The House of the Mosque (28 page)

He had been born in that house. He had devoted his life to the mosque and worked long hours at the bazaar, putting all of his energy and talent into the carpets. His daughters were grown, and Jawad, his only son, was no longer a boy, but a young man, studying for his exams so he could go to university. Aqa Jaan reminded himself that he had not yet been to Mecca, although it was his duty, as a man of means, to make the pilgrimage at least once in his life.

Everything had changed, and on top of that, Ahmad had damaged the reputation of the mosque.

There was an unexpected caw from the vineyard, and the crow flew back across the river. Aqa Jaan heard men’s voices and saw the silhouette of a veiled woman detach itself from the trees and walk towards the bridge.

Crazy Qodsi, he suddenly realised.

The silhouette stopped in the middle of the bridge.

‘Qodsi!’ Aqa Jaan called.

She hurried off. ‘Qodsi! Wait!’ he called. ‘What are you doing here so late at night?’ And he ran after her, stumbling through the darkness.

‘They will all die,’ Qodsi suddenly prophesied in a crow-like voice. ‘All of them except you.’

A
s Lizard grew up, he became even more of an enigma. People were never sure if he was a disabled child or an animal. His head, hands and feet were human, but his movements were like those of a reptile.

The older he got, the more reptilian he became.

Sadiq tried to teach him how to talk, but he never learned. He wasn’t interested.

Lizard did things his own way and paid little attention to other people’s behaviour and habits. He refused to eat with everyone else, go to bed at a normal hour or use a knife and fork. He ate his meals like a cat.

‘I can’t stand it another minute! I’m exhausted. I don’t want this strange child any more!’

‘You mustn’t say that!’ Aqa Jaan protested.

Sadiq burst into tears. ‘I’ve had one misfortune after another!’ she lamented. ‘Why has everything in my life gone wrong?’

‘You’re still young, my daughter; you have a long life ahead of you. No one expects life to be a bed of roses. Remember: there’s a reason things happen the way they do. If anyone has a right to complain, it’s Muezzin. He was born blind, but you don’t hear him moaning about it. He’s accepted the fact that his eyes are sightless, and so have we. He can’t see, but he has two keen ears, two sensitive hands and two strong legs that remember the way. If you ask me, he sees everything, even things you and I will never see. Don’t cry, my daughter! Your son is a natural part of life. I’m glad we have him. I think of him as a gift to our house. I mean that. We must need him for some reason; otherwise he wouldn’t have been sent to us. Hundreds of people have lived in this house, and he isn’t the first unusual creature to be born here. Trust in life. We must need your son, or else he wouldn’t have been sent to us!’

‘I wish I were as trusting as you are,’ Sadiq said between sobs.

The next day Aqa Jaan summoned Lizard to his study and made it clear to him that he was to come there every day after the morning prayer. He had decided that he would spend the next few years teaching him how to read. All that was needed was patience and old-fashioned discipline. Lizard’s response was unexpectedly positive: he took to crawling over to Aqa Jaan with a book between his teeth, dropping it in his lap and making him read every word of it.

Once Lizard had learned to read, he spent much of his time lying in the garden in the shade of the cedar tree. When that got too hot, he crawled up to the roof with his book, seeking the shadow of the dome. During the winter, he went down to the cellar so he could sit by Muezzin’s stove and read.

Ahmad let him come into the library, where he spent hours among the books. No one ever knew if he understood a word of what he was reading or whether he simply made up stories of his own.

His world was the world of the house. He rarely left it, going outside only when Am Ramazan took him for a ride on his donkey. As they passed the grocery shop, the old men lounging around outside always stopped the donkey so they could get a better look at Lizard. Everyone had heard of the boy. They doffed their hats and joked with him. Lizard enjoyed it and responded enthusiastically to their attention.

Later Am Ramazam started taking him along to the river when he was mining sand. He would dig a hollow in the warm sand, and Lizard would curl up inside it and read his book. Lizard felt comfortable with Am Ramazam.

At first Sadiq had stopped Am Ramazam and asked him not to take Lizard with him.

‘Why not?’ Am Ramazam had asked. ‘There’s no need to hide him.’

Zinat was often away from home these days. She spent a lot of time in the countryside, giving Koran lessons to rural women. The moment she got home, however, she went looking for Lizard. She liked to tell him ancient tales, and he never tired of listening to them.

Zinat looked after Lizard more than the others did. She thought of him as a punishment for her sins. Lizard never learned to talk, but he had an acute sense of hearing and could move with extraordinary speed. He compelled everyone to interact with him in some way.

Nosrat avoided him during his visits. He stroked Lizard’s hair and gave him a few sweets, but that was all, and he slept with his door closed so Lizard wouldn’t come in.

One night Lizard crawled in anyway. He lay down in the corner of the room and took out his book. Nosrat didn’t know what to do. For a while he simply sat in his bed and stared at him. He wanted to help the boy in some way, but didn’t know how. Suddenly he had a flash of inspiration. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

Nosrat went into the courtyard and down into the cellar, with Lizard scuttling along behind him. ‘Listen, Lizard. Shahbal brought a television into this house a number of years ago so that Aqa Jaan and Alsaberi could see the moon. Alsaberi was an unsophisticated imam who fell into the
hauz
and died, but that television ought to be here somewhere. It’s yours, if I can find it. You were born in the wrong house, you know. The world is changing, but everything in this house is forbidden. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Of course he didn’t. Lizard stared at him blankly.

‘Still, you’re lucky. If you’d been born to any other family, you would have been sold to a circus long ago. This family gives you love, and people need love. But in many ways they’re backward. They’re God-fearing people who are afraid of everything – radios, TVs, music, the cinema, the theatre, happiness, other women, other men. There’s only one thing they like: cemeteries. They feel at home among the dead. I’m serious! Have you ever gone to a cemetery with them? Suddenly they get all happy and excited, absolutely in their element. That’s why I left when I was young. Anyway, let’s see if we can find that television; it must be in here among all this junk. Let’s hope the grandmothers didn’t throw it out. Ah, the grandmothers. It’s a pity you never knew them. They were very dignified. They didn’t approve of me, but that’s beside the point. They went to Mecca and never came back, the crafty old biddies. Oh, I think I’ve found it! Look, Lizard, here’s a portable TV for you! As soon as I’ve rigged up the aerial, your life will change for ever. Hmm, let me think. Where can we put it so you can watch without being disturbed? I know: in the shed behind the dome. It used to be my secret hideout, the place where I went to read dirty books. Later Shahbal added a bed. Now that he’s gone,
you
can have the shed.’

Lizard crawled up to the roof behind Nosrat. Nosrat set the television on the table next to Shahbal’s bed.

‘From now on this bed belongs to you. Go ahead and lie on it. I’ll show you how to use the TV.’

Lizard climbed onto the bed. Nosrat strung the cable through the window and carefully screwed the tiny aerial onto the end of a beam, where no one could see it.

‘Now watch closely,’ he said, and switched on the television.

A young woman wearing heavy make-up and a sleeveless red dress appeared on the screen.

‘Don’t be scared, my boy! The world outside of this house looks very different. Do you like women? Oh, oh, don’t ask
me
that question! One of these days I’ll take you to Tehran. Actually, this TV is too small. The next time I come I’ll bring you a bigger one. Meanwhile, you’ll have to make do with this one. It’s yours, and no one can take it from you. If anyone tries to take it away, bite him. Sink your teeth into his ankle and bite down hard. Is that clear?’

For an entire year Lizard managed to keep his hideout a secret, but one night Aqa Jaan tiptoed up the stairs and flung open the door. Lizard was so surprised that he bounded from the bed to the television in one leap and draped himself over it like a cat, with his feet dangling over one side and his head over the other.

Aqa Jaan stood for a moment in the doorway. Then he shut the door, walked over to the stairs and went down to the mosque.

I
t was an extraordinary day. More things happened than anyone could have expected.

Lizard, having heard the doorbell, opened the gate and looked up to see two big brown horses staring down at him in the late afternoon sun. To get a better look, he grabbed hold of the gate and pulled himself up until he was standing. A large horse-drawn wagon containing two coffins had stopped outside.

‘A delivery for Aqa Jaan!’ bellowed the coachman in a long black coat and black hat.

Lizard crawled quickly over to Aqa Jaan’s study, where he pointed at the gate and neighed like a horse. When Aqa Jaan saw the coachman, he put on his hat and went to the gate.

‘
Enna lellah!
’ the coachman said.

‘
Enna lellah
,’ Aqa Jaan replied. ‘How can I help you?’

‘I have two dead people for you.’

‘Dead people? For me?’

‘I beg your pardon, I don’t mean actual people, just the remains.’

‘Of whom?’

‘Two women from Mecca.’

‘The grandmothers!’ exclaimed a horrified Aqa Jaan.

‘Sign here,’ the coachman said, and handed him the documents.

‘I need my spectacles,’ said Aqa Jaan.

Lizard scurried back inside and fetched Aqa Jaan’s reading glasses.

One of the documents was an official letter in Arabic. It consisted of a few Koran verses, followed by a short statement explaining that the bodies of the grandmothers had been found in a cave in Hira Mountain near Mecca.

Hira Mountain is the most sacred mountain in the Islamic world – the mountain that Muhammad used to climb every night to speak to Allah. It’s also the mountain where the archangel Gabriel first came down from Heaven to reveal Muhammad as the prophet.

There was a small cave in Hira Mountain. Muhammad had hid in this cave when he’d been forced to flee from Mecca to Medina in the middle of the night, because his enemies had sworn to kill him in his bed.

Ever since then the cave and that night have played a crucial role in the history of Islam. The Islamic calendar dates back to that night, or that day, on which Muhammad had fled to Medina.

Later the cave became known as the ‘spider cave’, because every time Muhammad went in, a spider spun a web across the entrance so no one could see that he was inside.

The grandmothers had hidden in that cave. It didn’t seem possible, but they had. The police had found their wills beside their bodies.

It was an incredible story. Every year millions of pilgrims went to see the cave. Visitors weren’t allowed to enter, but only to view it from a distance. If the story was true, the grandmothers must have had an amazing adventure.

Aqa Jaan felt sad. Yet at the same time, his mind was taken up with an entirely different matter: his son Jawad was due home that night after an absence of six months. Now a student at the University of Isfahan, he had never been away from home for so long. He was studying applied physics, so he could become a petroleum engineer.

A huge deposit of natural gas had been discovered near Senejan, and an American oil company had acquired the drilling rights. The university was therefore offering a new course of study. Hundreds of students had applied and taken the rigorous entrance exam, but only twelve had been admitted. Jawad had been one of the lucky ones. They were going to be taught special courses by American oil engineers. Although they were registered as students at the University of Isfahan, they were soon going to be transferred to the Shahzand oil refinery, twenty-five miles outside of Senejan, where they would continue their course work under the supervision of the oil company. They would be housed in a dormitory and speak only English.

Jawad was guaranteed a job after graduation, and would now be closer to home as well. Things couldn’t be better. When they heard that Jawad had been accepted, Fakhri Sadat had been so happy she couldn’t sleep that night, and Aqa Jaan had glowed with pride.

Aqa Jaan and Fakhri had been getting ready to go to the station to collect Jawad when the coachman knocked.

‘Why did you bring the coffins here?’ he asked the coachman. ‘You should have taken them to the mosque. And you should have phoned me beforehand and let me know you were coming. You can’t just show up on someone’s doorstep with two coffins. What am I supposed to do with them?’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said the driver. ‘I’m not bringing you two corpses, but two sacks.’

‘Two sacks? What’s that supposed to mean?’ Aqa Jaan answered testily.

The coachman hopped onto his wagon, opened the lid of one of the coffins and took out a small sack. Then he opened the second coffin and took out another one. Holding them up, he said, ‘You see? The Saudis sent only these two small sacks! Do you want them, or should I send them back?’

‘Why are you transporting two small sacks in two full-size coffins? Why have you brought them in a horse-drawn wagon? And why have you come so late in the afternoon?’