Page 100 of The Mismatch

And she was unable to say no to him – she wanted her Hossein back. The man who made her laugh, gave her that weightless feeling.

‘We’ll take you to a doctor,’ she said after a moment. ‘They’ll be able to fix this. But first, pray with me.’

He looked uncertain.

‘In times of hardship we turn to Allah,’ she said. ‘Your faith has been weak, we need to strengthen it.’

Perhaps seeing that this was a way to appease his wife, no longer to be the object of her disdain, he nodded.

Night Prayer, Tahajjud Prayer, was one of the most important prayers, so it was fitting that it was the one Neda and Hossein chose to perform together, to ask Allah to help him. Neda was confident that a connection to Allah would ground him when clearly his marriage to her had not done so.

After they settled the babies in their cots, they performed wudu. It was important to centre and quiet yourself, focusing solely on the act.

‘Bismillah,’ they both said under their breaths, before washing their hands, using their left to wash their right. Thismotion was performed three times, before repeating the act, but this time the right hand washed the left three times. It was important to wash between each finger all the way up to your wrist.

As Neda performed the ritual, she looked at Hossein, noting the way he didn’t quite clean carefully enough between his fingers. She repressed the urge to scold him and breathed deeply through her nose instead. He was learning.

Then, in turn, they cupped their right hand and drank from it, swishing the alkaline-tasting water in their mouth before spitting it out. Next they put more water into their cupped hand and inhaled it into their nose. Neda didn’t like this part as much, but understood the need to clean every crevice of her body before talking to Allah. Following this came the washing of the face, arms, elbows, head, ears and feet. Always in this order.

Ordinarily, people took it in turns to perform wudu, but Neda urged Hossein to do it with her. She didn’t trust him to do it fully, and it was now imperative to her that he should.

They laid their prayer mats on the living-room floor and Neda put on her chador. Hossein stood a little in front of her whilst they began their prayer.

From the corner of her eye she noticed Laleh sitting on the sofa watching them, doll in hand. It was good, she thought, that her daughter was seeing her parents praying together, witnessing the importance of a good relationship with Allah.

Neda didn’t know where she would be without Allah; she imagined she would be lost, aimlessly wandering the earth.Islam gave her a reason for being, something to look forward to in the afterlife, the feeling that everything happened for a reason. Yes, everything. Even Hossein’s opium addiction. Perhaps He was testing her. It was understandable, she thought, that her initial reaction was one of alarm, but now the shock had worn off she needed to remember what her religion had taught her. She could handle the bad; this was a test, after all, to see what she would do next.

The next day she booked a doctor’s appointment, asked Ali to look after the children, and took Hossein to the surgery.

His doctor was a large woman who was sympathetic to his addiction. She breathed heavily, as though lifting her arm to sign his prescription was almost too much of an effort, would tip her over the edge.

‘We’ll put you on methadone,’ she said. ‘It’s a safer alternative to opium. And we’ll give you a dose every day. Gradually this dose will reduce until you no longer need to take anything. We’ll do this slowly, how does that sound?’

Neda couldn’t help but wonder how someone who seemed to have respiratory problems herself could help him. Help his entire family. She didn’t want to take a slow approach; didn’t want her husband to take another drug to survive. She wanted all of this nasty business behind them, and for things to be better again.

But of course she knew this way would be better. She shuddered to think of his temperament if he suddenly stopped taking his drugs. She knew from enough research on lab rats that it was medically kinder to wean a person off anintoxicating substance slowly. It didn’t mean she liked it though.

If life with Hossein and their children was enough for her, why wasn’t it enough for him? It was easy to blame his moral deterioration on his crumbling relationship with Allah, but she couldn’t banish the thought that she was not enough for him.

She was reminded of a study into cocaine use she had read for her undergraduate degree, in which some rats were given all the pleasures they wanted and some were given nothing. Those given nothing were more likely to become addicted to cocaine, while those already living in paradise refrained from taking it.

The evidence that perhaps she and her children were not enough for him stung, because she knew she couldn’t argue with science. She had built her career around it, taught postgraduates whilst writing her thesis. What would they think if she discredited science because it upset her?

Of course, she had further thoughts of divorce. But was it fair to leave her husband when he was so low, when he needed her the most?

Such thoughts are destructive, she told herself.Support your husband.

And that she did.

CHAPTER 47

Neda

Brighton/Tehran, 1987–1990

Hossein couldn’t – or perhaps wouldn’t – stop taking methadone. He took the lowest possible dose of the bright green liquid for weeks, sometimes months, but when finally it was time for him to abstain from the drug altogether, he would manage without it for only a few days. In those brief interludes Neda saw something of the man she first married: her Hossein. The Hossein who valued her, who rarely raised his voice to her or the children, the man who was grateful for his family. And then he would come home red-faced once more, having gotten his fix from a dealer of some kind – or maybe even the friends who got him into taking opium in the first place – and it would all be ruined again.

He would ruin them again.