The House of the Mosque (26 page)

‘And your cap!’ one of the guards snapped.

The general tucked his cap under his arm and went into the room. He bowed his head and said, ‘I’ve been ordered to arrest you!’

Khomeini was exiled that same day. He moved to Iraq and bided his time, waiting for the right moment to spark off a revolution against America and overturn the kingdom of the shah.

After the uprising, no one dared to mention his name. For years it was as if he didn’t exist. Now his name had started to crop up here and there. Pamphlets written by him were making the rounds, and in Qom pictures of him were once more hung surreptitiously on the walls of the mosques.

Khomeini had been exiled, but the young imams had kept the flame alive, honouring his name at every opportunity and by any means possible.

Ahmad’s fame gradually spread, even to other cities. He was invited more and more often to speak in other places. Recently he’d given a speech in Khomein, the birthplace of Khomeini.

He used his trips to spice up his sermons, innocently telling his listeners about his jaunts. ‘I was in Isfahan recently,’ he said. ‘What a magnificent city! I send my greetings to the Isfanhani. My next destination was Kashan, a city much loved by its inhabitants. I send my greetings to the Kashani. Last week I was in Khomein. This was my first visit to that most fortunate of villages. Khomein is a unique place, with wonderful people. I send my greetings to Khomeini.’

And by ‘Khomeini’ he meant the inhabitants of Khomein, but the allusion was not lost on his listeners, who immediately shouted, ‘
Salaam bar Khomeini!
’

Aqa Jaan beamed with joy.

He knew that Ahmad’s remark had not been accidental, but the result of careful planning. Ahmad was no doubt following orders from Qom.

Aqa Jaan had received a secret message from Qom, informing him that Khalkhal had crossed illegally into Iraq and joined Khomeini.

Khalkhal was clever. He’d gone to Iraq for a reason, no doubt sensing that Khomeini would one day seize power and realise his long-cherished dream of establishing an Islamic Republic.

Aqa Jaan now understood why Khalkhal had abandoned his wife and child.

On the streets, however, there was no sign of a transfer of power or an approaching revolution. The shah was experiencing the best years of his reign. In a recent interview in
The Times
, he’d said that he didn’t feel threatened at all and that his country was an oasis of peace.

Fearing Soviet expansion, America was content to let the shah rule Iran. He was always the first to buy the latest American fighter planes and weapons, and he deposited a large part of the nation’s oil revenues in American banks.

The shah was convinced that he was the best head of state the Americans could wish for, which is why he thought he could count on their unconditional support. He felt sure that they would never let him down and saw no reason to worry about someone like Khomeini, sitting out his exile in Iraq.

And so he quietly and confidently prepared his son for that far-off day when he would accede to the throne.

While Ahmad was throwing himself wholeheartedly into the activities of the mosque, Shahbal was preparing to go to the University of Tehran. He wanted to study Persian literature, but Aqa Jaan had advised him against it. ‘You can study Persian literature at home; you don’t need a university to do that. You have talent. Study mathematics or engineering or business administration. We already have more than enough classics in our family library. What this house needs is the spirit of modernity.’

When it was time for Shahbal to leave for Tehran, Aqa Jaan drove him to the station. ‘I’ve noticed a couple of things, but I’m not sure if I should tell you about them,’ he said to Aqa Jaan in the car.

‘What sort of things?’ Aqa Jaan asked.

‘Well, I’ve bumped into Ahmad up on the roof a few times, standing behind the dome and smoking. He’s old enough to know whether or not he should smoke, but those cigarettes of his have a funny smell . . . like something an imam shouldn’t be smoking. He also sneaks off occasionally to strangers’ houses to smoke opium. I thought you ought to know.’

‘I’m glad you told me,’ Aqa Jaan said after a long silence. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Is there anything else I should know?’

‘Not really. Women are his weakness. I’ve noticed him once or twice in the mosque taking more liberties with women than an imam ought to.’

‘I’ve noticed that too. He needs to be careful. We have a lot of enemies in this town.’

At the station he escorted Shahbal to the train in silence.

Shahbal had not talked about his religious doubts again since the night he’d first mentioned them. Aqa Jaan had tried to broach the subject, but Shahbal wasn’t ready to discuss it further, so he left him in peace.

Now that they were standing on the platform, Aqa Jaan wanted to tell him to be careful at the university, but Shahbal didn’t give him the chance. He hugged Aqa Jaan, kissed him and boarded the train.

Aqa Jaan waited on the platform until the train had moved off and disappeared from view.

Aqa Jaan kept a close watch on Ahmad.

One evening he saw Zarah taking a tray of tea and dates to the library at an unusual hour. He knew that Ahmad was in there reading, so he followed her. Through the chink in the curtains he watched her lean over Ahmad and set the tray on his desk. Ahmad slid his hand up her blouse. She stood still and let him touch her. Then Ahmad stood up, lifted her skirt and pressed her against a bookcase.

The next morning Aqa Jaan called Zarah into his study. ‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing amicably towards a chair.

She took a seat, shyly.

‘I’ll get straight to the point. I’m very happy with your work here. We couldn’t wish for a better maid. But I’m giving you a choice: you can either stay away from Ahmad, or you can pack your bags and go! Is that clear?’

Zarah was too stunned to reply.

‘Is that clear?’ he repeated.

She nodded mutely.

‘So which is it going to be? Do you want to stay here, or shall I send you back to your parents?’

‘I want to stay here,’ she said, her voice trembling.

‘Fine. And now get back to work. Muezzin needs some assistance, so if you’re not too busy, you can help him. That’s all. You may go.’

That evening after the prayer Aqa Jaan asked Ahmad to walk down to the river with him. As they strolled along the banks in the waning light, he gave Ahmad a severe talking-to, making it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate his vulgar behaviour to women and that his use of opium was an affront to the mosque. If Ahmad was not prepared to heed his advice, he would have to curtail his freedom.

Ahmad listened to Aqa Jaan in silence.

‘Don’t you have anything to say in your defence?’

Even that failed to get a response out of Ahmad.

A few days later Aqa Jaan approached the father of the oldest carpet merchant in the city to discuss the possibility of a marriage between his daughter and Ahmad.

One month later the family of the bride held a wedding banquet. At midnight the bride was brought to the house in a decorated coach. Though one of the bedrooms on the upper floor was to be hers, the guest room had been readied for the seven nights of the honeymoon.

Ahmad was given a week off, and the family went to Jirya, so that he and his bride could spend some time alone. Lounging round the house in baggy cotton clothing that didn’t restrict his movement, Ahmad acted like a prince who had brought his young bride to a castle.

His wife was named Samira. At eighteen, she was a classic beauty. On the first night Ahmad charmed her and made love to her until dawn, only falling asleep when it got light.

At one o’clock that afternoon, Am Ramazan welcomed him to the Opium Room, where the pipe had already been laid out for him. Ahmad had asked Am Ramazan to arrange for a seven-day supply, since opium was said to be an aphrodisiac.

After Ahmad had smoked a quarter of a roll of yellow opium, he went back upstairs and crawled into bed with his bride, who was fast asleep.

Samira bore him a daughter, Masud. Everyone was delighted with the little girl, but the house was waiting for a son and successor to Ahmad.

People still flocked to the mosque. Ahmad’s sermons were exciting to listen to, for he was a born storyteller. He had wonderful things to say about the tales in the Koran. He transported you with the magic of his words to the past, to the time of the prophet Muhammad, who used to make love to his young wife, Aisha, on the roof of his house. One time Ahmad told the following story:

This was the first time an imam had ever told such a tale in the mosque, but Ahmad was forever coming up with unusual stories that left his audience spellbound. Instead of an imam, he probably should have become a storyteller, an actor who charmed the crowds at the bazaar with his tales.

Ahmad scheduled even more trips to important religious bastions such as Kashan, Arak, Hamadan and Isfahan. Sometimes he was gone for a whole week. And yet he always came back with two bags: one filled with money and gold, and the other with love letters and presents that veiled women had surreptitiously slipped into his pockets, such as socks, vests, underwear, colognes, soaps and rings.

Although Ahmad had promised Aqa Jaan that he would stop, he continued to frequent clandestine opium dens throughout the city.

To escape Aqa Jaan’s watchful eye, he accepted as many speaking engagements as possible in distant cities. There he met men who spirited him off to their favourite haunts, where they caroused with women and smoked opium until dawn.

In Senejan Aqa Jaan kept him on a tight leash, which is how he came into contact with the underworld. What he didn’t realise, however, was that the secret police were laying a trap for him.

Opium had been outlawed a year ago. Addicts were allowed to collect half a roll of opium from a chemist’s twice a month, provided they were registered with the authorities. Since he couldn’t go through the legal channels, Ahmad got his supply illegally.

One night, he and two other men were smoking opium and enjoying the company of women in the cellar of a house in Senejan, when all of a sudden the secret police burst in. They took several pictures of Ahmad, seated beside two unveiled woman and an opium kit. After planting a few more illegal rolls of opium, they photographed the scene from every angle, clapped handcuffs on Ahmad and drove him to an unknown location, where an agent was waiting to speak to him.

Ahmad had nothing to say. He knew that he’d been framed and that it wouldn’t be easy to get out of this predicament.

‘You can sleep in your own bed tonight and lead the prayer in the mosque tomorrow morning as usual,’ the agent told him, ‘on one condition.’

‘What’s the condition?’ Ahmad asked, his voice trembling.

‘That from now on you and I will keep in touch, if you know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t know what you mean.’

‘In that case things are going to get complicated, because I’ll have to send you straight to jail, where the morning edition of the paper will be brought to you at breakfast with your picture plastered across the front page. Maybe then you’ll figure out what I mean.’

It was a long night. Ahmad wept soundlessly. He hadn’t expected his life to take such a terrifying turn.

When dawn finally arrived, the agent came to his cell. In the meantime the photographs had been developed, and he showed one of them to Ahmad. ‘What’s it going to be?’ he asked. ‘Shall we have some copies made, or shall you and I have a little chat?’

Ahmad had no choice. If the picture of him with the two unveiled women and the opium was published in the newspaper, his career would be over, and he would bring shame upon his family. So he went with the agent to his office, where he was given a chair and asked to fill in a form. ‘Provided we can reach an understanding, this will take only five minutes,’ the agent said. ‘After that I will personally escort you home. What we want you to do is simple. We want you to keep in close touch with Qom and to pass on whatever information we ask for. That’s all.’

Half an hour later a car delivered Ahmad to the gate of the mosque. He stepped out. ‘You’ll be hearing from us,’ the agent said, and he drove off.

Several months went by and nothing happened. Ahmad hoped and prayed that the secret police had merely wanted to scare him into submission. They had not forgotten Khalkhal’s campaign against the cinema and the riot he’d triggered during Farah Diba’s visit. No doubt they were trying to take revenge by holding Ahmad hostage.

He hoped they’d dropped the idea of using him as an informer, because he wasn’t cut out for the job. It would be highly inappropriate for him, as an imam and as a person. But what kind of information could he pass on if he had to?

He knew that the secret police were blackmailing him so he wouldn’t stir up trouble. Their little game had worked. He no longer dared to say anything about the shah or the rumblings in Qom.

He cautiously allowed himself to feel happy again, and his fears gradually faded. But one evening, just after the prayer had ended, he suddenly saw the agent kneeling beside him in the prayer room.

‘How are you?’ the man whispered, with an intimidating smile.

Horrified, Ahmad turned to see whether Aqa Jaan was sitting in the row behind him. He wasn’t.

‘What do you want?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘As you know, Qom is in an uproar again. We want you to go there, make the rounds of the ayatollahs and find out what’s going on. I assume you still have my phone number?’