by Shane Bauer
I realize it’s time to end this scene. If I’ve surrendered a thousand times before, I can do it now. I pick up the pen and steer it toward the page.
“Wait,” I say. I turn and look Father Guy straight in the eyes for the first time. All those hours I had sat in the interrogation room with him; I had never really seen his face.
“Promise me I won’t leave here without saying goodbye to Shane and Josh,” I say.
“I promise, Sarah.”
“Okay.” I sign the paper.
62. Sarah
In Greek mythology, the underworld is not an easy place to leave. Hercules had to cross the five rivers, pass through the adamantine gate guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog, and cross on the single ferry steered by Charon, who demands a single coin.
It soon becomes clear what my payment is. They take me to a garden inside the prison complex where a man and video camera are standing next to a fountain, waiting for me. He tells me he’s from Press TV, an Iranian state-run English-language satellite network.
“How do you feel to be free?” he asks.
“I’m still in prison, aren’t I?”
“Can you show us your ring?”
“Why am I being released without my friend and fiancé?”
“What was it like for you in prison?”
“It was terrible.”
Then, they lead me up some steps to a room with two couches facing each other. I sit on the couch in silence and try to avoid looking at the cameras.
“What am I doing here?” I ask the cameraman.
“We want you to meet someone,” Dumb Guy answers.
Two teenage girls—they look like twins—and an old woman and an old man walk into the room and awkwardly sit on the couch across from me.
“We are happy for you to be free, Sarah,” the old woman begins, “but your government should free my innocent daughter.”
“Who is your daughter?” I ask.
“Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan,” she answers.
“Yes, of course, I’ve heard about her on TV.”
“You have a TV?” one of the girls asks. She speaks perfect English and her voice has a twang, almost a Valley Girl–type affectation. “Our mother’s food is dirty—it has bugs in it. How is your food?”
“It’s okay,” I reply. “Where is your mother being held? Do you talk to her?”
“Yes, sometimes, and we get letters.”
“I’ve never been allowed to write a letter. I’ve only been allowed two five-minute phone calls in thirteen and a half months.”
“Really?” They look surprised. “Ah, well, we want you to ask President Obama to free our mother. We miss her. We are very sad without her. We wrote this letter for you to give him.” She hands me a piece of stationery covered with large, voluptuous handwriting.
“Okay, I will do what I can.”
The conversation seems stilted, scripted. I feel sorry for these girls, but I know nothing about their mother or why she’s in prison. A part of me wonders if the story is true. It might be true, I think, but do they really think I can do anything about it?
63. Shane
A guard takes us out of our cells. We’ve been on hunger strike the last twenty-four hours, threatening that we won’t stop until we see Sarah. On the way to hava khori, two guards stop us. One tells Josh to stand against the wall and the other brings me into an interrogation room. He is wearing rubber gloves. Without preamble, he pulls down my pants and tells me to pull down my underwear. He pats my legs from my ankles to my thighs, as one would do if the person they were searching were wearing pants. From between my legs, he looks up under my penis without touching it.
Josh goes next.
When we step outside, Sarah is sitting down. She looks calm and ready. Josh and I sit down and each take one of her hands. “You guys, as soon as I get out, I’m going to fight as hard as I can until you are free. I will not stop. There will be no celebrating until you are out—not even one drink.” She tells us everything that has happened in the last couple days. It is clear that she believes in Salem. She is sure that he will get us out.
I have no idea when I will see her again, but I feel a deep relief starting to settle in. She won’t be alone anymore. She’ll be out and she’ll have a purpose. She’ll stop withering away and start regenerating. What will it mean to miss her? I can never want her to be with me here. Missing her will just become part of my yearning for freedom.
I can see that she feels guilty. Part of her feels like she is turning against us by leaving us behind. She isn’t sure if she is doing the right thing. Josh sees it too and tells her how happy he is that she is getting free. We tell her over and over, and each time, her face looks a little less burdened.
“How long do you think I should wait in Oman for you?” This question echoes like my mom’s hope that we would be coming home with them. It hurts a little, because I know that she can’t accept that we will probably be here for a while. I remember my mom’s face as that elevator door closed. “Sarah,” I say, “I don’t think they are going to let us out soon. But that’s okay. We are going to be okay.” Maybe I’m trying to reassure myself more than her.
“You guys have to make sure you take care of each other. I worry about you. Be open with each other. Don’t just read books all the time. You have to talk about your feelings.”
“You need to take care of yourself too, baby,” I say.
She scoffs. “Yeah, okay. I’m going to take care of myself, but I’m going to get you free!”
Josh and I start to tell her things that we’ve never told her about our lives in our cell. Until now, it has mostly remained a secret world that we’ve kept private to keep her from feeling jealous. We tell her that we give each other massages and that when we wake, we discuss our dreams.
Sarah says she is going to study Arabic every day, and math for the GRE. I tell her to make music, to use her music to help get us free.
The door opens. Unlike almost every other time, we don’t protest today. We don’t ask for more time. The guard doesn’t push us either.
“I feel like I’m one-third free,” Josh says.
I don’t know what the appropriate thing to do is in this moment. I kiss her and hug her. I tell her I can’t wait to marry her. I smile. I don’t know when I will see her again, but I know it will happen someday.
“Goodbye,” I say. “You are the best person to fight for us. I love you, baby.” Letting go of something I love has never felt so right.
The guards walk us down the hall, she turns off to her cell, and Josh and I keep walking. Unlike almost every other time I’ve left her at that junction where we split from each other every day, this time I don’t look back.
64. Sarah
“Don’t forget me in America,” Maryam says, helping me get dressed. I’m back in my cell after a brief goodbye with Shane and Josh in hava khori. A plastic bag has been placed on my bed. In it are a hairbrush, a new hijab, bright white tennis shoes, jeans, and a fancy-looking manto.
I feel even more confident after seeing them. Now that I have a mission, nothing else matters. Leila shows up. I take her hands and beg her to look out for Josh and Shane from now on, not to let the male guards be violent with them. She agrees, telling me how pretty I look, how happy she is for me. “Don’t worry,” she says, “this is going to be okay. You will be married soon!”
“Inshallah,” I say to Leila.
“Inshallah,” she repeats.
I look back at the long, white hallway in which I’ve spent more than a year of my life. No more blindfolds, no more hava khori. These women are my friends, I realize, watching Maryam fuss over the pile of things I’ve left for Josh and Shane while Leila stands with her hands on her hips, giving me motherly advice. We’ve been through so much together; I can’t help but care about them. They lead me down the hallway with my backpack swinging over my shoulder. At the end of the hall I pause and turn back, knowing that behind every door there is a prisoner crouched by the slo
t listening to us—just like I have done so many times.
“Inshallah azadi!” I shout down the hall, feeling the first jolt of excitement shoot through my veins. God willing, freedom!
“Inshallah shoma azadi hameeshe!” I shout louder. God willing you freedom forever!
Leila and Maryam usher me away, but I turn back, peering under my blindfold to look down the hall one last time. I hear a clap, quiet and timid, coming from inside one of the cells.
“I love you!” I shout—my last words in Section 209.
Like a zombie I follow Nargess into a small room where she makes me strip, one last time. I don’t look at her; I just wait patiently and stare at the ceiling as she looks between my legs, swipes her hands under my breasts, and peers in my ears.
I’m then taken to another building, where male prisoners are lined up without blindfolds. A few of them recognize me, point; then one of them waves. Are they getting free too? I’m led past them to a booth where a woman takes my fingers one by one, coats them in ink, and presses them to a sheet of paper. A car with tinted windows is parked outside. An older, conservatively dressed woman waits in the car. As we leave the gates of Evin Prison, she pulls my head down on her lap and smothers me in the folds of her black, flowing garments. It’s not an act of affection—she’s there to make sure that no one will see me as we speed through the streets of Tehran.
I leave Evin Prison in darkness. I hear the huge gates shut behind us and feel the car pick up speed. I close my eyes and relax into the lap of this unknown woman, not resisting, not even stressed. If Shane and Josh were here, we’d be laughing and crying for joy right now. Instead, I feel my body preparing for the battle ahead, using these few moments to preserve my energy and gather my thoughts.
I don’t hear any other cars on the freeway—is it blocked off? The car slows and the woman uncovers my face. She smiles down at me and tells me to wait. I sit up and I’m led inside a small building. Dumb Guy tells me we’re at the airport. We enter another formal, furnished room, with glass and mahogany tables and plush satin couches. I scan the room for Salem, perhaps Ambassador Leu Agosti, but they aren’t here.
Cameras arrive. Iranian reporters hook small microphones to my clothes and ask me how I feel. I feel the way a cat feels, I think, when you pick it up by the loose skin on the back of its neck. I feel limp, out of my body, unable to resist.
“I feel grateful and humbled by this moment,” I say. “I want to offer my thanks to everyone in the world, all of the governments, all of the people that have been involved, and I particularly want to address President Ahmadinejad and all of the Iranian officials, the religious leaders, and thank them for this humanitarian gesture.” I pause, trying to remember my well-rehearsed speech. Up until this point, the words have been rote—it’s what I’ve been told to say. I let myself speak from my heart.
“I have a huge debt to repay the world for what it’s done for me. My first priority is to help my fiancé, Shane, and my friend, Josh, to regain their freedom, because they don’t deserve to be here. Even when that’s finished, I feel like my work has just begun repaying the world for what it’s done for me. I realize that there are many innocent people in prison that don’t have the kind of support that I’ve had. I feel humbled and grateful and ready to be free in the world again and to give back what’s been given to me.”
The questioning and photographing go on for two and a half hours until I can’t take it anymore and beg them to leave off. I’m used to this game by now, used to being manipulated and controlled. But I’m already beginning to sense that I have more power than I did a few hours ago. I walk over to a couch in the corner of the room and lie down. I hug a pillow to my chest, close my eyes, and pretend to sleep. Moments later, I hear soft footsteps approach. I open my eyes and find a camera poised a few feet from my face.
An hour later, Salem is sitting across from me in his small private plane, looking harried and impatient. I ask him if everything is okay.
“Not until we’re in the air, my dear. Things have been known to go wrong, even at the very last minute.” Ten minutes later we’re in the air. I’m trying to make out Evin Prison as we fly over Tehran. I imagine Shane and Josh in their cell, talking and planning intensely together. For what feels like the thousandth time, I thank God they have each other. I turn to Salem.
It’s the first time I’ve sat across a table with anyone for over a year. He tells me that my mother and uncle will be waiting for me at the airport in Muscat, where they’ve been for several days. We’re served steak and potatoes by waiters dressed in Omani garb. I eat mechanically, reminding myself that I’ll need my strength. Then I excuse myself and walk down the aisle to the lavatory.
In a mirror flanked by bottles of perfume, I study my pale, angular face. I have the feeling that Salem, a man I barely know, will now be my closest ally and friend. I take off my hijab and cringe at the sight of my thin, dry hair. I put it back on, pinching my cheeks to add some color and spraying myself with perfume.
I walk back to the table and sit across from Salem. “How do you feel, Sarah?” I look out the window at the city of Muscat, thousands of feet below us. Everyone’s been asking me this, but for the first time I have enough respect for this man to reply honestly.
“Nothing. I feel nothing, Salem.”
“It’s okay. That will change,” he says.
The feeling doesn’t change as we descend, nor when we bump to a gentle landing. It doesn’t even change as I walk down the stairs and touch free ground. At first, I can’t see anything but cameras flashing. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, a crowd of people materializes.
I scan the crowd anxiously for my mother. And there she is. I walk toward her and I see her face, so strong and vulnerable at the same time. I see her tears. I wrap my arms around her and everything else drops away. My body belongs to me again. Though we’re surrounded by reporters, in that moment it’s just she and I. We’re finally alone.
I feel the cold air on my bare head and reflexively reach up to adjust my hijab, wanting to cover my thin, brittle hair from the cameras. No shame, I tell myself, letting it drop. I look into my mother’s eyes and smile.
65. Sarah
My eyes spring open. The dark sky outside the tall windows is already showing hints of blue. After talking through most of the night, I fell asleep with my body half draped over my mom’s torso, my head resting on her outstretched arm. I quietly get up, pause to marvel at my mom’s sweet, tired face, grab her cell phone, and tiptoe downstairs.
The embassy maids are already bustling in the kitchen. “Sarah,” a Filipino woman in her forties greets me with her arms stretched open, “we were so worried about you.” She hands me a mug of steaming coffee and shows me a close-up picture of my face on the cover of the Muscat Daily News. I pause to inhale the coffee’s intoxicating smell—one of the countless things that’s been cut out of my life. I open my mouth as if to ask permission, then think better of it—and simply walk outside.
It’s a little after 5 a.m. and I’m standing on the edge of a white beach with warm turquoise waves lapping at my bare feet. The air smells like sun and salt. There are men and women, the former in long, white robes and the latter in black, already out for a morning walk along the shore. Behind me is Embassy Row, dozens of three- and four-story pink and beige mansions ringed with opulent flowers and flanked by tropical trees. The calm, placid ocean stretches out for miles and miles before me, as if there were no end to the earth at all.
Talking to my mom last night, I felt alive and exhilarated. Now, looking at the sun reflecting like daggers off the delicate waves, it hits me just how heavy a toll prison has taken on my imagination. No matter how hard I tried, I could never evoke this kind of beauty in my mind.
I place my empty mug by a rock at the foot of a palm tree and begin to scroll through the contacts on my mom’s phone. I’ve known for a long time who the first person I called would be. I find the number, stand up, and turn to nod at a tall, beefy former m
arine sitting on a bench twenty feet behind me. He gives me a wave in return. In the last twenty-four hours I’ve traded prison guards for bodyguards. Richard Schmierer, the American ambassador to Oman, whose residence we’re staying in, warned me that international journalists are stalking me outside the embassy. He says I need protection. I start to walk down the beach and the former marine follows behind at a respectful distance.
I dial the number.
“Shon, it’s me,” I say.
“Sarah? Oh, I’m so relieved! You have no idea how worried I’ve been about you guys. I’m so glad you’re out, so glad you called. How are you?”
“I’m okay. I never thought it would happen like this, Shon.”
“I know. It’s so awful, Sarah, but the campaign is going to be much, much stronger with you in it. This is crazy. I can’t wait to see you. Is there anything you need?”
“Yes, I need to tell you something. Shon, we were so glad you weren’t with us that morning. You saved our lives, calling the American embassy in Baghdad and our families. If you hadn’t stayed in the hotel when we left for Ahmed Awa that night, no one would have even known we were captured. We might never have been heard from again.”
Shon tells me how terrible it was not knowing what the Iranian government was going to do with us. He tells me about an American ex–FBI agent, Peter Levinson (later revealed to have been contracted by the CIA), who disappeared on Iran’s Kish Island almost five years ago without any word from him since. “Iran doesn’t admit to holding him,” Shon says. “No one knows where he is. He might even be dead.”
“It’s so strange to feel so lucky but so unlucky at the same time,” I tell him.
“Are you really okay? How’s your health?”
A few weeks ago, the prison doctor called me into his office to show me the results of my mammogram, proof that the lump in my breast was benign. Even though they appeared confident I didn’t have cancer, some Iranian officials still pointed to my “medical condition” as the reason for my release—and the international media ran with it. On the day of my release, when I asked the judge why I was being allowed to go before Josh and Shane, he told me the decision was based on my gender and solitary confinement. The timing, however, was clearly calculated to ease international pressure leading up to the UN General Assembly meeting in New York so they would not appear to be giving in to the United States. I credit this strategy largely to our campaign. By allowing my mom to push my “health problems” and isolation in the media, they gave the Iranian government a way out.