The House of the Mosque by Kader Abdolah Read Free Book Online Page A

had taken their toll. Zinat was terrified of going to sleep at night, because she had such horrible nightmares.
    Zinat Khanom and Alsaberi were cousins. She had married him when she was only sixteen. First they had a daughter, Orza, born five years before Sadiq. When she was eighteen, Orza married a man from Zinat’s family. She now had three children and lived with her husband in Kashan.
    Next Zinat had a son, Abbas. The hopes of the family had been pinned on him, for he was to be Alsaberi’s successor as the imam of the mosque. But one hot summer’s day, when Zinat and Abbas were alone in the house, a dreadful thing happened.
    Abbas had just learned to walk and was merrily chasing the cats on his wobbly legs. Zinat had gone up to her room and forgotten about the boy. At some point she noticed that it was quiet outside and looked out of the window. Abbas was nowhere in sight. She raced down the stairs and saw the cats sitting by the hauz , and there, floating in the water, was the body of her son. She screamed and rushed to rescue him.
    Two men, who had heard her screams, appeared on the roof of the mosque and hurried down to the courtyard to help her. They pumped the boy’s stomach, but couldn’t revive him. Zinat wailed. They turned him upside down and shook him, but to no avail. Zinat wailed. They lit a fire and held him above it to warm him. But it was too late. Zinat wailed again. The men lay the child on the ground and covered him with Zinat’s chador. Abbas, the hope of the house, was dead.
    No one blamed Zinat for what had happened. But she retreated to her room, shocked and grief-stricken.
    Aqa Jaan went up to talk to her. ‘I tell myself it was God’s will, Zinat. You should do the same.’
    From that moment on, no one in the house ever talked about Abbas. For months Zinat wept in silence, but his name was never mentioned. Zinat thought of the silence as her punishment, and a very harsh one at that.
    A year later she became pregnant with Sadiq. She left her room and helped the grandmothers in the kitchen. Only two years later, after the birth of Ahmad, could Zinat hold her head up high again and resume her normal life.
    Even so, Zinat never regained her position in the household. She lived in the shadow of Fakhri Sadat and felt herself to be inferior.
    If Fakhri Sadat had suffered a similar fate, Aqa Jaan would have stood by her and done everything he could to ease her pain, but Alsaberi was weak. Though he had never blamed Zinat, he hadn’t supported her during those difficult years either. At no time had he hugged her or spoken lovingly to her.
    If your husband ignores you, everyone else will ignore you too. If you’re invisible to your own husband, you become invisible to others.
    Zinat was still invisible. Her daughter was about to get married and no one had asked her permission.
    ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Zinat said to her image in the mirror as she wiped away her tears. ‘My time will come.’

    The house was a beehive of activity. The men had borrowed a curtain from the mosque – the long one that separated the men and women during prayers – and strung it across the courtyard.
    Expensive carpets had been laid on the ground, and some men from the mosque had covered the walls of the house with tapestries woven with joyful sacred texts.
    The trees were hung with green satin pennants inscribed with the poems of the old Persian masters. The most famous singer of sacred songs had been sent for from Qom. His renditions of rhythmic surahs from the Koran left a lasting impression on all who heard him.
    Aqa Jaan had bought a new suit and gone to the barber. He liked being dressed in spotless new clothes. Thanks to Fakhri Sadat, he was one of the few merchants in the bazaar who paid attention to his appearance. His office boy kept his shoes polished, and the grandmothers ironed his shirts. Fakhri Sadat liked to tease him sometimes: ‘You’re the handsomest man in the city. Nobody who saw you with your