A Sliver of Light

by Shane Bauer

  The video skips to a brief clip in which each of them addresses the court, giving their defense as to who they are and what they were doing on July 31, 2009. When the camera briefly passed over Judge Salavati, commonly known in Iran as “the hanging judge,” I realize that Josh and Shane have no idea what a monster he is. This is the same monster that condemned Zahra to death, among many other political dissidents.

  As painful as it is to tolerate a completely opaque, illegal court session parading as justice, I recognize that this hearing is still a victory. This clip makes Josh and Shane look like anything but spies. One is a grassroots environmentalist; the other a journalist who has investigated little-known activities of the U.S. military in the Middle East. Is anybody watching really going to believe the allegations against them? A few days later, the judiciary announces that there will be no judgment at this time. The next trial session will be announced “soon.”

  84. Shane

  Leaning back against a pillow, I hold three large pieces of cardboard. They are the most precious pieces of writing we have—timelines that span from 10,000 B.C. to the present. Whenever we are reading a book and come across the date of an event, whether it be the rise of the Tang dynasty or the invention of the bra, we crawl under the bed, remove a crumpled-up piece of plastic bag that is stuffed into a tube in the bed frame, and pull the pen out. (Our ink supply is precious—whenever we get low, we have to devise a new scheme to steal another pen from the guards.) Then we remove the proper timeline from under the carpet—there are three, scrawled across stretches of cardboard—and log the new date. We assume that someday, our cell will be cleaned out and these will disappear. This makes it all the more urgent to commit everything to memory now.

  “When did the Montgomery bus boycott start?” I ask Josh, starting our twice-weekly history quiz.

  “1955.”

  “When did Genghis Khan unify the Mongols?”

  “1206.”

  “When did they convert to Islam?”

  “1295, in Persia.”

  “When was the first known European contact with North America?”

  “The Norse stayed in Newfoundland for a year in 1001.”

  “When was Al Jazeera founded?”

  “1996.”

  “Name the CIA-backed coups that you know of.”

  “Mohammad Mossadegh was overthrown in Iran in 1953. Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Those two were democratically elected. Trujillo in the Dominican Republic in 1961. Sukarno in Indonesia in 1965. Lumumba in the Congo in 1960—he was democratically elected. Salvador Allende of Chile in 1973—also democratically elected. Umm, Noriega in Panama in 1989. That’s all I can think of.”

  “You forgot the Dominican Republic in 1963,” I say, scanning the cardboard. “It was another elected president. A social democrat, I think. We don’t have his name here. There was also another coup in Guatemala that same year. There was something in Brazil in 1964—I think that’s all we have. Okay, when did the printing press come to Europe?”

  “Ahhh, Gutenberg’s printing press was 1439.”

  “When did the poet Hafez die?”

  “Aaaah,” he says, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “I think it was the 1300s?”

  “In 1389. When and where was the first city founded?”

  “Sumer in the fourth millennium.”

  “When did the Sassanids come to power in Iran?”

  “224 A.D.”

  “Damn, you’re good! Tell me what you know that happened in 1971.”

  “Hafez al-Assad became president of Syria. Bangladesh got independence from Pakistan. George Jackson was killed in San Quentin prison . . . All right, that’s enough. My brain is fried.”

  It’s after dinner and this is the most socializing we have done all day. When we do something like this, the tension seems to disappear. Earlier today, it felt like one of us could start screaming into the silence at any moment. Now, as we interact, things start to feel normal again. Sure, there is an underlying competition about who can remember the greater number of dates—and Josh almost always wins—but that tension is manageable.

  We don’t really have anything to say after we finish quizzing each other. What can we say at this point that hasn’t been said already? We are both tired of discussing ideas from books, because we almost always take different sides by default and the act of debating lost its excitement at least a year ago.

  Josh picks up the timeline that spans 1914 to the present, and I study 10,000 to 1000 B.C. Instead of talking, I will memorize. Memory is a muscle that must be worked. When I get free, I want my muscles to be stronger than they were when I came in. When I get free, my mind will be an encyclopedia. That might make all this time worthwhile.

  Spring 2011

  85. Sarah

  My lower back went out the day after the trial. For days I’ve been holed up in my friend’s apartment, with half a dozen pillows propped up around me and papers spread out all over the floor. I’m typing a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader that Salem asked me to write, to be delivered through one of his envoys.

  Our families, and a lot of influential people, have written dozens of such letters on our behalf—not even Senator Kerry’s got a response. The only one that did was written by Jafar Saidi, a former Black Panther linked to me through a family friend. Jafar escaped a prison sentence in the United States by fleeing to Iran, where he lived and taught English for years. He was later arrested in Tunisia, extradited back to the United States, and is now serving a thirty-five-year prison term in Pennsylvania.

  “The entire affair is the result of a grave misunderstanding,” Jafar wrote in his letter to the Supreme Leader. “All three have extensive histories struggling with and supporting the mustazafeen [the oppressed]. They are not agents of the American, or any other foreign government.”

  “We want to thank you for your service to the Islamic Republic,” the Supreme Leader wrote back a few months later. “We will take your request regarding the young Americans into consideration.” Any response at all from the Supreme Leader is extremely rare, but what is truly amazing is that the highest authority in Iran took time to address the concerns of a former Black Panther, sitting in his prison cell.

  The phone rings. I answer it, still typing my own letter.

  “Hello?”

  “Sarah, this is Sean Penn.”

  For a second I can’t place the name; then it clicks. Sean Penn. Sean Penn! The super-famous Sean Penn, the actor from Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Milk, and Dead Man Walking, the one who’s buddies with President Chávez of Venezuela—whose help our friends have been trying to enlist since this started.

  “Sean Penn,” I say, shaking my head and smiling to myself. “Hey!”

  “Sarah, I heard from Reese Erlich that you wanted to talk to me. What can I do to help?” Reese is a journalist who went to Iran with Sean in 2005. Originally, Reese got in touch with me because he’s a friend of the dentist who cleaned all the tea stains off my teeth when I first got out of prison. Reese interviewed me for a radio piece a few months ago and ever since then I’ve been hounding him to get me in touch with Sean. “Um . . . well, wow. It’s great to hear from you, Sean, really great. Are you in L.A.? I’m hoping to fly there in the next couple of days. Perhaps we can meet up?”

  “Yes, we can do that. I’ll do whatever I can to help. By the way, have you been able to reach Chávez on this issue?”

  Every time Shane, Josh, and I saw President Chávez on the news in Iran, we wondered why he wasn’t involved. Iran and Venezuela share a strong alliance. In 2007 they established a $2 billion fund aimed at financing projects in the developing world “to help thwart U.S. domination.” Venezuela was one of three member countries in the IAEA to vote against referring the Iranian nuclear file to the United Nations Security Council. Chávez supports Iran’s nuclear program and even offered to supply Iran with F-16 fighter jets and suspend crude oil exports to the United States if it attacks Iran.

  Perhaps equally as importa
nt, Chávez presents himself as a leftist progressive. How perfect for both of them to release the three progressive American hikers to one of the biggest thorns in America’s side. In a realpolitik sense, both presidents would benefit from the propaganda this would generate. How could Ahmadinejad afford to say no?

  A few days later, I’m in a cab on my way to meet Sean for dinner at Madeo Restaurant in West Hollywood. Sean’s date is the actress Scarlett Johansson, who looks exactly as gorgeous in person as she does on camera. I slide into the booth next to them and we begin to talk.

  I like Sean immediately. Something in his demeanor, his quick eyes that give you their complete attention only to suddenly take it away, gives me the impression of a man who carries more than his share of the world’s burdens. After talking for just a few minutes, I can tell that Sean gets my intensity. He gets that nothing will stop me, and I get that he respects that.

  “Sorry, Sarah, I don’t mean to interrupt you—I just can’t believe I’m looking over your shoulder at Elton John,” Sean says, breaking the spell.

  I turn around to look and Sean’s right; Elton John is sitting a few tables away from us. There are other famous people in the restaurant that I vaguely recognize and know I should be able to identify but I can’t. I’ve always been a little out of the loop when it comes to mainstream culture. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV much as a child, and even though I love film, I’ve never felt any kind of fascination with the personal lives of the actors behind the roles they play. I don’t feel nervous or starstruck. Actually, the great thing about meeting famous people is that you feel like you already know them. It’s funny because that’s something I’ve grown used to hearing all the time from strangers who’ve been following our case.

  I ask Sean about his work in Haiti, about the 55,000-person refugee camp he currently runs. “What made you decide to do it?” I ask. “Why did you become an activist?”

  “I’m not an activist,” he says. “I just do stuff because it needs to get done.”

  “Perfect,” I say. “That’s exactly what I need, to get this done.”

  After dinner, Scarlett and I squeeze into the front seat of Sean’s beat-up pickup. He speeds the truck out of the basement parking lot, jumps the curb, and races away so fast that the paparazzi can’t catch up with us. One good picture of him and Scarlett, he tells me, could be worth fifty thousand dollars. “And those bastards don’t deserve it,” he adds.

  Sean asks me about what happened right after we were captured. I usually don’t talk about those days, mostly because it feels like a long time ago and the present moment is much more urgent, but I decide to go into it, describing being handed off between different groups of men in suits, driven out of the city at night, seeing the man in the front seat cocking his gun and thinking we were going to be murdered.

  Scarlett asks me if I want a cigarette and I accept, the first I’ve had in years. Speeding through the streets of L.A. with my new friends, I think about how incredible it’s going to be to celebrate with Josh and Shane when they get out. It’s going to be hard to share them though. I can understand why Sean and Scarlett try so hard to keep their romance and personal lives to themselves. I feel the same way when people want to see the engagement ring Shane wove for me in prison or ask me to recount the story of the day he proposed to me. I can’t wait to be anonymous.

  The next morning, Sean and I get to work. First, we ask Noam Chomsky to coauthor a letter with Sean, imploring President Chávez to intervene on our behalf. The letter will be hand-delivered to Chávez along with a packet of articles and essays written by Shane, Josh, and me, proving our progressive credentials. Amazingly, we’re even able to dig up an unpublished essay in support of the Bolivarian Revolution written by Josh.

  Sean checks in with his friends at the State Department and they say Secretary Clinton has no problem with our initiative. We soon get news from the Venezuelan foreign minister that Chávez wants to help. I ask Sean if he’d be willing to fly down to Venezuela and meet with Chávez himself. Incredibly, he agrees without hesitation. A week later, I get the text I’ve been waiting for:

  Sean: I’m in Venezuela. Met with foreign minister. I do not want to create any false hopes, but it seems they are becoming quite focused on this, and conversations with the other side are good. I’ve gotten a lot of winks and smiles intended to assure me it will work out well. Proof will be in the pudding.

  Sarah: Really, this is incredible!!!!!!

  Sean: I only have one mantra, two humans in a frighteningly dangerous cage. One, also longing for his love . . . could be me, or my kids. My internal impatience is fueled.

  Sarah: Thank you for putting yourself in our shoes.

  Sean: I took the liberty to tell him that many in their families are being torn apart. Chávez is a very sentimental man. He took my meaning that this must happen quickly.

  A few days later, I hear back from Sean that a phone call has taken place between Chávez and Ahmadinejad. Chávez asked for Shane and Josh to be immediately released as a personal favor. He even offered to fly to Iran and pick them up himself if necessary.

  “Normally I don’t intervene in our judiciary, but for you—my brother—I will do it,” President Ahmadinejad replied.

  86. Josh

  It is the beginning of April and Day 7 of our hunger strike. Shane and I just played rock-paper-scissors, and he won. That means that he’ll go to hava khori, and I’ll stay in the cell and pretend that I’m too weak to go. I wish he’d volunteered to stay in, given all the times that I went to hava khori kucheek for him and Sarah. But I wasn’t doing that for trade, so I have no right to ask for compensation now. Our friendship is increasingly becoming about “rights” instead of giving. Anyway, I agreed to play rock-paper-scissors, and Shane hates when I even ask about changing an agreement.

  I’ve plenty of energy for hava khori and would love to go, even though I’d have to act weak and sit down pathetically in front of the security camera. There is something special about the open sky, especially during springtime when I smell the wildflowers blooming just beyond the walls.

  I have energy because I’m not actually hunger-striking. We stocked up on food in the days prior to this hunger strike. We requested extra flatbread, then sealed some in plastic bags and dried more into chips. We hoarded butter, cheese, milk, yogurt, nuts, juice, crackers, oranges, apples, bananas, carrots, cucumbers, cabbage, tomatoes, onions, tahini, jelly, and honey. The night before we started, Ehsan happened to be working. He’s been working here again and he’s started talking to us whenever he’s on duty. He brought a plate of five extra hamburgers—we stuck them in the fridge. The excess white rice from last week stores nicely in the freezer section of our fridge. We can even make tea with the hot water from the shower. We keep the food hidden, though, because we want them to think we aren’t eating.

  Before we started “fasting,” we agreed to ration our bread, rice, butter, and other items to prepare to be without meals. We allotted fifteen days’ worth of food because Dumb Guy is on vacation for Nowruz, the Persian New Year. As the days progress, the mold has colonized our bread. I’ve preferred the peace of mind of saving more for later—even if I lose some pieces to mold. Shane has wanted to eat more bread. So instead of sitting anxiously while Shane eats our collective bread, we decided to privatize it.

  On Day 1, almost everything was collective. One week later, every morsel of food is privatized. It feels like a failure, like I am not being selfless enough. Privatizing avoids the difficult conversations required to agree on our consumption. It’s a less generous way to think and to live. With privatization, I watch Shane vigilantly as he divides the yogurt that we share at lunchtime.

  It’s odd, because Shane and I have discussed cultures that live in scarcity, like the rebels he visited in Darfur and the people in places I’ve been in the forests of India, and we talked about how they share food partially because they have so little. (We’ve also calculated our calorie intake while “fasting” and we act
ually consume more calories than these people.) Yet we are doing the opposite. When we felt abundant, we shared; now we don’t. But splitting the yogurt makes life easier.

  With all the food we’re consuming, we’ve struggled with how to deal with the trash: orange peels, cracker wrappers, yogurt containers, etc. First we took down the onion plant on the windowsill and stuck our organic waste under the topsoil. That filled up very quickly. Then we sealed our trash in a bag and stuffed it under the carpet, but soon a mound bulged from the floor. Next, we double-sealed bags of garbage and hid them in folded sweatshirts, but it still stank. Our last strategy has been to throw the organic waste down the toilet and the wrappers under the carpet.

  That didn’t work at all. The janitor had to plunge our toilet because I didn’t shred the orange peels into small enough pieces before sending them down the drain. On the third day, our bathroom clogged and flooded with orange peels and our feces. I got down on my hands and knees and used a plastic spoon to remove each orange peel, one at a time, from the flooding toilet water before the janitor came so that he wouldn’t see our waste-disposal scheme. Shane wasn’t going to scoop up the orange peels. He had told me to shred them smaller when I disposed of them.