Free My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah

same evening he flew to the holy city of Qom, arriving in the middle of the night. The striking shopkeepers had gathered in the golden mosque, where a young imam was delivering a speech against the shah. When the shah heard his inflammatory words, he issued an order: “Arrest that man.”
    Everyone was arrested. Everyone, that is, except the clever young imam, who was named Khomeini. He managed to escape over the roof.
    At that moment, not even the devil himself could have suspected that, fifty years later, that very same imam would destroy Reza Shah’s kingdom.
    During the second World War, the Allies forced Reza Shah to leave the country. He was sent to Cairo and there he died.
    Then those same Western governments helped his son (who would later be known as the shah of Iran) onto the throne.
    While all this was going on, Aga Akbar was living in Saffron Village. Several years had gone by since the death of his young bride, but no one had been able to find him a suitable wife. He went back to sleeping with the young prostitute. Kazem Khan didn’t like it, but he couldn’t stop him. Then he came up with the idea of sending Aga Akbar to Isfahan.

Isfahan
    We go to Isfahan with Akbar, where
    we weave carpets. That and nothing more.
    When night-time comes, we sit on the roof
    of the Jomah Mosque and stare at the sky.

    The Dutch poet P. N. van Eyck (1887–1954) believed that life was good and beautiful because it was filled with mystery and sorrow. One of his well-known poems is “Death and The Gardener”:
    A Persian Nobleman:
    One morning, pale with fright, my gardener
    Rushed in and cried, “I beg your pardon, Sir!    
       
    “Just now, down where the roses bloom, I swear
    I turned around and saw Death standing there.
       
    “Though not another moment did I linger,
    Before I fled, he raised a threatening finger.
       
    “O Sir, lend me your horse, and if I can,
    By nightfall I shall ride to Isfahan!”
       
    Later that day, long after he had gone,
    I found Death by the cedars on the lawn.
       
    Breaking his silence in the fading light,
    I asked, “Why give my gardener such a fright?”
       
    Death smiled at me and said, “I meant no harm
    This morning when I caused him such alarm.
       
    “Imagine my surprise to see the man
    I’m meant to meet tonight in Isfahan!”
    A sombre poem. A sombre story. A sombre Akbar rode on horseback with Kazem Khan to a deserted station, where he left for Isfahan.
    His uncle wanted him to leave Saffron Village for a few months, or even a few years. He had arranged for Akbar to stay with a friend of his in Isfahan.
    Kazem Khan wanted to free him from the isolation of the village, which he thought was a suitable place to live only if you happened to be old or ill or an opium addict. It was time for Akbar to move on and meet other people. But where was the best place to send him?
      
    Being an opium addict wasn’t easy. No matter where you were, you had to have a pipe, a fire in a brazier, a teapot, a special tea glass, sugar, a clean spoon, a carpet, and a safe but quiet place looking out over trees and mountains or some other pretty landscape.
    That’s why the opium addicts needed each other. That’s why they kept in touch. All over the country they had friends and acquaintances with whom they were always welcome to smoke a pipe.
    Kazem had many friends, especially poets and famous carpet designers. Men with high social standing. One of these men lived in Isfahan.
      
    The train came in and Aga Akbar climbed on board. It was his first train ride. In his pocket he had all the information he needed: the name and address of his contact in Isfahan, his own address in Saffron Village and even the telegraph number of the sergeant in charge of the local gendarmerie.
    Imagine leaving your birthplace for the first time and going directly to Isfahan, the city referred to as “half the world”. The city containing Persia’s oldest mosques. Centuries ago the