He asks them to put something under his head, to lift it a bit higher.
A car waiting at the door.
Protesters close by.
A woman pleads with them not to take him to the hospital. Cries. Terrified. Says she won’t let them take him away.
His bare back. His white undershirt. White floor tiles.
She mentions his relationship to the leader.
Someone hushes her, says not to mention names on camera.
She says she won’t allow them to take him away.
She fears his arrest.
A man snaps at her. He is bleeding. He needs to be taken to the hospital.
Voices of men. One telling the other to shut up.
That he is bleeding.
His voice.
He says he is suffocating.
Heavy breathing. Moaning.
He says he is suffocating.
A private hospital. Not a public one.
She lets out a wail.
No faces. Only voices. And legs.
A car at the door. People crowd around. They put him in the car.
Streets are busy. People are protesting. Traffic is heavy. It takes awhile to get him to the hospital.
A burning sensation in his back. Thirst.
He recites the prayer of death.
He dies before reaching the hospital, his head on the lap of his brother-in-law, who rides with him in the car. According to other reports, he dies at the hospital.
People are already gathering at the hospital. Shouting their condolences to the leader.
Police and militia are already at the hospital.
A few hours at the hospital.
His dead body lies in the hospital morgue.
People disperse. To go pay their respects to his mother and uncle. People gather.
At the house everyone is wearing black. At the house everyone is crying. The leader. The mother. The leader is asked to make a statement regarding the death. He refuses, noting that his nephew is just one among many killed and should not be treated differently.
The body disappears from the hospital.
The police deny the disappearance. They say the body is at the medical examiner’s office for further investigation because of the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.
The phone rings three days after the shooting. An unknown voice says they can come pick up the body for burial.
He is buried under strict security measures. Only family members are allowed to be present.
He was a kind, calm, loving man. He was trusted and loved by many; many confided in him. He did what he could for others.
His family receives visits and condolences from people, politicians, clergymen.
He was threatened a few times in the days preceding the shooting.
The police announce that he was the target of an organized terrorist attack. They announce that the revolver and the bullets used were professional-grade materials of anti-revolution terrorist groups.
They identify the owner of the car. The owner announces that the car was stolen from him a few days before the incident. They arrest him for further investigation, as up until then he had not reported the theft.
Some claim the shooting was arranged by the leader’s own camp as a tactic to give their unjust movement momentum.
The case remains unresolved.
He is survived by his mother, his sister, his wife, a daughter (seventeen at the time of his death), and a son (seven at the time of his death).
What is the role of oral history in this translating, archiving, retelling?
What is the role of the visual history found in pictures and videos online?
What about written documents?
What would we have today to refer to, to cling to, without journalists, without citizen journalists, exiled or imprisoned or living life just as before?
Whose words should be considered trustworthy? How can truths be separated from lies?
Are the truths perceived at the moment of death one and the same as the truths perceived at the moment of burial, on the first anniversary, in the years after?
Are the truths for the generation that has lived the experience the same as the truths for the generation preceding it? For the generation inheriting it?
How do we access the truths of different times? The times that belong to us? Those that don’t?
What does it mean for a time to belong to us? For us to belong to a time?
How do we pass on the truths of each?
How do we fight the myth of the one and only Truth?
How to move from the Truth to truths?
Who defines truths? Our truths?
Embodying these truths, who do we become?
Embodying these truths, who do the dead become?
How can we know what the dead would have wanted? What if they don’t want to be engraved in the minds of people? What if they don’t want to be heroes? Do we allow them the right to choose?
What would that even look like? Do we stop and wonder for a moment who we are to decide for them, for their narratives?
Do we seek refuge in the certainty of dead bodies to defend ourselves against the uncertainties of the future?
Corpse (6)
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Occupation: Laborer and blogger
Education: Secondary school degree
Date of Arrest: 9 Aban 1391 / 30 October 2012
Date of Death: 13 Aban 1391 / 3 November 2012
Place of Death: Cyber Police detention center, Tehran
Time of Death: Unknown
Cause of Death: Controversial
Date of Burial: 17 Aban 1391 / 7 November 2012
Place of Burial: Imamzadeh Mohammad Taghi Cemetery, Robat Karim
He is arrested by the Cyber Police. Around noon.
His house in Robat Karim, where he lives with his mother. His hands tied behind him.
The mother and father are separated. He is the breadwinner of the house; he takes care of his mother.
When the mother asks if they have a warrant, one officer shows her his gun.
He is taken away, along with his laptop and papers.
When the mother asks, she is told he is being taken to Tehran. No further information is given.
Some days before the arrest, he spoke to a friend about visits from the police, who searched the house and confiscated his notebooks, of hoping to leave the country if problems arise, of not having yet been subpoenaed, of not fearing an arrest, of being concerned only about his mother’s well-being. He said, “If they come for me right now telling me they are to put the rope around my neck, I say this death is more honorable than this life, this life in shame. Because this is not life we are living, this is slavery.”
On his blog he writes about the suffering of the people, of economic and social problems, of unemployment and prostitution. He writes in support of the imprisoned female lawyers and activists. He writes about human rights. He writes against state oppression.
In one of his last posts, he writes of the threats: that his mother will soon have to wear black, since he won’t stop talking, that he needs to shut up or else be shut up, that not even his name will remain, that no one will know what has befallen him.
The Cyber Police consider his blog propaganda against the state, insulting its values and virtues, spreading false news, cooperating with enemy activists outside the country.
After his arrest, he is sent to Evin Prison, from which he is quickly transferred to a Cyber Police detention center. There, four days after his arrest, he dies.
A week after the arrest, the son-in-law receives a phone call.
The son-in-law goes where he is told.
He is asked if the prisoner had any illnesses. He says no, none. He is informed that the prisoner is dead. He asks why. He is slapped across the mouth, shouted at to shut up, to not ask questions, told that they are the ones who ask questions.
He is told to inform the sister
and the mother. He is told to go buy a cemetery plot, to arrange the transfer of the body and the burial for the following morning.
The family is told that he died of a heart attack.
Forty-one prisoners write a statement. Testifying to signs of torture on his body, to his fear of being killed when transferred.
Another statement made by himself. Written while he was in Evin, on an official prison form, two days prior to his death. A complaint to the prison officials. Testifying to being tortured and holding the Cyber Police responsible in case something happens to him.
The attorney general raises several doubts about his statement, about its authenticity and content, about its circulation outside the prison.
The mother and sister speak out.
The sister is proud of the late brother. The sister swears to his innocence. Asks why. Says he will be forever alive. Demands not to be sent condolences.
Demands to be congratulated. The sister cries.
The mother says she has lost her son on the path of God. Says she’s not sorrowful. Speaks of his health, of his never having taken any painkillers. Says that not once could she speak to him following his arrest.
When the media covers the news, the family’s phone lines get blocked. The family is told to remain silent.
A reporter in exile calls to talk. To Cyber Police officials. The person on the phone denies the case, says he has not heard of it, says she’ll have to come in person to inquire about any case.
On the third day after the burial, the mother is called in to meet her son’s killers. A man sits before her and tells her.
The son laughed in the face of their threats during interrogations. The son was tied to the chair and tortured more and more intensely the harder he laughed.
The interrogator asks for forgiveness.
The mother is shown an official warrant and told that if she does not sign a form indicating that she has no complaints against the officials, her daughter will be arrested. The same warrant is shown to the brother and the son-in-law, who are waiting outside.
According to some, the head of the body in the shroud had a big dent in it and was covered here and there with plaster. The face of the body was bloated. The knee of the body was bloody. There were signs of an autopsy. There was blood all over the shroud.
A month after the death, the father is admitted to the hospital, seemingly as a result of an emotional breakdown.
On the fortieth day after the burial, a ceremony at his grave. A picture of him. A bowl of dates. A bowl of apples and oranges and bananas. Flower petals cover the gravestone. Wreaths stand to one side.
A man cries at the grave, wondering out loud, “Why are there no condolence banners from neighbors? For the death of the man always thinking of others in need?” Wondering out loud, “How will his sister endure this?”
A woman wails.
The mother and sister hold up pictures of him and walk around the cemetery. They are proud of the man they have lost. They call out the names of other young men and women killed, the names of their mothers. The sister says he lost his life for Iran, says that’s a worthwhile death. The sister recites poetry, says she will not cry, for he is a hero. The mother cries.
Mothers of other lost children surround them.
A mother tells. Of a son lost fourteen years ago. Of a body never recovered.
Both mothers ask, “Why?” Each mother calls the name of the other’s son.
All the mothers cry.
As the family gets ready to leave the cemetery, the police raid begins. The brother is taken out of the car and arrested for filming with his cell phone. The mother and the sister are beaten. The brother is let go a few hours later, after his phone has been confiscated. (This brother is referenced only in one other instance.)
A member of the parliament speaks out against torture in prisons and the silence that follows. He believes these things are harmful to the image of the regime, that they disgrace the blood of the martyrs of war. He demands an official investigation.
The judiciary branch announces the beginning of an official investigation.
The father hires a lawyer. The family files a lawsuit. Reports on the tortures and cause of death provided by different officials throughout the investigation are inconsistent:
No signs of torture or bruises, death due to natural causes. Prisoners can die of natural causes.
Five bruises on the body, on the left shoulder and leg, on the right knee and wrist, but no sign of anything unnatural with regard to the head, neck, and internal organs, including the heart, lungs, and genitals.
Sudden and natural death, probably as a result of a heart failure caused by stress or psychological problems.
Official report to the parliament: the arrest was carried out with an official judicial warrant.
The medical examiner’s office releases its final decision on the cause of death: the exact cause of death is unknown. None of the blows to the body were lethal or aimed at the body’s sensitive areas. No signs of poisoning. No signs of illness. No signs of any external causes. The office thus considers the most probable cause of death to be shock due to a combination of psychological pressure and physical blows.
A few officers, including the man the mother has met, are arrested.
The head of the Tehran Cyber Police is removed from his position.
Later on, the mother speaks about the son’s fingers, which appeared broken during the corpse washing. The mother believes the crooked handwriting in the statement he wrote in the prison confirms that the fingers were broken. No official reports mention broken fingers.
Later on, one report announces that the cause of death was physical shock, that his testicles were burnt and injured.
Later on, a medical examiner’s report, which has all along been among the documents in the case file to which the lawyer has just received access, reveals he had internal bleeding in the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, and the cerebellum. Independent doctors consider this and the resulting lack of oxygen the cause of death.
The mother demands the body be exhumed.
The mother continues to speak.
The mother calls him her “everything.” He took care of the mother, buying all her medicine on the black market, laboring to provide for her. He was generous and helped other laborers in need.
The mother visits the cemetery, gets lifts from the townspeople. She spends the days at his grave and the nights with his photographs. The mother is visited by other mothers who have lost. On the mantelpiece in her living room, she keeps pictures of several of the imprisoned and the killed. The mother cries for all and asks for justice for all.
The mother becomes a symbol of resistance. A voice for the lost children. For the surviving mothers.
The sister continues to speak.
The sister is threatened in the street. A motorcyclist tells her to stop talking or she’ll end up where her brother ended up.
The father disappears. For ten days, no one knows of his whereabouts. Upon his return, police physicians diagnose him with Alzheimer’s. The lawyer considers the diagnosis suspicious and demands an examination by independent doctors.
She is wary that the diagnosis might impede the course of the legal case, for which the father is the official plaintiff.
A year later, the interrogator is indicted for second-degree murder, sentenced to imprisonment and lashes. The family and the lawyer oppose the court procedure and ruling. They relinquish the case. They reject the blood money.
The father dies three years later. At his burial, the sister speaks. Of the brother and the father. Of the father’s heart attack three days after the brother’s death. Of the father now resting in peace with the brother. The sister recites poetry. The mother speaks.
He is survived by his mother, his sister (married with a baby son at the time of his death), and a brother (or two, according to some sources).
Who was the last to see the body? Who washed the corpse? Does the corpse washer rememb
er washing the body? Does the corpse washer remember the corpses of protesters differently than the other corpses?
How do families continue to live the love, the loss, the memories, the wounds, the pains?
Are the accounts of the close survivors objective?
Is objectivity even the point?
Isn’t subjectivity at the root of all history, at the root of all storytelling?
Whose subjectivity?
Shouldn’t we aim for inclusion of all subjectivities instead of one objectivity?
How do we fight against the dangers of fixed frames, fixed narratives?
How can we open ourselves to the pain of embracing all narratives?
The further we go on together, the more I desire to expose her to these other bodies, divert her from the living ones she’s surrounded herself with, the bronze ones she’s searching for. I want to sit her down and tell her she needs to search for these bodies instead, needs to get to know them, their (hi)stories, intimately, needs to ask questions.
I know there is value in the living bodies. I know there is value in bodies of art, and in the search for them, too. And I know she must already know about the other bodies, the dead bodies: they’ve lived through the same times, the same events, within the same borders; they’ve also shared space between the covers of this book, even if their paths have not yet crossed.
I know all that, but I also know one can know of something without truly knowing it, a knowing that results from reaching out, searching, documenting, getting intimate with, embodying. For that, I think I’ll wait a bit longer, wait until I’m certain she’s ready. But then I wonder: Will I ever be certain about such a decision?
Will she ever be ready for such truths?
Part of me wants to protect her, save her from the pain that you and I have come to face. Part of me wants to spare her from the brutality of reality, like a mother who doesn’t know any better. Perhaps I should just let her find her way to the stories, or let the stories find their way to her. In their own way, in their own time.
corpse (43)
escape
What happens to the other narratives, the ones that escape us while we’re busy digging into these narratives and these voices? Are they lost forever?
trans(re)lating house one Page 8