After Tehran

by Marina Nemat

  To me, these attacks were very much like the intolerance of the Islamic Republic: if you’re not with us and like us, if you don’t share the same religion or ideology with us, then we’re against you.

  I have experienced how a victim can become a torturer—Ali, the guard I was forced to marry, had been tortured in Evin during the time of the shah. Torture creates a vicious cycle that repeats itself as long as victims give in to hatred and let it blind them. If my critics ever have authority over me, they will probably ban my book. They call me a tavvab, but if I have betrayed anyone, I have betrayed myself and my religion, not them or their ideology. I was coerced into converting to Islam and marrying my interrogator, but my humanity and who I am have remained intact, even after the pressure and brainwashing that I was subjected to in Evin. The Islamic Republic of Iran tried to turn me into an angry, illogical, and dysfunctional individual, but it failed. What do my critics see when they look at themselves in a mirror? Heroes? Maybe. But all the heroes I know, including my close friends in Evin, are open-minded individuals. Even though they had to pretend that they had “repented,” they always preserved their goodness and humanity.

  Those who have spoken against me in chat rooms or on air are a small group of twenty-five or thirty men and women. They were adults when they were arrested and had been active members of various opposition political groups. Their ideology was everything to them, and they bravely fought for it, which I respect. But they know nothing of how a helpless sixteen-year-old feels under torture, of how she would be willing to confess to anything or share any information with prison authorities to stop the vicious beatings.

  I personally know only one of my critics: Soudabeh Ardavan. Online and in the interview with Radio Hambastegi, she accused me of being a traitor. I had seen her at two events during the winter of 2006 in Toronto. Then I attended a dinner party where I saw her again and where I also met a few other ex-prisoners from Iran. Even though Prisoner of Tehran had not yet appeared in print, my story was not a secret. Michelle Shephard’s article “The Woman without a Past” had come out in the Toronto Star a year earlier, and my interview with my father on CBC Radio (during which I explained the details of my experience, including my marriage to Ali) had been broadcast; both were available on the Internet.

  Ms. Ardavan admitted in her interview with Nasser that before my book came out, she had never mentioned that she had known me in Evin. But after the success of the book, she remembered that she had. She said that from Qezel Hessar prison, she had been moved to Bandeh yek in Evin, which she said was the cellblock for tavvabs and traitors. I was never in Bandeh yek, also known as 240, but I vaguely remember someone who bore a resemblance to Ms. Ardavan in 246, where I spent most of my time while in Evin. Ms. Ardavan said that in Bandeh yek, she had heard that I had married my interrogator, and she had been appalled and disgusted by it. In an online article, she has written (translated from Persian):*

  … One day I asked my friend, whom in my book, Memoirs of the Prison, I have called Mother Maryam: “Who are these two girls who, from morning till night, stand in front of the wall, wearing chadors and headscarves, and [they pray] not like all the others, but they hold a [copy of] Mafateeh [a book of prayers] in their hands above their heads?” She told me: “They were both Christians but have converted to Islam and are tavvabs. The one on the left is Marina, and she has married her interrogator.”

  … She [Marina] had wrapped her head in a white headscarf and her body in a white chador, and all I could see was her face, not even her chin. She was pale and her eyes were devoid of emotion. She never looked at us and was busy with her own things …

  Ms. Ardavan said that I slept in the same bed in my cell with someone who had tortured innocent people because of their way of thinking. She asked if I ever thought about the heroes who gave their lives for freedom, the ones who never cooperated with the regime.

  “If Zahra Kazemi died under torture and rape in prison,” she added, “what does this have to do with Marina, who turned her time in Evin into a honeymoon …”

  Honeymoon? Was she in my cell as I screamed when Ali forced himself on me?

  In Evin, then for many years after, I had believed that most of my friends were unaware of my marriage to Ali: after all, they never mentioned it to me. But now I realize that they did not say anything because they loved me and in no way doubted I had been forced into the marriage. I never used my status as Ali’s wife as a tool of power, and this proved that I was ashamed of the marriage—so they respected my privacy. The handful of prisoners who did consider me a traitor didn’t dare say anything to me out of fear for their safety. They didn’t know me well enough to understand I would not have used my influence against them. Even though I had converted to Islam and married Ali, I had consciously chosen never to hurt anyone in any way.

  Ms. Ardavan said that one of the reasons she had criticized me and the publication of my book was that I had claimed Ali and his family had some goodness in them, whereas she believed that all Evin interrogators, including Ali, were completely evil.

  “Even though we [Marina Nemat’s critics] have told our own personal accounts of the prison,” she said in the radio interview, “none of us has ever said that … Ali Moosavi, the torturer, threw himself in front of bullets to save us. How can Marina portray him as a human being …”

  I have every right to tell what happened to me, and my accusers have the right to their accounts of Evin.

  During the radio program, another woman who had been in prison for a few years claimed that the “atmosphere” in Prisoner of Tehran was “made up.” She argued that it would have been impossible for a nine-year-old like me going to school in Tehran to have such good command of the English language that she could read books in English.* In elementary school, my English was by no means perfect, but I could—with difficulty and the help of a dictionary—understand the words of C.S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia. And I became better and better at English with practice and perseverance, not to mention my love for English literature. I was a lonely child with an unhappy family life, and books became my refuge. I was not the only elementary-school student in Tehran who knew English. Even though private schools did not exist in Iran when I was growing up, a few schools had strong English programs, among them my elementary schools, Payk-eh Danesh and Giv. But there were others, as well. Students at Soheil and Andisheh had a facility in English that was probably even greater than mine.

  The woman also said that it would have been impossible for an interrogator like Ali to take a prisoner out of Evin on leaves of absence. Maybe she had forgotten, but interrogators had extreme powers, and they did sometimes take inmates out for different reasons. Here in the West we have the rule of law. Not only in prisons but everywhere, we must follow the law and the law is protected. If we break the law, we have to face consequences defined by the law. In Iran and many other Third World countries, however, money and connections sometimes count above all else. In Iran, even if you want to follow the law to, for example, get a building permit, in many cases you have to know an official, bribe someone, or both. In the 1980s, almost anything could happen in Iranian prisons. Even if a prisoner died under torture, the interrogator would not be held accountable. At the same time, if an interrogator wanted, he could grant “favours” to a prisoner.

  In the last part of the radio program, three Iranian writers spoke in support of me. One of them, Nasrin Parvaz, had been a political prisoner for eight years and had written a memoir in Persian. She commended me for keeping my head up despite all that I had endured in Evin, and expressed her extreme disappointment in the way my accusers had attacked me, which she called “psychological stoning.”

  Ms. Parvaz was outraged that a few people had called my forced marriage to Ali a “honeymoon,” when it was nothing but rape. She explained that in the eighties, the Islamic government imprisoned and tortured thousands of teenagers and tried to destroy them by turning them into tavvabs. Only a few prisoners managed to st
and up for their beliefs, and they were by no means a majority. The young tavvabs were like springs that would bend but not break under pressure, bouncing right back at the first opportunity. She believed that one of the reasons the regime massacred thousands of political prisoners in the summer of 1988 was that prison authorities had finally realized the tavvab phenomenon was a sign of the failure of the regime’s brutal policies in prisons. Tavvabs had not truly repented, and they would stab the Islamic government in the back at the first opportunity.

  In Evin while I was in solitary confinement, I kneaded a piece of stale bread with a little water and used it to make a two-inch dragonfly. I had always loved dragonflies and had spent hours watching them at my parents’ cottage by the Caspian Sea. Just before my release, I gave my dragonfly to one of my cellmates named Nahid. A few days earlier, she had told me a story she had made up, in which the main characters were my dragonfly and a three-inch horse she had constructed herself. One of the legs of her horse and one of the wings of my dragonfly had broken off. Nahid was an amazing storyteller and could change her voice to represent each character.

  She said that one day a stallion and a dragonfly decided to have a race. All the animals in the jungle bet on the stallion, but the wise owl said that the dragonfly would win. Early in the race, the stallion was far ahead. Except, he arrived at a lake and decided not to swim across it but to go around. The dragonfly, however, flew over the lake and almost caught up with her opponent. Then it began to rain heavily. As the dragonfly squeezed herself into a crack in a rock, one of her wings broke off. Still, she had faith that she could continue the race. The skies cleared before long, but the ground had become terribly muddy. As the dragonfly crossed the finish line, panting and struggling, she heard cries from behind her. The stallion had slipped in the mud and broken a leg.

  I forgot Nahid’s story until years later when I saw a beautiful silver dragonfly brooch in a shop window. It had blue wings. Tears filled my eyes. I rarely buy jewellery, but I had to have it. It made me think of my young cellmates and their terrifying race for survival. I hoped that their delicate strength had led them home.

  *http://biphome.spray.se/radiohambastegi/2007/marina070811.ram.

  *http://asre-nou.net/1386/tir/8/m-marina.html.

  *In Prisoner of Tehran, I explained that I began reading English books when I was nine.

  Photos of

  My Children

  When Prisoner of Tehran came out, my sons were eighteen and fourteen years old. I took them to a couple of my speaking engagements. Even though they were curious, they felt uncomfortable hearing about my prison experiences and rarely asked questions. However, they were excited to see me on The Hour—a popular television news show on CBC—because they think that the host, George Stroumboulopoulos, is totally cool. George asked me about my children’s reactions to the book, and after the interview, he suggested I bring my boys to the studio so they could be part of the audience in future segments. At first, the boys seemed excited, but the smiles on their faces soon faded into thoughtful expressions, and they declined George’s offer. They want to be independent and not seen just as their mother’s sons or in relation to her experiences.

  My becoming a public figure has been very hard on my children. I only hope they will fully understand my motives one day. I know that they are proud of me—I am a successful writer. But I’m sure they would prefer that I wrote fiction. In a way, I became two different people when I decided to tell my story: one is the quiet, dedicated wife and mother who does laundry, chauffeurs the children, cooks, cleans, and fusses over insignificant things; the other is the ex–political prisoner, the writer, and the activist, who travels, gives interviews, and speaks at events around the world. At the beginning of my journey as a writer, my family lived with the former and the world knew the latter, but gradually, the two women merged.

  After I gave a Canadian company the stage rights to Prisoner of Tehran, I told my son Thomas, who was sixteen at the time, that I expected him to attend the opening of the play. Andre was present when I mentioned this, and he said he wasn’t sure it would be suitable for Thomas to be there. I was bewildered. Not only did Thomas know my story quite well, he was the same age I had been when arrested and imprisoned. Our children deserved to know the unfiltered truth. Adult children of Holocaust survivors and those of former Iranian political prisoners had come up to me after my speaking engagements, broken down in my arms, and told me how they had suffered because of their parents’ refusal to share their experiences. With time, my sons have become more and more comfortable with my past. However, there is no doubt that it is difficult for children, teenagers, even adults to deal with the suffering of their parents, especially when this suffering stems from violent acts. Nevertheless, I believe that knowing the truth is always better than remaining in ignorance.

  One day Thomas and I ran into a friend of mine who works with autistic children. She told me that the government had cut some of her funding. I knew what a dedicated teacher she was, so I offered to help with her fundraising efforts. Thomas listened silently to our conversation. When we got home, he looked at me as we were taking off our coats and said, “Mom, you are not going to write anything against the government of Canada, are you? I don’t want you to go to prison here.”

  I was shocked. He knows full well that Canada is a democratic country and Canadians don’t go to prison for criticizing the government. Fear had gotten the best of him, causing him to put logic aside. I assured him that I would not be arrested in Canada; I had no intention of breaking the law. But this was not enough for him. I had to promise him that I would not write an article criticizing the cutting of funds for programs targeting autistic children.

  I have always wondered how much my elder son, Michael, remembers from his first few years of life. Sometimes when I ask him if he recalls this or that from Iran or Hungary, he says he doesn’t. I have memories from when I was four years old, but Michael was not even three when we came to Canada, so there is a good chance that he doesn’t remember anything from his days in Tehran and Budapest. But some of those days were so traumatic for him and for all of us that I have no doubt he has stored them somewhere in his subconscious. Maybe they come to him as nightmares and he has no idea that they truly happened.

  Michael was born in December 1988, four months after the end of the Iran–Iraq War that had raged for eight years. Andre and I lived in the city of Zahedan at the time, which is in the province of Sistan and Baluchistan and close to Iran’s border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. We had moved to Zahedan in March 1987. Because Andre had a master’s degree, he was permitted to teach at a university in a remote city in Iran for three years instead of fighting in the war against Iraq. I would have done anything to save Andre from going to war, and spending three years in Zahedan, which is about sixteen hundred kilometres southeast of Tehran, seemed a tiny price to pay for his safety. The university allowed professors and their families to live in well-built houses on its grounds, so we settled into a small one-bedroom house on campus.

  I had never lived in the desert. Tehran is located at the foot of the Alborz Mountains and is relatively green. But Zahedan is surrounded by sand—a hot, moving, golden sea that drowns all sound and colour. At night, the sky becomes a black ocean full of silver stars, threatening to swallow everything it touches. Before the rise of Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, Zahedan was only a small village called Dozz-aap, from the Persian Dozd-aab, meaning “water thief.” This name is given to a sandy land formation that quickly swallows any water that falls on it.

  The first time we arrived at Zahedan Airport, I was separated from Andre at security check. I made it to the public concourse before him and waited in a corner, trying to spot the professor from the university who was to pick us up there. As I glanced around, I noticed a member of the Revolutionary Guard staring at me. I looked the other way. The man walked toward me.

  “Where are you coming from?” he asked me, his tone intimidating.

  My he
art began to race.

  “Tehran,” I said.

  “Are you travelling alone?”

  “No. I’m with my husband. He should be here any moment.”

  “Your husband?” he said mockingly.

  Suddenly, Andre and the professor from the university appeared next to me.

  “Is there a problem?” the professor inquired of the guard angrily. “Why are you harassing this young woman?”

  “Are you her husband?” the guard wanted to know.

  “I am her husband,” Andre responded.

  “We teach at the university,” the professor said. “Can we help you?”

  “No. Move along.”

  As we walked away, Andre wanted to know why the Guard member had picked on me. I said I didn’t know. I had been minding my own business.

  We drove along city streets, and I noticed that the Revolutionary Guard had almost no presence here. Most of the locals wore the traditional clothing of the region—long shirts and baggy pants for men; colourful long dresses and not-so-covering head scarves for women. I soon learned that drug dealers had a great deal of influence in the city. They were armed, and they disliked the Revolutionary Guard and anyone with strong ties to the government. The professor assured me that members of the Revolutionary Guard would not bother me on city streets. Indeed, the drug dealers had attacked many government convoys on the mountainous part of the road leading to the city.

  Andre and I decided to explore the market shortly after our arrival in Zahedan. We had heard that we could buy fine china for a fraction of the regular price; we also needed food to fill our fridge. As we walked down one of the dusty streets of the bazaar, with its small shops and street vendors, a man wearing the traditional local clothing approached us and greeted us in English. We were shocked. Andre is blue-eyed and blond and looks very Western, so the man had probably assumed that we were foreigners. In Persian, Andre explained that we were Iranian and he was in Zahedan to teach at the university.