You laugh and take me by the arm and we go to the room upstairs. Once, you even put a dried fig into the palm of my hand on the way up the stairs. You recite the rest of the plot either on the way or inside the room, and I write it down. The confessions are not putting anyone else in danger. Only me. I am thickening my file out of the fear of torture.
By now, I am just like Pavlov’s dog. In the time that passes when you take away my writing to read it, or when I am eating lunch, or performing prayers, my mind becomes active and works on completing the story you want me to tell. I shouldn’t restrain myself. If I am silent, there will be the final punishment, meaning lying in a coffin. Yes, you have turned a hopeful young man into Pavlov’s dog and a multiple agent.
One evening, when I get back to my cell, the loudspeaker is broadcasting the Qur’an recitations and the guard has left me a copy of Sayyed Ali Khamenei’s Learning to Pray. I start reading. I am trying to learn. I memorize sentences in Arabic. With difficulty, I make myself move about on my feet so I can walk and repeat the sentences and memorize them the way I am used to memorizing things. I have not yet uttered the first sentence when a wave of terror washes over me. All my aches and pains come back to life. I sit down and close the book. I find a solution, a solution that I later discover has been used by many other inmates. Instead of reciting Arabic words, prayers or verses, I start counting. I counted so it looked like I was praying and studying. I couldn’t double up or bend down for prayers anyway. As soon as I sat down, a murderous pain would shoot through me, making me collapse on the floor. Sometimes these situations made me laugh, other times I would cry.
But I would do my ablution with proper pomp and ceremony. I knew the guards would be watching and report back. And you Brother Hamid, you were preoccupied with more important matters. My business with God was my own affair. You were busy completing my file.
I have barked and I’m in the room upstairs.
“By the way, did you say that you knew Khosrow?”
“Yes, he’s Rahman Hatefi.”
“Crap. But never mind. Have the names and addresses of all the members of the secret network ready by the time I get back. Including organizational structures, especially the military wing.”
You walk out. I crumble. The secret network? The military wing? Immediately I am reminded of Khamenei’s hints to Kianuri. But I am sure that Navid has been dissolved as was stated in the final notice. The only individual I knew to be a member of the secret network was Rahman. Rahman’s role has been revealed.
You return very quickly: “Have you written everything down?”
I am sure the secret network is no longer active.
You laugh out aloud.
“Man, you believe that once you say ‘I repent, I repent,’ we’re going to believe any sort of rubbish you say. Get up, come on.”
You grab my sleeve and drag me along. You are pushing me down the stairs. Before I can blink, I find myself seated on the metal bed. My brain is working automatically. Nothing is more frightening than the descent of another blow. I bark.
“If you write any more rubbish, ‘woof, woof’ is not going to help you. First you will be punished and then you will join Comrade Manuchehr.”
And you throw a pile of papers and a biro onto the bed and leave. I pull up my blindfold. The walls are bloodstained. The horrible bleach bottle is still on the chair. My mind starts racing. I assume that every secret network has an open part and a military part. The military section must include the air force, the territorial army and the navy. And so I draft a probable structure.
On each branch I put five people who are linked to each other horizontally. I give them names, changing the first names and giving them surnames that I still remember. For example, instead of Yusef Mohammadi, I write Mohammad Yusefi and so on. When I draw the invented military wing’s chart, I pull out the page. I redraw it neatly on another piece of paper and cross over the original page and put it into the pocket of my prison shirt.
As soon as I hear the shuffling sound of slippers, I put on my blindfold and hold out the page in your direction. There is silence. You must be reading the chart. Then, without saying a word, you leave and you don’t return for a long time. While you are gone, the guard brings in food and I go to the bathroom. Then the guard takes me to the room upstairs. You are waiting and your voice has become gentle again: “Sit down, little lion, sit down. Why didn’t you write down all the information at once, giving us and yourself a break? Now redraw the charts before I get back.”
You leave and I redraw the chart, copying it from the original draft in my pocket. When you come back and pick up the charts, you hit me on my shoulder: “Well done!”
You sound happy. I have saved myself. No, I have put an even heavier pair of shackles around my ankles. I am killing myself for fear of death.
You leave and you don’t come back. A long time passes before the guard comes and takes me to my cell. Qur’an recitations are being broadcast. I can’t even sleep anymore. I go to the bathroom. I perform my ablution. I return. I do my numeric prayers and am so exhausted that I faint. The next morning the guard comes for me as soon as I have finished breakfast. He takes me to the room downstairs. There is the sound of shuffling slippers and then you. I say: “Hello.”
You don’t answer. Meaning, you are angry.
I say: “Woof, woof.”
You take me upstairs. You don’t say a word. You send me off to the room. I wait for a long time before you come. Then you stand over me, and you are almost shouting, happily chanting: “The case of Khosrow has become clear. The secret network has become clear. Everything has become clear. The military wing has become clear.”
You say this and then leave. I take off my blindfold. Your words are echoing in my head: “Khosrow ... Secret network, military wing ...”
Are these new pages for the film script or the truth?
I am happy that I haven’t related what I myself view as my only crime, which is my part in setting up a meeting between the Afghan ambassador and Foroughian. Besides, if what you are saying is true, then you must realize that I was totally ignorant of what was going on.
Eventually you return. I say hello. You respond. This means there’s peace. You put a piece of paper on the arm of the chair: “The filthy Tudeh Party’s infiltrators are in all the government departments.”
There’s a brief silence and then you say: “Write about everyone. Apart from the Imam and Mr Montazeri. They could all be infiltrators. Even I could be.”
And you leave. I hadn’t taken this issue into consideration. I stand up and as usual, walk slowly, gingerly. My feet are slightly better but from my head, which is perpetually aching, to my teeth and my shoulders and my feet, everything in my body is hurting to varying degrees. Sometimes I can’t bear it any more. Sometimes the pain makes me faint. I keep walking and trying to remember the names of anyone who had ever said anything even slightly fishy about the government. I write down the names on the interrogation paper. I tell myself: “Fuck them. Let them think these guys are also in the Tudeh Party.”
Then I add “information”. I link them to the Party this or that way. I fill up several pages and am beginning to relax, thinking that I have done today’s “confession”.
You come and pick up the papers. You stand behind me. There’s silence. You must be reading and then I realize you must have finished because you ask: “Is that it? Are you sure you haven’t kept back any secrets?”
A shiver goes down my spine and my feet start burning. In exactly the same place where they still burn twenty-five years later.
Chapter 16
The Coup and the Bullshitters
Coup d’etat? Coup d’etat? Coup d’etat?
You were after a coup d’etat on those spring nights of 1983. We have reached those nights in this, my sixteenth, letter. No other phrase has been stranger to me. Who wanted to stage a coup d’etat? The Party? Nothing could be more ridiculous. Even if I had known about the secret network at the t
ime, I wouldn’t have believed this story. I now understand that extracting coup d’etat confessions was another stage in the Islamic Republic’s metamorphosis. With the clamping down on the Tudeh Party, the regime had begun to eliminate the forces that defended the revolution but had a non-Taliban outlook. It was the same conspiracy theory that you used to destroy Ayatollah Montazeri’s leadership, Brother Hamid. Then you moved forward, step by step and eventually took up the Taliban’s arms and Al-Qaeda’s banner.
Moshtarek Prison, 19 March to 1 April 1983
Spring has arrived, and the nights of the new Iranian year. I haven’t been interrogated for a couple of days. The spring air carries the noise of the crowd in Toopkhaneh Square where a hundred years ago Sheikh Fazlollah Noori,66 the intellectual figurehead of Brother Hamid and his fellow believers, was hanged. No one can stop the spring air from moving. It is now entering the cell, through the thick prison walls, via the rusty barbed wire. Everything is reflecting the change of the season.
I think it’s New Year’s Eve.67 When the lights go off, I take it as a sign that the New Year has begun, and force myself to sit up, with great difficulty, leaning against the wall. For the traditional New Year’s ceremony, I need seven items beginning with the Farsi letter “seen” or “s”. In most Persian homes, these would include an apple, some wheat grass, garlic and other items beginning with “s”, as well as a goldfish in a bowl of water, symbolizing life, arranged on a table in the living room. Of course, I don’t have these objects to hand in my cell, so I substitute them with sugar cubes and bread. I break the bread into seven parts. I imagine my wife is sitting next to me. I stare at the “fish”, which is bobbing up and down in the imaginary waves, and moving the apple’s reflection in the mirror. The cannon shot68 heralds the New Year, and we embrace each other.
For the first time, I spend New Year’s Eve in prison. I was just about to go to sleep, with tears in my eyes, when I hear the shuffling sound of slippers. Food has been brought in. I try to sleep. I have to twist and turn until a part of my body accepts the pressure of my weight on it. I have just had a brief opportunity to catch some sleep when the sound of shuffling slippers wakes me up. I fall asleep again. I see my wife in my dream; she’s wearing white and is telling the American businessman on board the Greek boat: “I am prepared to wear a sack over my head as long as my country is free and independent.”
The businessman is laughing out loud and fish are leaping out of the sea. In my sleep, I feel something warm moving across my face. I brush it aside with my hand. I am in Toopkhaneh Square. Kaveh Golestan69 is taking pictures. Brother Hamid is pointing at me with his hand. Some people are shouting. They run towards me.
“Death to the communists!”
I cover my face with my hands and turn my back. Some people dressed in black and holding a red flag are pointing at me:
“He doesn’t pray! Death to those who do not pray!”
Something is running across my chest. I jump up, terrified. A warm thing is moving inside my clothes. Terrified, I rip off my clothes and shake them. I can’t see whether a creature has got into my clothes or not. Reluctantly, I put my clothes back on and sit up against the wall. My eyelids have just begun to droop when I feel something is moving up my hand. Automatically, I grab it and crush it. The stomach-churning heat of a cockroach’s body makes me feel sick. I have just closed my eyes again when I hear the door lock being quietly turned. The door opens slightly and a voice says: “Hey! Stand up, come on ...”
It’s you, Brother Hamid. In the darkness, I dig my blindfold out of my pocket and put it on. I touch my other pocket – my glasses are there. I put on my slippers and walk out. You are waiting for me outside the door.
“How are you? Fine?”
Your voice is very gentle, but I am more afraid of the kind tone of your voice than of your anger. I grasp at straws: “If you have lots to do for me, I should perform my prayers first.”
You laugh: “No. You’ll be back in time for the dawn prayers.”
We pass by Under the Eight. We enter a triangular courtyard. The cold wind is making me shiver. The spring air comes from the snow-capped Alburz Mountains, bringing with it the sound of the water springs. You sit me down in a corner. There’s a prolonged silence.
“How are you? Fine?”
I answer: “Thank you.”
“Pain anywhere?”
I say: “From head to toe. I have asked the guard for a doctor a few times. He said that I would need your permission.”
You are saying: “No. What I mean is do you have any specific illness, like a heart condition or something to do with the lungs or whatever.”
“None.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
You say: “I have not yet had the chance to ask about your family. I only know that your father is very pious.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Your mother?”
“She passed away.”
“May her soul rest in peace. How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
I answer.
“How many uncles?”
I answer.
“Aunts?”
I tell him.
“Their names?”
I tell him: “Simin Taj, Mahin Taj.”70
“Do you visit your aunts?”
I answer: “No, it’s been years since I last saw them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t met any of them recently?”
“No.”
“Do you know their telephone numbers?”
“No.”
“Do you have any godmothers?”
“No.”
You say: “Right. Lift up your blindfold now and have a look at this.”
I do as he tells me and see a piece of paper.
“Put on your glasses and have a look.”
My wife’s familiar handwriting comes to life in the moonlight. There are no more than a few lines dancing about in front of me. They say:
My dear husband. I love you and am worried about you. I have sent you some pills with this letter. We were all in the garden, together, and thought of you. Give me a call if you can; you can find me through Aunt Pari.
I read the letter a few times. Later on I discovered that my wife, who had been trying everything to find me, had sent this letter together with the pills that I needed for an eye problem, to the address of the Revolutionary Guards’ headquarters.
“Now take off your glasses and put on the blindfold.”
You take the paper from me.
“Right? Did you get the secret code?”
“The secret code?”
“Yes. The secret code. Didn’t you say you do not have any serious illness? What are the pills for, then?”
“I had forgotten it, with all the pain that I am having. Besides, it’s not an illness. The pills are to improve ...”
“What about your aunt. Didn’t you say that you haven’t seen any of them recently?”
“Of course.”
“So who’s Aunt Pari?”
“We used to call our friend, Mrs Parvin, Aunt Pari. Since we didn’t have a telephone at home, we used to use hers in emergencies.”
This is what I explain to you, Brother Hamid.
You are saying: “Let’s see.”
“Let’s see” is a filler expression that smells of death. You take my hand to lead me down to the room downstairs and push me onto the metal bed. I bark automatically.
You say: “Shoo, shoo.”
Then you handcuff me. While hanging me up in the air, you whisper gently into my ear: “Things have remained untold. The important things have remained unsaid.”
And you leave. I am hanging in the air in the middle of a spring night, and limitless pain, from my head to my toes, is joining up. I yell so much that you have to come back. I am both dreading the shuffling sound of slippers and am waiting for them. The hands that have tied me up are also the one
s that can untie me. As soon as you arrive, I say: “Woof, woof.”
“Right. Speak up.”
No, there was nothing. From the moment I was strung up, my mind had been focusing on the meeting between Foroughian and the Afghan ambassador. I say: “I forgot a very important spying matter.”
By now you have noticed that I am blowing matters of little significance out of all proportion. You say: “Okay?”
“I arranged the meeting between Foroughian and the Afghan ambassador.”
You reply in a mocking tone: “What an important story. Wait a moment.”
You leave and I don’t know how long it takes before you return. Judging by what you say, you must be reading through the confession of someone who had already explained the whole story. Then you say: “Don’t bother wasting your time, Mr Asadi. We know everything. We even know about the main purpose of that meeting. But you don’t happen to know the purpose, right?”
I say: “No ...”
You laugh. You whisper in my ear: “Do you remember the first night and your first slap? We have returned to that moment: coup d’etat!”
And then you leave, again.
Coup d’etat? Coup d’etat? Coup d’etat?
That phrase completely threw me. I still couldn’t work out who might be planning to stage a coup d’etat. The Party? Nothing could be more ridiculous. Even if I had known about the Party’s secret network at the time, I wouldn’t have believed this story. I now realize that extracting coup d’etat confessions was just another stage in the Islamic Republic’s metamorphosis. With the clamping down on the Tudeh Party, the regime had begun to eliminate all the forces that were defending the revolution but had a non-Taliban outlook. It was the same conspiracy theory that you used to remove Khomeini’s designated successor Ayatollah Montazeri.
My memory is not helping me in concocting a lie that will get me released. I just keep yelling. You come back a few times. You untie my hands. You make me shake them. If I don’t do this myself, you grab my hands and pull them hard. Every time I ask for the bathroom, you ignore me. The walk to and from the bathroom is the biggest chance for relaxation, it is the path from hell to heaven. Eventually, you let me: “Hey, go to the bathroom. At the end of the day, I’ll give you your own crap to eat.”
Letters to My Torturer Page 19