Letters to My Torturer Read online

  A new message popped up on my screen.

  “Do you know him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Brother Hamid, my interrogator.”

  “Are you sure it’s him?”

  Yes, I’m sure. I have seen you. I’ve seen you three times, Brother Hamid. You were very careful to ensure I wouldn’t see you. But I did. The first time was when you had taken the prisoner in the cell next to mine outside – the one who was working for you and who had used Morse code to try to get information out of me. You were talking to him and I saw you. On the upper part of all the prison cell doors there were little round openings made of metal that were locked from the outside. By chance, the opening in my cell door had been broken and covered with cardboard. Someone had used a needle to make a little hole and I could see out through that hole.

  I saw you through that hole. You had positioned the prisoner against the wall. He was blindfolded. He was talking and you were listening. You used to be slim back then. A guard’s uniform and slippers. Those damn slippers. And the second and the third time? Do not rush me, Brother Hamid. We are still at the beginning of the story. A story that turned into a horror film. A film that you directed. I was obliged to write the script for the role that you made me play, and then to act it out.

  I am sitting on that brown school chair, facing the wall. The guard orders me to put my blindfold back on. I hear the sound of shuffling feet. The sound stops behind me. A hand is placed on my shoulder. Your voice is authoritarian but young. Much younger than mine.

  “We know everything.”

  Then you step in front of me. I see your military uniform from under the blindfold. From the waist down and slightly obscured. I have described you in detail in my novel The Cat.7 Get the novel and read it. You see, you have even entered literature with me. That was a novel, but this is the truth.

  You said: “Spying. Coup d’etat. No beating about the bush. Tell us everything you know.”

  I adjust myself on the seat. I follow the Party’s instruction; I have come to believe it myself: “Firstly, we are not spies ... and then ... I am not going to answer these questions. They are against the constitution.”

  And I see stars. No, that’s an old-fashioned way of putting it. Fireworks go off in my head. You say: “That was the first article of the constitution. Now lift up your blindfold slightly.” I do as I’m told. You open your military coat. I see the vague outline of a pistol. “And this is the final article, but before we get to this one there will be lots of other articles along the way ...”

  I understand that your constitution is different from the Islamic Republic’s. As you utter these words you position yourself behind me: “Now get up. Think about it ... until tomorrow morning. Remember, we know everything. Spying. Coup d’etat. Just write about those.”

  The sound of shuffling feet moves away. The door opens and then closes. Complete silence.

  A pigeon is cooing outside the window. I take off my blindfold and put on my glasses. The cream-coloured walls and I have been left alone. I don’t know yet that years will pass and the walls and I will be alone. I hear a blowing sound in my head. My cheek is burning. Someone inside me keeps asking questions but is not given any answers.

  “There’s been a coup? But he was wearing the uniform of the Revolutionary Guards Corps? Could they be working for the Americans? Could it be that the Party’s analysis of the situation, its instructions, have been mistaken? Could it be? A coup? Have they staged a coup themselves and are now trying to stick it on us? Me, a spy? This must be the work of the CIA ...”

  My ears, which have been learning to do the job of my eyes, are waiting for a voice to come for me and take me away. My heart is naïve, it is still waiting for me to be released.

  “By the way, where is my wife right now?”

  The silence is complete. That pigeon is cooing again, or maybe it’s a different pigeon, one of the many pigeons I become acquainted with during my three-year stay in Moshtarek prison.8 These pigeons build their nests in one of the most horrifying torture chambers of the world. When spring arrives, they pay no attention to the cries from the torture chambers, or to the men and women who are taken away at dawn to be hanged. They lay eggs. The eggs hatch.

  The only sound that breaks the silence is the bird’s cooing. For the first time, I stand up cautiously and walk a few steps. I learn to listen out for his voice so that when I hear it approach I can throw myself on to the chair and sit down, facing the wall. As I sit there waiting, in my mind I keep replaying the morning of my arrest.

  Early in the morning, the doorbell rang. Three short rings, one long one. I looked out of the window. It was Fereydoun, the man in charge of my Party cell. I opened the door and went down the steps. He was frightened. Pale. He was trembling while we talked.

  “The arrests have started. Inform everyone you can,” he said, and left. His shoulders were shaking, either out of fright or because he was crying.

  I had seen him a few days earlier. When I had rung his bell the usual three times, two short rings and one long one, I was surprised to find that he didn’t come down as soon as he heard that special ring. Instead one of his daughters opened the door. She went back inside and it took a long time for him to appear. He called me into the courtyard. We talked next to his parked Toyota. His daughters were watching us from the balcony. I was surprised. He gave me a package and said: “Don’t come back here. They’re going to arrest us. They are going to kill us. All of us.”

  And now he had come to my home. I stepped out into the street and watched him as he walked away. He was out of breath walking up the steep road, and that four-wheel-drive car was still parked on the other side of the street, right in front of our house. Later, I realized that from very early on they had been watching our home from inside that car. Did Rahman, the deputy editor-in-chief of Kayhan9 newspaper and one of the leaders of our clandestine Party, know about this? Is that why he didn’t come himself? What had happened during this last month? Why didn’t he warn us? He had always worried for my wife. I went upstairs. I woke my wife; she slept late and only after taking sleeping pills.

  I gave her the news. Waves of worry washed over her face and have never left since. She jumped up, quick as lightning.

  “What time is it? Manuchehr Khan might be stranded.”

  Nooshabeh, my wife was very fond of that calm, kind, likeable man, and even though she was neither interested in politics nor a Party member, she was always ready to help him. The bell rang again. This time it was one of the members of the Party Central Committee. He had assumed that Manuchehr Behzadi, a fellow member of the Central Committee and editor-in-chief of Mardom, The People’s Letter, the Party’s official newspaper, would be with us and had come to let him know that the Guards had gone down early that morning to the building where Manuchehr lived. I said: “We have to collect Manuchehr Khan at eight o’clock, so we will let him know what is happening. But you shouldn’t go home. Stay somewhere else for a few days.”

  He left, and I heard later that he had managed to get out of the country. I told my wife that we had better leave the house.

  Nooshabeh was rushing to get ready to collect Manuchehr. “Pack up everything we need,” she said, “I’ll be back very quickly.”

  I insisted that she stayed so that we could go together, but she was worried about Manuchehr, and left the house in a hurry. First of all, I tore up Party paperwork, and threw it into the toilet. I grabbed a small bag into which I put any books that I thought might appear compromising, and my passport, which had a stamp from my trip to the Soviet Union. I put the bag in the cellar. I went back upstairs. I picked up another small bag. I tried to make sure that my wife’s mother, who was living with us, wouldn’t notice. I threw in basic necessities. I considered phoning the Mardom office, but instead quietly left the house with the bag in my hand and phoned the Mardom office from a public phone box nearby. Usually, one of the guys I knew well picked up the phone, but th
is time an unfamiliar voice answered. I realized from the way he spoke that the authorities had already taken over the office. I put down the phone. I didn’t know what to do. For a while I waited at the side of the street for Nooshabeh to get back, but there was no sign of her. I couldn’t leave without her. I went back into the house. Since then, I’ve asked myself a thousand times whether I was stupid to do that.

  Whatever the answer, that return changed the course of my life. Or perhaps it moved it in a predetermined direction.

  Back home, I paced up and down, waiting for my wife. I remember the time exactly. It was precisely twenty to ten on the morning of 6 February 1983 when they knocked on the door. Whoever they were, they hadn’t been able to find the doorbell and had come into the hallway and knocked on the inner door instead. I went down and opened the door. Three people were standing there in civilian clothing. One was holding my photograph, and asked: “Are you Houshang Asadi?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s go to the third floor.”

  They knew that we lived on the third floor. Together we went upstairs. My mother-in-law was busy with some housework. They closed the door behind them and one of them said: “We’ve been ordered to arrest you. Your wife is already under arrest.” They showed me a piece of paper with my wife’s name, Nooshabeh Amiri, on it.

  I was already dressed and ready. A pair of brown velvet trousers and a light brown jumper, a birthday present from my wife. I have kept that jumper ever since. It’s too tight for me now and is unfashionable, but it’s always hanging among my shirts in the wardrobe. And boots. So I was left with nothing else to do. The last thing I did, which I later realized was a mistake, was to take my wallet out of my trouser pocket and place it on the table. That money would have been very useful where I was going. They threw a quick glance around the room and together we proceeded to the little library that my wife and I were using as our office. The room’s window opened on to a building where Shirin Ebadi10 and her mother lived. Shirin’s mother was close friends with my mother-in-law and they used to talk to each other through the window. Next door to their building was some open ground where a wild fig tree had sprouted and subsequently grown to full size. The tree was leafless at that time of year, and I could see the Hillman car that had been parked nearby and several men walking around. They were the officials who had surrounded the building and blocked all the escape routes. One of the men in our flat, who must have been the leader of the arrest team, asked: “Where are the weapons?” I laughed.

  “Are you making fun of us?” he asked.

  “No. The weapons are there,” I replied, and pointed to the penholder on the desk.

  He said: “We’ll find the weapons. If you want to collect some stuff, do it now so we can leave.”

  I picked up my wife’s pills, as I knew she couldn’t sleep without them. My mother-in-law was standing by the door. She blocked their way and asked: “Where are you taking my child?”

  The man who had spoken before said: “We’re going to ask him one or two questions. He’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  I said: “Mother, dear, if they turn out to be the boys from the Revolutionary Guards, then I’ll return. If they are putchists, then I won’t be coming back. Tell my wife that I’ll die shouting ‘Death to America!’ ”

  My mother-in-law burst into tears. I kissed her wet eyes and threw one last glance around my home. We walked down the stairs and left the building. On the street, a couple of Hillmans had been parked in front of the carpark. One of them was full. The men from the second car had got out and were walking about. They put me in the middle of the back seat with someone sitting on either side of me. Apart from the people from the Hillmans the street was deserted. When the car started moving, I saw another Hillman setting off from the bottom of the street and when we reached the end of the street, the fourth Hillman, which had been stationed in a guarding position, also started to move. When we made a turn into the side street, I saw my younger brother drive into our street.

  I watched the crowds of people who were getting on with their lives on that wintry morning, looking at the passengers of this Hillman with their tired eyes. This wasn’t the first time I had been arrested, but somehow the experience was completely different. We were defenders of the revolution. This arrest must either be at the orders of the clerics in charge, and hence would be over in one or two days because, according to the Party’s analysis, the clerics were our allies in the struggle against imperialism. Or the Americans had masterminded a coup, which would mean that I’d be saying “Death to America!” while facing a firing squad alongside all the other staunch supporters of the revolution. These thoughts were going round and round in my head while I was looking at the walls, on which were written the fashionable slogans of the time. The last slogan I saw before we turned into a main street said: “Death to the Dashnaks, the agents of ...”

  The leader of the arrest team who was sitting next to the driver, suddenly asked: “Are you familiar with the Dashnaks?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Armenian fascists!”

  He turned and placed his hand on my head. He said: “Now shut up and lower your head.” And he pressed my head down, mustering as much force as he could, and threw a blanket over me. Everything went black.

  I could hear his voice: “We do this so the public won’t see you. If they knew who you were, they would tear you into pieces ...”

  From beneath the blanket, I said: “We are defenders of the revolution. I’m not aware who you people are ...”

  I heard the sound of their laughter. A hand pressed my head down even harder.

  I later found out that all the people who had been arrested that morning were taken to the army base in the centre of Tehran. On 11 February 1979, the day the Islamic revolution took power, I had held a gun and helped guard this important post alongside the people who had captured it. That base had become one of the main centres of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.

  We reached our destination very quickly. The car stopped. They pulled the blanket off my head and put a blindfold on me. Someone took the bag with my wife’s pills from me, tugged at the edge of my brown jumper, and we walked up two or three steps and entered a courtyard, which I sensed was quite spacious. There was the sound of many people, subdued to a general humming. We passed a significant number of bags and bundles. The guard made me sit against a wall and left. I heard the voice of Rahman Hatefi over the humming. He was speaking loudly, answering questions. He was being asked about a typewriter and he was saying: “I’m a journalist. It’s my own typewriter.”

  I realized that the arrests were extremely widespread. It wasn’t long before my name was called. I stood up. Someone grabbed the corner of my jumper and pulled me along. We walked down the same stairs. I wasn’t alone. I recognized the voices of a number of the Party’s cadres. I was put into a car, a blanket was thrown over my head, and the car set off. I tried to figure out from the car’s movement where I was being taken. I suspected our destination was Evin prison but I soon lost all sense of direction. After a short while, the car stopped and I realized we had arrived. So it wasn’t Evin, it had to be Moshtarek prison. Ironically, back in 1979, I had been one of the people who had helped to capture this notorious prison. Unlike everyone else, I hadn’t been looking for weapons or torture instruments that sunny February day, I was looking for the cells where I had been held prisoner during the Shah’s time. I had searched almost the entire prison building, and was very familiar with it.

  It took a few minutes for the large main gate to the east of the prison to open. We drove through, and the car stopped on the long, cobbled road. They made us step out, one by one. They took me to a room and pulled the blanket off my head.

  I am asked for my name, my nickname, my father’s name and the number on my identity card. I’m handed a pair of trousers, a grey vest, and regulation prison slippers. I put them on. They collect my trousers, my shoes, my socks and my jacket. I put my own shirt and jumper back on ove
r the vest. The trousers are baggy and falling down. The slippers are old and about two sizes too big for my feet.

  They take me into another room. I take off the blindfold. A chubby man with a bushy beard places a placard around my neck and photographs me a few times. Around fifteen years later, when I went to the Islamic court to ask for permission to leave the county and the judge’s assistant brought over my file, I saw one of those pictures again. I was a young man in the photograph, thirty-two years of age with a full head of black hair, a thick moustache, a plump, happy face, and a curious smile on my lips. What was I laughing at?

  The same chubby man puts his hand into a large basket and selects another blindfold and hands it to me. It’s brown and very coarse. The blindfold completely covers my eyes. I tie it up and the man tightens it. I am blind. The Islamic Republic’s greatest invention, its most dangerous weapon, is the blindfold, Brother Hamid. I don’t know whether you copied the blindfold from some foreign security service, or whether it’s an achievement of the “Glorious Islamic Revolution”. Either way, it’s the most horrifying instrument of torture. Deprived of vision the prisoner is disarmed. Your other senses strive to replace your lost sight. Your hearing is the first to rush to your rescue.

  Your interrogator watches every tiny movement you make. Anything you think shows in a movement somewhere in your body. Even the rhythm of your feet translates into something meaningful. When you’re blindfolded, you’re unable to see the impact of your lies in the eyes of your interrogator, to catch in his movements something that might be useful or to your advantage.

  On this battlefield, where the struggle between life and death is being played out, the blindfold removes all advantage from the prisoner. The interrogator has all the weapons at his disposal. He can see you and he can beat you. The prisoner doesn’t even know from which direction the next blow will come. Watching an approaching blow, the body automatically prepares for defence. Blinded, you are defenceless. The blindfolded prisoner is deprived of the ability to sense the moment that is vital in all interrogations, and so takes part in a ghastly, one-sided chess game in which the interrogator controls all the pieces. He scrutinizes the prisoner’s slightest movements. He watches the impact of his words and whips, and is well placed to move a fresh piece to break the prisoner. His opponent, of course, blindfolded, doesn’t even know which piece he has moved.