After Tehran

by Marina Nemat

  I had been healthy before my arrest, but in prison, I suffered from migraines and stomach problems. I developed severe acid reflux accompanied by horrible pain. After my release from Evin, I went to a specialist in internal medicine, who diagnosed me with stomach ulcers and prescribed medication and a special diet. My condition gradually improved and eventually disappeared altogether. However, once I began writing, all my physical ailments returned, and I had to see a physician again. This time medication and diet were not as helpful as they had been, probably because I was constantly reliving the same terrible experiences.

  I had never talked to a psychologist or psychiatrist, and even though I had heard about flashbacks, I didn’t know exactly what they were. But one day after I had begun writing, as I watched an episode of CSI about the rape of a young woman, I had my first flashback: Ali was there with me. I couldn’t see him, but I felt him; his skin brushed against mine. I panicked and ran to the kitchen, my heart racing. Fear flooded my every cell. I gathered my strength and told myself it was only a memory. The shame I had felt so many years ago rose in me, real and present. I fought back, telling myself that I was in control. The shame retreated, then disappeared—but I was left shaken.

  Describing flashbacks is not easy. For me, they are usually not images but extreme emotions—fear, disgust, or both—and they come out of nowhere. I am amazed that I have never had flashbacks of the torture I endured in Evin. The pain of the lash landing on the soles of my feet was beyond any I have ever experienced. Not only was the lashing painful, but it was humiliating. I never had any flashbacks about being in front of the firing squad. Even though it was terrifying, a part of me knew that death was something everyone has to face sooner or later. At that moment, if someone had given me the choice of being either lashed or killed, I would have chosen death, not because I was brave, but because I had given up. When Ali raped me on our wedding night, even though the pain was more bearable than the pain of the lash, it wounded a part of me that lashing never could. The truth is that I broke under torture; I would have told them where Shahrzad was had I known. What Ali did to me had absolutely nothing to do with extracting information from me. When I married him, I felt I had become an object. Property. Something the world had completely forgotten and didn’t care about. Ali had unlimited power over me and could do to me as he pleased. That was how I felt on my wedding night, and even though I got to know Ali better and began to feel some compassion toward him, the memories of our wedding night and the nights that followed have remained in my subconscious.

  I’D HEARD that a few ex-prisoners from Evin had published their memoirs in Persian in Europe. To my knowledge, only two or three of these books have been translated into another language, and none has had much success. Even though I was aware of these books, I read them only after I completed my manuscript, mainly because I didn’t want to be influenced by anyone.

  At a Persian bookstore in Toronto, I found four memoirs about Evin. All had been written by members of different extremist political groups, and all the writers had been adults at the time of their arrest. They had chronicled the horrors of Evin, but, unlike my memoir, their works were ideological. All the writers claimed that they had never broken under torture and never been affected by the intimidation and brainwashing techniques common in Evin. Apparently, all of them were heroes. Even though these books were published as memoirs, they were painfully dry and impersonal, and I found them difficult to follow. I was more interested in the human experience of the writer than his or her ideology. Yes, the Evin we had all written about was the same, but the way we saw it and the way it had affected us were vastly dissimilar. I suspected that our age difference played a big role in this. The adult prisoners had had much more life experience than the teenagers, and this experience supported them when facing torture. Where my young friends and I felt shame and fear, the adults felt anger and hatred. While we blamed ourselves, they blamed the regime. For them, prison was all about resistance; for us, it was about survival and going home to our parents.

  I found these memoirists’ frequent use of the word tavvab interesting. It is an Arabic word that means “repentant.” The prison authorities employed this word to describe the prisoners who had broken under torture: those who had denounced all opposition groups and had confessed to the “righteousness” of the regime. A tavvab was a prisoner who had seen the “truth” and had realized that all he or she had said and done against the government had been “evil.” The government of Iran had gone so far as to call Evin and other political prisons “universities” where prisoners were “educated.” Of course, the regime never mentioned that the “educational” methods included physical and psychological torture and extreme intimidation.

  The writers of the memoirs divided the prisoners into two groups: sarehmozeis and tavvabs. Sarehmozei is a Persian word that means “those who are firm in their ideological beliefs.” Sarehmozeis were the heroes and were good; the tavvabs were the traitors who had betrayed their comrades and the cause and therefore were evil. That more than ninety per cent of tavvabs were teenagers didn’t seem to bother any of these writers, and they demonized their young cellmates. A few of the writers believed that all tavvabs were the same, but the rest categorized them into four different groups: those who pretended to be tavvabs in order to fool the officials; those who had broken under torture but minded their own business and didn’t cause any trouble for other prisoners; those who spied on others and informed the interrogators of what they heard in the cells; and those who made life miserable for all the other prisoners and even took part in interrogations and executions.

  While in Evin, I had heard about a handful of adult prisoners forced to take part in the execution of their friends as proof of their repentance. However, neither I nor any of my cellmates knew such prisoners. Reputedly, these prisoners had been important members of anti-government political groups, so the interrogators made them do horrible things to prove that they had changed.

  In 246, the cellblock in Evin where I spent most of my time, more than ninety per cent were girls like me. As far as I know, their biggest crime was having sold the publications of opposition groups or having taken part in demonstrations against the government. For this, the majority of them received ten- to twenty-year sentences.

  Most of us in Evin were well behaved. We prayed the Namaz, watched the prison’s “educational” programs, and said nothing against the government. We never harmed anyone or spied on anybody. Breaking under torture doesn’t mean you lose your humanity, and those who did lose theirs were definitely a tiny minority.

  My visit to the Persian bookstore in Toronto convinced me that my work was important. The heroes had told their stories; now it was time for someone to tell another side of what had gone in Evin. My prison friends and I were not traitors; we were Iran’s children who had been tortured and had broken. But I had faith that we had enough strength to mend our lives and speak out about what had been done to us.

  Even though my manuscript was still raw, things began to happen in December 2004. One of my creative-writing instructors at the School of Continuing Studies read it and introduced me to a Toronto Star reporter named Michelle Shephard, who wrote about Middle Eastern issues. She was interested in talking to me and maybe writing an article about me for the Sunday Star. We arranged to meet at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. As I stood in the foyer waiting for her, my whole body began to shake. Was I ready for this? The world would know all my secrets and flaws, and once the story came out there would be no going back. Yet despite all my fears, a strong force was pushing me ahead.

  Michelle was a petite woman. When we shook hands, I looked into her eyes, and they reminded me of my closest prison friend, whom I had not heard from in almost twenty years. I clearly remembered her happiness when the guards called my name over the loudspeaker just before my release from Evin came. She was so happy for me that she couldn’t stop crying. “Marina, you’re going home!” she said. “I know it! They’re letting yo
u go!” Then she told me to run. She pushed me down the hallway toward the barred door, and I watched her small hand waving to me through the bars as I walked to the office at 246. Where was she now? Had she survived Evin?

  Four years later, in July 2008 during an interview in Italy, a journalist asked me which day had been the worst of my life. I considered for a moment.

  “The day I went home from Evin,” I replied.

  “Why?” he inquired, surprised.

  “The day I went home from Evin I left my friends behind. Girls closer to me than sisters would be. I left them behind. I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t know any better. I was a young woman who wanted to go home more than anything. And that was the biggest mistake of my life.”

  Michelle and I sat down at the hotel restaurant and ordered lunch. I wasn’t hungry and had soup. She asked me about my life in Iran and the process of writing my book. I had believed that reporters were aggressive, but Michelle was gentle and soft-spoken. I expected her to ask me for the name of someone reliable who’d known me in Iran and could confirm that I had truly spent two years in Evin—and she did. I gave her contact information for a few people who’d known me quite well in Iran but now lived abroad. None of them intended to return to Iran, so talking to a reporter would not put them in danger.

  Michelle’s article appeared in the Sunday Star on January 30, 2005. Even though I had hardly slept the night before and was wide awake at 5:00 a.m., I didn’t jump out of bed and run to the door to get the paper. The previous night, Andre had arrived home from a business trip, and he was still fast asleep. I waited. At 8:00 a.m., I couldn’t bear waiting any longer and edged out of bed. When I opened the front door, the frosty January air poured into the house like ice water. I grabbed the newspaper, ran back to our bedroom, and spread the paper on the bed. Andre squirmed.

  Michelle had written a two-page article about me that included a photo of me the Star photographer had taken in the Swiss Chalet kitchen. I was in my uniform. I remembered the surprise on my boss’s face when I asked him if it was okay for a reporter to come to the restaurant to interview me and for a photographer to take photos.

  “Reporter? What’s going on, Marina?” he wanted to know.

  I told him about the book. He had always been very good to me, and he said he didn’t have any problem as long as the newspaper people showed up in the afternoon when the restaurant wasn’t busy and they didn’t get in anyone’s way.

  The title of the article was “The Woman without a Past.” I truly had been a woman without a past. I had been stripped of my identity in Evin—at least, this was what the prison authorities had tried to do to me, and for a long time, they seemed to have succeeded. For close to twenty years, I had floated in the world like a shadow, meaningless and without a destination. Now everything was different. I had taken charge. I had stood up.

  Within a few hours, my inbox was full of supportive emails from friends and acquaintances. One of the messages was from Flavia, my book-club friend:

  Dear Marina,

  Are you moved? In a stupor? I imagine your feelings are very mixed today.

  Thank you for allowing some of your heart to be placed on the page. I know there will be many people who will be touched—all for different reasons. You did the right thing.

  People were indeed touched. Telling my story had become such a desperate need for me that I had not thought much about reactions. My neighbours now looked at me as if they had never seen me before. When we ran into one another after the article appeared, they stopped and shook my hand and said they had no idea I had had such a difficult past. They said, as well, that they didn’t know Iran had so many political prisoners and treated them so badly. When I told them that the majority of the prisoners had been teenagers, they wanted to know why, and I explained to them that if you wanted to control a country, you had to control its young generation. If you tortured and executed teenagers, not only would the rest of them get the message, but their parents, too, would refrain from criticizing the government, realizing the high price of dissidence.

  I took a copy of the Sunday Star to my father. I had told him I was writing a memoir. I explained that the article in the paper was a summary of what had happened to me in Evin. He put the paper on his kitchen table and began telling me about one of his neighbours who was moving to a nursing home because she had become too weak to care for herself. My father was not ready to acknowledge my past. I had to give him time.

  About two weeks later, I phoned my father and asked him if he had read the article. He said he had not and changed the subject. I had expected Alik to call me, but I didn’t hear a word from him. They were both still intent on ignoring my past. I decided not to bring up the topic again unless they mentioned it themselves. It was now their turn to take a step forward. Except, they didn’t. I was my family’s dirty laundry, and to their horror, I had hung myself out to dry in public.

  After the article appeared, I felt awkward at Swiss Chalet. My co-workers and customers wanted to know more. I told them I was writing a book. “When will it be published?” they asked. I replied that I had no idea; it wasn’t ready yet. Where did I find the time to write a book while working at a restaurant and raising a family? they wanted to know. “You do what you have to do,” I said. It was astounding that my customers were more interested in my story than my own family was.

  Helen came to the restaurant without Mark one day. My heart sank. I ran to the hostess stand.

  “Where’s Mark?” I asked.

  “I had to send him to a home,” she said. “I couldn’t manage anymore.”

  She looked lonely and out of place. As fragile as a china figurine.

  “You have to care for yourself now, Helen. You did all you could for Mark.”

  “I saw a story about you in the paper. Boy, was I ever surprised! You never talked about yourself.”

  “Some things are hard to say.”

  “I know, but I’m glad you did when there was still time. Life takes opportunities away in a blink.”

  Rachel’s Letter

  The first publishing house I submitted my manuscript to rejected it. I was devastated. The editor told me I had too many characters in the book; as a result, the reader didn’t have a chance to feel for them. He had a point. I had to make it possible for the reader to feel for the prisoners, and in order to feel for them, the reader needed to get to know them. Too many characters made that impossible.

  The only solution that came to my mind was to merge my cellmates’ lives. I would recount events as I remembered them, but instead of connecting them to fifteen individuals, I would connect them to four or five. My own story would be told exactly as I recalled it.

  The editor’s concern wasn’t my only issue. I had to protect the privacy of my cellmates. I was not in touch with them to ask for permission to tell about their experiences, so I had to find a way to protect their privacy without compromising the integrity of the story. Merging my friends’ lives would solve that problem, as well.

  Being rejected was painful, but I remembered what Lee Gowan had told our class about rejections. Every writer, he said, even the most successful, has been rejected, in some cases not only once or twice but tens of times. I couldn’t give up.

  I allowed myself to feel devastated for only a day or two—after all, being upset was normal. But I knew I had to move on, rewrite, and try again. Not every publisher is the right match for every writer. I believed that the right publishing house for me was out there, and I had to persevere and find it.

  Altogether, I took seven creative writing courses to obtain the Certificate in Creative Writing from the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto. My manuscript became my Final Project—the last step before graduation. For the Final Project Tutorial, I had to submit eighty pages of my work to an instructor who would work with me to improve it. Then I had to defend my work in front of the Final Project Panel, which consisted of Lee Gowan, my Final Project Tutorial instructor, and one othe
r instructor from the school or a prominent member of the literary community.

  From the available instructors for the Final Project, I chose Rachel Manley. Lee Gowan had recommended her, and I had read her wonderful memoir, Drumblair, winner of the Governor General’s Award in 1997.

  Rachel Manley is the daughter of Michael Manley, who was the prime minister of Jamaica from 1972 to 1980 and then again from 1989 to 1992. Initially, I had resisted reading her memoir. Unlike me, Rachel came from a privileged family. I believed that we couldn’t possibly have anything in common. I was nobody and she was the daughter of a prime minister. She had probably lived a very comfortable life and had always had everything she had ever dreamed of. What would a woman like her write about?

  I read Rachel Manley’s book, hoping to learn from it, and I felt ashamed for the judgment I had placed on her. Yes, she was privileged, but she had had her own trials, and she had beautifully put them into words. She had transported me to Jamaica, a country I knew almost nothing about. Through her words, I felt her love for her country, as if I had been there and had seen its beauty through her eyes, the eyes of a curious little girl raised by her grandparents, trying to find her place in the world. In an odd way, maybe my life had been easier than Rachel’s, because I had had no legend to live up to.

  I decided to give Rachel my entire manuscript, even though I was only supposed to send her eighty pages. How could I take my life apart? That would be like dissecting a body and offering only an arm or leg to explain the person.