Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran (24 page)

According to the convoluted and rather far-fetched script that I was obliged to produce, the KGB and the CIA worked together during the Shah’s time in Iran. The
Kayhan
newspaper office was one of the main locations where they exchanged information, and
Kayhan
’s editor-in-chief was their representative. I joined Savak through him and in return received a good salary. After my release from prison in 1975, Sonia was given orders to approach me. She was my mistress and had planned to marry me. On the 1977 trip to England, I had gone to the BBC. There, I had joined MI6, the British Secret Intelligence Service, through her. She was also a member of the Freemasons. I was given orders to infiltrate the KGB in any way I could. This I was able to do through the auspices of the Tudeh Party and it took place during the 1980 trip to Afghanistan and Moscow.

When I had finished writing this plot down (the original draft is in my file, and I would love to see it one day) my one and only concern was that my case would now be considered complete and I would be
hanged. I told myself that I would have a chance to defend myself in court and to explain that I had only concocted the story in order to end the torture.

Every day now, as soon as my breakfast is finished, I am taken to the room downstairs. I race through my dawn prayer and wolf down my breakfast under the constant pressure of the endless Qur’an recitations and the fear of interrogation. I have become constipated. A thousand types of pain have taken hold of me, from my head to my toes. The relentless headache that started on the night of the coffins continues to torment me. The guard puts me on the bed. Then I hear the sound of shuffling feet. You enter, Brother Hamid. I say hello and woof, woof.

You laugh and take me by the arm and we go to the room upstairs. Once, you even put a dried fig into the palm of my hand on the way up the stairs. You recite the rest of the plot either on the way or inside the room, and I write it down. The confessions are not putting anyone else in danger. Only me. I am thickening my file out of the fear of torture.

By now, I am just like Pavlov’s dog. In the time that passes when you take away my writing to read it, or when I am eating lunch, or performing prayers, my mind becomes active and works on completing the story you want me to tell. I shouldn’t restrain myself. If I am silent, there will be the final punishment, meaning lying in a coffin. Yes, you have turned a hopeful young man into Pavlov’s dog and a multiple agent.

One evening, when I get back to my cell, the loudspeaker is broadcasting the Qur’an recitations and the guard has left me a copy of Sayyed Ali Khamenei’s
Learning to Pray
. I start reading. I am trying to learn. I memorize sentences in Arabic. With difficulty, I make myself move about on my feet so I can walk and repeat the sentences and memorize them the way I am used to memorizing things. I have not yet uttered the first sentence when a wave of terror washes over
me. All my aches and pains come back to life. I sit down and close the book. I find a solution, a solution that I later discover has been used by many other inmates. Instead of reciting Arabic words, prayers or verses, I start counting. I counted so it looked like I was praying and studying. I couldn’t double up or bend down for prayers anyway. As soon as I sat down, a murderous pain would shoot through me, making me collapse on the floor. Sometimes these situations made me laugh, other times I would cry.

But I would do my ablution with proper pomp and ceremony. I knew the guards would be watching and report back. And you Brother Hamid, you were preoccupied with more important matters. My business with God was my own affair. You were busy completing my file.

I have barked and I’m in the room upstairs.

“By the way, did you say that you knew Khosrow?”

“Yes, he’s Rahman Hatefi.”

“Crap. But never mind. Have the names and addresses of all the members of the secret network ready by the time I get back. Including organizational structures, especially the military wing.”

You walk out. I crumble. The secret network? The military wing? Immediately I am reminded of Khamenei’s hints to Kianuri. But I am sure that Navid has been dissolved as was stated in the final notice. The only individual I knew to be a member of the secret network was Rahman. Rahman’s role has been revealed.

You return very quickly: “Have you written everything down?”

I am sure the secret network is no longer active.

You laugh out aloud.

“Man, you believe that once you say ‘I repent, I repent,’ we’re going to believe any sort of rubbish you say. Get up, come on.”

You grab my sleeve and drag me along. You are pushing me down the stairs. Before I can blink, I find myself seated on the metal bed. My brain is working automatically. Nothing is more frightening than the descent of another blow. I bark.

“If you write any more rubbish, ‘woof, woof’ is not going to help you. First you will be punished and then you will join Comrade Manuchehr.”

And you throw a pile of papers and a biro onto the bed and leave. I pull up my blindfold. The walls are bloodstained. The horrible bleach bottle is still on the chair. My mind starts racing. I assume that every secret network has an open part and a military part. The military section must include the air force, the territorial army and the navy. And so I draft a probable structure.

On each branch I put five people who are linked to each other horizontally. I give them names, changing the first names and giving them surnames that I still remember. For example, instead of Yusef Mohammadi, I write Mohammad Yusefi and so on. When I draw the invented military wing’s chart, I pull out the page. I redraw it neatly on another piece of paper and cross over the original page and put it into the pocket of my prison shirt.

As soon as I hear the shuffling sound of slippers, I put on my blindfold and hold out the page in your direction. There is silence. You must be reading the chart. Then, without saying a word, you leave and you don’t return for a long time. While you are gone, the guard brings in food and I go to the bathroom. Then the guard takes me to the room upstairs. You are waiting and your voice has become gentle again: “Sit down, little lion, sit down. Why didn’t you write down all the information at once, giving us and yourself a break? Now redraw the charts before I get back.”

You leave and I redraw the chart, copying it from the original draft in my pocket. When you come back and pick up the charts, you hit me on my shoulder: “Well done!”

You sound happy. I have saved myself. No, I have put an even heavier pair of shackles around my ankles. I am killing myself for fear of death.

You leave and you don’t come back. A long time passes before the guard comes and takes me to my cell. Qur’an recitations are being
broadcast. I can’t even sleep anymore. I go to the bathroom. I perform my ablution. I return. I do my numeric prayers and am so exhausted that I faint. The next morning the guard comes for me as soon as I have finished breakfast. He takes me to the room downstairs. There is the sound of shuffling slippers and then you. I say: “Hello.”

You don’t answer. Meaning, you are angry.

I say: “Woof, woof.”

You take me upstairs. You don’t say a word. You send me off to the room. I wait for a long time before you come. Then you stand over me, and you are almost shouting, happily chanting: “The case of Khosrow has become clear. The secret network has become clear. Everything has become clear. The military wing has become clear.”

You say this and then leave. I take off my blindfold. Your words are echoing in my head: “Khosrow ... Secret network, military wing ...”

Are these new pages for the film script or the truth?

I am happy that I haven’t related what I myself view as my only crime, which is my part in setting up a meeting between the Afghan ambassador and Foroughian. Besides, if what you are saying is true, then you must realize that I was totally ignorant of what was going on.

Eventually you return. I say hello. You respond. This means there’s peace. You put a piece of paper on the arm of the chair: “The filthy Tudeh Party’s infiltrators are in all the government departments.”

There’s a brief silence and then you say: “Write about everyone. Apart from the Imam and Mr Montazeri. They could all be infiltrators. Even I could be.”

And you leave. I hadn’t taken this issue into consideration. I stand up and as usual, walk slowly, gingerly. My feet are slightly better but from my head, which is perpetually aching, to my teeth and my shoulders and my feet, everything in my body is hurting to varying
degrees. Sometimes I can’t bear it any more. Sometimes the pain makes me faint. I keep walking and trying to remember the names of anyone who had ever said anything even slightly fishy about the government. I write down the names on the interrogation paper. I tell myself: “Fuck them. Let them think these guys are also in the Tudeh Party.”

Then I add “information”. I link them to the Party this or that way. I fill up several pages and am beginning to relax, thinking that I have done today’s “confession”.

You come and pick up the papers. You stand behind me. There’s silence. You must be reading and then I realize you must have finished because you ask: “Is that it? Are you sure you haven’t kept back any secrets?”

A shiver goes down my spine and my feet start burning. In exactly the same place where they still burn twenty-five years later.

Coup d’etat? Coup d’etat? Coup d’etat?

You were after a coup d’etat on those spring nights of 1983. We have reached those nights in this, my sixteenth, letter. No other phrase has been stranger to me. Who wanted to stage a coup d’etat? The Party? Nothing could be more ridiculous. Even if I had known about the secret network at the time, I wouldn’t have believed this story. I now understand that extracting coup d’etat confessions was another stage in the Islamic Republic’s metamorphosis. With the clamping down on the Tudeh Party, the regime had begun to eliminate the forces that defended the revolution but had a non-Taliban outlook. It was the same conspiracy theory that you used to destroy Ayatollah Montazeri’s leadership, Brother Hamid. Then you moved forward, step by step and eventually took up the Taliban’s arms and Al-Qaeda’s banner.

Spring has arrived, and the nights of the new Iranian year. I haven’t been interrogated for a couple of days. The spring air carries the noise of the crowd in Toopkhaneh Square where a hundred years ago Sheikh Fazlollah Noori,
⁶⁶
the intellectual figurehead of Brother Hamid and his fellow believers, was hanged. No one can stop the spring air from moving. It is now entering the cell, through the thick prison walls, via the rusty barbed wire. Everything is reflecting the change of the season.

I think it’s New Year’s Eve.
⁶⁷
When the lights go off, I take it as a sign that the New Year has begun, and force myself to sit up, with great difficulty, leaning against the wall. For the traditional New Year’s ceremony, I need seven items beginning with the Farsi letter “seen” or “s”. In most Persian homes, these would include an apple, some wheat grass, garlic and other items beginning with “s”, as well as a goldfish in a bowl of water, symbolizing life, arranged on a table in the living room. Of course, I don’t have these objects to hand in my cell, so I substitute them with sugar cubes and bread. I break the bread into seven parts. I imagine my wife is sitting next to me. I stare at the “fish”, which is bobbing up and down in the imaginary waves, and moving the apple’s reflection in the mirror. The cannon shot
⁶⁸
heralds the New Year, and we embrace each other.

For the first time, I spend New Year’s Eve in prison. I was just about to go to sleep, with tears in my eyes, when I hear the shuffling sound of slippers. Food has been brought in. I try to sleep. I have to twist and turn until a part of my body accepts the pressure of my weight on it. I have just had a brief opportunity to catch some sleep when the sound of shuffling slippers wakes me up. I fall asleep again. I see my wife in my dream; she’s wearing white and is telling the American businessman on board the Greek boat: “I am prepared to wear a sack over my head as long as my country is free and independent.”

The businessman is laughing out loud and fish are leaping out of the sea. In my sleep, I feel something warm moving across my face. I brush it aside with my hand. I am in Toopkhaneh Square. Kaveh Golestan
⁶⁹
is taking pictures. Brother Hamid is pointing at me with his hand. Some people are shouting. They run towards me.

“Death to the communists!”

I cover my face with my hands and turn my back. Some people dressed in black and holding a red flag are pointing at me:

“He doesn’t pray! Death to those who do not pray!”

Something is running across my chest. I jump up, terrified. A warm thing is moving inside my clothes. Terrified, I rip off my clothes and shake them. I can’t see whether a creature has got into my clothes or not. Reluctantly, I put my clothes back on and sit up against the wall. My eyelids have just begun to droop when I feel something is moving up my hand. Automatically, I grab it and crush it. The stomach-churning heat of a cockroach’s body makes me feel sick. I have just closed my eyes again when I hear the door lock being quietly turned. The door opens slightly and a voice says: “Hey! Stand up, come on ...”

It’s you, Brother Hamid. In the darkness, I dig my blindfold out of my pocket and put it on. I touch my other pocket – my glasses are there. I put on my slippers and walk out. You are waiting for me outside the door.

“How are you? Fine?”

Your voice is very gentle, but I am more afraid of the kind tone of your voice than of your anger. I grasp at straws: “If you have lots to do for me, I should perform my prayers first.”

You laugh: “No. You’ll be back in time for the dawn prayers.”