A TIME TO BETRAY (3 page)

“Mullah, may I kiss your hand,” Naser said, teasing Kazem, as we made our way back to my grandparents’ house.

With a grand gesture, Kazem presented his hand to Naser and said, “May God forgive you for your rudeness, son. You shall bow and kiss my hand now.” Then he laughed.

Naser reached into his pocket quickly and put the frog in Kazem’s outstretched hand. Kazem screamed and pulled away. The frog hopped to the ground and made his escape. Naser had to hold his stomach, he was laughing so hard.

“What is wrong with you?” I said, slapping Naser on the back. “Why did you do that?” I didn’t like touching frogs, either, so I sympathized immediately with Kazem.

“Come on, Reza, you coward. You’re both cowards. It’s just a frog.” Naser wrapped his arms around us, giving us a big hug.

In the middle of this we heard the clop-clop of a donkey. We turned to see Mullah Aziz passing us. His short legs were hanging off the sides of the animal and his sandals were bouncing on his feet. Naser pointed at the hole in the mullah’s socks and the three of us laughed. I knew the mullah was on his way to my grandparents’ home to perform the Rowzeh Khooni. This ceremony was a business opportunity for neighborhood mullahs. They lived in near poverty, so the fee they received for this occasion (the equivalent of a dollar or two) meant something to them.

Some Muslims, like Kazem’s family, held the mullahs in high regard and followed their teachings closely. However, most people—my family and Naser’s family among them—considered the mullahs nothing more than low-level preachers who helped them practice their faith and meet their moral obligations. Grandpa did not like the mullahs. I once heard him say, “These donkey riders should all be moved to the city of Qom, where they learned all this nonsense. They should be kept in a compound and only allowed to preach there.” And then in a moment of terrible prescience, he added, “God forbid if they ever get the power to rule.”

As soon as Mullah Aziz passed us by, we encountered a
dasteh,
a
mourning parade of men in black clothes, marching down the alley carrying banners and singing torturous songs about Imam Hussein’s martyrdom. We sat at the curb and watched as they moved along. The neighborhood women carried big pitchers of cherry sherbet and offered it to the men, who were sweating under the heat. As part of the ceremony, some men struck their chests with their hands and some rapped their backs until they bled with a special chain made only for the parade.

“What’s wrong, Reza?” Kazem said when he saw my reaction to this. “Why are you making that face?”

I was nauseous. The funereal singing and the sight of so many backs covered with blood made me gag. I always tried to avoid a
dasteh.
I would try to stay inside if they came to our neighborhood, though they usually kept to neighborhoods like Kazem’s.

I avoided answering Kazem’s question because I knew his response to this sight was very different from mine. “We should be going now,” I said, pulling Naser’s shirt. “If we wait here for the
dasteh
to pass by, we won’t get home in time. And look, Mullah Aziz is also taking off.”

The mullah had been on the other side of the alley, sitting on his donkey, watching the crowd and playing with his prayer beads. Naser got up, looked toward the mullah, and pulled Kazem by his arm.

“Let’s go,” he said, pointing down an alley and smiling mischievously. “Let’s get to the house before Mullah Aziz. I know a shortcut. This way, Reza! Kazem!”

We followed Naser, running. Breathless, we managed to get to Grandpa’s before the mullah.

Inside the house, the guests were already there. The women sat in the living room and the men sat in the adjacent family room. Some kids were in the yard playing and the smaller kids were inside with their parents.

“Come on, guys,” Naser said as he noticed the mullah’s arrival. “He’s here.”

The mullah dismounted his donkey and tied it to a tree at the end of the paved driveway next to Grandpa’s 1955 white Cadillac DeVille. My grandfather loved that car and he made sure his chauffeur kept it in pristine condition. He would have been appalled to see the mullah’s donkey pounding his feet and kicking up dust on the car.

Mullah Aziz made his way down the potted-geranium-lined path leading to the stairs up to the balcony entrance. While everyone else waited inside the house for the sermon to begin, the three of us hunkered down behind the Cadillac. I still did not know what Naser had in mind, but he seemed ready to burst with excitement.

Grandpa had opened the double doors to welcome Mullah Aziz. The mullah went inside and quickly took his place in front of the living room mantelpiece under a picture of Imam Ali, the Shiites’ first Imam. Grandma had placed a special cushion for him there.

“Okay, guys,” Naser whispered. “Kazem, you stay here in front of Agha Joon’s car and make sure nobody sees us. If you see anybody coming, whistle twice. Reza, you come with me.” Kazem agreed to join in reluctantly, obviously uneasy about doing anything that might victimize the mullah. As was usually the case with Kazem, he didn’t volunteer to start mischief, but he didn’t back away from it, either.

Naser and I crept toward the donkey. I grabbed the bridle while Naser untied the reins. The animal did not move. Naser gave him a kick in the leg; still nothing. I pulled his tail. The donkey turned his head and neighed at me.

“He isn’t going anywhere,” Kazem said, laughing.

Naser grabbed a small stick from the ground and hit the donkey on the back. That finally got the animal moving. With the donkey now free of his restraints and running, the three of us chased the hapless beast down the street, roaring with laughter.

“There goes the Mullah Aziz’s 1965 Donkey-Mobile, down the hill in neutral,” Naser said.

Once the donkey was gone, we ran back inside, thrilled with our success and determined to appear as innocent as possible.

Meanwhile, Mullah Aziz was beginning his work. After adjusting his turban a few times, he closed his eyes, lifted his chubby arms skyward, and opened the ceremony with
“Besmellahe Rahmane Rahim”
—“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Kind.” Then he began to tell sad stories of the Imam’s martyrdom. The women found this mesmerizing. Within minutes, Mullah Aziz had them crying with his mournful performance. Meanwhile, in the other room, Grandpa was making fun of him and his delivery, whispering to my dad, “The son of a dog is telling the story of Imam Hussein like he witnessed the Imam’s martyrdom himself.”

With the women in a state of rapture, Mullah Aziz peeked at them surreptitiously. Rubbing his full black beard with his fingers, he moved his eyes around the room until he spotted my two cousins, Haleh and Mina. I learned that they’d earlier caused a stir when they entered the women’s room because they were dressed so conspicuously. Mina was wearing a tight, short, light green dress and Haleh a black lace blouse and a miniskirt. Both girls wore red lipstick, green eye shadow, and rosy blush. As a concession to propriety, they wore thin see-through veils atop their updos. As Mullah Aziz came toward the close of his sermon, he glanced at my cousins again and winked at them. Haleh looked at Mina in shock and they started giggling.

Naser saw this exchange and wrinkled his nose. Naser had a huge crush on Haleh despite the fact that she was eight years older. “Stupid mullah,” he whispered. “I hope he never finds that donkey.”

After the mullah’s presentation, the servants offered platters of food on a
sofreh,
a linen tablecloth spread across the floor. We filled our plates and ate in the yard. The mullah stayed inside, enjoying the large plate of food Grandma had prepared especially for him.

When we finished eating, we lay on the bench by Grandpa’s fishpond and talked about our next soccer match. The guests had scattered in the yard. Some prepared to leave, some gathered in small groups talking, and some helped clean up. I had nearly forgotten about what we’d done with Mullah Aziz’s donkey when I heard my grandmother’s trembling voice.

“Reza … ! Reza … !”

She came over to us, biting her lip, hands on her hips, tapping her foot.

I looked at Naser and then Kazem. “How did she know it was us?” I whispered.

I knew I was in trouble, but I would not betray my friends. We had sworn an oath to be friends forever and never tell on one another. I ran back inside and hid behind my grandfather, though I had a feeling that even he was not going to be able to save me this time.

“Reza! I will give you a good lesson tonight,” my grandmother said with ominous calm. “But now you go with your friends and find that donkey.”

Though I hadn’t ratted out my friends, she knew all three of us had been involved. She had the authority to punish only me, though, so I would withstand the worst of this. We went out to look for the animal and found him just around the corner by a gutter. He was probably very confused about his master’s whereabouts. We brought the donkey back home, where my grandmother was apologizing profusely to Mullah Aziz for our behavior. This seemed to mollify him, especially when Grandma presented him with a big basket of food and fruit to take home.

My grandmother could have beaten me for this indiscretion and I really wouldn’t have had any legitimate gripe. But the punishment she chose was far more humiliating than any beating—she made me help the women in the kitchen that night and then she made me clean up the garden the next day.

“You’ll also be in your room for a few days. No soccer or outside playing,” Grandma demanded.

“Khanoom Bozorg, that’s not fair!”

“What you did to that poor mullah was not nice.”

“But … but we have an important match coming this Thursday. Please, Grandma, I adore you, I do.” I pouted and pressed my eyelids together. She left the room, letting my appeal for leniency go unanswered. The following Thursday, though, I not only played
soccer, I also went to see a movie with Naser and Kazem after our game. Kazem insisted we see
A Fistful of Dollars
with Clint Eastwood even though we had seen it a few times already. We loved American movies, especially Westerns. We each had a favorite American actor. Kazem’s was Clint Eastwood, Naser’s, John Wayne, and mine, Steve McQueen. We even called one another by their names. We loved going to the theater, eating popcorn, and drinking orange soda.

One thing we didn’t love was that before every movie started, we had to stand up to the picture of Mohammad Reza Shah, which appeared on the screen as the national anthem played. Although that night we got to the movie theater a little late, all of the people in the audience were on their feet to honor the picture of the shah. Naser put his two fingers by his forehead to salute me. I imitated the same motion to Kazem, and Kazem bowed to both of us as we all giggled. On the way home after the movie, Kazem drew his imaginary gun and shot at Naser and me. We acted as though he’d actually shot us and swayed back and forth in slow motion. “Clint, please don’t kill us,” we called as we fell.

Since the next day was a Friday, that meant it was time for another of my grandfather’s weekly gatherings. Some Muslims continue the mourning of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom for the entire month of Muharram, wearing black clothes and avoiding parties and music. But for most Iranians, like my family, life went back to normal the day after Ashura.

As soon as everyone arrived this Friday, Grandpa called upon the kids, lining us up in three rows from the oldest to the youngest so we could perform the national anthem:

Shahanshah e ma zendeh bada

Payad keshvar be farash javedan

Kaz Pahlavi shod molke Iran

Sad rah behtar ze ahde basetan

Az doshmanan budi parishan

Dar saye ash asude Iran

Iranian peyvaste shadan

Hamvareh Yazdan bovad ura negahban

Long live our King of Kings

And may his glory make immortal our land

For Pahlavi dynasty improved Iran

A hundredfold from where it once used to stand

Though once beset by the foemen’s rage

Now it has peace in his keeping sure

We of Iran, rejoice in every age

Oh, may God protect him both now and evermore

Naser, Kazem, and I were in the middle row. Naser had his little sister, Parvaneh, on his shoulder. Parvaneh, only two at the time, was too young to sing the anthem, but she would mouth some words as if she knew the whole thing while moving her head so that her pigtails hit her in the face. When we made fun of her, she curled her lips, bent her head down, and frowned. Naser, who was very protective of his siblings, rolled his eyes at us. Meanwhile, Grandpa moved his arms like a world-famous conductor, pointing at us and bobbing his head with eyes closed. Anyone could see how much he loved doing this.

“Agha Joon, let the poor kids go play,” Naser’s father, Davood, said after a while. “Enough of Shahanshah.”

Davood helped my dad fire up the brazier for the
chelo kebab,
ground beef and steak skewers with rice. While my grandmother always made the food for the big feasts, Friday lunches came from my grandfather, my father, and Davood. They would marinate the steak the night before. While one kept the fire going by fanning it constantly, the others arranged the meat on big metal skewers.

After lunch, we all assembled around the goldfish pond in the center of the yard. My grandfather had placed large benches there under the mulberry trees, covering them with Persian rugs. My grandmother made tea on the samovar and her servant served this and pastries to everyone.

Grandpa used the charcoals still burning on the grill to light his hookah and called to Davood to share it with him. As soon as Davood had his first puff, he started singing. Soon everyone joined in by clapping along to the song. While the girls started dancing, Naser, Kazem, and I climbed the walnut tree at the corner of the yard. From there Naser could follow Haleh’s every move. My cousin’s dark brown silky hair caressed her shoulders as she danced.

“Reza, she is so beautiful,” Naser said with a sigh. “I will marry her someday.”