A Door between Us

by Ehsaneh Sadr

  Well, not quite. Azar took that last thought back. Still, she’d been lucky, she reminded herself. She’d been lucky.

  Her first substantial memories of her imprisonment began in a medical facility where she awoke in pain and shackled to the bed. The doctors wouldn’t say what all her injuries were but seemed to be sincere in their attempts to reassure her that she’d be all right. She guessed she probably had a concussion and a couple of broken ribs. Her nose was obviously broken, and she had a patch over her left eye. She feared she’d lost its function for good and was greatly relieved when the patch was finally removed to note that she could see just fine, although splitting headaches plagued her at random moments. She asked her caregivers about the searing pain in her right hand and was told she may have sprained a finger but that nothing was broken. She was severely bruised and tender all along her left arm, back, and buttocks but was actually surprised at how minimal the permanent damage was given the ferocity of the beating she’d received. Of course, she wasn’t exactly an expert on beatings and their accompanying injuries.

  Regular visits from Intelligence agents began while she was still in the medical facility. This time, she’d anticipated them and tried to prepare by deciding on and mentally tucking away the parts of her life she wished to keep hidden. But her amateurish efforts were completely overwhelmed by their professional arts.

  It wasn’t that they ever actually hurt her or even threatened further physical pain. On the contrary, they asked after her health and comfort with real or well-feigned concern. One of them even apologized for the events that led to her hospitalization.

  No, it was her human impulses rather than fear of further physical pain that they were able to use against her, especially when they transferred her to a solitary cell in Evin. She’d already heard enough about the prison experience not to be entirely surprised by the way her craving for autonomy and predictability created a barely controllable desire to cooperate in any way necessary to secure even small freedoms such as access to pen and paper. What was astonishing and humbling to witness, however, was the way her primal need for human connection could be so easily manipulated.

  Azar knew it was by design that one of her two main interrogators was warm and friendly while the other was accusatory and insulting. It was a classic “good cop / bad cop” strategy. But understanding the calculations behind their behavior did little to mediate the instinctual emotional response it elicited. Isolated, bored, and in continued discomfort, Azar found herself almost looking forward to visits with the kindly older gentleman who expressed his faith in her loyalty to the Islamic Republic, apologized for the gruffness of his counterpart, and gently urged her cooperation so that he could get her home to her family as quickly as possible. To her shame, she found herself torn between a deep-seated emotional desire to please him and an ever-diminishing intellectual awareness of the man’s actual role and intent.

  Then there was the sheer mental exhaustion produced by the barrage of continual questioning on topics ranging from the political and personal to the inane. The same questions would be asked repeatedly in different ways by different people and even slight variations in her answers, all of which she was forced to write out on school paper, would result in accusations that she was lying. She learned that they often operated like bargain hunters in the bazaar seeking to throw the shopkeeper off by appearing to have their hearts set on one item while feigning indifference to another in order to drive its price down. Not infrequently, after a particularly intense session where her questioners would seem to be determined to learn as much as they could about, for example, a particular client’s case, Azar would surmise from subsequent interactions that they’d really been looking for something else entirely, such as her whereabouts on a given day.

  The whole experience was mentally and physically grueling. Bit by bit, Azar became increasingly adept at dealing with her interrogators. She learned to hide her panic when she feared she might have given something away. She learned the critical importance of congratulating herself on each and every minute she managed to stay silent rather than lamenting those when she’d said too much. She learned not to spend time thinking of her boys, how they were doing with her parents, whether her studious Hossein was still determined to be the top of his class, whether Muhammadreza was still beating all his friends at Ping-Pong. And she learned to use the excuse of her concussion and splitting headaches to repeat the phrases “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  But any progress on this front was entirely undercut by her growing restlessness and depression over being caged and shorn of the friend and family relationships that had always anchored her identity with necessary human reflections of who she was. Her memories of the strong and confident woman that bore her name and once strode powerfully among the living started to seem like distant dreams, and she’d started to ask herself what difference it would really make to tell her interrogators all they wished to hear.

  After two weeks in solitary, Azar had been allowed to join four other women in a cell. The interrogations became much less frequent and, when they occurred, had a pro forma feel, almost as if the men were doing them to be polite and so as not to disappoint her expectations of a prison experience.

  Once her nose had healed and the visible marks of Heydari’s beating had disappeared, Azar had been let out on bail. At her court hearing the following month, she’d been sentenced to a year for “colluding with intent to harm national security.” But the sentence was suspended, meaning that she wouldn’t have to serve the time unless she repeated her offense during the two-year suspension period. She’d been so thankful that her boys wouldn’t be orphaned with both parents in jail that she’d barely registered the judge’s additional ruling that she couldn’t work for a year.

  She’d had to close down her practice, although she’d kept the office, saying goodbye to everyone, including Ms. Tabibian who’d had the nerve to cry duplicitous tears. It wasn’t until the following week, feeling more bored and restless than she had in solitary confinement, that Azar truly understood what it meant to be deprived of the activity that had once defined her entire identity. Thank God for the Foundation. She’d have gone crazy without it.

  The tea kettle hissed. Azar turned off the stove and poured hot water into a crystal teacup with a short pedestal bottom. She dunked a bag of dark Ahmadi tea into her cup a few times and then discarded it in the garbage before heading back to her office.

  She wasn’t sure if it was the tea or the short trip to the kitchen that calmed her nerves, but this time she was able to leaf through the file on her desk without any trouble. As she’d suspected there wasn’t an autopsy report. The file was for Bahman Sanandaji, a twenty-two-year-old Kurdish Iranian student who’d died in custody. Azar had just come from a meeting with his parents at Mellat Park, where they sat on a bench and watched a young couple play badminton as they told her about his life and what they knew of his death.

  They’d been told he’d had a seizure. But, his father told Azar, when they’d washed and prepared his body for burial, they’d noticed obvious signs of torture, including bruising and blood around the ears and head. They wanted to file a complaint. When Azar gently explained that such evidence wouldn’t hold up and asked whether they’d had an autopsy performed, the family looked confused. They didn’t seem to know what an autopsy was, but said that perhaps it was among the papers in their file. Having now confirmed that there was no autopsy, Azar knew there was little that could be done for them. Even with a formal autopsy it would have been hard to force the courts to hold someone accountable for the death of this young man who, his mother had tearfully recounted, had once liked to build miniature skyscrapers out of milk cartons and had aspired to be an architect.

  Azar rolled her chair back from her desk in frustration. These cases were worse than the divorces she’d worked on for years. In family court, there was always a chance, however remote, one could convince the judge
that a client had valid grounds for divorcing a man who was crazy, or infertile, or had abandoned or hit her. But with human rights cases, the entire weight of the system was designed to compel silence. Once again, Azar marveled at the discipline and fortitude of the Foundation’s lawyers and staff who toiled to bring human rights abuses to light despite serious personal risks and very rare successes.

  She’d known of the Foundation to Defend Human Rights for a couple of years as several of the One Million Signatures campaign leaders were associated with it. But it wasn’t until they helped with Azar’s, and then Ibrahim’s, cases that she gained a better appreciation for the vital services they performed.

  The Foundation didn’t engage directly in any overtly political activity, but they defended the rights of those who did. As a result of their work on behalf of clients involved in the Green Movement, the Foundation itself had become a target, and several of their leading attorneys were serving jail sentences of their own. Even now, however, the overwhelmed remaining members continued to work, serving clients and documenting abuses. When Azar, needing something to fill her days, offered to help, they gratefully agreed. Given her suspended sentence and the prohibition on working, Azar couldn’t officially represent clients or appear in court. But she could do intake meetings—carefully, in the park—and help with writing reports and other tasks. She was learning so much about this new area of law that she thought she might want to work openly with the Foundation, despite the risks, once Ibrahim was out of jail and she was allowed to practice again.

  Ah, Ibrahim . . . Azar’s eyes traveled to the gigantic empty vase on her desk. She reached out to stroke the engraved crystal and thought once again to her last day with her husband and the few hours they’d had together between the time she’d gotten out of Evin and he’d been taken in.

  When she’d been released, blinking in the bright light outside Evin, she’d found Ibrahim waiting stiffly by the gate, holding a ridiculously large bouquet of at least two dozen red roses in a crystal vase that looked exactly like the one on her desk.

  She hadn’t seen Ibrahim since he’d gone into hiding several weeks before her arrest, and she wondered how she looked to him. Even when they were feuding as teenagers, she’d always been careful to pluck, thread, and wax her eyebrows and any other embarrassing facial hair as it appeared. But she hadn’t seen a pair of tweezers for two months and knew she must look a sight. She pulled the chador a bit tighter around her face so less of it would be visible.

  He’d been so eager to give her the flowers, he didn’t seem to realize how awkward it would be for her to manage the heavy package as they walked to the car. Ibrahim carried several clear plastic bags with a dozen foil containers that he started opening as they walked to show her the foods he’d purchased from Tehran’s finest restaurant and ask what she felt like eating. By the time they got to the car, Ibrahim had four open containers balanced in his hands while the remaining food dangled in a bag from his pinkie finger.

  It was then that the heavy vase started to slip from Azar’s fingers. As Azar and Ibrahim struggled to catch it, he lost hold of the food so that the rice, kabobs, tomatoes, and herbs rained into the street around them, soon to be followed by the slippery vase that shattered into a thousand small pieces, mixing prettily with the rose petals and different colored rices.

  Azar had burst into tears.

  Ignoring cultural taboos against touching in public, Ibrahim had pulled her close and held her tight. As Azar had calmed down, she’d been surprised to realize that his body was shaking in a way that could only mean he was crying too.

  They’d stood together, holding on through their tears until someone hissed that they should be ashamed of themselves for such a public display of affection.

  In that moment, they’d dared to believe their ordeal was over. Throughout the weeks of Azar’s imprisonment, Ibrahim, who’d immediately returned home to the boys, had been subject to numerous visits and interrogations of his own. Surely, after all the questions they’d answered, the authorities realized that Azar and Ibrahim’s actions stemmed from a love for, and concern about, Iran and its Islamic ideals, and not from any cooperation with outside Western powers. Surely, their family could now get back to normal.

  They took Ibrahim the next morning. Had she known how little time they would have together, Azar would have endured far greater chastisements for a few additional moments in her husband’s arms.

  The day he was sentenced to a year in prison, Azar had found and purchased a replica of the vase they’d broken. When Ibrahim’s sentence was complete, she planned to meet him outside Evin with the vase full of flowers once again.

  * * *

  Azar’s cellphone rang. It was Ali.

  “Salam, Ali,” she said.

  “Salam Azar-jaan,” he responded. “Kojaee? Where are you?”

  “At the office,” Azar swiveled to look at the clock on the wall. It was almost five thirty.

  “Still?” Ali asked. He sounded exasperated. “What could you possibly be doing there? Where are your kids?”

  The sharp point of his words pricked her. It was true that she’d been leaving the boys more and more frequently with her parents as she’d been taking on more work for the Foundation. The fact was, they exhausted her. They were constantly bickering or getting into mischief, and she could never figure out the correct parental response. Without Ibrahim to provide a steady counterbalance to her fluctuations between anger and overindulgence, she was often afraid she did them more harm than good.

  She also felt incredibly guilty about what she and Ibrahim had put them through. When the Guards came for Ibrahim, Azar’s screams and pleadings had woken the boys who’d immediately hurled themselves at the men taking their father. Azar had managed to grab and hold on to Hossein but Muhammadreza’s attack had hit its mark with all the fury of a nine-year-old boy. The security guard he started punching laughed and said, “This one’s got a strong arm, mash’allah.” Then he pinned Muhammadreza’s arms to his sides as his colleague dragged Ibrahim away.

  How did trauma like that affect a child?

  Defensively, Azar answered Ali, “They’re with Maman. I’m getting ready to go get them right now. Hala, did you need something?”

  There was a pause.

  “If you’re going to pick them up, I’ll meet you there. I need to talk to you.”

  Azar hoped it wouldn’t be another lecture from her little brother about being more careful not to give the authorities any additional reasons to doubt her.

  Aloud, Azar answered, “Okay, I’ll see you there.”

  Azar hung up but didn’t get up immediately. She wanted to jot down a few notes from her meeting with the Sanandajis while the conversation was still fresh in her mind. She worked with concentration and finished her task swiftly. Then, eyeing the clock and wishing she could slow it down, she shoved the file back in the cabinet, grabbed her purse, and turned out the lights to leave.

  * * *

  Bzzzzzz.

  The doorbell sounded just as Azar was about to walk out of the office. Azar hesitated before answering. She’d become increasingly paranoid about being watched. Someone always seemed to be calling or buzzing her doorbell, but when Azar answered, there would be no response. Were security folks trying to keep tabs on where she was? Or had she just been the victim of more of Tehran’s infamous prank callers than usual?

  Azar slowly picked up the intercom.

  “Baleh? Who is it?”

  “Ms. Rahimi?” came the answer. “This is Leila, Ms. Tabibian’s daughter.”

  “Leila? What are you doing here?” Azar asked with more bluntness than Iranian culture generally permitted.

  “I’m sorry to impose on you, Ms. Rahimi. I need to talk to you. It’s important.”

  “I was just on my way out,” Azar said. “Why don’t you come back tomorrow?”

  “Please,” the
girl pleaded, “I promise not to take more than five minutes.”

  Azar sighed, buzzing Leila in and waiting for her to make her way through the courtyard and up the elevator to her floor. She didn’t know Leila well and had only seen her a handful of times over the four years Ms. Tabibian had worked for her. What could she possibly want? And what bad timing . . . Ali wasn’t going to be happy.

  When she heard the elevator ding, Azar opened the door and ushered the pretty girl into the waiting area, where they sat across from one another, Leila on the couch, Azar on a high-backed chair, the coffee table between them.

  “So, Leila-khanoom, befarmayeed, what can I do for you?”

  Leila opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. She blinked her beautiful eyes. They were green, like her mother’s. But whereas Ms. Tabibian’s eyes always reminded Azar of an earthy and grassy meadow, Leila’s were a more ethereal, crystalline green. Like the light-green emeralds in the crown jewels kept at Iran’s Central Bank Museum, which Azar and Ibrahim had visited shortly after they’d found out she was expecting their first child. Ibrahim had whispered in her ear that the intricate tiaras, jeweled necklaces, and gem-encrusted thrones were nothing compared to the beauty of his pregnant wife.

  “Befarmayeed,” Azar interrupted her thoughts of Ibrahim to prompt the girl again. “I really have to go.”

  “I’m sorry,” Leila said, “I was just thinking of where to start.”

  The girl pulled a battered manila folder from her bag and pushed it across the coffee table. “I wanted to show you this and get some advice about what to do.”

  Azar opened the folder. Inside were a dozen or so papers of different sizes and weights. Several of them had areas that were warped with brown stains as if someone had spilled tea on them.

  “What is this?” Azar asked as she looked through them.