Then it is the turn of the man who’s in charge of making the dinner arrangements. He was a Mujahed, with a very big belly, very young, very mischievous. He liked preparing dinner. He would throw down the tablecloth with a flourish and say: “Tonight we are serving a stew. A unique occasion, not a night like any other night.” I have forgotten his name, but I’ll never forget his sweet smile and his light-hearted words.
And then they begin to round up the leftists. The first one to be called up from our hall is Hussein Abi. He puts on his blindfold and leaves. I wait and wait, he doesn’t come back. The evening arrives, it becomes night. I am unable to sleep. What’s happening? Why hasn’t he come back? My mind is busy with these thoughts but just as my eyes become tired, Hussein Abi crawls into his bed.
I ask him: “Where have you been?”
He says: “Shush. They are killing. Watch out.”
I say: “What do you mean?”
“The court ...”
His teeth chatter as he talks. They had asked him: Do you believe in your party? He had answered that his party were Fatimeh, Rana and Ziba. He was in love with them. They had asked him: Are you a Muslim? He had answered that yes he was, but not the way they were Muslims. They had told him that they meant whether he said his prayers. He had replied that he had been praying since he was a child, but not their kind of prayer. The court judges had whispered to each other. Then they had signalled to Haj Mojtaba Halwai, the deputy prison security chief and the man in charge of carrying out the executions. Haj Mojtaba had told him by the door: “You’ll be quiet and not say a word to anyone or else I will stick your tongue into your arse.”
Hussein Abi tells me all this and then turns his back to me. The next morning, Hussein Abi is behind me as we queue for the bathrooms, ready to perform our ablution for the morning prayers. He quietly tells me the rest of the story. We have not even reached the bathroom when they come for him and take him away.
There’s no news for a few days. We walk up and down the corridors like caged chickens waiting for a brutal hand to pull us out of the cage. We talk about everything except the thing we should talk about. Our eyes are fixed on the door and our ears alert for sounds.
There is a gang of thieves in charge of bringing round tea and food to the prisoners, who are patients of Dr Fariborz Baghai, who is in a cell upstairs. This excellent gynaecologist, who used to be the deputy head of a large hospital in Frankfurt, had come back to Iran to help the revolution and ended up in jail for twelve years. The thieves warned the doctor what was happening, and what sort of questions were being asked in court, and that after the Mujahedin, they had started to round up the leftists. Dr Baghai made sure that everyone on the block also heard about this, passing on the information through the same group of ordinary prisoners and hence, clarifying the situation for us.
The next one to be called up is Rahim Araqi. He had been a prisoner during the Shah’s time. One of Iran’s best architects, we used to call him Rahim the Bear due to the fat he was carrying on his body. Rahim kisses us on our cheeks and says: “Keep an eye on my children if you happen to live through this.”
He loved his daughter, Nazli, who had developed into a tall and slender woman who loved her father dearly. I kept imagining the Gentle Bear standing in front of a firing squad. I was not yet aware that they had started hanging people.
These thoughts make me anxious. I keep pacing up and down, and looking at his empty bed. His book of architecture, which he managed to get hold of with great difficulty, still lying open on his blanket.
Rahim doesn’t return. The following day they fold up his blanket and collect his belongings. I saw him again years later in the outside world, when he explained the miracle of his rescue, but I have not been able to get in touch with him to ask his permission to tell his story here.
I am walking up and down the corridor, deep in thought, when Bahram Danesh grabs hold of my arm: “Are you scared of being seen with me?”
I laugh. I give him a kiss on his cheek and together we start walking again. He tells me for the umpteenth time the story of his escape following the defeat of the Khorasani troops’ uprising. How he had crossed the arid desert and then thrown himself into a river and got himself to the Soviet Union.
It’s as if he knows that his turn has arrived today. They come for him. He kisses me on my cheeks and says: “I am not coming back. One sparrow less is not going to affect the world.”
And that old man, his body bent by lengthy episodes of torture with a head that is always about to explode from a migraine, went away. I always recall his words: “We are tiny sparrows, twittering on a branch in the middle of a wild jungle full of predators.”
The twittering of a sparrow called Bahram will echo in my mind as long as I live, and I see in my mind’s eye the head of an ancientlooking man, moving like a pendulum in a clock, tick-tock.
They keep coming for people.
My turn arrives. They come for me on 1 August 1988. I look around, but I can’t see a familiar face to say goodbye to. I put the letter I have written for my wife on top of my belongings and leave the cell. The minibus that picks me up is full. I try to look from underneath my blindfold but I don’t know anyone in the bus. I feel numb. As if I have died even before being killed.
They make us get out of the bus and take us to the interrogation office. I join a long blindfolded queue, facing the wall. The death calls come at short intervals. We are approaching the doorway to hell. When I reach the door, I can hear a voice on the other side. It’s Mehrdad Farjad. After spending many years in Europe, he had returned to Iran to serve the revolution. He is yelling. It seems as if someone is trying to shut him up by placing a hand over his mouth. The voice is muffled and quietens. Suddenly Mehrdad cries out again. His voice is silenced once and for all. I found out later that they had cut off his tongue and taken him to the gallows with his mouth streaming with blood.
Someone grabs me and drags me upright. It’s Haj Mojtaba. He opens the door and pushes me inside. “Take off your blindfold.”
I recognize the voice of Haj Nasser, the man in charge of the interrogation office, and one of the prosecutors. He calls out my name and asks: “Do you believe in the Tudeh Party?”
I answer: “I hate politics and the Tudeh Party.”
Nayeri, the court judge, glances down at the paper on his desk. I suspect he’s about to say: “But your file is still open ...”
But he asks: “Do you pray?”
His voice sounds tired. He has already handed down the hanging sentence for thousands of people. I answer: “Yes, Haj Aqa.”
“Do you believe in the Islamic Republic?”
“I believed in it before my arrest and I still believe in it now.”
Haj Nasser says in a mocking voice: “I bet, like the rest of them, you also claim to have personally served the Islamic Republic.”
I say: “I don’t know about the others. But my intention was to help the anti-imperialist Islamic Republic.”
Nayeri whispers something into Haj Nasser’s ear. The whispering seems to take ages. Haj Nasser answers him. Then Nayeri writes something down on a piece of paper and hands it over to Haj Mojtaba. He takes the paper. He tells me: “Put on your blindfold.”
I put on my blindfold. Haj Mojtaba takes me out. I feel as if ashes have been thrown over me. I walk down a corridor. A door opens and I find myself in an open space. I take off my blindfold. I am in the sanatorium. Three old men from Moshtarek Prison are standing in front of me, talking. Two of them are over the age of eighty, one of them is even older. We greet each other and kiss each other’s cheeks. The three have already been to the court. They are being called for, one at a time. They assume they are about to be freed, but in fact they are on their way to the gallows.
I don’t know how much time passes before they come back for me. Once again I enter the block with my eyes blindfolded. A door opens in the corridor and I find myself inside a small solitary confinement cell. I am ready to collapse. I stretc
h myself out on the floor. Just like during the long days of interrogation and torture, I have gone numb. For only the second time in my life, a light has started to shine in my heart. I tell myself: “God does exist.” I remember Khamenei’s words back in the cell at Moshtarek Prison: “In your heart of hearts you are a believer, even though you are not aware of it.” After a while the door opens. Someone says: “Put on your blindfold.”
I put it on. Whoever this is, he enters the cell. He sits down and starts asking questions. The questions are all about my file. I answer him, but I can hear your voice in my head, Brother Hamid: “When the sentence is passed, I would like to shoot the final bullet myself.”
The questions finally reach the point I have been waiting for. The part of the file that is still open: England. The questions are all indirect. I answer all of them. Eventually, he asks: “Do you pray?”
“Yes, and I’ve just missed my prayers. I couldn’t go to the bathroom for my ablution.”
This is a deliberate tactic on my part. I am holding death at bay by performing my prayers. The divine light that shone in my heart that day actually has nothing to do with prayers.
The man, whoever he might be, takes me to the bathroom. I sense his eyes on me. I give a solid performance of ablution. He takes me back to my cell. He offers me a prayer stone. I ask which way is Mecca. He turns me towards Mecca. He locks the door behind him. I take off the blindfold. I start praying. I imagine he’s watching me through the door opening. Then I become tired and collapse. I drank as much water as I could in the bathroom, but I am very hungry. I am glad that my stomach is empty. I have heard that one tends to shit oneself before being hanged. I’d hate that to happen. I picture my corpse hanging and my mouth being pushed into a pile of my own shit. It’s making me feel sick. Then I seem to fall into a black hole. I don’t know whether it’s sleep, or waiting, or the last moments of life before death. The sound of a door opening brings me back to my senses. Again they take me and make me stand at the back of a queue. Again, a thousand years pass before I enter the court. This time there’s no Haj Nasser. A tall young man has replaced him. They say he was Evin’s Intelligence Director at some point.
The same questions. I give the same answers. Nayeri asks: “Did you have a leadership position in the Party?”
I say: “I have never been in a leadership position. I was just an ordinary member.”
Even then I had no idea that what they meant by leading member was someone who was in the pay of the Party. I later discover that the Party had two layers of leadership. Leadership number one and leadership number two, and I had been part of number two. Later, Kianuri explained to me that Haj Nasser had insisted that I had been in the first group and Kianuri had repeatedly denied this and explained that I belonged to the second category. And much later still it dawned on me that the numbers one and two had represented the distance between life and death. Ayatollah Khomeini’s death verdict for the Mujahedin has been published. But it is said that one of his unpublished rulings called for the mass murder of all Marxists on the basis of his belief that the leadership of the leftist groups were all supporters of the infidels and hence should be hanged. Decisions about the members of the second layer were left to the courts.
Nayeri is saying: “In that case, give us the declaration of faith.”
I am assuming that I am about to be hanged. So I say: “I bear witness that there is no God but Allah ... I bear witness ...”
Nayeri signals to Haj Mojtaba. He comes to me, and grabs me by the arm.
“Put on your blindfold.”
He hasn’t gripped my arm tightly and his voice doesn’t sound aggressive. I allow myself to hope. Could this mean that I will not be hanged?
I put on my blindfold. Haj Mojtaba takes me outside. He puts my hand on someone’s shoulder. This is yet another queue. Is this queue heading to the gallows or towards life?
Chapter 25
Gallows and Mass Murder
The people who were hanged during that bloody summer of 1988 were taken to Khavaran in trucks at night, off-loaded in the abandoned cemetery, and then earth was thrown over them.
I can still hear your voice, Brother Hamid: “I would like to shoot the final bullet myself.”
This is my twenty-fifth letter. Looking back at that infernal day, I am running and sense that you are right behind me. You lift your sixshooter, and pull the trigger. You are ready to fire the final bullet that would sort me out.
Evin, September 1988
The queue is finally moving. It’s hot. Hot. Hot. They set us off at a run. There are lots of us. Where are we going? We are running blindfolded. I fall to the ground and pick myself up. One of my slippers has fallen off somewhere. I’m at the end of the line.
“Keep running, you piece of filth.”
Someone hits me on my head. I run. Once again I have been turned into a dog.
Woof, woof. I am a spy. Woof, woof. Islam is victorious. The left and the right are both destroyed.
I take off the other slipper. The soles of my feet are hot. With my next step, the ground disappears beneath me. I slip. It’s a flight of stairs. We all slip and fall on top of each other down the stairs. It’s as if there’s no end to these stairs. There are people laughing out aloud.
“Get up, you filthy bastards.”
I get up. My blindfold has come off. But no one tells me to put it on again.
We are in a large basement. Half dark. There are pipes everywhere. And there are people hanging from them.
“We have hung them up to dry.”
And again they make us run. We run and bump into each other. Then they make us sit down. There are row upon row of people hanging from the pipes. Some guards with wheelbarrows arrive. They take the people down one by one and dump them into the wheelbarrows.
When the wheelbarrows are full they are wheeled away. A hand hangs out of one of them and trails along the floor. A pair of glasses is smashed underfoot. A wheelbarrow tilts and its contents fall out.
“Roll up your sleeves.”
Wearing short-sleeved shirts is considered a crime. It’s a trademark of prostitution. It angers God. It shakes the divine throne.
“You have to roll up your sleeves ...”
A guard is holding a bucket in front of us. Inside there are marker pens.
“Write your name and the name of your group on your wrist.”
Everybody is busy writing. Names are being written across Iran. They have been writing for a month now. First the religious ones. Then the communists. Then Jews, Armenians and Baha’is. Kurds, Turks and Baluch. Teenagers and old men. Mothers and sisters. Girls and boys. They are all writing their names. In Rajai Shahr’s death camp. In death camps throughout Iran. In Evin. When the names have been written, the people are taken to be hanged, row after row. They are picked up at night in wheelbarrows and thrown into trucks. The trucks take them to the mass graves. They bury the Muslims in mass graves. The rest, the infidels, are taken to an abandoned Baha’i cemetery to the east of Tehran. They’ve nicknamed the cemetery Damnation End. They throw our corpses to the ground and a digger piles earth over us.
The guards playfully push each other around. They laugh out loud and pluck the best flowers of Iran’s gardens from the metal trees.
The more people you hang, the quicker you get to heaven.
They are sending us to hell. Snakes and dragons. Wells filled with shit.
But they themselves are going to heaven. A delightful garden is waiting for them. Beautiful girls. Seven houris every night until they are tired out. Slaves. Seventy of them every night. We will burn while they enjoy themselves. We will be burning until the end of the world and they will be enjoying themselves with houris and slaves. They’ll be drinking milk and eating honey from heaven’s rivers.
They come to collect the people ahead of me in the queue. They are rolling in large tables on castors. They make the people stand on the tables. They have eaten off these tables and now they are using them for hanging.
A bunch of fat guards get up on the tables. They wrap the ropes around the necks of the condemned, quickly, skilfully.
“God is Great. Khomeini’s our leader.”
The guards murmur their response collectively and pull the tables out from under the prisoners’ feet. The prisoners are hanging. They are turning. Human fruit hanging from metal trees as far as the eye can see. They bring in the second round. They are all girls. Wrapped in black chadors. Onto the tables. The dance of death on metal trees.
A guard comes in, and leads me out of the room. We go through another door. I hear the sound of a car door opening.
“Get in.”
I see Kianuri in the back of the car. I roll down my sleeve and automatically look at my scarred wrist. I am shaking like a leaf even though it’s hot.
The driver is a dark-skinned man with a strong build. He’s looking at us in the car’s rear-view mirror and asks Kianuri in a thick accent: “Listen, do you still believe in the Soviet Union?”
Kianuri says: “Yes.”
The driver asks: “What about America?”
Kianuri answers: “America is our people’s main enemy.”
With his huge fist the driver punches Kianuri and pushes him down: “Shut up, monster.”
Then the driver gets out of the car and spits. Even so, Kianuri says: “The thugs are running the show.”
The guard in charge of our transfer arrives. We drive through Evin’s large gate, up the Peech-e Tobah (Repentance Turn), and onto the motorway. When the motorway ends, the guard tells us to bend down and he throws a blanket over our heads. I grab hold of Kianuri’s hand in the dark. It feels cold and lifeless. Maybe like me, he had assumed that he was going to be hanged. Through the car’s movements I try to figure out where we are going but I fail. Eventually the car stops and there’s the sound of a large gate opening. We are entering Moshtarek Prison again. I am back at Moshtarek Prison for the seventh time.
A lot has changed here since last time. Complete silence dominates the place. They separate us and hand me the same blue prison uniform, but this time my number is on the shirt pocket. It is far too long to be memorized. We follow the usual route, the triangular courtyard, the stairs, Under the Eight. This time we are taken upstairs. The block’s numbers have three digits now, and the cell numbers have been added to them. I am in cell number 6537. In the same old block number six. The guard doesn’t open the doors. He just tells you your number. A famous poet had once written about this:
Letters to My Torturer Page 29