“Who is she?” his father signed.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Ishmael said, “but I might marry her some day.”
Aga Akbar studied the picture. He smiled and gestured: “Very pretty. But be careful! Check her out. Listen to her lungs. Make sure they’re working all right, make sure she breathes properly. I, I can’t hear, but you can, you have good ears. Healthy lungs are important.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve listened. She has healthy lungs.”
“And her chest? Does she have pain in her chest?”
“No, her chest is fine, there’s no pain.”
“Her arms?”
“Fine.”
His father smiled. “Check out her stomach, too.”
That evening was the first time Aga Akbar had ever talked to Ishmael about his first wife. He told him that the bride had had aches and pains all over. She’d had some kind of disease in her chest, in her lungs. He still didn’t know exactly what. “A woman’s breasts should feel warm, my boy, not cold. No, they should never feel cold.”
The Well
Persians are always waiting for someone.
In Persian songs, they sing about the Messiah,
the one who will come and set them free.
They wait in their poetry. They wait in their stories.
But in this chapter, the one they wait for is in a well.
If you face the cave, you can see Saffron Mountain’s peak to the right and a long range of brownish-yellow mountains to the left. There’s also an odd-looking spot that immediately catches your eye. Particularly if this is the first time you’ve climbed Saffron Mountain, you’ll notice it the moment you look in that direction.
It’s almost impossible to reach this spot. If you’re standing beneath it, the sun is so bright that all you can see is a craggy rock face. Rain, snow and frost have given it a miraculous shape. “Miraculous” and “sacred” are the words you automatically associate with this spot. At the bottom of this mysterious rock face is a natural well, a deep depression probably created by an erupting volcano.
This well is of special significance to Muslims.
For centuries, Shiite Muslims have been waiting for a Messiah, for the Mahdi, since he is a naji, a liberator. On this point, the Shiites differ greatly from the Sunnis. The Shiites believe that the Prophet Muhammad was followed by twelve imams. The twelfth successor—and, according to the Shiites, the last of the pure ones—was called Mahdi. To be precise, he was called Mahdi ibn Hassan Askari.
Mahdi was the son of Hassan, and Hassan was the son of Hadi, and Hadi the son of Taqi, Taqi the son of Reza, Reza the son of Kazem, Kazem the son of Sadeq, Sadeq the son of Baqir, Baqir the son of Zayn al-’Abidin, Zayn al-’Abidin the son of Hussein, Hussein the brother of Hassan, and Hassan the son of Ali. And Ali was the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad.
Fourteen centuries ago, Muhammad called his followers together after a great victory. According to tradition, Muhammad stood on a camel, lifted his son-in-law Ali by the belt and cried, “Whoever loves me, must also love Ali. Ali is my soul, my spirit and my successor.”
The Sunnis think the Persians made this story up. That’s why the Persians and the Arabs are always squabbling and why there’s constant war and bloodshed.
Ali himself was killed with a sword while praying in the mosque.
His son and successor Hassan was kept under house arrest for the rest of his life. Hussein, the third successor, was beheaded. His head was stuck on a pole and displayed on the town gate. Zayn al-’Abidin, the fourth successor, lived a life of seclusion. Baqir recorded large numbers of traditions. Sadeq had his freedom severely curtailed: he wasn’t allowed to show himself in public during the day, or to walk past a mosque. Kazem died in prison. Reza was poisoned by purple grapes. His grave has become one of the holiest places in Iran.
Little is known about Hassan, the eleventh successor. But Mahdi, the twelfth and last successor, escaped an attempt on his life and sought refuge in Persia.
Since then Mahdi has occupied a special place in the hearts, as well as in the literature and religion, of the Persians.
The following story cannot be found in the Holy Book, or in any other book, and yet the villagers on Saffron Mountain believe it and tell it to their children:
The night the Arabs tried to kill Mahdi, he fled to our country, where the majority of his followers lived.
He sought refuge in the east, which is where we live.
He climbed up our mountain—first on horseback, then on a mule and finally on foot—until he reached the cave. There he spent several nights.
If you take an oil lamp and go into the cave, all the way to the very back, you will still see, even today, the ashes of his fire.
Mahdi wanted to stay in the cave even longer, but the Arabs fol lowing him had managed to track him down.
So he climbed even higher, until he reached that miraculous rock face. There he realised that he was going to be Muhammad’s last successor and that he had to hide in the well and wait until he was called.
Many centuries have gone by since then. He’s still waiting in the well. In the well of Mahdi ibn Hassan Askari.
Thus it became a sacred place.
Every year thousands of pilgrims climbed up Saffron Mountain. They rode mules halfway up the mountain, to about 8,000 feet. There they spread their carpets out on the rocks and sat down, drank some tea, cooked some food and talked until deep into the night. The moment the moon went down behind the mountain peak, they all fell silent. In that great silence, they stared at the sacred well until a wondrous light struck the rock face, a light that seemed to come from a lamp inside the well. It shone briefly, then disappeared. The watching pilgrims all knelt in prayer.
The pilgrims believed the story and told each other that the light was the reflection of the oil lamp by which Mahdi read his book.
Yes, the Messiah sat in the well, reading and waiting for the day when he would be allowed to leave.
The well itself was inaccessible to ordinary mortals. It was also off-limits to foreigners, especially those who wanted to climb up to it with ropes and spikes.
Some of the villagers were able to reach it by jumping from ledge to ledge on the narrow mountain paths like nimble-footed mountain goats. Only a handful of the men in Saffron Village had ever accomplished this feat. Aga Akbar was one of them.
When Aga Akbar was little, his mother often talked about Mahdi.
“Does he really live in the well?” he asked her.
“Yes, he really does. God is in the sky and the holy man is in the well.”
“Have you seen him in there?”
“Me? Heavens, no, I can’t climb up there. Only a few men have ever reached the well. They looked into it and saw the holy man.”
“Who? Which men?”
“The men who wear a green scarf around their necks. Haven’t you ever noticed? They walk through the village with their heads held high.”
“Will I be able to climb up to the well some day?”
“You have to have strong legs. But you