Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran (38 page)

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?

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.

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:

Once upon a time, I used to be a father and a brother, but, Today I am number six, just that.

At mealtimes they knock on the door and unlock it. The food is left outside the door. When you have collected the food, they relock the door.

I am left alone for forty-eight hours. I get myself ready for prayers. I am waiting for the sound of slippers and for you to arrive at any moment. Your threat is ringing in my ear: “I would like to shoot the final bullet myself.”

And I remember the words of the cultural events official at Ghezel Hesar: “It’s not like the Shah’s time when you could leave, feeling like heroes. We’ll destroy your reputation.”

The sound of slippers comes eventually. But it’s not you, it’s the shepherd guard. He doesn’t show any sign of recognition, but he presses my hand warmly. We walk down the stairs, pass through a triangular courtyard, to the left, we walk up the stairs. When we reach the first floor, a shiver goes down my spine, but we carry on walking up the stairs. Then he says: “Take off your blindfold.”

Once again I find myself in a large hall, filled with sunshine. Two young men, dressed in smart grey suits, are walking up and down and talking to each other in whispers. I say hello. They respond. They come towards me and shake my hand. There’s not a single chair in the large hall. They ask me what I am up to. I answer them.

One of them asks a random question and then, suddenly, he asks: “Why did you lie about the garden?”

I answer: “I didn’t know anything about it. Brother Hamid put me under pressure, forced me ... That night I told Brother Shamkhani that it was a lie.”

The second man says: “You lied so much that you managed to hide the truth.”

The other man laughs: “Did you really arrange meetings with the British ambassador at Naderi Cafe?”

I say: “But you must be aware that I have never been that sort of person, and have been lying all along.”

They walk away from me. They go to the window and whisper. Then one of them says: “Go to the staircase and wait until they come to fetch you.”

The following day they come for me again. The guard takes me to a room on the second floor. I am seated behind a desk, with my blindfold on. I see a file lying on the desk. A hand opens the file and a voice, which sounds young but not aggressive, again brings up all the questions related to the file. Then he asks questions related to religion. Eventually he asks: “Who’s your role model?”

I say: “Imam Khomeini.”

He says: “Take off your blindfold.”

I take it off. I see a young man whose appearance and way of speaking is similar to that of those other two men. They must all be working for the Ministry of Intelligence. He says: “Have you been working?”

I say: “I used to work in the fields at Ghezel Hesar.”

He asks: “What about Evin?”

I say: “I can’t work in a factory. My arm was damaged during my interrogation.”

“Why aren’t you doing any cultural work?”

I say: “No one has asked me to.”

He says: “Here the people themselves have to ask for work. Especially people like you whose heads are already on the chopping block.”

Then he closes the file and calls the guard over. All the way back to my cell, I hear his voice in my ears: “Already on the chopping block; already on the chopping block ...”

They come for me the following evening.

When I board the minibus, I find myself seated next to Kianuri again. It’s around ten at night when we arrive. The driver has to hand over some other prisoners and asks us to wait.

I take off my blindfold, slowly, quietly. There’s no one around. Kianuri and I are standing around in Evin on this cold night, waiting. I put on my glasses. I see the city in the distance. Life is going on. I see the road that leads away from Evin to the mountains via Darakeh. I can’t help thinking that that is the route our companions have always taken to join those who are free. A cold wind is blowing. For the first time, I think of escaping from the prison. I imagine walking down the hill, jumping over the wall and running until I reach a house. I am yearning for freedom. But I have never been a hero, never had the courage for that sort of thing.

The driver eventually returns and hands us over at the prison gate. Kianuri and I are put into a solitary confinement cell. Once again I find myself sharing a cell with a leader. Years ago I shared a cell with a kind and smiling man who has now become the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, of whom it is said there is not much kindness left. And this time I am with the powerful leader of the Tudeh Party, a man who has reverted to being a helpless child. This seventy something child is incapable of sleeping. We talk for many hours, and Kianuri speaks from the heart in a way I have never heard him speak before.

I too am feeling very strange, and find myself telling my life story to the Party leader. The same story that I told Khamenei but this time the story of Khamenei’s time in prison has been added to my story.

Then it’s his turn to tell me about his childhood. He tells me about the first time he joined the street protests, at the age of sixteen. He tells me of the painful love that came before he met Maryam and of his love for Maryam. Of his hatred of living in exile before the revolution. Of the little garden they kept in Germany, when life appeared meaningful only when he went into the garden with Maryam.

It was in the sanatorium that I saw you for the third time, Brother Hamid. One day, a crowd appears at the door. You are with Saeed
Emami
¹⁰²
and Haj Nasser, and behind you there’s a large crowd of people dressed in civilian and military clothing.

Saeed Emami asks Kianuri: “Don’t you want to become a Muslim?”

Kianuri gives his usual response: “I’ve been a communist all my life and I am going to remain one.”

Emami says: “Tabari used to be like that.”

Kianuri answers: “I am not a liar, like Tabari. He is used to hedging his bets.”

Saeed Emami glances at Haj Nasser, who as usual has his hands in his pockets, scratching himself down there. Then he asks: “What is your opinion of the Soviet Union? It’s going downhill right now.”

Kianuri, leaning on his weaker leg, says: “That’s an American Imperialist conspiracy. If the Soviet Union is going downhill, then you’ll be next in line.”

Saeed Emami laughs mockingly, and the delegation accompanying him joins in, and they leave.

It’s December 1988. As usual, Kianuri wakes up very early in the morning. We go to the courtyard for some exercise. He’s lost weight and is very thin and gaunt. He’s always had a limp, but since the torture he was subjected to during his interrogations, he can barely lift his left hand. He resembles a dried up, barren tree trunk, the leaves and fruits of which – a hundred years of leftist movement in Iran – have fallen, leaving its bare branches shivering in the wind. He sits down and gets up with great difficulty. And each time, he calls up the name of one of those hanged.