I am taken to room number six, a room for prisoners whose files are still active. Goorzad who was arrested during an armed Mujahedin operation and is curiously aggressive for his young age, is in charge. He has a seriously one-sided view of the world.
In the mornings we have two sessions of “televised classes”. Videotapes are played, showing the clerics’ endlessly tiresome speeches, all of them are about morals. We are forced to squat on the floor, and listen. I gradually learn to sleep with my eyes wide open.
In the evening, we collectively perform our prayers,95 with Goorzad as our prayer leader. He lectures us between the two prayers. And every day he talks at length about peeing while standing up, quoting various hadith on this issue. Brother Sharif, the guard in charge of the block, keeps repeating: “It has been handed down clearly in a hadith: If a man pees while standing, the angels’ cries will reach the skies.”
I am reminded of Iqbal, who used to walk up and down, repeating: “Do not have intercourse with your wife standing up because that’s how mules copulate and if a child is created, he’ll pee in his bed like a mule.”
I ask myself: “Do mules have beds to pee on?” I can’t find an answer. I can’t help but picture a mule lying on a red bed covered in white sheets and peeing.
We are forced to pray before eating. Goorzad recites the prayer and we repeat his words loudly. We then chant a long list of condemnations, beginning with “Death to the US!” and “Death to the Soviet Union!”
In the evening, a tablecloth is spread on the floor in front of the TV and we are seated on it in time for the news. It is always reported that the Islamic army has been victorious on the frontline in the war against Iraq. We are made to follow Goorzad in this too, lifting our fists and shouting “God is Great” (“Allah ‘u ‘Akbar”) three times. Then they give us dinner, which is always tasteless. We said it was blander than water.
After dinner, Goorzad collects the leftover bread crusts from the tablecloth and distributes them to us. We have to eat our share while he watches. Not throwing away bread crusts, like not peeing while standing, is part of the “special lessons” which are very important and are taught every day by Brother Sharif. He has a degree in his field of expertise: publicly whipping prisoners.
Since I was the last prisoner to join the block, I’ve been allocated a place close to the door. During the nights when we sleep in the courtyard, my place is next to a small field of mirabilis. The nights are very beautiful in Evin village. A fresh breeze sweeps in from the mountains. The sky appears to be drowning in stars and there’s the maddening scent of mirabilis. I get myself under the blanket as soon as I can, and lose myself for hours in the beauty of this paradise at the heart of which humans have created a hell.
We are now allowed visitors every two weeks and they let us write one six-line letter, per month.
One morning, we are walking in the corridor just before the fresh air hour when Ibrahim enters. He’s holding a box of sweets in his hand and shouts: “Today, two members of the Mujahedin were sent to the hereafter.”
Then he distributes the sweets to us. Later, the others tell me that he had just returned from firing the final shots at his father and mother.
We have a library, which is full of religious books, prayer books and books on morals. The only book worth reading is Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables and because the book is in high demand, they have created a reading timetable for it. I register my name with the official in charge of the library and am given two hours per week to read the book. That is, until the Mujahedin analyse it and come to the conclusion that it leads readers astray from the correct path, and it is taken away.
Behzad sleeps next to me. We are both scorned by the block’s internal powers. He has an astonishing story. He had been fighting in Tehran and Kurdistan, and had blown up a few trucks belonging to the Revolutionary Guards Corps. He’s a master of explosions. When they got close to him, he decided to leave Iran. He told me how he managed to get himself to the northwest of Iran in the perilous conditions of 1983, in disguise, before trying to cross the border into Turkmenistan in the Soviet Union. On the night of his escape, he had just finished walking the dangerous route and his hand had touched the metal fence when car lights had been switched on and he had been arrested. He had been tortured and confessed, and now he was awaiting his sentence, which he knew would be hanging.
Every evening, around sunset, we sit by the window in the corridor, which looks out towards Evin Fairground and Hotel Azadi. Behzad sings songs to himself. We can hear the sounds of everyday life from far away, and the shrieks of children on fairground rides break through the sky before reaching us.
I haven’t yet been to court but assume that my sentence will be the same as his. I share his sorrow. This young man, who has done some violent things, has such a fragile soul. His hand doesn’t shake when launching a rocket, but the sound of a child can make him cry. His wife is somewhere in the same block.
One day, they call him up. When he returns, it becomes clear that they had taken him to see his wife. They had read out the hanging verdict to both of them. Wife and husband had spent a few minutes crying in each other’s arms, saying their final farewells.
From that day onwards, Behzad’s unruffled calm turns to anger, which intensifies day by day. Fruit is brought into the block once a week. The prison guards sell the fruit to the prisoners, but the powers within the block, the Mujahedin, have banned the individual consumption of fruit, viewing it as a sign of greed. They are the ones who decide how much fruit should go to each room or whether to buy any fruit at all. When they buy a single melon for a room of twelve people, it becomes clear that even scraping the last flesh from the skin is considered greedy and hence, it too is banned.
Behzad is by now indifferent to the instructions issued by the officials of the “prison within the prison” and buys grapes by the kilo. He puts the grapes under the room’s air cooler. He forgets them and the grapes go off and fruit flies appear.
Goorzad orders the cellmates to come together and put Behzad on trial on charges of greed.
I try to make Goorzad understand Behzad’s emotional state, but he pulls a face, raising his eyebrows, and says: “The Marxists, too, are only thinking about their stomachs and that which is below their stomachs.”
And on the day when they finally came for Behzad to hang him, I was the only one to accompany him to the door and to kiss him one last time. Over the years, I have tried to find his name in books and documents covering that time but I haven’t found any mention of him so far. But I always remember that young man, who apparently didn’t care about anything but war and death, who had fallen into a death trap while only one step away from freedom.
Another day, an old acquaintance arrives in the block. He’s a young man, thin and very tall. Mohammad Malmir, a temperamental poet whom I knew from my time at Kayhan where I had published his beautiful poems.
He is exactly the same, except that he now has only one eye and is claiming to be god. We have a few people who claim to be prophets, but Malmir has become god and this is new. They say that he was blinded with a broom handle inside the “madhouse”, a restricted section allocated specifically to those who claim to be prophets. Sometimes, when the poet fully comes to his senses, he notices me and tells me the story of how he was blinded in one eye: “A man was claiming to be a prophet. I said to him, ‘You are lying.’ He said, ‘Why do you say I am lying?’ I said, ‘If you were a prophet, you would have been sent by me, as I am god. But I don’t like you.’ He became angry and poked me in the eye with a broom handle.”
The poet/god had a habit of walking about the block, reciting poetry in a loud voice. One day, he climbed onto a little stool and delivered a speech against Kianuri. He spoke beautifully, and the whole block gathered around him. The Mujahedin guys became excited and applauded him. When he reached the climax of his speech, he turned to Ibrahim and said: “And yet, despite all of this, Rajavi deserves to eat Kianuri’s shit.”
Chaos broke out in the block. Guards appeared and Mohammad Malmir, the mad poet from the southern part of Iran, was also boycotted.
Another day, the poet/god stood up on the stool, again dressed in a long raincoat, one of his eyes dark and expressionless, the other sparkling. He recites an ode to Imam Ali. It is a truly engaging ode. Again everybody gathers around him. The guards also turn up. Brother Sharif watches this wise but mad poet with pleasure and quietly applauds him. He recites and recites and when he finishes, everybody is left feeling astonished and astounded. The poet/god lifts his hand and says: “But ...”
And starts throwing around filthy insults addressing them to the same Imam in whose honour he has just recited the ode. Once again the Mujahedin and the guards pounce on him, taking him outside, punching and kicking him as they go.
At the time for the evening prayers, after delivering a speech about peeing, Brother Sharif reports that Mohammad Malmir has been sentenced to hanging for insulting Imam Ali96 and the sentence is going to be carried out soon.
They summon me early in the morning of 5 August. As usual, they call out all the names together. We walk down. They take us to the court building in a minibus. Then the guard sets off and we follow him. The guard sits me down in a large hall. I have a very long wait. I know that the final moment has arrived. I have decided to tell the court that I have been tortured and made to say all the things that I have said. That I am not a spy. That I am denouncing the Party and accepting the Islamic Republic. That I want to lead a life in line with the Republic’s laws.
It takes a long time. A very long time. A thousand years. Just as the muezzin begins his call for the evening prayer, someone arrives and puts his hand on my shoulder. He asks my name. He puts some pieces of paper in my hand and says:
“It’s the charge sheet. You have half an hour to read it. We’ll call you up tomorrow to come to court.”
I ask: “Can I take it with me?”
He says: “No.”
“Can I have a pen and paper to take notes?”
“No, no. Face the wall, lift your blindfold and read.”
I do as I am told. The charge sheet is three pages long. My eyes go straight to the first article: “The accused has not refrained from any action to overthrow the sacred administration of the Islamic Republic.”
I turn the pages quickly and see the rest of the accusations: infiltration of the office of the president, acquisition of intelligence and its transmission to the enemy. British spy. Soviet spy. And everything that I had written under Brother Hamid’s torture. Now it’s been sent to the court as evidence of my confession. Along with a request that I should be hanged.
The same man takes away the charge sheet and I am returned to the prison.
I tell Foroud what’s in my heart and give the Party members a brief summary of the charge sheet. Five minutes later, the whole block knows that the sentence of hanging has been requested for me.
In the evening, as soon as the door opens, I go out into the courtyard. It’s a moonlit night. I sit down in a corner, next to the mirabilis, and review my whole life. I am one step away from death. I am frightened. I look at the sky and the moon and I gather together in my mind all the final earthly elements of my life. My only wish is to be able to see my wife one more time. To tell her everything. Could I? I twist and turn in my cold bedding, divorcing myself from life, preparing myself for death and repeating the words I will say to the court a hundred times.
The next day, when we get off the minibus, they take me straight to a room and I hear a voice: “Take off your blindfold.”
I take it off and put on my glasses. The image before me comes into focus. Mr Nayeri, who at the time was very young, is leaning on a chair with a thick file in front of him. Behind him, a window with metal bars opens onto a green space, and above the window is a clock showing eight thirty in the morning, 6 August 1985. A middle-aged man from the north of Iran is seated to Mr Nayeri’s left. He is both a secretary and a court representative. Describing him as a defence lawyer would be a joke.
I say hello. Mr Nayeri makes a movement with his head and says: “Don’t you have anything to say in your defence?”
I say: “Of course. My confessions have all been taken by force.”
He shakes his head and says: “Everybody says this. So you, too, had no idea of anything?”
“No.”
The court secretary and representative says: “This son of a bitch is a chief spy.”
Nayeri asks me: “How did you address Kianuri?”
“Haj Aqa, Father ...”
“You had no idea that you were calling this faithless old man Haj Aqa?”
He then opens the file and leafs through it. I see a large envelope inside the file. Nayeri pulls it out, emptying its contents. It’s the pages of the first stage of interrogation, which Brother Hamid had torn into pieces after I had repented so he could throw them away. This is just one example of the tricks of interrogation.
Nayeri puts the papers back on the desk.
“So you are not a spy?”
“No.”
As if he had just remembered something, Nayeri calls the guard. He gives him his car keys and says: “Put those sacks of rice on the backseat of my car.”
And asks me: “And the other confessions?”
I say: “I have never been an agent for the Soviets or the British.”
He says: “That you are a spy is clear from your crimes ...”
And he signals to the guard, who’s playing with the car keys, to take me away. Then he closes the file. His last sentence smells of death. I say: “Could you do me a favour, Haj Aqa? If the verdict is execution, could I call my wife?”
“It is not necessary at this time.”
On the way back, I am hearing the clock tick in my mind. It started at eight thirty and ended at eight thirty-six. My fate has been decided in six minutes.
The following day is visiting day. Telephone desk number fifteen. When I pick up the phone, I immediately tell my wife: “It’s over. Death sentence. I am innocent. I’ve not been a spy. I haven’t been a Savak spy. If they hang me, don’t let it destroy your life. But I am finished.”
I watch her black chador, which she’s been forced to put on for the visit, slip back as she sits down behind the glass screen, on the other side of the desk.
One evening, about a month later, they call me up. It’s neither visiting time nor the time to sort out administrative procedures. Foroud and the Party members gather round. They don’t say anything but I can see in their eyes that they are thinking of the hanging.
But how come they haven’t picked up my belongings?
That’s not unprecedented, though. Sometimes people are picked up to be “hit”, to use the prison term, and their belongings collected afterwards. I say my farewells to my fellow Party members and walk down the stairs. A very thin young man is already waiting outside. So there are two of us. We board the minibus. As usual, we prisoners have not been told where we are being taken or why. I sit next to the window and pull up my blindfold. On the last night there’s no longer any need for this constant tool of torture. The driver doesn’t make a fuss about my blindfold. He must know that I am being taken to be hanged. I put on my glasses and stare at the beautiful night. The prison courtyard is glittering in the moonlight. It is truly a reflection of paradise. Water flows in the streams. Birds sing. Flowers bloom. A pleasant breeze is blowing through the open window. It’s a beautiful night for dying. Against my will, I review my life. I tell myself: “Maybe they’ll let me phone my wife before they hang me.”
But what would be the point? We don’t have a phone at home. So I must go to my grave, without having heard my wife’s voice. My tears are flowing down my cheeks, drop by drop. I am not scared any more. I am totally numb.
The minibus stops. The dreamlike spring night is clear and bright. I can see both the city and the mountains at once. I ask the young man: “Why have they brought you here?”
Hi
s voice is shaking: “To hang me.”
He too has lifted his blindfold. He’s one of the Mujahedin. The bus driver leaves and a little later, there’s the sound of shuffling slippers. I remember your words, Brother Hamid: “I would like to shoot the final bullet myself.”
But the slippers are not yours. I had no idea at the time that you had been appointed deputy in the Information Ministry’s security department, too important an official now to appear at the hanging ceremony in slippers. The slippers belong to a young guard, one of the regime’s young thugs who plays football in the prison courtyard and takes the prisoners to the gallows. He doesn’t tell us to put on our blindfolds either. He says: “Follow me.”
We set off. We turn. We enter a building where someone is throwing herself into my arms. It’s my wife. She says: “Fifteen years. They have given you fifteen years.”
Then she collapses, sobbing, wrapped up in her chador. I talk to her but she can’t hear me; she’s just crying. The young man’s mother has also embraced her son.
The guard says: “Ten minutes for you.”
And then he faces the Mujahed man: “You, twenty minutes.”
The young man looks at his watch and starts crying. My wife is also crying bitterly, endlessly. Much later, she told me that she had been waiting outside Evin’s walls since five in the morning. When I had told her the news of my death sentence, she had immediately gone to Khamenei’s office. She had already sent numerous letters to him without ever receiving an answer. This time she’d written that her husband was going to be hanged under the pretence of infiltration of Khamenei’s office and Khamenei certainly knew that this was not true.
The day before our reunion, a letter had arrived at our home from Khamenei’s office. My wife had opened the letter and seen a photocopy of the letter that I had sent to Khamenei from prison. She saw that Khamenei had written a single sentence on the back: “In the name of the Almighty, I was already familiar with his views.”
Letters to My Torturer Page 26