Her spiritual beliefs and, even more, her temperament, made it impossible for my mother to give direction. Zoroastrianism is not a religion of instruction, and in any case, Mom would have chosen to walk barefoot across Iran on broken glass if that were the only alternative to delivering a lecture. It was her strategy to act, then to nudge me very gently until my gaze fell on what she wanted me to see. When she took me shopping for a new dress (at age five and six, it was okay for me to wear dresses, rather than a chador, in public), she would buy a second dress for Azam, who was exactly my age and exactly my size. “And this one will be for Azam, of course,” she would say. If Azam was staying for lunch or dinner, Mom didn’t badger her for answers to questions. “Azam, you eat beets, I’m sure, but leave them on the plate if you don’t.” If she did need the answer to a question, she would relay the question through me, sparing Azam the ordeal of speaking. And so, without even knowing it, I was adopting my mother’s way of approaching Azam.
It’s only now, as I write, that I understand the terrible distress I caused my mother when I went into the street to shake my fist at injustice. Acting in such a way would have contradicted every impulse she had. It was dangerous, it was ill-mannered, it was immodest, it was irreligious. The gentle advice she had been offering me all her life without ever making a bold statement about it was that injustice has to be countered in a subtle, almost a stealthy way. As I grew older and better understood how Azam’s father humiliated her, I wanted to go next door and tell Arman Agha to go to Hell, where he belonged. My mother wouldn’t permit it. And when I spoke of the injustice of the mullahs, Mom would look at me in that embarrassed way parents have when they notice in the child they love with all their hearts something that in another person they would abhor.
My political activism was to my mother a form of vanity, a boast to the world of my moral beauty. That may not be true, but it’s certainly true that if my mother could make everything work in the way she wanted, and I could make it all work in the way I wanted, most people would choose to live under my mother’s regime.
21
“DO YOU KNOW what you sound like?” says Sohrab. “You sound like an old widow lady, grumbling and griping about everything.”
It’s true that I’ve been complaining—or grumbling and griping, if that’s the way my madman wants to think of it. Complaining about my bleeding scalp and my dry skin and my muscles that have no strength in them. Oh, but I’m so relieved that he’s back! Where he has been and what has been done to him he doesn’t say, and I don’t ask. I’m frightened of what I might hear.
“Well, who wouldn’t gripe here?” I reply. “I found myself chewing my nails just before.”
“Why not? It keeps you busy.”
“Be serious!”
“I am being serious. Why not chew your nails? But don’t do the other things. Don’t hurt yourself. Some of them do that.”
“Do what?”
“Hurt themselves with their hands. Or hit their heads on the wall to see their own blood. And don’t chew all your nails in one day. Save some for other days so you’ll have something to do.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Do you think I’m joking with you? No. And you don’t have to tell me what you look like. I know what you look like. Your skin is ugly, all of you is ugly. No oxygen, no vegetables, no moisturizer, no water. Not even proper sleep. You look like one of those girls you see on the streets in the night. Girls who never eat properly and sleep in doorways.”
I should be offended by what Sohrab is saying about me, even though it’s true. But I can’t be offended. I’m too glad to have his voice back again to risk telling him to shut up. In any case, I have stopped worrying about my looks. I will never be pretty again. That’s all gone.
“And what about you?” I ask. “Are you as handsome as ever?”
“Oh, more than before I came here. More. Bad food makes me beautiful.”
“I have to go to the toilet,” I tell Sohrab. “Will you talk to me again when I get back?”
“Maybe.”
“Say yes or no!”
“Do you think that you can make me do what you want by being bossy?”
“I want you to talk to me when I get back from the toilet. Please.”
“Maybe,” he says.
All the way to the toilet, I think only about Sohrab. It’s as if we are married. We’re moody with each other, like husbands and wives. We argue for the sake of arguing, and that’s what husbands and wives do. We each want to know what the other one is doing all the time. We resent the other one having a life apart from the relationship. If Sohrab was talking to someone else, perhaps in the cell above him, I would be mad with jealousy. Talking to me is like being faithful to me. And then there are other things that husbands and wives have, some of the time at least—goodwill, affection. Or, in truth, it is more than affection with me. I feel that I love him. I can’t bear to think of him being beaten by the guards. The idea of something worse than beating, torture, makes me wild, as if I could kill the people who would harm him, with my hands and with whatever I could pick up. He is my madman. If I am ever let out of this place, what will I do? I would want to take him with me. I would want to keep him as a pet.
There’s no message from Arash on the toilet door. I don’t let myself think about what might be happening to him. It gives the interrogators pleasure to break strong people. Probably they admire the strong ones here in a way, admire them and detest them. The strong ones at least give them a challenge. Those like me must disgust them. No resistance. I drink water from the sink tap, as Sohrab told me I must. He thinks the water is okay to drink. From Sohrab, I get the advice of an expert. He knows how the whole of Evin works. He knows when the shifts change and what guards will be working at a certain time of day, their weaknesses, how short their tempers are, whether they’re lazy or diligent. On top of that, he has a story to tell, which for me is like a radio serial, a type of entertainment even though the story is harrowing. Maybe more like a soap opera of a different sort. I notice that he is not all that interested in my story. He has asked me a little about how I came to be here, but as far as I can tell, he thinks my story is pretty much run-of-the-mill.
For a moment, I find myself wishing that it was Arash in the cell above me instead of Sohrab, because Arash knows me from the outside world. He knows the normal me, not just the Zarah who spends so much time crying. How wonderful it would be to hear his voice coming down through the grille, calm and comforting and always with that note of amused disdain for his enemies! He could be only a short distance from me right now: two cells away, three. I can imagine his will and resolve, which he never brags about, seeping down to me, reviving me, so that when the guard comes to take me for interrogation, I could smile sardonically and mutter something like “Another glorious day in Evin!” and walk out of the cell with my shoulders square and my head held high. Or am I romanticizing Arash? Perhaps he is as frightened as I am. Perhaps he yearns for an Arash of his own.
But I shouldn’t be thinking this way. How would I cope without Sohrab? I tell myself that if I can’t be strong and brave, I can at least be faithful. But I want to be faithful to Arash, too!
On the way back to the cell, a new guard, a woman, surprises me with a question.
“How old are you?”
I turn my head toward this new woman, even though I can’t see her through my blindfold. I know she isn’t the one who intervened when I was being beaten. She sounds as if she might be forty or more, but it’s very difficult to tell. When she asked me how old I was, it wasn’t a demand; it wasn’t harsh at all. Why should she care? Is it that I look about eighty in some ways and she is curious about how being here in her lovely workplace has aged me?
“Twenty,” I tell her.
She is walking more closely behind me than the other guards do. I don’t like it.
“Want a cigarette?” she asks me.
“No. I don’t smoke.”
“Something els
e, maybe? What would you like? Some nice soap? Would you like some nice soap?”
“No, I don’t want any soap. Thank you.”
“What, then? I can get it.”
“Can you call my mom?”
“Call your mom? No. Something else.”
“If you can call my mom, that would be the best thing I could ask you for. Please will you do that?”
I’ve stopped walking and have turned around to face her.
“No, not that. But I can give you something that would make you forget about your mom. I can do that.”
“I don’t need anything,” I say, turning away and shuffling forward again. The woman catches up to me and walks by my side. She puts her hand on my shoulder. She is not restraining me. She is attempting to be friendly. “Think about it,” she says. “I will be in tomorrow, too.”
“I don’t want anything. I don’t want anything tomorrow or ever.”
“Don’t say that. That’s bad to say. Wait till tomorrow. You’ll change your mind.”
Back in my cell, I take a few minutes to think about what the new guard has been saying. I think of a number of motives she might have. She might be trying to trap me, so that she can accuse me of attempting to bribe her. Perhaps the interrogators have told her to trap me like that. Or is it possible that she is just being kind? Are there such people here in Evin?
I call up to Sohrab. “Are you there?”
I hear a short laugh. “No,” he says. “I’ve gone for a walk in the garden.”
I tell Sohrab about the new guard and what she offered me. I tell him I’m perplexed. Does he know what she is up to?
“Did you accept?” he asks me.
“I don’t smoke. But it’s odd, isn’t it? I didn’t know that you can get things like that here. Cigarettes, soap. She knows I don’t have any money.”
“She doesn’t want money.”
“She doesn’t want money?”
“She wants to sleep with you,” he says calmly.
“No!”
“Yes.”
“I’m so ugly!” I say, amazing myself by thinking of this first. Vanity lasts a long, long time after there is nothing to be vain about.
“She might be uglier.”
“Is that why she touched me?”
“Did she actually touch you?” Surprise has come into his voice.
“Not like that. Just on my shoulder for a few seconds.”
“You’re a child. Did you ask for anything?”
“Yes, but she said she can’t do it.”
“What did you want?”
“I wanted her to call my mom. I wanted her to tell my mom that I’m okay. She says she can’t.”
“Zarah, you have no brains. You know, they were right to lock you up in here. You’re too stupid to walk around the streets.”
It is very rare for my madman to call me by my name. It touches me deeply. I feel like stroking his face, my madman’s face.
“She asked me if I wanted anything, so I told her. Is that so bad?”
“Listen to me. Don’t talk to them anymore. Don’t say anything to them. When they ask you if you want anything, keep your lips together. Don’t say anything rude, just say nothing. If you make a deal, they’ll come to your cell and rape you. They want you to make a deal. That’s how it starts. Are you listening to me, idiot?”
“Okay, okay.”
All at once I feel sick with exhaustion. I can’t be expected to keep guessing the motives of these people! My brain wanted to believe that the new guard was different. I wanted her to be a kind guard, somebody more like the human beings I’ve known most of my life. But it appears I’m not allowed the great luxury of a little bit of hope.
I lie down with my blanket over me and try to weep. No tears come. My own tear ducts don’t have any sympathy with my stupidity. It’s as if they’re saying, “We’ll save ourselves for something less foolish.” I make the sounds of weeping, but it’s useless.
“Sohrab?” I call.
“What is it?”
“Thank you for telling me. Thank you for that.”
He gives his gurgling little laugh, then no more than ten seconds pass before he begins moaning.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” I mutter, and lie listening to Sohrab shrieking, “Leila! You bitch, Leila! God knows, if I ever get out of here, I’ll break your neck!”
IT’S EARLY MORNING. Dawn prayer has just finished. It’s cold, and I have my blanket, stiff with sweat, my own and others’, drawn up to my neck and wrapped tightly around my body. I listen to the prison sounds. First come the footfalls of a guard walking along the corridor alone. The limping guard; I know his irregular signature. I hear him stop and say something in a very quiet voice, practically a whisper. I don’t know if he is talking to himself or to another guard. I hear the remote weeping sound that’s there all the time, and as always I try to work out if the weeping is that of a real person or something piped in to get on the nerves of the prisoners, the Muzak of the interrogators. It’s strange, but even though the weeping sound goes on all the time, it’s possible to not hear it and imagine that there is complete silence. Then, just when I think, Nothing is happening, nothing is moving, I realize that the weeping sound has never ceased, not for a moment.
I hear doors opening and doors closing. My hearing is so acute now that I can tell whether a door opening or closing is on this floor or the floor above or the floor below, and whether it is at the end of a corridor or halfway along, or at the top of some steps, in which case it echoes. I can even tell if it is a door I have passed through. I have built up a sound library in my head of squeaks and creaks and scrapes. And so I suppose I can’t say that my time in Evin has been totally wasted. I have improved my hearing.
A trolley is being pushed along the corridor of the floor above—Sohrab’s floor. If I asked him about it, I know what he’d say: “Tea and cakes.” I will save that sound up to give him the chance to be funny. Oh, and isn’t that another thing the Evin Academy has taught me? To be provident.
Just for the moment, I’m not conscious of any pain in my body. There’s a lulling feeling all over me. I’m even free for now of the need to scratch at my scalp. In this time before full consciousness returns to my brain, I indulge myself in a fantasy I’ve developed over the past few days. It’s an escape fantasy. It’s impossible to escape from Evin, or that is what is said on the outside, and now that I’m inside I have no doubt that what is said is perfectly true. It’s a fortress, it’s immense, and it is said to be guarded with every type of electronic device, not to mention God knows how many soldiers, but I can still get a little cheap enjoyment out of such fantasies.
My escape fantasy is not like my murder fantasies, which demand a fully alert brain. The escape fantasy is a movie I’ve put together, and while the murder fantasies always leave me quivering with self-disgust, the escape movie makes me happy and there’s no disgust to deal with afterward. I think the two sorts of fantasy feed very different appetites. There’s no doubt that homicide and revenge is the dirtier fantasy, and the more important one. The sickness in me that it exploits is precious to me, I must confess.
I press the switch and run my happy escape movie in my head. In the opening scene, I am lying here exactly where I am. I hear the sounds of gunfire and shouting. Guards call out to other guards in panic. Then pow!—a loud explosion. I get to my feet, certain that something stupendous is unfolding. I hear the rapid sounds of automatic weapons firing and much more shouting. Pow! A flash of orange light shines for a second through the gap at the bottom of the cell door. I include in my movie glorious, swelling music, like that of Wagner or Mahler or somebody who makes music for Hollywood films. So gorgeous! Oh, my God, the shouting is so close to my cell now! People are trying to rescue me! I scream out, “I’m here!” I must arm myself, in case I have to join in the fighting. I find two pistols in the corner of my cell. They have been concealed all this time by—by what? I don’t know, but they are there. And a great big hammer,
too.
But now—Oh, heaven! Can it be? I hear Arash’s voice, also that of my father! Bam! The door of my cell is blasted open. Arash stands there, dressed in jeans and the denim shirt I always liked. He hugs me with all his might. “Follow me!” he says, and I hold tight to the tail of his shirt as he sprints down the corridor, firing his rifles and pistols and all of that, and I’m firing mine, too, although not actually at anyone. My dad is holding the door at the end of the corridor open for me! He is crying and laughing at the same time. “Wait!” I tell Arash. “We must get Sohrab!” Arash just laughs. “Don’t worry, we thought of that,” he says, and sure enough, there stands Sohrab beside me. He looks like Charlie Chaplin. Now we are out in the street, jumping into a car to drive to the airport. Oh, no! The stinky interrogator is chasing us with a huge gun, really a sort of cannon. I aim my gun at him, but before I can pull the trigger, Stinky blows up. A bomb must have hit him, something like that. We drive to the airport, Dad and I and Sohrab and Arash and Mom, too. That’s the end, driving to the airport.
I make critical comments all through the escape movie. “How did Arash get out of his cell? Where did his guns come from? And what on earth are those pistols and the hammer doing in your cell? Honestly! Another thing: Why does Sohrab look like Charlie Chaplin? That’s ridiculous.” If I actually saw a movie such as the one I’ve made up, I’d smirk scornfully all the way through. I have a friend in the outside world who makes movies, superb movies that are never given a release certificate in Iran. I’d be ashamed to tell him the sorts of movies I’ve been imagining. But even so, the thing I like about the fantasies is that I bother with them at all. If I fantasize about escape, then I haven’t become a zombie, have I?
My Life as a Traitor: An Iranian Memoir Page 17