by Shane Bauer
“Any news about the daughter of the sheikh?”
I heard this question repeatedly, usually whispered from the neighboring cell into the hallway shortly after the guards gave us lunch and moved on to the next corridor. The question was always asked and answered in Arabic, a language rarely heard in this prison. Judging by their accents, I took our neighbor, the one asking the question, to be a Saudi and the man who spoke through the vent across the hall to be from Iraq or Kuwait.
Besides our visits with Sarah, eavesdropping on their conversations became the highlight of our days. It took me a week to gather that the “sheikh” they referred to was Osama bin Laden, that his daughter had been detained somewhere in Iran, and that she had miraculously escaped. I came to understand that the person who spoke through the vent across the hall had a television, which was why he was always the bearer of tidings, whereas our neighbor was always the one with questions. Our neighbor always asked for updates on the “Brotherhood,” which I came to understand roughly meant al-Qaeda, some other militant Sunni group, or all of them generally. He asked often for updates on Yemen and Pakistan.
“The Brothers blew up some foreigners today in Pakistan.”
“Hmmm,” our neighbor mused aloud. “That will send a strong message.”
Something about the way he spoke made it seem like he was playing a part, like he was trying to endear himself to his fellow Arab prisoner but wasn’t himself a militant. In fact, he was sweet. Once he insisted on giving the man across the hall some money. He told the man he’d hide it under the cushion of the lone office chair that happened to be sitting in hava khori that week. It would be there, and he’d better take it. He needed to be able to buy juices and sweets from the canteen.
Sometimes, they talked about us.
“Hey, the other day when I went to the bathroom I looked in the cell of those Americans. It’s like a five-star hotel in there. They have beds and a TV. And every day they go outside twice. What do they do when they leave? Pursue their hobbies? Yeah, Iran is good to the Americans.”
I knew that last remark was just a jab at the regime, showing how hypocritical of them it was to be treating us so well, citizens of the Great Satan. So badly I wanted to interject, to tell them we didn’t, in fact, have a television and that we weren’t allowed to even make phone calls. And aside from all of that, we were innocent. But I resisted. I refused to talk, despite all of our neighbor’s pounding on our wall and the subsequent coughs out into the hallway to get our attention. I refused because Sarah, Josh, and I made an agreement not to talk to anyone. The longer Sarah is alone, the more afraid—and paranoid—she has become that one of us will get caught doing something and that we will be separated from one another again. For her sake, we don’t break the rules.
But now he is throwing cakes into our cell.
As the days pass, it becomes harder and harder to resist the urge to communicate. I am convinced it is safe—these two men talk to each other every day, loudly—and I am frustrated with Sarah’s lack of faith in my judgment. How can we talk rationally about anything involving a level of risk, when conversations about risk become so emotionally charged? We can’t, really, so I don’t try. Instead, I will just give Sarah the news updates that I overhear in these men’s conversations to supplement the scant pieces of information she gets from English-language programs on TV. The Yemeni government is crushing the Shia insurgency in the country’s north. Bin Laden’s daughter escapes from prison. An Iranian nuclear scientist is assassinated by a man on a motorcycle.
Eventually, Josh and I set a date: in two weeks, we will tell Sarah we want to actually talk to him. By then, Sarah’s fear of getting caught should have worn off.
Then one day, at hava khori, Sarah says, “Guys, I really want to talk to my neighbor. I will be really careful. Do you think it would be okay?”
“Sure,” I say. I am genuinely happy about this, because I want Sarah to connect with more people. What we have isn’t enough. It isn’t even a relationship anymore. It can’t be, with just these thirty-minute snatches of each other. Sarah has been deteriorating. As the weeks pass, I feel more and more helpless. I try to think up topics of conversation. I psyche myself into fake shows of happiness to lift her spirits. But ultimately, nothing really works. She is becoming skittish. Her excitement at seeing us every day is desperate. She almost always leaves hava khori deflated and disappointed. People need people, and Sarah needs people more than most. It’s as if they found a special little torture just for her, and put it on a screen for us to watch every day.
Yes, she needs to talk to her neighbors. She needs to break the rules. I want her to do whatever she can to get more contact.
“I’d really like to talk to our neighbor too,” I say. “He seems to know a lot about what’s going on.”
“Okay, just be careful,” she says.
Our neighbor says his name is Hamid, and when we start talking to him, our hall feels suddenly alive. Because of this one person, the fifth corridor is not afraid. We talk to him and he talks to the Kurd in his neighboring cell and the guy across the corridor. I start to notice little bundles of candy stuffed under the sink in the shared bathroom down the hall, waiting for some prisoner to pick them up. Sometimes, I see a pen hiding in the vent above the bathroom sink. People’s incarceration dates and release dates start to appear on the wall. Inquiries into the whereabouts of specific people are scrawled in Arabic and Farsi onto the paint above the toilet too. Before people leave the bathroom, they pound on the wall behind the toilet, which separates the bathroom from our cell. By doing this, they let us know they are returning, so we can jump up and whisper “Salaam” as they walk by.
Josh and I start naming these prisoners who we see stroll by every day. We make it a game in which we imagine their lives.
“Did you see the new guy?”
“Which one?”
“The one who plays in an alternative rock band, who just wants to be an artist and left to play his guitar, and whose anguish is fueled by the fact that his government deems his music political and subversive?”
“No. I haven’t seen him yet. I thought you were going to talk about the playwright—the one with white hair and stubble—who writes plays with subtle political undertones that satirize the Islamic Republic by outwardly condemning the shah.”
The conversations with Hamid make our world exponentially bigger. He teaches us that we are in Section 209, Evin Prison’s political ward. He teaches us the Farsi word for hostage, gurugan, which we use whenever we are frustrated with the guards, because they hate the idea that we would call ourselves hostages. And he becomes a conduit for information about our case through other prisoners, especially the three Iranians he shares a cell with. One of them tells us what the international news is saying about us whenever he has visits with his mom. He is an Iranian Marxist with a big, wild beard (“He’s a communist,” Hamid says, “but he’s a really nice guy”) and he has it hard. The regime hates leftists. In 1988, they executed thousands who wouldn’t publicly recant historical materialism. This guy isn’t an Islamist, but he says a change in government is the most important thing, so he stands with his Muslim comrades on the street to protest. When he came to prison, he says, his interrogators ripped out his hair by the fistful. He thinks he might get out soon, so Josh gives him his brother’s e-mail, to tell everyone we are doing okay, and to wish him a happy birthday.
“Beware the big, quiet guard,” Hamid says. “He can really lose it.” He calls the guard Dog. We call him AK, short for Ass Kicker. He is the same one that burst into Josh’s cell after beating a prisoner—the bulldog-looking one. He’s the one who, not too long ago, went hall to hall trying to rally prisoners to chant “Allahu akbar” on what I took to be some special occasion. Those in Hamid’s cell partook in the chanting, and snickered irreverently while doing so.
A week after Hamid and I start talking, Josh and I hear an argument between the Marxist and AK. All we can hear the Marxist say is dastshuee, b
athroom, and the guard refusing. The Marxist begins to yell insistently and then we hear the distinct sound of flesh smacking against flesh. When it is over, we pound on the wall to get their attention.
“What happened?”
“The guard wouldn’t let him go to the toilet. Then he hit him,” Hamid says.
“Is he okay?”
“It’s no problem,” he says, almost chuckling. “This is normal. This is prison.”
When Hamid and I first spoke, he was shocked that I could speak his language, Arabic. He said he knew our story, but he seemed circumspect in those early conversations, unsure whether or not to believe we weren’t spies. But he was quickly set at ease, opening up as soon as I told him about my growing frustration with the fact that our government didn’t seem to be doing anything for us.
He tries to reassure me: “America can do anything it wants to. You will be out soon. Trust me. Iran and America will do a prisoner exchange, then you’ll be out.”
I disagree. “I think the U.S. is just going to leave us here. We aren’t worth much to our government. If we really were spies, we’d be out of here by now. Iran is going to keep making demands for things like prisoner swaps and the U.S. will refuse. Iran won’t be able to back down. So how will we get out?”
I don’t tell him that for months now, a feeling has been rising in me. It’s something like patriotism, but that’s not the word because it accompanies a growing anger at our government for not getting us out, for pursuing policies that leave so many people locked up or dead in this region, and for making the world more and more hostile to American civilians like us. No, the feeling is not patriotism exactly, but it is a kind of pride in being American. And it’s not just that I miss home. The warm feeling I get when I read Whitman wax about the sweeping plains and gushing rivers is something different. This is pride in being from the home of Crazy Horse, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Nina Simone—people who really fought for freedom. It’s a pride in knowing that my friends—Americans—are fighting for us in a way that I know is transcending the juvenile discourse that got us into this situation, where one country is good and the other evil.
The more I get to know Hamid, the more I see how similar his situation is to ours, except that no one, not even his family, knows what is happening to him. Since he is Saudi, his government is one of Iran’s main adversaries. He says he was arrested for a visa technicality, that he has never been allowed to call anybody, and that he has never seen a lawyer or his embassy. He just went to court and they gave him a one-year sentence for visa forgery. “But don’t worry,” he tells me. “Illegal entry is only a six-month sentence.” We are coming up on five.
The relationship that emerges between our cell and Hamid’s is one of mutual caring. We ask about each other’s welfare so persistently that it’s almost aggressive. He tosses things into our cell, like cakes and handmade playing cards.
This connection feels like the opposite of isolation. It feels strong and nurturing. But because it feels good, it also feels bad.
Immediately after I ate the cake, I felt guilty because I knew my enjoyment of it wasn’t totally spontaneous. I thought for a second of how much Sarah would have enjoyed it in her lonesome isolation; then I suppressed it. Why shouldn’t I enjoy something that is given to me for once? Why does every little thing that makes my life better have to make hers worse?
I was only trying to rationalize my greed. We could have shared the cakes with Sarah, but we chose not to. Josh and I didn’t discuss it, but we were in agreement: Just shut up and eat.
Sarah would have shared them.
40. Sarah
I’m awakened to insistent knocking on my wall. The new prisoner in the cell next to mine hasn’t stopped trying to get my attention since she came here after the Ashura protests. New prisoners in solitary are often desperate to communicate. They are scared and lonely, and they don’t know yet how easy it is to get caught. If I knock back, it will only lead to more communication, like whispering into the hallway or passing notes. There’s nothing I can do to help her, I tell myself sternly, trying to focus my attention back on my book.
Not even state-run TV has been able to censure the chaos and international outcry that followed the Ashura protests. The images they begin to show on TV are telling. One clip shows a group of protesters running from the police. Among them is a young woman with long dreadlocks streaming out of the back of her hijab. They show this clip again and again because it makes protesters look like unsavory foreigners. The government’s desperate to blame outsiders—specifically from the West—for what’s happening in Iran. I realize that doesn’t exactly bode well for us.
“Sarah.” I suddenly hear a soft whisper. The voice is close, almost as if it were in my room. “Sarah.”
My head darts to the right and left, looking for the source of the sound. Am I imagining it?
“Sarah.” The voice is louder now. “Please.” It seems to be coming from the corner near the door, where my sink is. Above the sink is a vent. The vent. As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I leap off my bare mattress, compelled by a force beyond my control, and climb onto the sink. I press my mouth to the vent. “Who are you?” I ask the voice. “How do you know my name?”
“My name is Zahra, almost the same as yours, Sarah. I know you.”
“You know me?”
“Yes, I saw your mother on TV. I am so sorry for you, Sarah. I am a mother too.”
“Did you talk to my mother?” I almost yell, then remember to hush my voice. “Did you talk to her?” I whisper. As soon as the question escapes my mouth, I realize how irrational it is.
“No, Sarah. But I saw many pictures of you on BBC. You are a small, beautiful girl. I know it must be easy for you to be standing on the sink. For me, it is difficult. They beat me. They kicked me and tortured me. My hips hurt and it is difficult for me to stand.” Her English is almost perfect, strongly accented with a sensuous, scratchy quality.
I feel tears welling up in my eyes. It’s a miracle, I think. She knows me! We can talk to each other! How is it possible that the guards don’t know about this? When Shane and I first discovered we could speak through the tube in the last prison, the same thoughts flashed through my mind. Is this a trick? Is it possible we’re being recorded? Yet Shane and I were never caught.
“Is—” I hesitate, but I have to ask. “Is my mother okay?”
“I don’t know, dear Sarah. I am Dutch,” she says, “and Iranian. I live in the Netherlands, but my daughter is here, in Iran. They will not let me talk to my embassy. I don’t know if my embassy understands that I am here. When you see your embassy, please tell them about me, Zahra Bahrami.”
“They never let me see anyone,” I tell her. “It’s been three months since I saw the Swiss. I don’t know what’s happening. I’ve had no court, no trial. They won’t let me see my lawyer.”
“Yes, I know. They are liars, Sarah. Don’t believe anything they say to you. I am your friend now, I love you.”
I try to imagine her, hurt and alone, being taken out every day for beatings and interrogation and then put back in a cage. Separated from her children, her life, and her country. So much like me, I think. Yet, as bad as my situation is, Zahra’s is worse.
“Why did they arrest you?” I ask.
“I was at the protest,” she says, “Ashura.”
Suddenly, the door of my cell bursts open. Leila’s small, voluptuous silhouette is outlined in the doorway with her hands on her hips. She must have heard us talking and crept down the hallway—probably shoeless so we wouldn’t hear her footsteps—and pounced on us in the middle of our forbidden conversation. It was like being caught masturbating by a ruthless schoolmarm—like discovering a private, secret pleasure and then being exposed and humiliated.
Not Leila, I think, of all people. I’ve managed to stay on her good side up until this point and she’s helped me a lot—even complaining to the warden about how long they’v
e kept me in solitary. Last week, Leila surprised me with a pair of purple cotton pants and a matching T-shirt—she knew my prison uniform was worn and full of holes. I can’t afford to lose her.
This time my pleas have no effect. Leila’s kind, motherly face slams shut like a steel door. She says she will tell my interrogators what I’ve done. Zahra, the new prisoner, is immediately transferred.
Now, when Leila comes to my cell, there are no more smiles, no conversations in Arabic. She hands me my food with a cold, unfocused stare, then wordlessly leads me out to the courtyard for a few minutes of sun. I’m no longer her ukhtee al-aziza, her sweet sister—I’m a plant that she gets paid to keep alive.
41. Josh
It’s early February—the anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. The authorities fear another uprising and they’ve emptied our hall of prisoners in preparation for snatching up dissidents. Hamid and his cellmates were transferred, and we were only able to sneak a quick goodbye. Flouting prison rules with Hamid and his crew made the last couple weeks the most enjoyable time yet. With them gone, and with Zahra moved away from Sarah, it’s the end of an era of communication. Having more friends than just Shane and Sarah felt like another step away from solitary confinement. Now, I brace for the insularity of our triad.
Men and women are normally kept in separate hallways. However, our empty hall fills up with female prisoners. The Iranians treat us Americans as an exception to their strict gender segregation. I’ve seen so few women these past months: just Sarah and the Swiss ambassador. Recently, our captors gave Shane and me a TV, and I see some women there too. Now, Shane and I grow accustomed to women walking down our hall without wearing hijabs. One female guard with a moon-shaped face captures my attention. She has large black eyes, rosy cheeks, and an attractive inapproachability. I know I am desperately looking for signals, but I swear she sustains eye contact longer than is normal. As memories of romance drift deeper into the past, I idealize it more. When I joke with Sarah about playing matchmaker, she has a mixed reaction: “Josh! She is such a bitch!” Then Sarah realizes it’s just a fantasy and says, “She is the cutest one.”