City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death and the Search for Truth in Tehran

by Ramita Navai

  Soon after the revolution, the regime realized it had an ever-increasing caseload but its judges knew nothing of Islamic law. Most of the judges presiding in courts were remnants of the Shah’s rule; they had simply removed their ties, grown beards and renounced the king, like snakes shedding their skin to reveal new scales. They did brisk business: between the revolution in 1979 and June 1981, revolutionary courts executed nearly 500 opponents of the regime. In 1983, clerics were drafted into the judiciary to enforce mojazat, punishment under Koranic law. Ghassem was one of them.

  His ascent was swift. In 1988 he was assigned to a special court in Evin, set up for the cleansing of moharebs, enemies of God, and mortads, apostates. Ayatollah Khomeini had given a secret order to execute all prisoners who remained opposed to the Islamic regime. Trials were brisk, sometimes with only one question used to determine the accused’s innocence, such as ‘Do you pray?’ or ‘Are you a Muslim?’ and ‘Do you believe in Heaven and Hell?’ Some of the questions confused the panicking prisoners, who knew their answers would mean the difference between life and death. When asked: ‘When you were growing up, did your father pray, fast and read the Holy Koran?’ they would lie, and answer in the affirmative, not knowing that if they had responded truthfully, with a ‘no’, they then could not have been held accountable for their un-Islamic views and they would have escaped execution, which happened there and then.

  It was easy work. During a few months over the summer of 1988, over 3,000 – and maybe over 5,000, for nobody is really sure – Iranians were either hanged or shot by firing squad. Ghassem was rewarded handsomely for his bloodletting and was given a residence at the top of Vali Asr, in Tajrish.

  Ghassem witnessed this new Islamic jurisprudence during his first year as a judge. A few years before he started signing countless death warrants, he joined a crowd of a few hundred people gathered in a courtyard at Evin prison. In the middle of them a man and two women were half buried in the ground. They had been found guilty, by another cleric, of adultery and moral turpitude. They had been given their death rites, their bodies washed and ready for the grave and encased in white shrouds. The living corpses were placed upright in dug-out ditches, the man up to his waist and the women up to their breasts. The law states that if the accused manages to wriggle out of the holes and escape, they must be allowed to walk free (if they have admitted their crime) – an impossible task for women, who have no way of using their arms to prise themselves out. This discrimination is justified in the name of decency, for as the victims are ready for burial they are naked underneath, so if the stones rip open the material, breasts may be revealed and that would be a sin for them all.

  Ghassem felt nothing when he threw his first stone. He felt nothing when the first burst of blood soaked the white muslin cloth, spreading its red tentacles across it like hundreds of riv-ulets. This was justice. The law also states that spectators guilty of the same crime are forbidden from throwing stones. Everyone wanted to be seen throwing stones. How could he not join in?

  Evin prison, Tehran, September 1988

  Days in prison are identical; Shahla, Manuchehr and Amir are suspended in time. Today is like any other day. Amir is playing with Maryam while the mothers sleep. It is dawn. There is the jangle of keys, which signals the arrival of a guard. It is either a new prisoner, or an inmate being taken away for another interrogation. This is part of the routine. The guard steps into the room.

  ‘Shahla Azadi. Come with me.’ The guard fixes her stare on the wall as Shahla gives Amir a hug and tells him she will be back in a little while. And because this is not an irregular occurrence, Amir barely notices. He continues to play with Maryam.

  Half an hour or several hours later – it is impossible to remember how long – the whole room erupts into crying. ‘Oh God. Oh God!’ Maryam’s mother almost shouts the words. Then a deep, rasping sob. The women cluster around each other. Amir and Maryam are shaken out of their imaginary world by human howling. Maryam runs to her mother and Amir looks for Shahla. But Shahla is not there. Amir feels more alone than he has ever felt in his entire little life. Maryam runs back to him. He jumps up, a tiny creature in the corner of a room.

  ‘Don’t you know why they’re crying?’

  ‘No, what’s happened? Where’s mummy?’

  ‘She’s dead. They just killed her. They hanged her with a rope.’

  And that is how Amir learns of his mother’s execution.

  He remembers crying. Remembers being held by adults. Nobody knows what to say to a six-year-old boy whose mother has just been executed.

  An hour later, he is escorted out of the prison. A guard opens the gates and stands with him, this child with skinny legs poking out of his shorts. Amir does not know that the guard, an eighteen-year-old on his military service, has witnessed the executions and his face is now streaked with tears. The guard cannot bear to look at Amir, the quivering little bird holding onto his hand.

  Amir sees his grandfather and uncle running towards him, their faces pale. His grandfather is shaking. ‘Where’s daddy?’ Amir remembers this is all he said when he saw them. Those were the last words Amir spoke for two years. His uncle Fariborz breaks down, sobbing into Amir’s neck. Amir has never seen a grown man cry. With it he understands: his father has been killed as well.

  Karim Khan-e Zand Street, Tehran, April 2013

  Amir needed to warn his friends of what the old man had told him. He sent a coded text message to Behzad. I’m watching football, it’s a great game. Which meant: Meet me by the bookshop.

  The bookshop was on Karim Khan-e Zand Street, one in a line of bookshops that Amir and Bahar spent hours in. Over the last few years some had been shut down or raided, one had its windows smashed. The owner had been holding literary nights and poetry readings in the shop, which had attracted artists, writers and human rights activists. The edareyeh amaaken, the security services in charge of public spaces, had issued warnings. When the owner of the bookshop complained, a judiciary representative turned up with a lorry and cleared the shelves of all the books.

  In the window was a black and white poster of Woody Allen next to a stack of books about his films. The bestsellers were nearly always the self-help books. This particular bookshop prided itself on its more highbrow collection, and their surprise hit of the year was by Florence Scovel Shinn, an American born in the nineteenth century who wrote about metaphysical spirituality. The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People – Powerful Lessons in Personal Change came a close second. As with most bookshops in the city, in the fiction department nobody could outsell Haruki Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro.

  Behzad turned up looking frantic. They started to walk towards Vali Asr. Behzad told Amir that Mana had been arrested. And that they had been in touch with him. They knew about their meetings. They had called Amir a ‘known blogger’. Amir did not ask for too many details, for they were talking the cautious language of dissidents. ‘Clean everything. Get rid of your Facebook. And we’ve both got to get rid of our useless fucking blogs. They can read anything that’s on your hard disc, so get rid of your laptop.’

  They walked all the way to the end of the road, turning on to Vali Asr Square, where the great road charges through it in an eruption of noise, fumes, traffic and people. Behzad flagged down one of the shared taxis that drive up and down Vali Asr picking up and dropping off passengers along the way. Amir took a bus south, getting off outside a billiard hall on the junction of Jomhouri Street.

  As soon as he entered the flat his phone rang. Amir knew it would be the old man.

  ‘They’re closing in on your friends. I think you should let me in.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re outside?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The old man was a master manipulator. He was getting his way.

  It took a while for the old man to make it up the stairs. Amir responded to his greeting of Salaam and led him to the sofa. It unsettled him that he was treating the old man as if he was just that, an old man, and not
the killer who had signed his parents’ death warrant.

  The old man sat down and sighed heavily, looking around the tiny apartment. Then he said nothing. Just sat there with his head bowed.

  ‘I need some explanations. How do you know everything? Am I in danger?’

  The old man finally looked up. His eyes were moist. ‘I can find things out. You know I can’t tell you how. I advise you to stop your blog and your meetings because I have no power, there is nothing I can do if you get arrested. And you’re headed in that direction.’

  ‘I don’t want your help. I just want you out of my life.’

  ‘I’m begging you to allow me to explain.’

  Amir said nothing.

  ‘We believed what we were doing was the right thing. We believed your parents were enemies of God. We were surviving too, we were under attack. I did as I was told. I lost my way because I was lying to myself, lying to the world, and above all I was lying to God. He will judge me, I know that. I want to make this right, and I need your forgiveness.’

  ‘You’re just scared of God and of judgement day now you’re old and death’s not so far away, that’s why you want my forgiveness. You have no idea of the suffering you caused. I still feel ashamed, can you believe that? The pain will never leave. You have to live with your pain the way I have to live with mine.’

  ‘My guilt and my regrets have eaten me alive for years now, believe me. I am suffering.’

  ‘Let me tell you about regret – do you know what the biggest regret of my life is? That I didn’t hug my mother for longer the last time I ever saw her. How is that for regret?’

  The old man fell to his knees. Amir could not stand to look at him, and he could not stand for him to see the tears that were now streaming down his own face.

  ‘I beg your forgiveness, I beg your forgiveness.’ The old man repeated the words over and over, like a mantra. His suffering did not make Amir feel better. The old man was struggling to stay upright on his knees. Wearily, Amir got up and helped him to his feet.

  ‘I don’t hate you; it’s past that. But I can never forgive you.’

  Pasteur Street, Tehran, 1989

  It is Amir’s first trip since the executions. Baba Bozorg – granddad – pummels a decrepit orange BMW through the desert; his tight clench of the wheel does not loosen. No matter how far they seem to drive, sand, rocks and mountains remain framed in the windows like a painting. Baba Bozorg talks occasionally, mindful that his grandson is still mute with loss. Amir listens, but is simply unable to reply, wishing instead to exist in his own world, where Shahla and Manuchehr are still alive.

  Baba Bozorg is unusually optimistic. He is now the only person who talks about Shahla and Manuchehr. At home Shahla and Manuchehr are never mentioned, except when his grandmother tells Amir his parents are coming home soon. That makes everyone angry, apart from Amir. She is hushed up. The whole episode becomes just that – an episode. This is survival. The executions have marked the family out, have branded them as possible traitors and so they must distance themselves from this episode for protection.

  When they reach the city Baba Bozorg roars up Vali Asr, spluttering against the traffic until they turn into a side street and park the car. Amir helps Baba Bozorg set up the tent they have brought. They pitch it as near as they can get to the Prime Minister’s office without being told to clear off. The guards are unsure how to react to this incongruous sight of an impeccably suited gentleman and his dumb grandson.

  ‘Young man, we’re not going anywhere. We are here to see the Prime Minister, and we are not leaving until we see him. Even if it takes 1,000 days,’ Baba Bozorg booms at them whenever they get near.

  With the tent pitched, Baba Bozorg strides up to the guards. ‘Now if you could let us know where the nearest hammam is, we could really do with a wash.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ they reply respectfully, Baba Bozorg’s tall stature and natural authority forcing them into capitulation. Amir feels proud to be with Baba Bozorg when he sees how the guards react to him. Baba Bozorg is his hero. But Baba Bozorg can hear the pity in the guards’ voices, that such a dignified man has been reduced to sleeping in a tent.

  In the morning, a guard brings tea; word has spread of the migrant visitors sleeping rough in search of hot showers and justice. Baba Bozorg has brought two folding chairs on which they sit and play backgammon as they wait. Most of the time, Baba Bozorg’s eyes are fixed on the road ahead. His son tried to persuade him to grow some Islamic stubble, the sign of a regime supporter (imitating the bearded Prophet is almost a requirement). Baba Bozorg refused. Anyway, his elegant demeanour does not lend itself well to the fundamentalist look. Of course, he is not wearing a tie, which he always does at home. Sales of ties were banned just after the revolution, and even though it is not illegal to wear them, they are seen as symbols of Western imperialism.

  There had been no funeral. No grave. No bodies. Shahla and Manuchehr had vanished into the hidden recesses of the regime. It refused to release any information, apart from the brutal details of the killing. Baba Bozorg has dedicated his life to finding his daughter’s body. He has written hundreds of letters, made hundreds of telephone calls. He has visited every government office, flying and sometimes driving over ten hours from Shiraz to Tehran, to sit for days in waiting rooms stuffed with people just to make appointments with incompetent secretaries. At the mention of Shahla’s name doors close, telephone calls and letters are unanswered. But still he persists; his anger only intensifies. The more he begs, the more they seem to revel in denying him. Finally he has had enough of wasting time with the lackeys and the tea-makers and the paper-pushers and the petty officials with their ill-fitting suits and unkempt appearances. He has come to speak to the man who was in charge when his daughter was executed. He is going to the top.

  For three nights they sleep here, waking at dawn. They keep watch during the day and in the evening they stroll the streets, always heading for Vali Asr where they have a chelo kabab in Nayeb Restaurant. On the fourth day they spot him. He is in a white Mercedes. A mane of thick black hair, a full beard and square-framed glasses emerge. Baba Bozorg jumps up and Amir runs behind him.

  ‘Your honour, we have been patiently waiting for three days to talk to you. If you could be so kind as to give us a minute of your time, we would be most grateful.’ Polite and firm. The man turns round, and is about to walk away as his eyes rest on Amir. ‘We just want to know where my daughter is buried. Where his mother is buried.’ He nods to Amir. ‘That little boy needs to know where his beloved mother and father are. Please, we beg you, most humbly, with respect, from the bottom of our hearts. We are desperate. Please don’t punish us any more than we have all already been punished.’ Proud voice starts to tremble. ‘She is called Shahla Azadi and her husband is Manuchehr Nikbakht. They were hanged in September 1988 in Evin prison. I have been to every office in the country. I have written every letter that I can write. I just want to say goodbye to my little girl.’

  And without even missing a beat, the man blinks into his thick glasses as he taps Baba Bozorg on the shoulder. A dismissive, contemptuous tap. ‘No. I will not tell you. Because they did wrong. Your daughter did wrong.’ He looks Amir in the eye. A dismissive, contemptuous look. And with that the man turns.

  The man is the Prime Minister, Mir Hossein Mousavi, under whose rule the executions happened. Amir feels salty tears on his cheeks. Baba Bozorg slumps to the ground. The guards pretend not to notice. The Islamic Republic has no mercy. Baba Bozorg never writes another letter, or makes another phone call or visits another office again.

  The Prime Minister does not know it yet, but he is about to lose his office as a new constitution scraps his role. Mousavi will slip away from politics until he emerges just over twenty years later, as the figurehead and hero of the reformist movement. He will be a beacon of democracy and freedom, his name will be chanted by thousands, by some who are prepared to die for him. He will eventually be arrested himself, and placed under house arr
est, for speaking out against the crushing of protesters. The bloodletting during his time will be forgotten and forgiven. Mousavi will say he did not know of the killings.

  The mass deaths served their purpose: they struck fear into the hearts of thousands. No more kitchen meetings, no more parties. Back home, Baba Bozorg is too afraid to send Amir to a child psychologist in case the psychologist is an informer. Amir moves in with his uncle and his wife, and assumes a new identity; amoo, uncle, is now baba, father. A little sister is born. Amir finds his voice and starts attending a new school where he also finds a best friend, Afshin. The two boys are inseparable. It does not take long before Amir confides to him: They killed my parents. They hanged them in prison. Amir never sees Afshin again; he does not return to school and his parents lodge a complaint with the headmistress. She calls Amir into her office. ‘You should feel ashamed of yourself, putting us all in danger!’ She is apoplectic. ‘If you ever speak of your parents again, you will never be allowed back here and you will be a sad, lonely little boy, all on his own.’ Amir never speaks about his parents again. Not until he meets Bahar.

  It is long after Baba Bozorg’s death that the regime shows mercy and reveals where his daughter’s body lies. Shahla and Manuchehr are together, dumped in a crude trench that is their grave, squeezed in with thousands of others on top of them and below them and next to them. There is no mark, no stone, no sign that this is where their bones lie. It is as though they never existed. But it turns out the wasteland where Shahla and Manuchehr are buried has a name – Lanatabad, Land of the Damned.