Letters to My Torturer

by Houshang Asadi

  You say: “Take off your socks.”

  I take them off.

  You say: “Are you writing the truth? Or shall I start ...”

  “I have written the truth!”

  And I am afraid. I assume you want me to write about the organization. About the Party members, about my wife and ... But I am mistaken. As usual, you are talking to me in code. Meaning, you are indirectly telling the prisoner what you want to hear.

  “I am going to start. I want the truth about how you became a Savak agent. Open and close your hand ...”

  And in the blink of an eye I am thrown onto the bed. The springs are cutting into my flesh. You are tying my hands. Another person, who must be Brother Haykal, is tying my feet and it is starting ...

  “In the name of the Heavenly Fatimeh ...”

  The lash descends.

  “Karbala, Karbala ... We are on our way ...”

  And you are striking. The blows hit the soles of my feet and echo in my head. I don’t know how many lashes you will administer. You must have been given an order in line with Shari’a law and you will not exceed the lawful number of allocated lashes.

  I am yelling. Something is being put into my mouth. It’s my wet socks. Were you aware that due to sinus problems I can only breathe properly through my mouth? I am suffocating. The socks are putting pressure on the broken teeth. I prefer being lashed to being gagged. For the first time it occurs to me to open and close my hand. I do just that. A hand removes the socks; it’s as if I have just emerged from under water.

  “Right. First confess it verbally.”

  I can only hear my own voice with difficulty: “About what?”

  “How you became a Savak agent and why you infiltrated the Party.”

  There’s a piercing sound in my brain. These words are more painful than the lashing of the whip. You must be bluffing. When the whip strikes, I cry out. The socks are stuffed back into my mouth and the blows continue. I tell myself: “I’d rather die than accept this lie.”

  The blows descend until I escape into deep darkness. When I come round, I am seated by the side of the bed, whining. The soles of my feet are on fire. I can’t lift them. I touch my feet. They are bleeding. I hear your voice: “Now stand up and move around. It’s good for you.”

  Later, I will come to understand that walking has a special place in torture. Interrogators have been taught exactly when to stop whipping the feet to prevent nerve cells from dying. That’s why they make their victims walk and move their feet; it’s to keep the cells alive. Doing this to swollen feet is a new form of torture as well as preparation for the torture session to come. Victims who are aware of this try to avoid walking and I, without knowing anything about it, always tried to avoid walking. I just couldn’t walk on my feet. You are whispering in my ear: “You must have been given thorough training, little lion. Keep walking.”

  You are calling me little lion. Whenever you are feeling well, I become little lion and you, The Torturer.

  And I walk.

  And then, loud and deafening: “Karbala, Karbala ... We are on our way ...”

  Again, two people grab me roughly and throw me onto the bed. They tie my hands and feet. They push the socks back into my mouth.

  “In the name of the Heavenly Fatimeh ...”

  And the whip descends. The more I twist, the more the rope puts pressure on my hands and feet, cutting into them.

  “The more resistance you put up, the more obvious it becomes that you are keeping secrets.”

  This is another lesson in the science of torture. And I am suffocating. I can’t even twist myself around. A heavy weight is pressing me down. I hear your voice: “Sit further up, Brother Haykal, so he can’t move. This one, he’s well trained.”

  And the blows rain down on me with great force. And I don’t know when I drown in darkness. The intense burning sensation in my feet brings me back to my senses. I have been untied. Someone is rubbing something on the soles of my feet. It’s the guard/doctor. When he finishes his task, he grabs me under my arms and makes me stand up: “Have pity on yourself. In the end, everybody gives in.”

  And he takes me out of the torture chamber. A few steps further, and he hands me over to someone else. I hear the guard’s voice: “Your interrogator wants you to walk. Face the wall and just move your feet around.”

  I start moving my feet. I move them slowly. They are very swollen. I hear someone being dragged along and thrown into the room downstairs. A little while later, there’s yelling.

  The voice of a woman.

  The voice of a man.

  The piercing cry of a woman.

  The yelling of a man.

  I am moving my feet and listening to the yelling. I feel a strange pressure in my stomach. I try to look around me under the corner of my blindfold. With my eyebrows I manage to push the blindfold up a tiny bit. Over there, I can see the vague shadow of iron bars and a cooking stove with a perpetually steaming kettle on top of it and next to it, a chair. I free myself, as if automatically. And then I hear the sound of my bowels emptying themselves and I fear someone might come. I am embarrassed. I hear a voice. It’s not the shuffling of slippers. It’s the stamping of boots. A hand is touching my shoulder. It’s the guard. Laughing he says: “Seems you haven’t moved your feet properly. I am leaving so you won’t be embarrassed. Keep moving your feet.”

  And the drama carries on. I am tired in a horrible way. I lift my hand. I hear a voice from a distance: “What’s up?”

  I gesticulate with my hand that I want to go to the bathroom. The guard walks up: “Keep moving your feet until I’ve asked your interrogator.”

  He leaves and I move my feet. The yelling has stopped. Once or twice I squat and then stand up until a hand grabs my sleeve and takes me with him. We pass by the blankets that carpet the corridors. We reach the bathroom.

  “Do your business quickly and then knock.”

  The guard leaves. I take off my blindfold. I splash a fistful of water onto my face. My feet are swollen and burning. I sit down with huge difficulty. But then I cannot make myself stand up. I delay it as long as I can; the toilet is my best refuge. But I cannot stay here for eternity. I go out. I am looking for something to see my reflection in when someone bangs on the door.

  “Put on your blindfold.”

  I do as I’m told. Someone comes and asks my name. I answer. He grabs my sleeve and takes me away. He’s dragging me, rushing along. I am forced to run after him. We leave the block. I recognize the pool in the middle of the courtyard. We skirt it. We enter another corridor. A voice says: “Put your hand on the one in front of you.”

  I do as I’m told. The line is moving slowly. There’s whispering. Everyone is trying to figure out who is in front or behind him.

  “Where are they taking us?”

  A stupid hope is lighting up my naive heart: “They are releasing us!”

  I see myself running down the street on my wounded feet. The queue stops somewhere.

  “Pull up your blindfold.”

  I pull it up. I see a sturdy, laughing man. He hands me clean clothes for the bathroom and he asks: “Do you want a pillowcase?”

  I ask, astounded: “Pillowcase?”

  I don’t have a pillow. He shrugs. When steam reaches my nostrils, I realize that we have come to the bathroom. We stand behind the same black, plastic curtain. Then we enter the shower. The showers are the same ones that Khamenei and I used to wash ourselves in. But something has changed. The Islamic Republic’s showers have a showerhead. The time allocated to showering is ten minutes. Washing when one’s feet are swollen and blood is running out of one’s mouth is sheer torture. But warm water revives one’s body. You feel as though you have suddenly left hell and entered paradise. I pick up the soap and rub it on my head. It feels good to be clean. I haven’t finished washing my hair when a very familiar voice whispers my name. It’s you, Brother Hamid. I answer: “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Hurry up and get out. Who told you to co
me here?”

  I have hardly finished getting dressed when you grab my hand and drag me along. You are hitting me over the head and dragging me. You keep saying: “Useless wimp ... Savak agent ... Torturer ...”

  I am wet, very wet, and the cold air is making me shiver uncontrollably. We go through the courtyard and around the pool. We go into the room downstairs. You throw me onto the bed and start punching and kicking me. Then, once again my feet and hands are tied to the bed.

  Your voice: “In the name of the Heavenly Fatimeh ...”

  “Karbala, Karbala ... We are on our way ...”

  And the lash descends. It descends. It cuts into the soles of my feet and makes my clenched teeth burst in pain. I open and close my hand. The blows stop. A hand pulls the gag out of my mouth.

  “What is it? Do you want to talk?”

  “Bathroom ...”

  The same hand shoves the gag back into my mouth.

  “Shut up useless wimp. If you mention the bathroom again, I’ll give you shit to eat.”

  And the next blow makes my body convulse. This time, when I come to my senses, I find myself sprawled across the bed with bandaged feet. I sit up with difficulty, trying to remember where I am. I pull off my blindfold. My eyes wander around the torture chamber. A metal-framed bed with a metal-spring base but no mattress, a wooden chair, a rope hanging on a hook from the ceiling. It is hard to see what’s sitting on the chair. I squint to read: Parmoon.

  My mind is searching for a connection. The blue bottle of Parmoon. My thoughts are wandering and wandering and eventually reach our little home. Every weekend my wife and I clean the house. We are doing the dishes, my wife is washing up and I am drying. The connection is there. Parmoon is the same liquid we used to use to disinfect the bathroom and the toilet. I can hear my wife’s voice: “Wash your hands carefully. It’s poisonous.”

  The door opens and the smell of food wafts in. The guard puts down the plate of food. I say: “I am thirsty.”

  He goes away and comes back with a red, plastic cup of water. I take it and drink it all. I say: “Bathroom ...”

  “I have to ask your interrogator.”

  He goes out and doesn’t come back. I cannot eat. My whole mouth is aching. It’s a different kind of pain to that of my feet. I feel the salty taste of blood in my mouth. My brain automatically starts analysing incidents and words. What do they want from me? Why do they focus so much on this Savak issue? Are they themselves Savak agents? Are they the men from the Revolutionary Guards Corps? I can’t find an answer.

  The sound of shuffling arrives, which means it’s you, Brother Hamid. Automatically, I look for my blindfold and put it on. You stop in the doorway and say: “You still don’t want to talk, useless wimp?”

  “I don’t know what else I am supposed to write.”

  This answer has come from my subconscious and later I come to understand that the answer is the beginning of something that the interrogator is expecting, but he pretends that he doesn’t expect it. You say: “You are going to remember what you need to say right now. I didn’t want us to get to this stage. It’s your own fault.”

  Then you grab my hands and pull them behind my back. For a moment I feel the coolness of the handcuffs on my wrists and a piercing pain shoots through my shoulder. I am expecting you to throw me onto the bed with my hands handcuffed. I prepare myself. But you are doing something I cannot see. Then you say: “Stand up.”

  I stand up with difficulty. I feel that something has been tied to the handcuffs. Suddenly I find myself hanging in the air. I am swinging in the air, with my hands handcuffed behind my back. You grab me, Brother Hamid, and pull me down. When the tips of my toes almost touch the ground, you release me again. Meanwhile, you are talking: “Everyone is mute at the beginning. Then they all turn into nightingales. When they put up a lot of resistance, we make them bark like dogs. Collect your thoughts and think until I come back.”

  The sound of shuffling slippers and the closing of the door. And the pain starts from the wrists, reaches the soles of the feet, and fills up the whole body. It is not possible to describe the quality of the pain. It’s a different type of pain, different from the whip, or when your teeth are broken right inside your mouth. Each pain has its own taste. The toothache is salty. The whip is red. It burns. It hits the soles of your feet and sets your brain on fire. The pain of handcuffs is bitter. The rope keeps moving, which intensifies the pain. You feel as though your shoulders are being ripped apart. Your heart beats frantically. Your mouth dries up. Becomes bitter. Something bitter, bitter as poison, spills through your body. You force yourself to hold still. But you twist again and the rope turns again. Your whole confidence, your sole hope, focuses on the tip of your toe, which is connected to the ground, a place you used to stand on. And this point of connection, psychologically speaking, is the most important and the most horrific thing about the hanging torture. It means that there is a place to which you can return. You can stand firmly on it. No suffering. You will get back to being yourself. And the condition for you to return to that place is to talk. The graduates of the faculty of torture know exactly how much the body can endure, how to give the body just enough rest. When to get you back on the floor. When to open the handcuffs. To give you a taste of what it’s like to not be handcuffed, to be standing on the ground. Your options are either to talk or to yell. I am yelling. Yelling.

  And sometimes you come in, Brother Hamid. You take me down without a word. You open my handcuffs, and that is the most painful moment.

  Your wrists and hands feel dead. To get back to normal, you move your hands, and you rub your wrists. Your shoulders have frozen up, and cannot return to their usual position, they feel as if they will burst with pain. The torturer makes you stand up and makes you walk. Little by little, everything turns into a habit. Your body fills with the pleasure of release, and just then, you are thrown onto the bed again. In the blink of an eye your hands are handcuffed behind your back once more and before you know it, you are hanging in the air, and only the tip of your toe reaches the floor. Or if you are hanging by your ankles, the top of your head.

  And I am yelling. Yelling. I feel like a thousand hours, a thousand nights have passed. Maybe it has been less than five minutes. Or maybe five days. When you are hanging, time loses all meaning. You are twisting inside a black hole.

  Then, unexpectedly, the door opens. Someone gently unties you. You realize from the smell of food that it’s mealtime. From the type of food you can work out whether it’s morning, noon or night. You swallow your saliva with difficulty. Your whole body is terrified. You know that this, being untied, is only a temporary reprieve. It is going to come to an end. And this is another type of torture. Eating also offers some respite. Experience shows that Brother Hamid is also in love with this time of the day. Usually, it takes a long time for him to return. In addition, you are allowed to take off your blindfold.

  When I take off my blindfold this time, I see the blue bottle of Parmoon on the chair. The sound of shuffling arrives. I put on my blindfold. You pull my hands behind my back, Brother Hamid, and bark: “Which side? Which hand do you want on top?”

  How unbalanced one is hanging this way, one hand pulled over the shoulder from the front, the other pulled up behind your back, and then both wrists handcuffed together, before being strung up from the ceiling. Usually they alternate which arm is pulled over the shoulder, to increase the pain. This time you let me choose. You laugh and say: “See, contrary to what you think, there’s freedom in Islam.”

  But I cannot even make use of this freedom. My right hand cannot reach my left hand from the back, so you always handcuff me in the same position. I ought to let you know, it will bring you so much happiness, that my left shoulder was permanently damaged under your care.

  Two months ago, when I was rushed to a Parisian hospital, they wanted to put a line into my left hand, but I instinctively shouted out: “Not in my left hand! No! Don’t hang me from my left hand.” The nurses di
dn’t understand what I was saying. When my wife explained to them, they rolled their eyes in astonishment and said: “Ah bon! Ah bon! C’est vrai?!” (“Well, well, is that true?”)

  Yes Brother Hamid, I told you that you’d entered my life for good. When you lock the handcuffs, you give me advice. You soften your voice: “Be reasonable. Write. We know the truth. But we want you to write it down yourself. Who sent you to Savak?”

  And you haul me up again. I am left hanging between the air and the floor. I yell. I am tied and untied a number of times. One time I say: “Bathroom ...”

  You accompany me yourself. You open the door. I delay my business to catch my breath. You bang on the door. “Hurry up, useless wimp.”

  I put on my blindfold. I want to wash my hands. You don’t let me. You grab my sleeve: “You are worse than shit!”

  You drag me out.

  “Next time you mention the bathroom, I’ll dip your head into a pile of shit.”

  I assume you mean to threaten me. But later, I will understand what was going through your head at that moment. We return to the room downstairs. You tie me up again. Again I am unable to make use of my Islamic freedom. When you lift me up, you say: “You cannot fool us the way you fooled the Party. Write the truth.”

  This code giving prepares the prisoner to move towards what the interrogator wants, step by step. The truth according to your interrogator enters your brain with tiny, little details. And just when you are lifting me up, you fire another shot: “The Tudeh people are talking, singing like nightingales. But you Savak agent, you haven’t opened your mouth yet. But you will.”

  And you leave. I remain and your words are circling around in my head. I throw them up with hatred but they return painfully. From my wrists, the soles of my feet, my mouth. I didn’t know and I don’t know how much time passed. I am tied and untied several times. I can only tell whether it’s night or day from the food. In the daytime, there’s usually rice or a stew. At night its eggs and potatoes. Experience teaches me that at night you return later. Your mouth usually reeks of the ugly smell of onion. Savak interrogators used to enter the torture chamber drunk on alcohol. What made you intoxicated? Did you drink from the mystic cup? Or did the smell of blood get you drunk?