by Shane Bauer
When guards come by, I pretend to be bedridden—instantly summoning my memory of how I felt during real hunger strikes. It feels like we’re losing this hunger strike, but that seems appropriate. We started it almost mechanically, without any zeal.
Our threat to strike every thirty days is more about our power struggle with the interrogators than out of any present need for connection to the outside world. Letters don’t nourish me like they used to. They are still sweet and wonderful, but I haven’t cried reading them in months. I don’t read them as voraciously as I used to. Sometimes I don’t even read Shane’s family’s letters until the next day. This hunger strike is only for Shane’s sisters’ letters. I wanted to demand Alex’s also. Though I receive some of his letters, some of them are missing. Shane insisted that we keep the strike focused only on the most salient censorship, and I conceded.
Deception pervades our whole effort. Nurses come to check on us, but we refuse medical care because a blood pressure check would show that we are faking it. Perhaps if our hearts were more in it, if we had more intention around this strike, I wouldn’t have clogged the toilet with orange peels. Maybe Shane wouldn’t have been caught carrying a thermos from the shower filled with hot water. Simply by eating, we’re taking ourselves out of the right mindset.
Shane and I think the guards are skeptical. Shane asks me if I think guards have some instinctual, animalistic knowledge of when other humans are starving. He knows I’m apt to believe in the quasi-magical capabilities of the unconscious. I do think the guards know, and I fear we’re losing credibility daily.
By Day 18, I feel like moldy bread crumbs at the bottom of a clear plastic bag. As much as I lack food and nutrition, I crave hava khori. We actually ran out of food and haven’t eaten in three days. Every few days Shane asks me if it’s okay if we extend this hunger strike for his sisters’ letters. He would do the same for me, I tell myself whenever the meal cart comes around, taunting us with warm, aromatic sustenance. Plus, it’s important that we don’t let the interrogators win.
Dumb Guy shows up and I follow him to the interrogation room. I put my hands on the desk and slowly lower myself into a chair across from him, exaggerating how weak I am. I go alone to the interrogation room and do the negotiating. Shane pretends to be bedridden and ill. Dumb Guy knows Shane has had recent medical problems and we want to scare him. Dumb Guy sits on the opposite side of the desk, watching attentively. He looks around. “Where’s Shane?”
“He’s bedridden,” I say coolly. “When he stands up, he gets lightheaded and has bad headaches.”
“Our letters, our letters . . .” I give a dramatic pause and close my eyes. This is our last chance to save face. Shane and I already decided we’re going to eat tomorrow even if he doesn’t bring our letters. I pretend to suddenly remember my train of thought, “We need our letters. Shane’s sisters’ letters. Both Nicole’s and Shannon’s. Why don’t you bring them?”
Dumb Guy speaks gently. “Have you eaten?” I shake my head and keep my eyes down, half covered by my eyelids.
“Seventeen days,” I say, telling myself I’m not actually lying because I haven’t uttered a complete sentence. For some reason, it matters to me that I don’t speak a lie while I do everything in my power to deceive him.
Dumb Guy’s attention shifts to the doorway. My interrogator enters the room with a tray of food—rice mixed with lentils and a few dates. A couple kebabs and ketchup packets sit patiently on a separate plate next to two bowls of yogurt mixed with cucumber. He slides two manila envelopes toward me. “Will you eat?”
“I will if Shannon’s and Nicole’s letters are in here.” I open Shane’s envelopes and sift through the stack of letters, sorting them into piles by sender. When I get through the letters, I tell Dumb Guy that I need to check with Shane first. We’ve rehearsed this drama. Escorted by a guard, I walk back to the cell, letters in hand.
I cough and make loud footsteps to make sure Shane knows I am coming down the hallway. His neck is barely elevated above his pillow. His water bottle leans against the edge of his mattress by some dirty tissues and the remote control. The guard stays in the hallway and doesn’t speak English. “Okay, Shane,” I say. There is no triumph in my voice, just relief. “They brought letters. There are some from everyone. But I gotta go back and tell Dumb Guy we will eat. I’ll be back shortly with food. It’s kebab.”
I chew my kebab in front of Dumb Guy. The taste of warm protein immediately soothes me. Dumb Guy takes advantage of his captive audience.
“Josh, you have to help Shane. He does not know what is best. You know this is very difficult for him. Can you see that?”
“Yes, it is difficult for Shane.”
“Shane is not very religious. You are Jewish. Jews are more religious than Christians. You have to help him. He needs to pray—you can teach him how.” I bite my tongue at the absurdity of his statements, and he continues. “He is too angry. That is why he is having his stomach problems.” For a moment I think about all of Shane’s recent trips to the doctor and how he has less stomach pain when he meditates. “I don’t want Shane to know certain things. If he knows about everything, it will make life more difficult for him.”
“You censor our letters!” I blurt out.
He always insists that he gives us all the letters that he receives. We’ve never known if he’s lying or if it’s his superiors who withhold our letters from us. I bite my tongue again, hoping he’ll continue to betray himself.
“No. I told you. I don’t censor your letters, but I worry about Shane. Do not tell him about this, but Sarah is not doing so well. She is having a hard time.”
In her letters, she wrote about the difficult conference calls and personality clashes, but what does Dumb Guy know that I don’t?
“Shane is angry. If he knows about this, it will only make life more difficult for him. Josh, please do not tell him anything I told you.”
Dumb Guy thinks I would keep a secret from Shane. He seems sincere— that is the most disturbing part. I think he is also trying to use the fact that I went on hunger strike for Shane’s sisters’ letters to drive a wedge between us. Shane and I have our differences, but we’ll always stand together against Dumb Guy.
As I slowly rise to leave, I assure Dumb Guy that if he is really worried about our health, the best thing he could do is to stop censoring our letters. They will make us healthier—not least because we won’t need to hunger-strike for them again in thirty days.
87. Sarah
4-15-11 Last night, I had to call the Internet service help line at the hotel where I’m staying. I’ve always rushed through these types of calls, but I found myself totally content to stay on the line with a friendly voice. It’s not often that I admit that I’m lonely. I know that you guys want me to appreciate my freedom even though you don’t have it yet. I appreciate it in small ways more than anything, the wind on my face, a new human being, a song. The initial incredible beauty of it has diminished without the two of you. I was recently diagnosed with PTSD—I’ve informed our judge that this is why I can’t come back for the trial. I don’t want you guys to worry about me. A lot of my symptoms, emotional detachment, insomnia, hypervigilance and hyperarousal, are helping me cope. It just amazes me that the families have been able to keep this up for so long.
For the last two months, the campaign has been a black hole. We pour everything we have into it, every ounce of hope and energy, every waking minute, yet nothing ever seems to come out. I feel like I’ve been through fire, like my skin has hardened into a thick, protective shell, but underneath I’ve never felt so vulnerable.
I talked to Salem last week and the news was not good. He said there was a meeting with all the Iranian authorities involved in our case. He said that there were “certain elements” present that would like to do Josh and Shane harm, but that after much discussion, they realized that “all they could do was continue to deprive them of their liberty.”
I hate all the euphemisms and
double talk. They are already doing them harm. What they mean is execution—hanging the innocent “hikers” by their necks. The fact that Josh’s and Shane’s execution is on the table, even if only for fanatics like Judge Salavati, makes it impossible to deny just how high the stakes are and just how far off freedom might be.
That’s why we can’t slow down. The most important task I have is to continuously keep the urgency alive for key players like Iraq, Oman, and Venezuela—though lately, each of these tracks have been hopelessly riddled with setbacks.
The president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, traveled to Iran last month, ostensibly for the Iranian New Year, Nowruz. Ahmadinejad persuaded Talabani to take time from his busy schedule to attend the celebrations, under the pretext that he’d leave Iran with Shane and Josh in tow. When Talabani got there, Ahmadinejad avoided him for days. Finally cornered, the Iranian president produced an executive order addressed to the Revolutionary Court, ordering the charges against Shane and Josh to be dropped. He said it would be delivered after the holiday. Talabani couldn’t wait around another three days—so he left an envoy in Tehran to bring Josh and Shane back to Baghdad. After the holiday, his envoy was snubbed.
Then there’s President Chávez. A month after agreeing to release Josh and Shane as a personal favor to his “brother” in Venezuela, Ahmadinejad asked for just three more months to get it done. When those three months expired, Chávez said he was going to pull a Houdini and show up in Tehran unannounced, asking for what he’d already been promised. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Then, we find out President Chávez is in the hospital battling cancer. Then he’s seeking treatment in Cuba. “Things are on hold while Chávez heals from surgery,” I hear from Sean. “He won’t be able to travel any time soon. I’m so sorry, Sarah.”
No one’s saying they’re giving up, but to me they seem all too content to chalk up these setbacks to diplomacy-as-usual. It’s impossible to know which, if any, of these efforts will bring Josh and Shane home.
The families ask the State Department for a phone call with Hillary and she agrees. With nothing else promising on the horizon, we broach the never-popular subject of a clandestine prisoner exchange, in particular involving Shahrazad Mir Gholikhan.
“The State Department has already passed on our positive recommendation to the White House on this issue. I recommend you take it up with them strongly,” Hillary says.
“We already have, Madame Secretary,” Alex responds. “Many times. They tell us to take it up with you.”
“Well, we can go back to the Department of Justice and push them, but really this decision lies with the president.”
All this finger-pointing reminds me of when I was still at Evin. Every time Shane, Josh, and I asked our interrogators to justify our treatment, they would always pass the buck—it was the judge’s decision, our government’s fault. They never assumed responsibility themselves.
“Madame Secretary,” I begin, “there’s something I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.”
“Yes, Sarah.”
“Why did the FBI lose interest in our case after the first few weeks? And why hasn’t the CIA been involved? They’re usually the ones who arrange prisoner swaps, right?”
“Generally, yes, that’s correct.”
“Isn’t it true that without CIA or FBI participation, this will never get done?”
“Sarah,” she says, then pauses. “I’m sorry, but I can’t speak for any other agency, much less their motives.”
Usually, when Americans are held hostage or kidnapped in another country, it’s the FBI that gets involved. They’ve saved journalists from being executed by the Taliban and even orchestrated a prisoner swap of U.S. and Russian spies in 2010 while I was still sitting in a cell in Iran. Recently, the CIA got Raymond Davis out after he killed two people in a gun battle on the streets of Pakistan. Obama called for Davis’s release, citing “diplomatic immunity.” The thing is, he wasn’t a diplomat; he was an ex–CIA agent and a contractor for Xe, a private security firm formerly known as Blackwater. Less than a month after the murders—while thousands of Pakistanis protested in the streets, calling for his execution—the Pakistani government was persuaded to accept blood money for the victims; then Davis was acquitted and sent home. Why won’t the CIA at least try to do for Shane and Josh the same that they do for murderers and real spies?
For the last six months, the representatives of the three main countries involved in negotiations with the Iranian government on our behalf—Iraq, Oman, and Venezuela—have all reported directly to us. We have more information than our government about our case. On our weekly calls with the State Department, more often than not we are the ones updating them.
Not to mention that the people from the State Department’s Iran Desk assigned to our case have never even been to Iran and don’t even speak or read Farsi. The State Department has been successful in convincing many countries (like Brazil, Qatar, Turkey, and Canada) to raise our case with the Iranian government, thereby keeping diplomatic pressure strong. They’ve also tried to be creative, like the tweet State Department spokesperson Philip Crowley sent to President Ahmadinejad on his birthday, asking him to release Josh and Shane. “Your fifty-fourth year was full of lost opportunities,” he wrote. “Hope in your fifty-fifth year you will open Iran to a different relationship with the world.”
The State Department has also missed a lot of opportunities. Just weeks after my release, I met with Imad Moustapha, the Syrian ambassador. He told me that Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president and one of Iran’s closest allies, had already expressed his willingness to intervene on our behalf. They were just waiting for the U.S. government to ask them. In fact, our families asked Secretary Clinton to do just that and she agreed—but failed to follow through.
I have no doubt that the United States wants Shane and Josh freed, but I’ve come to believe that they are willing to risk almost nothing to make that happen.
On a State Department conference call leading up to a huge press conference we’re doing with Muhammad Ali in DC, organized mostly by Josh’s brother, Alex, we decide it’s time to stop asking their permission and use what little leverage we have.
“You know,” Shane’s mom, Cindy, begins, “reporters are constantly asking us what our government’s doing for us. If they ask us at this press conference, we’re going to give them an honest answer.”
“I understand your frustration, Cindy,” the Iran Desk representative, Michael Spring, replies, “but you realize that if you publicly criticize the U.S. government, you’ll be sending the wrong message to Iran.”
He knows there’s a lot to be critical of. Instead of addressing those concerns, Michael counters our threat with another, more sinister one. He suggests that criticizing the U.S. government’s inaction could embolden Iran, that we’d be doing their bidding. As long as Iran is getting something out of this, this logic continues, they are going to hold on tight to their last two hostages. Michael’s playing on our deepest fears that something we say or do could make the situation worse for Shane and Josh, but we’re used to that. The Iranian government, through Salem, Livia, and other diplomats, has given us similar warnings about the consequences of criticizing Iran.
With respect to diplomacy, nothing of consequence has happened since my release. Josh and Shane have already been in Iranian custody much longer than any other Westerners or dual nationals in recent history. Two German journalists were released last October after four months in prison. The American hostages in 1979 were released after 444 days, a mark Shane and Josh surpassed six months ago. We’ve been waiting for court for over twenty months—if the United States was going to do something substantial, it would have already done it.
At times, the stress is almost unmanageable. Last week, I broke out in hives all over my body when I found out some campaign funds we’ve been expecting didn’t come through. I feel defeated, as though I might sink down into this abyss of bad news and never get up. I thought I was going to
be able to make a difference—that having me on the outside to fight for them would make a difference. Sometimes I wish I were back in prison, where everything hurt but I was responsible only for myself. But that was what I hated the most about prison—nothing I did mattered. I wish I could rest, have faith that this will all work out on its own. But I can’t. I don’t. It won’t.
Last week, a stranger in a restaurant asked the waitress to pass me a clandestine note scribbled on a receipt. “Just remember we’re all with you,” he wrote. Even at my lowest points, there’s always someone or something to remind me I’m not alone out here. With so much love and support I know I’ll always find a way to keep going. No matter what happens.
88. Josh
Together, we construct a spice rack by sticking plastic spoons into the radiator and we make a new bookshelf with a food tray. We dust the TV, polish the cell door, rearrange the photographs of friends and family, and tear world maps out of books and tape them to the wall. We reorient the beds so it’s easier to exercise. For the first time, we borrow an electric vacuum, and Ehsan allows us to trade in our dirty wool blankets for clean ones. We make the room ours—both mine and Shane’s—more than it has ever been.
But, as we check off more and more items from our to-do list and the days pass, the specter of going back to the tedious routine of reading, eating, and exercising encroaches. Tensions that we brushed aside during the hunger strike resurface.
When he turns on the TV to check the time, I habitually crack my toes. When I turn the pages in my book loudly, he snorts. Through body language we engage in a continuous, and half-conscious conversation. When I try to talk about it with Shane, he says he doesn’t even notice the dynamic.
I need to take a walk, drink a beer, call a friend. I meditate, write in my journal, and read, but all I need is the space I don’t have.