbanu!’ Golebeh shouted, upset. ‘It’s Kazem Khan!’ As soon as she saw the litter, Golbanu knew what needed to be done. She showed the men to the Opium Room, and they carefully transferred Kazem Khan from the litter to the bed. His eyes were closed, his face was pale and he was emaciated. The men went into the courtyard and gathered round the
hauz
to smoke their pipes. Golebeh wept softly, while Golbanu did what was necessary. She covered Kazem Khan with a blanket, placed a Koran and a hand mirror on the shelf above his head and went into the kitchen to make breakfast. After setting the table with bread, cheese, jam, a bowl of fruit and a teapot, she called to the villagers. ‘Gentlemen, time to eat!’

Meanwhile, Aqa Jaan had come home and gone straight to the Opium Room. He took one look at Kazem Khan and knew there was no point in taking him to hospital. Instead he went into the kitchen to greet the villagers.

They stood up to show their respect, and one of them told the story: ‘We hadn’t seen Kazem Khan in the teahouse for several days, but we thought he was away on a trip. Then last night we heard his horse neighing and assumed he was back, but the horse didn’t stop neighing. So we went to his house and found him lying in bed, almost dead. This morning we put him in the litter and brought him here by bus.’

‘Thank you. I’m grateful for all you’ve done for my uncle,’ Aqa Jaan replied.

That evening he placed a chair by Kazem Khan’s bed and sat next to him for hours, quietly reading the Al-Fatiha surah to him.

Kazem Khan was the heart and soul of the house, despite the fact that he had never formed an attachment to either the house or the mosque. He was the kind of person Aqa Jaan would never be. Aqa Jaan was the head of the household, the mosque and the bazaar, and had numerous other obligations; Kazem Khan, on the other hand, was as free as a bird, and now he was dying like a bird, for old birds suddenly plummet out of the sky, close their eyes and never wake up again. Kazem Khan was a poet who had always thrown convention to the winds. He had done all kinds of things, things Aqa Jaan didn’t dare think about.

Aqa Jaan reached into Kazem Khan’s pocket and took out his poetry book. He leafed through it until he came to the last poem, which he softly read aloud:

For the past seventy years someone had always prepared the opium kit for Kazem Khan the moment he stepped through the door. Now that long-standing custom had come to an end.

The grandmothers sat in the kitchen, talking and weeping silent tears. The man they loved was about to die. When had they first met him? One afternoon more than a half-century ago, when they were young girls and the poet Kazem Khan had come riding into the courtyard on his horse. Before that time they had never even heard a poem. A few days later Kazem Khan had written two poems, one for Golbanu and one for Golebeh. Poems about their eyes, their long plaits, their smiles and their hands, which were pleasantly warm when they lit the fire in the opium kit. The next time he came to the house, the two women were his for all eternity.

Am Ramazan appeared in the doorway. He was the man who looked after the garden. Every day at dusk he stopped by to see Muezzin in his studio. He kept track of the clay and ordered a new supply when Muezzin was running low. Am Ramazan lived alone; his wife was dead and he had no children. All he had was a donkey. He earned his living by mining sand from the river and transporting it to his customers on his donkey.

Am Ramazan whispered a greeting to Aqa Jaan, who returned his greeting and motioned for him to come in. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Kazem Khan hasn’t had any opium for a while. His body is crying out for it. The grandmothers are going to prepare the opium kit. If you could smoke the pipe and blow the smoke into his face, it might give him some relief.’

Am Ramazan smoked opium from time to time, but couldn’t afford to buy it for himself. He was delighted to accept Aqa Jaan’s offer, because he knew that Kazem Khan smoked the best opium in the mountains. Am Ramazan and his friends smoked a dark-brown opium that stank to high heaven, but Kazem Khan smoked a yellowish-brown opium that smelled of wildflowers.

Aqa Jaan handed half a roll of opium to Am Ramazan, who slipped it in his pocket and went outside to help with the fire.

Before long Golebeh came in with a pot of tea and a brazier filled with glowing embers. She looked at Kazem Khan with tears in her eyes and set the brazier on the floor. Am Ramazan stuck the pipe in the hot ashes and cut the opium into thin slices.

When the pipe was hot, he put one of the slices on the tip, secured it with a pin, picked up a glowing ember with a pair of tongs, and held it up to the opium. He started out with a few gentle puffs, then inhaled more and more deeply. For a moment he forgot he was smoking the opium for Kazem Khan. Then his eye caught Aqa Jaan’s and he stood up, holding the pipe in his left hand and the tongs with the glowing ember in his right hand.

Leaning over Kazem Khan, he heated the opium in the pipe with the glowing ember, then inhaled deeply and blew the smoke in Kazem Khan’s face.

He smoked patiently for half an hour, until the room was filled with a dark-blue cloud of smoke.

The door opened and Crazy Qodsi came in. The grandmothers tried to stop her, but Aqa Jaan gestured for them to leave her alone. She walked over to the bed, leaned down, peered into Kazem Khan’s face, mumbled something and tiptoed out, without saying a word to Aqa Jaan.

‘That’s enough,’ Golbanu said to Am Ramazan. ‘If you would care to leave, we’ll read to Kazem Khan from the Koran.’ Aqa Jaan, having grown a bit drowsy from the smoke, roused himself and left the room along with Am Ramazan.

Golebeh took the Koran from the shelf and sat down on the floor beside Golbanu. Reading ordinary books wasn’t a problem, but the Koran was much more difficult. Fortunately they both knew a number of surahs by heart. Golbanu opened the book and stared at the page, then began to recite a surah by heart, while Golebeh repeated the words after her: