The President's Gardens

by Muhsin al-Ramli

  “After a few days, we noticed some unfamiliar faces among us. They were Iraqis, like us, and they acted like prisoners, but there were small things that were different. They wouldn’t reveal the names of their division, their brigade, or sometimes even their battalions, and they didn’t recognize the names of our generals or know about other matters inside Iraq. We realized they were people the Iraqi government had previously expelled on the pretext that they were of Iranian descent and must be Iranian sympathizers. Since the first day, these exiles had been slipped in among us as spies to distinguish officers from soldiers, discover our military specialties, which province, religion, or sect we belonged to, who held a position of authority or supported the ruling party, and gather any information they could about the military and society in general. After we’d identified them, we spread the word in whispers among ourselves, taking care to avoid interacting with them.

  “They sent us men from the security forces, the secret police, and the religious government, as well as those we called the ‘zealots,’ who lectured us daily. Among them was a fat creature named Abu Zulfa, who told us, ‘I bring you good news! The war will only end with the liberation of Iraq, when we free the final resting places of our holy imams from your grasp, you infidel dogs. Then, at last, they will be in the hands of true believers. For as you know, there can be no peace with the tyrants that rule you.’

  “After that, they began dividing us up and setting us apart based on the districts where we were born, our religious affiliations, and our views on such things as the war and the regimes in Iraq and Iran. We tried to avoid talking about anything related to politics or religion, but they were relentless. There was another inspection, and they tore up every photograph they found, whether of relatives or friends, or sights within Iraq, even just pictures of the bank of a river, a palm tree, an ancient building, or a statue.

  “I asked my friend, Dr. Behnam, to teach me about Christianity because I had claimed to be a Christian like him in order to save myself from their examinations. For his part, Behnam wasn’t devout, but he taught me some of the general principles he knew. They grouped us with the unbelievers. The pressure on us was lighter than on the others in the beginning, but they quickly began to torture us like the rest and force us to utter the two professions of faith, to conduct the ritual prayers, to memorize the Qur’an, to pray for the ayatollah of their revolution, and to repeat the slogans of their republic, in the hope that we would eventually convert.

  “They isolated us completely from the outside world. No radio, no TV, no newspapers. Instead they brought us more and more religious books and pamphlets written by their ayatollah until they had established a private library inside the camp.

  “The camp was widely known as ‘the Cage.’ I would have preferred something different, since a cage implied that we were animals. I have become convinced, however, that man’s evil, bestial nature far outweighs his humanity. Deep down, every man hides a primitive wild animal, kept in check by society. But that animal escapes as soon as some emergency weakens the warden—like a power cut, for instance, or the chaos of war.

  “They would count us at the first light of dawn, something they repeated four times a day. Under the supervision of those whom they called ‘evangelists,’ they forced us to attend lectures, prayers, and readings of religious books. These evangelists were religious men who came from Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, the Gulf, and Afghanistan, and would scourge us every day with their sermons, their fables, and their stories and names from the past until we began to know them by heart. They showered the most glorious praise upon the Iranian regime and, by contrast, cast the dirtiest insults and curses upon ours. They would also broadcast these things over the camp’s loudspeakers.

  “Abu Zulfa visited us most often, and one evening, after we returned to the hall from one of his lectures, Behnam whispered a grumbled complaint in my ear. ‘My God, brother! They are killing us with this . . . this glorified dickhead.’ That made me laugh, and I somehow managed a riposte. ‘With his beard and turban, he actually looks like your uncircumcised penis!’ We burst out laughing until everyone in the hall turned to look at us. That was the first laughter to escape any of our lips since we had become prisoners.

  “After that, we began to see more smiles and hear more laughter, more sarcastic comments. That first laugh was like a revelation—it spread an air of relaxation and eased the weight of our oppression. We—Behnam and I, that is—would look at each other and smile every time Abu Zulfa was mentioned. Don’t be offended, Tariq! We were referring specifically to this Abu Zulfa and not any other bearded man wearing a turban.

  “Behnam took the sermons seriously and read with real intellectual curiosity. At night he would whisper to me his doubts and his critiques of what he had read during the day. He would talk to me and ask me questions since he didn’t dare reveal his thoughts to the teachers. One of the things I remember him saying was, ‘They have created an entire religion based upon historical events and things that took place after the Prophet delivered his message and died. It’s history and not a religion, brother. If you separate everything that is actually religion from what is history, all these books and theses of theirs burst like a bubble.’ I replied, ‘You did that with Christianity too.’ He thought for a while and agreed. ‘Yes, you’re right. It seems that all religions are like that.’

  “I, on the other hand, read differently. To be more precise, I didn’t read in any real sense of the word. I would stare for hours at the shapes of letters and words, contemplating these strange and astonishing symbols that spoke in silence. I would imitate them. I would imitate the books, the writing, and the letters by speaking in silence. I would think of who had created them, how and when, where his bones now lay, and what meaning they had for him. I imagined the worker who arranged the letters in the printing press; I imagined his family situation, his anxieties, how his boss made him suffer. I thought about the paper: how it became paper, what tree it was from and what kind of life that tree had, what shade it gave, which sparrows visited it, the weather it had endured. What I mean is that things like this would stray into my mind while reading. And when I actually did read, I would turn the pages searching for words and expressions that were new, strong, and solid in their composition. I took more interest in contemplating the beauty of their rhetoric, their sound and style, than in discerning their meaning. I used that to strengthen my abilities with language in order to communicate with myself more effectively.

  “They forced us—even the Christians—to take part in the ritual of weeping, pounding our chests, and slashing our foreheads during the festival of Ashura. Of course, as a way of applying pressure, they withheld food, water, sleep, cigarettes, and all of life’s daily pleasures from those of us who refused to accept their theory of the imam’s absolute leadership. We got used to that deprivation.

  “Those who responded positively got the lion’s share of food and drink and were treated better—rewarded with additional cigarettes and blankets. They even began putting them in charge of tasks inside the halls and the camp, such as food distribution, managing the library, organizing the ritual washing and prayers, keeping lines orderly, and taking charge of the halls, as well as acting as intermediaries between prisoners and the guards and camp administration. These people were classified into ranks. Some of them were called ‘guides,’ and above them were the ‘guides superior,’ followed by ‘dazban,’ whatever that meant. Little by little, they were given a mandate to exercise the captor’s power over the prisoners, and before you knew it, they had authority within the camp—some of them even took on the role of evangelist itself.

  “As for all the rest, they were the ‘misguided,’ the secularists, the unbelievers, and the partisans of our regime’s infidel ideology, even if they fasted and prayed, lining up to face Mecca just like the others. A torrential flood of propaganda came our way about the snow-white purity of the Iranian people, depicting Iranian society as the utopia that poets, philosopher
s, and prophets had dreamed of. They formed the ideal city, the model for correctly executing divine law.

  “Every evangelist in the camp would be surrounded by a group of hypocrites, sidling up and seeking something for himself. They conveyed information to our captors about all our movements and our whispered conversations.

  “Meanwhile, they were starving and tormenting us, mentally and physically, using our fear and our desire. I was sometimes forced to wash someone’s socks or underwear for the sake of a few cigarettes. The punishment for anyone who resisted became progressively worse. They would make us stand barefoot on hot rocks under the summer sun, and during the winter we’d stand out in the snow. Or they would dunk us in cold water, beat us with canes, starve us, make us crawl over concrete on our hands and knees, put us in solitary confinement and lash us with whips and electrical wires. This was on top of the shameful relentless insults. I can’t tell you how many of us died under that torture!

  “At the same time, they were forming a sort of regime among their new prison followers, calling these groups the ‘penitents.’ These people were permitted to rule over us, and they became even more cruel and violent toward us than the Iranians themselves. The penitents were allowed to leave the camp, take part in public celebrations, attend Friday prayers in the nearby prayer halls or at the mosque, and to meet with important figures in authority. Visits to the religious mausoleums were organized for them.

  “These people began to erase their past lives and enter a new one. One example was a young man named Majid, from Karbala, who didn’t waver even when it came to punishing his own father, who was imprisoned with him. As Majid put it, ‘I want only the best for him, but he insists on the path of disobedience.’ With my own eyes, I saw Majid twist his father’s ears and then use pliers to crush them, ignoring his screams of pain.

  “Some of them were more fanatically committed to the theory of the Guardianship of the Jurist than the Iranians were. They denied their past entirely, creating in themselves a personal history that was more in line with what they now believed and the purity of their new ideas. They planted in their souls a seed of hate for their original country and everything connected to it. You would see them refer to the toilet as Baghdad—farts were the national anthem and dirty sandals the Iraqi flag. Some of them became obsessed with everything Iranian, even the air, the cats, the dogs, the trees, the flies, and the garbage cans.

  “They would go out for intensive training sessions at the Varamin Camp, to the south of Tehran. This camp was overseen by a converted officer named Ahmad Abd al-Amir, who would observe everyone’s behavior to be sure of the sincerity of their conversion. Afterward, they would be sent to the front line, and in this way, some of them took part in battles such as Haji Homaran, Halabja, and al-Faw.”

  “In all of history, there’s never been anything like it!” said Tariq.

  “On the contrary, this has been going on every day since the time of Adam and his two sons.”

  “I mean a huge brainwashing operation like this, such that prisoners would go on to fight against their own country.”

  Ibrahim broke in. “I know Tariq, Abdullah. What he means is that he has been reading more history than anything else lately. Don’t pay any attention to him. Continue your story, I beg you!”

  CHAPTER 10

  Death Rock

  “Some of the penitents who were successful at putting pressure on the rest of the prisoners were transferred to other camps where there was greater resistance. They called this transfer a ‘conquest mission.’ Those of us who hadn’t converted were expelled to camps with worse buildings, worse facilities, and more cruelty.

  “As for me and Dr. Behnam, our lot was Fort Samnan, a camp surrounded by barbed wire in a valley rich in iron deposits. The surrounding landscape was completely bare, desolate. We didn’t see even one tree. There were no birds in the sky, and no animals, just spiders, spiny lizards, scorpions, snakes, and strange insects. Every now and then at night, we would hear the howls of distant wolves echoing through the mountains around us.

  “They split us up, eight to a tent. We were crammed so tight that it was hard to sleep. On hot nights, we’d sleep half outside the tent, while on cold nights, we’d huddle together so close we were almost embracing one another. Whenever the food supplies were delivered late—which was most of the time—our meals would consist of a single spoonful of rice. Or else they would gather up any grass or plants they found growing in the cracks between the rocks and boil it with a little oil, salt, and onion to make a strange soup that made our intestines run with diarrhea until we got used to it. We rejoiced when spring came because we found a variety of plants, some of which we recognized, whereas in summer and winter we were wracked with hunger. The best part about being there was that we were further from the daily observation of the Iranian secret police and the exiles from Iraq, some of whom had been appointed officers.

  “The commander at the camp was named Faraj Allah, ‘God’s Delight.’ This officer was heartless. He had spent his entire life, ever since the time of the Shah, working in prison administration. When conditions deteriorated to a hellish degree that couldn’t be endured, we asked for a visit from the International Red Cross, but they refused, calling it an infidel organization. They also didn’t want the name and number of each prisoner to be recorded because that would make them responsible for us later on.

  “One day, when we realized they would keep killing more of us so long as no one had a record of who was there, we informed Faraj Allah that we wouldn’t cooperate or receive more visits from the secret police or the evangelists until a Red Cross delegation came to see us. We kept refusing and went on to stage a demonstration. They put it down by sending squads of soldiers into the camp. We fought back with rocks, tent stakes, and our bare hands. They killed some of us and wounded many more. Faraj Allah warned us he would execute whoever didn’t obey his commands, and he ordered everyone who participated in the demonstrations to be punished. They tied our arms and legs to bedposts and beat us with whips and canes, or with rough electrical wires that were stripped at the end and separated into four copper claws. The blows would number somewhere between eighty and a hundred, but the person being beaten would faint after the twentieth, blood oozing from his back. They beat us in front of the other prisoners to teach them a lesson.

  “Of course, our conditions didn’t improve. On the contrary, things got worse. Ah! I hate even to recall the details of that ordeal. Illness and disease broke out. They continued the transfers, taking some of us to other camps and bringing in new prisoners. These transfers were a way for us to get some news, hear stories, and learn the names of the other camps and what they were like. We learned there were camps in the Khorasan Mountains, and that the worst by far was called Bast Sank or Sanke Bast, which means ‘Death Rock.’

  “Death Rock was a legendary underground prison. Those who entered its depths never saw the sun. Its prisoners were tortured with the most brutal techniques imaginable. Fingernails and teeth ripped out, limbs and genitals crushed. They also tormented them psychologically, even as deliberate neglect caused illnesses to fester and allowed scabies to eat away their skin. Abu Jamal al-Baghdadi, who was transferred to our camp, told us about that. He had been taken captive in the district of Shush in March 1982. Abu Jamal said, ‘It truly is a rock of death—a well, a tunnel descending to the netherworld, a gate to hell.’

  “Meanwhile, other prisoners told us about other camps, such as Warak Makhsus, Barnadak, al-Dawudiyya, Karkan, Manjil, Sari, the Palace of Fayruza, Barujund, Camp Hashmateh, and Dazban. There was also Camp Jirjan, which is the one that the Red Cross wanted to inspect. The Iranians hurriedly exchanged the prisoners there with ones loyal to Iran, and the Red Cross delegation was surprised to find that they refused to receive them. When the delegation finally did enter the camp, a violent quarrel erupted between the prisoners. Shots were fired, killing some prisoners and wounding two members of the delegation. The Red Cross called on the Unite
d Nations to form a committee to investigate the incident. After this—but before the investigatory committee arrived—the prisoners were swapped with others to hide what had happened.

  “Our second demonstration—staged four years after the first—was larger. They responded with bullets and killed Diyah, Ali, Nayif, Yaacob, Zankana, and poor Abu Majid from Karbala, who had become old and feeble. As for the wounded, we treated them in our special way. Dr. Behnam extracted the bullets with a spoon, and he was forced to stitch the wounds with a needle we used to patch our clothes and with threads that we pulled from our nylon socks. They denied us food and water for three days. That’s when the officer Faraj Allah returned from his holiday. He ordered that the camp be surrounded and for them to open fire on us with rubber bullets while he yelled over the loudspeaker, ‘You unbelievers! You will die here like dogs! Know that instructions have been sent down to us to reduce your numbers by twenty-five percent!’

  “They prevented us from going to the toilets. We couldn’t even leave the tents to relieve ourselves on the ground outside. People were fainting out of hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. On the fourth day, soldiers attacked. They beat us mercilessly with clubs. They broke two of my ribs, and . . . and they killed Behnam. Dr. Behnam, my friend.”

  Abdullah fell silent and bent his head as his throat tightened up. Tears came to Ibrahim’s eyes, and Tariq murmured words of consolation and religious piety. The silence lasted so long they thought Abdullah wasn’t going to resume speaking, but after a while, he took a piece of watermelon to moisten his throat. Then he lit a new cigarette, taking a deep drag through it as though he hadn’t been smoking the whole time. He continued:

  “After Behnam’s murder, the weight of my captivity doubled, and my inner death deepened. My spirit dispensed with speaking and listening—with everything—and I began to isolate myself. I wouldn’t sleep for days on end, and at other times I would sleep like a dead man. I didn’t join anybody in anything. I didn’t pay attention to what went on around me—nothing could hold my interest. It was as though I was sealed inside a stone coffin. I shared a smile, a sorrow, or a word with no man. It was as though I had lost all perception, such that at times they would call me Death Rock.”