by Shane Bauer
Friend says nothing. I’m not sure what he wants. Maybe I should sympathize and apologize for my government’s actions. But would that mean that I’d be acting as if I do indeed represent my government? I remember when we entered Iraq, Sarah brought up the question of whether to apologize to the Iraqis for the invasion. I don’t remember what I concluded then. I don’t want to seem solicitous to Friend, but I want him to know that if I had been an Iranian thirty years ago, I would’ve been in the streets in 1979 with the revolution. I would have celebrated the ouster of a corrupt monarch who was controlled by the West.
I continue conveying to Friend how much I understand Iranian anger at the United States. “And the U.S. even armed Saddam to fight against Iran in the eighties. And the U.S. sanctions and pressures Iran about nuclear energy. The U.S. makes a big stink about Iran having nuclear energy while turning a blind eye to Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons. I understand what your government is doing with me. But there is no way this”—I spread my arms out, indicating the high walls around me—“is justified.”
I take a deep breath and realize how much I’ve let my guard down—how much I’ve trusted my enemy again.
“Wait,” I say suddenly. “What do you think of 9/11?”
“It is not important,” Friend replies abruptly and turns to leave. “You have twenty-five minutes left.”
What an asshole! Why did I get suckered into treating him like a friend? Am I really that desperate for someone to talk to? Was that an informal interrogation? I can’t believe I’m so stupid.
Friend stands at the door for a moment and calls out, “See you later, alligator.” He won’t close the door until I respond, humiliated. “After a while, crocodile.”
23. Shane
I walk into the interrogation room. My interrogator is sitting casually on the desk with one leg dangling over the other. Another tall man is standing beside him, but I can see only his hands and big feet through the blindfold. I sit down, silently, automatically, in the desk chair with my back facing them. It’s been six weeks since our arrest. This is my third interrogation with this new, English-speaking interrogator. He questions me only. Sarah and Josh have different interrogators. I know this because while I am being questioned, I can usually hear their muffled voices nearby.
“Shane! Buddy! Talk to us. Relaaaaaax. We’re friends, remember? Tell us what’s on your mind.” Weasel. That is my name for him. He’s such a slick, slimy little fuck. I despise this man, but I need him. I want so badly to relax and talk. He knows that. He leaves me in that cell for days because he knows it will make me desperate. He’s manipulating me. I can’t allow it. I need to maintain a boundary between him and me. Or do I need to ease our relationship?
“What do you want to talk about?” I ask.
“Anything,” he says. “Sing if you want to.”
“Umm . . .”
“Shane, you know, I’ve been to America. I like Americans. Do you know why? They don’t care about politics. In Iran, if you ask any shepherd about international politics, he will have an opinion. A strong one. Americans don’t care. Americans are simple people.
“Okay, I have a question. But this is just as friends,” he says.
He gets up and paces the room. He always does this when he is trying to sound smart. The soles of his shoes make loud, forceful clicks. “Shane,” he says, pausing a moment for dramatic effect. “When was your first experience with politics? Your first memory.”
I think for a while. “I grew up on a lake outside a little town called Onamia with a population of less than a thousand. About fifteen miles from the town was an Ojibwe reservation. There were a lot of Native Americans who went to my school. We even had a class called Indian Ed where we learned about native culture. Then one day, when I was in fifth grade, a bunch of white kids got up, left their classes, and walked out of the school.
“You know why they did it? They were demanding that the Indian kids be banned from going to the public school—that they be forced to go to school on the reservation. I couldn’t believe it. I had considered many of these kids my friends, but at that moment I realized they weren’t. For the whole week, kids kept coming back in the morning and picketing out in front of the school. I guarantee you their parents put them up to it.
“At the end of the week, the administration gave in. A bunch of school buses came and picked up all the Indian kids and took them to the rez. They just drove the kids with brown skin away. The white kids all came back the next week and the picket ended, but the school canceled Indian Ed for good.”
Are we bonding? Is he interested in me? Does he feel guilty for partaking in my captivity?
“What about you?” I ask him. “What was your first experience in politics?”
“Shane, in our other sessions, I told you that I am the only one who asks the questions, remember? In our other sessions, you listed twenty-four countries that you have been to. Who funded those trips? How could you afford to go to all these places?”
I know what he is getting at, and it is a legitimate question. If I can’t account for my funds, how can I prove that I am not being funded by the CIA? The problem is, I don’t think my honest answer is that believable.
“My family didn’t have money when I was growing up. I remember a time when we didn’t even have a telephone. My dad was a mechanic and when I was old enough, I learned to weld in his shop. I saved money working as a welder and when I was nineteen, I quit my job and traveled through Europe and the Middle East. When I came back, I started by living in a vehicle. It’s called an RV and it’s kind of like a van, except in the back there is a very small bedroom. By living in the RV, I didn’t have to pay rent.
“Then, I started working as a journalist. I started using the money I was saving on rent to start reporting. I traveled to Chad and Sudan twice as a journalist, using my own money. I just kept writing and taking pictures. I wrote a lot about Sudan and published my photos wherever I could. A friend and I worked on a documentary about Darfur. I also photographed and wrote about poverty in the U.S. Then Sarah and I moved to the Middle East, partially so I could work steadily as a journalist.”
Does this asshole believe a word I’m saying?
“Shane, you have been making good steps in our sessions, but you are not telling me everything. You need to help me help you. I am young like you, Shane. I want you to be free, like a bird . . . Tell me, did your government ever pay for any of these trips?”
Shit! He knows about the grant. I spent days worrying about this in the last prison, but it never came up. I thought they somehow missed it. I have to lie.
“No,” I say.
He hands me a piece of paper. All pretense of camaraderie is gone; we are back in official mode.
Q: What was the name of the grant you used to study in Syria and Yemen?
A: I think it was called the Boren fellowship.
It came through the National Security Education Project. I applied for it in community college in 2003, a time when the government was practically throwing money at anyone who showed an interest in Arabic. The counselor at my community college encouraged me to take advantage of it, even though she knew I’d never want to work for the government. The grant stipulated that every recipient repay his grant with a year of governmental work, but my counselor told me not to sweat it. “None of my students over the past ten years have ever fulfilled this,” she said. If I was going to be a journalist in the Middle East, to monitor my government’s actions, I needed to know Arabic. I couldn’t afford to do it on my own, so I decided to go for it. I remember talking to Josh about it. Most of my friends thought it was a bad idea. Now, I think they were right.
Q: Who funded this grant?
A: The State Department.
“Are you sure it wasn’t the Department of Defense?”
“Uhhh. I don’t think so,” I lie. “I think it was State.”
“Are you sure?”
He is standing directly behind me, tapping his foot loud
ly.
“Yes.”
Q: How did you enter Sudan?
Shit. He is laying out the parts of my life they have collected to make their case of espionage. My history of government funding and my history of illegally crossing borders. How did I enter? I drove through the desert, straight through a huge expanse of sand, across the border between Chad and Sudan. It was the only way for reporters to get into Darfur. The trick was just to stay out of government-controlled territory and to stay with the rebels.
A: I entered as a guest of the Sudanese Liberation Army.
He asks me about my trip to Baghdad, four months ago, when I was there reporting. How did you get a visa? Who did you work with? List every person you talked to in Baghdad and what you discussed with them. How did you get into the Green Zone? How did you meet with U.S. military? Who paid you? What were their religions?”
“Why do you ask me about Iraq so much?” I ask him. “We are in Iran.”
“Shane, did you know that Iraq is part of Iran?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“We have always believed that Iraq is a part of our country. Iraq is mostly a Shia country. Did you know that Baghdad is a Persian name? Baghdad used to be a Persian city.”
“Yeah, Persian and everything else. Baghdad was also Mongolian.”
“Mongolian!? Do you know who converted the Mongols to Islam? The Persians!”
I don’t comment on the fact that for the Mongols, assimilation was a military strategy, a way to ease their rule over foreign peoples. They converted to Islam to better control the Persians.
“Persian culture is very large. As an Iranian, I can go to Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, and many other places and feel at home.”
“You know I’ve never met an Iraqi who likes Iran, Sunni or Shiite. Many of them think of you as occupiers, just like the U.S. They don’t like your influence in their country. They don’t like anyone’s influence in their country.”
“Yes. Yes. Iraqis are very nationalistic, but Iraq will again become part of Iran.”
There is a moment of silence while the thought lingers between us. “Soooo . . . are you saying that Iran is going to retake Iraq?”
He pauses, then says, “Iran respects the sovereignty of all nations.”
He changes the subject abruptly, switching from Weasel the lecturer to Weasel the interrogator.
“In November 2008, you received an e-mail of a dancing, flapping bird. Who sent this to you?”
“What? That was probably my grandma. She always sends me e-cards on holidays. It must have been a turkey for Thanksgiving.”
Q: Who is Sarit?
A: She works for an Israeli human rights organization called Bet Selem. I interviewed her about weapons the Israelis were using against Palestinians in the West Bank—special tear gas canisters that were killing people and that almost killed my friend Tristan.
“Does Sarah know about this meeting?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. She wasn’t there.”
“Don’t worry,” he says, as if we were having a moment of male bonding. “I won’t tell her. You can trust me.”
24. Sarah
“‘Tiger, tiger burning bright.’”
“Excuse me?” I say. I’m back in the interrogation room, blindfolded, facing the wall.
“Two days ago, you wrote that you have a bachelor’s in English literature. I’m trying to see if you are telling the truth. Do you know that poem?” I recognize the voice of the kind interrogator, the one who said he wanted to help me.
“Yes, it’s William Blake.”
“Good. ‘Tiger, tiger, burning bright.’”
“‘In the forest of the night.’”
“Good, Sarah. Very good.”
“How do you know about English poetry?” I ask him.
“I also studied literature, mostly European but American too.”
“Really? Where?”
“In Tehran.”
“What are your favorite authors?” I ask.
“Virginia Woolf, Wordsworth, I like them all.”
“Virginia Woolf is my favorite writer!”
“You have very good taste, Sarah.”
His compliment fills me with gentle warmth and I can’t help but smile. I love talking to this man; just being in his presence bumps my mood up a few notches. I’m still making a halfhearted effort to hold back, act tough, but in my gut I’ve already decided to trust him completely. Why shouldn’t I? Right now, he’s all I have, and I truly believe he wants to help me, to speed up this process and play his part in getting me out of here.
“Do you have any of her novels? Can you bring me one?”
“Which novel do you like?”
“All of them—To the Lighthouse might be my favorite.”
“I will try.”
25. Josh
It’s the second half of September. The light from the window hits the wall at a slightly different angle every day. I hear sandals shuffle down the hall toward the bathroom. They amble lethargically. It must be a prisoner. I rush to the window in my door. I clear my throat when he passes to grab his attention. The pale prisoner coughs back at me and he makes eye contact from under his blindfold. To see and be seen! I remember a Zulu phrase I learned in South Africa a few months ago, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu.” It means “A person is a person through other people.”
My hallmates sometimes cough, or sometimes they whisper “Hello,” “Salaam,” or “Be strong” on their way to the bathroom.
I am grateful for the eye contact with this prisoner, and I wait for him to return. My face presses against the barred window in my door; the fresh hallway air skims my face. I hear him flush the toilet.
This prisoner looks and even walks like a foreigner. From his cell down the hall, I often hear him thank the guards with a “Merci” when the meals arrive. How does he have so much gratitude? I’ve tried to mimic him and thank the guards for food, but I just can’t bring myself to do it.
Walking back from the bathroom, this prisoner skittishly scans the hallway, then springs to my door.
“Are you one of the American hikers?” he says in fluent English. His gaze nervously flashes down the hallway to make sure a guard isn’t watching. He tells me he’s Belgian and was detained while on a bicycle trip when they came too close to a military site.
I answer as quickly as I can. “Hikers?” I stutter, “I—I—I was hiking in Iraq when . . .”
“I saw you on BBC. There are two others, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They call you guys ‘the hikers.’ I gotta go.”
As he rushes off, I realize the risk he’s taken to talk with me, and I whisper, “Thank you.”
26. Sarah
Talking to the gentle interrogator is the one thing that keeps me sane. We have real conversations, weaving from one topic to the next. One minute we’re touching on our spiritual or religious views, the next we’re delving into Iranian history before the revolution, American foreign policy, or my childhood. He has an almost fatherly energy about him. That’s what I’ve started to call him in my head, Father Guy.
“Sarah,” Father Guy says gently, “today I brought you two gifts—a new book and some photographs.”
He places a book and several sheets of paper on the desk in front of me. They appear to have been printed off a website. At the top of the page it says, “Pictures of Hiker Sarah Shourd”; below is a series of photos I instantly recognize.
The first is a studio shot taken in the early 1980s of my mom, my sister, brother, and me when I was about five. We’re wearing our best clothes, looking into the camera with big smiles and blow-dried hair. Then, there’s one of my graduation ceremony at UC Berkeley and below it a beautiful shot of me climbing pyramids in the jungles of Chiapas in my early twenties.
The picture on the next page makes me stop cold. It shows my three young nephews belly-down in a muddy Georgia stream. It’s a place we always go swimming when I visit. Somehow, I’ve avoided
thinking about them up to this point, and now the feelings rush in. How will it affect them to have their aunt in an Iranian prison? What if I never come back? Will they become soldiers—want to kill Middle Easterners in revenge?
“What’s the matter, Sarah? Aren’t you happy to see pictures of your family?” I can hear the hurt in Father Guy’s voice. I haven’t thanked him for his gifts.
“Yes, of course, I’m just very worried about them.”
“They are okay. Sarah, please, you must be patient,” he says. “I’m trying to help you.”
“It’s just, my mother—I need to talk to her. This is unbelievably cruel.”
Reflexively, I smooth the strands of hair that have come loose from my hijab and wipe the moisture from my forehead—not wanting to offend him. Every day, I pray that Father Guy will come to interrogate me. I sometimes spend hours rehearsing would-be conversations with him in my head. I’ve even become more conscious of my appearance; when I know I’m going to see him I pinch my cheeks and bite my lips to give them more color.
Since I was raised by a feminist single mom, my desire for approval from men is something I’ve always been a little ashamed of and tried to change about myself. I have no doubt it stems from growing up without my father in my life. In the case of Father Guy, I’ve abandoned my principles. He’s the only person with any power over our situation that I can influence, and I’m determined to use what I have at my disposal—my femininity, my intellect, my sheer desperation—to make him like me.
As he paces the room, I try to imagine his face, which I have only gotten brief glimpses of through blurry vision from the gap beneath my blindfold. From what I can tell, he’s surprisingly young, probably in his mid- or late thirties, with light skin and dark eyes. “Sarah,” he says with concern in his voice, “you’re like a sister to me. More than that, I consider you my friend. I know you’re innocent and I want to help you, but what can I do?”