Prisoner of Tehran: A Memoir (No Series)

by Nemat, Marina

  “What are you ladies doing there? You’re taking forever,” Ali’s mother said as she walked into the kitchen. “Your men would like some more tea.”

  As soon as we sat down in the living room, the phone rang. Ali answered it. I could tell it was from Evin. Listening most of the time, he looked concerned. Everyone was silent. I asked him what was wrong when the conversation was over.

  “We’ve known for a while that the Mojahedin have plans to assassinate a few of the people who hold important jobs in Evin,” he said. “We’ve been trying to find and arrest the ones involved. A few of them were arrested recently and have been interrogated. It was Mohammad on the phone. He called to let me know that the information he’s obtained suggests that I’m on their assassination list. My colleagues and friends believe that it would be safer for Marina and me to stay in Evin for a while. I’m not worried for myself, but I don’t want to put Marina’s life in danger.”

  I had figured that he was important in Evin, and this confirmed it.

  “I think staying in Evin is a good idea. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” said Mr. Moosavi. He looked worried.

  I didn’t know this at the time because I didn’t have access to TV, radio, or newspapers, but a few government officials had been assassinated recently, and all the killings had been blamed on the Mojahedin.

  “Marina, is it okay with you if we stay in Evin for a while? It will be a lot safer,” Ali said.

  “Sure,” I said, knowing I didn’t really have a choice.

  “I’ll make it up to you when things are better.”

  We went to bed after our guests left.

  “Ali, do you see what violence does to people? You kill them, and they kill you. When is it going to end, only after everybody is dead?”

  “You’re naïve,” he said. “Do you think that if we ask them nicely, they’ll simply stop fighting the government? We have to protect Islam, God’s law, and God’s people from the evil forces that are at work against them.”

  “God doesn’t need protection. I’m just saying that violence only brings more violence. I don’t know what the solution is, but I know that killing is not the answer.”

  He pulled me into his arms. “Not everyone is as good as you,” he said. “It’s a cruel world.”

  “Yes it is, only because we’re cruel to each other.”

  He laughed. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “When are we going back to Evin?” I asked.

  “Tomorrow morning. I hope you understand that once we go back to Evin, even though you’re my wife, you won’t be treated differently from before. You’re still officially a prisoner. Do you want to stay in a solitary cell or do you want to go to 246?”

  I said I didn’t care which one, and he told me the solitary cells were a better choice because then he would be able to spend more time with me. I didn’t argue. I still didn’t want to explain anything to anyone at 246.

  “Have there been many arrests lately?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Poor souls. They must feel terrified.”

  “Marina, many of these people are terrorists.”

  “Some of them, maybe, but you know that most of them are only children, and many of them haven’t done anything wrong. If I stay in a solitary cell, will you let the younger ones come and stay with me during their interrogation period? There’s enough room for two people in those cells. Ali, I hate being useless. I can help them feel better, and I’ll feel better myself.”

  He smiled. “This is going to be interesting. Fine, you have a deal.”

  “Just don’t tell them I’m your wife or they’ll be scared of me.”

  If there wasn’t any goodness around me, maybe it was up to me to do something good.

  “Ali, where is Sarah Farahani?” I asked.

  “She was in the prison hospital for a long time. Not the hospital you were in, though. There’s another one for prisoners with psychological problems. Now she’s in a cell at 209.”

  “She needs to go home. She’s been through enough. She hasn’t done anything. She just talked too much. She won’t survive in Evin.”

  “Hamehd is the one who’s in charge of her case, and you know how difficult he can be. I don’t think Sarah will be going anywhere soon.”

  “Was her brother, Sirus, really executed?”

  “Yes. He was an active member of the Mojahedin, and he didn’t cooperate at all,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “So your policy is to kill whoever stands in your way.”

  “If Sirus had a chance, he would have shot me in the head.”

  “You could have kept him in prison instead of killing him.”

  “This wasn’t my decision, and I’m not going to argue about it.”

  “Can I see Sarah?”

  “I’ll take you to her cell once we’re back.”

  I had to ask him the question that had been on my mind for a while. There was no right time to ask it, and now was as good as ever.

  “Ali, have you ever killed anyone? I don’t mean at the front; I mean at Evin.”

  He stepped out of bed and walked to the kitchen. I followed him. He turned on the tap, filled a glass with water, and took a few sips from it.

  “You have, haven’t you?”

  “Marina, why can’t you let it be?”

  “I hate you!”

  I felt the terrible weight of my words, but I didn’t regret them. I wanted to hurt him. This was revenge, and he deserved it. I had tried to accept my situation and to understand him, but I couldn’t pretend I didn’t know about the horrible things he had done.

  He slowly put his glass on the table and stared at it. When he looked up, his eyes were dark with a strange combination of anger and pain. He came toward me. I took a few steps back and bumped into a cabinet. Even if I ran, I couldn’t go far. He grabbed my arms, and his fingers dug into my flesh.

  “You’re hurting me,” I said.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “Yes. You’ve been hurting me since I first saw you. And you’ve been hurting other people, and you’ve been hurting yourself.”

  He lifted me off the ground and carried me to the bedroom. I kicked and screamed in vain.

  The next morning, I refused to get out of bed. Ali called me from the kitchen three times, saying breakfast was ready. I pulled the covers over my head, sobbing. The bed creaked. I opened my eyes and, through the white veil of the thin cotton sheet, saw him sitting next to me. He sat sideways on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees and his hands clenched together. I didn’t move.

  “Marina?” he said after a few minutes.

  I didn’t respond.

  “I’m sorry for getting mad at you. You have every right to blame me. But you have to understand that this is the way things are. I don’t like what I do. The world is an unkind and violent place, and there are things we have to do. I know you disagree with me. But this is how it is, and I didn’t make it this way. You can hate me if you want, but I love you. I didn’t mean to hurt you last night. Come. Let’s have breakfast.”

  I didn’t react.

  “Come on. Please. What can I do to make up for it?”

  “Let me go home.”

  “Marina, you’re my wife. Your home is where I am. You have to get used to it.”

  My sobs became heavier and louder. He peeled the sheet off me and tried to pull me into his arms. I pushed him away.

  “You have to get used to the way things are now. Is there anything reasonable I can do to make you happy?”

  I had to find some goodness in this pain or it was going to drown me.

  “Help Sarah.”

  “I will.”

  Ali wore pajama pants but didn’t have a shirt on. Narrow, white lines covered his bare back from side to side. Scars. There were many of them. Lash marks. I had not noticed them before because I always closed my eyes when he took off his clothes.

  I touched his back.

  “You have scars…�
��

  He stood and put on his shirt.

  For the first time, I felt a closeness between us, a connection. I didn’t want it to be there. But it was as tangible as the sheet covering me, as real as his scars and mine. A sad understanding that didn’t need words to exist, that delivered all it had to say in a silent glance or a light touch.

  “Come. Let’s go eat,” he said.

  We had breakfast.

  About three hours later, I was back in my old solitary cell. I couldn’t say I had missed it. Ali brought me a large stack of books—all about Islam—and told me he was going to be very busy. I reminded him that he had promised to take me to see Sarah, and he took me to her cell but warned me that Sarah was heavily drugged and was not going to be very responsive.

  “You can stay with her for an hour or two but not more. I don’t want to upset Hamehd.”

  Sarah was writing on the wall when I entered her cell. She had lost more weight, and her skin had turned yellow. I put my hands on her shoulders. She didn’t react at all.

  “Sarah, I missed you.”

  The walls were covered with words; they carried me back to our old lives: Sarah’s house with its flower bed, her mother sitting on a swing in the yard, her father reciting Hafez’s poems, Sirus playing soccer with his friends, our school with its tall windows, walking home from Agha-yeh Rostami’s general store while licking an ice cream cone. It went on and on. She had even written about my pencil case. I didn’t want to remember. Looking back made my heart ache with a terrible longing to go home. Home. It felt oceans and worlds away. But it was there. Somewhere beyond Evin. If my home were beyond Mount Everest, I would have climbed it. Even ten Mount Everests seemed possible to conquer.

  “Sarah. I know you can hear me. Many of these are my memories, too. Our homes are still out there, and you have to survive Evin to go back. Your home is there, waiting for you. Don’t forget that tomorrow always comes, but you have to be there to see it. Sirus wants you to see it. Fight this battle for him, for your mother, for your father.”

  I grabbed Sarah’s shoulders and turned her around to face me.

  “Hamehd wants you to be like this, to lose. Don’t give him the satisfaction. You will go home. If you only knew what I’ve done. It’s so hard sleeping in Ali’s bed, but he isn’t like Hamehd. There’s goodness in him, and he loves me…but it’s so hard. You can’t imagine.”

  Sarah’s arms went around me and became tighter and tighter. We held each other and cried.

  After about two weeks, which I mostly spent reading except for when Ali was with me, I had my first cell mate, Sima. She had large hazel eyes, and although she didn’t look more than thirteen, was fifteen years old. The guard who brought her to my cell told her to take off her blindfold before he locked the door behind him. She took it off, rubbed her eyes, squinted, and looked at me with round, terrified eyes.

  She asked me who I was. I told her my name and that I was a prisoner. She looked slightly relieved and sat down, keeping a safe distance from me. Her feet were a little swollen. I asked if they hurt.

  “They tortured me!” she cried.

  I moved closer to her and told her that I had been tortured, too, more than she had been. She asked how long I had been in Evin, and I said, “Seven months.”

  “Seven months? That’s too long! Have you been here in this cell the whole time?” she asked.

  I explained that I had been at 246 and that after her interrogation period was over, she could be sent there as well to wait for her trial. She asked how long that would take, and I said it could take from days to months. She wanted to know if I had had a trial.

  “Sort of,” I said.

  “What’s your sentence?” she asked.

  “Life in prison.”

  “Oh, my God!”

  She said she couldn’t imagine being in Evin for more than a week. I asked her who had interrogated her, and she said her interrogator was Ali and that he was very mean.

  “He’s mean sometimes,” I said. “But there are others who are a lot worse than him.”

  Telling her the truth would have helped nothing.

  Sima wanted to know everything about Evin’s procedures and the 246, and I told her as much as I could.

  Ali knocked on the door of the cell at about eight o’clock at night and called my name. I grabbed my chador and went to the door.

  “What does he want from you?” Sima whispered.

  “Don’t worry; he won’t hurt me,” I said as I put on my chador and walked out of the cell.

  Ali wanted to know how things were going with Sima, and I told him she was feeling a little better. I asked him why he had lashed her, and he said he hadn’t had a choice; her brother was a member of the Mojahedin and was involved with the assassination of a government official. Ali had been trying to find and arrest him for months. He said he had to make sure Sima didn’t know where her brother was.

  “Please tell me you’re not going to whip her again, are you?”

  “No. She doesn’t know anything. I’m sending her to 246. We’ll let her go once her brother gives himself up.”

  I asked him where he was taking me.

  “Just another cell. I’m exhausted. I really need you,” he said.

  After the morning prayer when I returned to my cell, Sima was fast asleep.

  “When did you come back last night?” she asked as soon as she woke up. “I waited for you forever, and then I guess I fell asleep.”

  “I came really late.”

  “What were you doing all that time?”

  “Nothing important.”

  “You don’t want to talk about it, do you?”

  “No. Don’t worry about me.”

  She was crying. I embraced her and told her she would be all right as long as she didn’t lose hope. I told her I had heard that Ali was sending her to 246, where she would meet my friends. They would help her. I asked her to tell them I was all right.

  The next day, Sima was sent to 246, and my days became painfully boring and lonely. I asked Ali to bring me a few books of poetry, and he did. So I divided my days between reading and memorizing the works of Hafez, Sadi, and Rumi and sleeping.

  A few days later, Ali picked me up at my cell in the evening to go to his parents’ house for dinner. At the prison gates, we stopped, waiting for the guards to let the car through. Ali cranked down the window to greet the guards, who, although friendly toward him, always ignored me as if I weren’t there. But this time, after wishing Ali a good night, the guard in charge nodded in my direction and said, “Good night, Mrs. Moosavi.”

  Confused, I looked around and, after a moment, realized he had addressed me.

  Ali touched my hand. I jumped.

  “You look shocked,” he said.

  “They always acted as if I was invisible.”

  “They’re accepting you. They know we’re married.”

  As soon as we arrived at Ali’s parents’ house, Akram and Ali’s mother embraced me. “You’re still skin and bone,” Ali’s mother complained, shaking her head. I followed her to the kitchen to help with dinner preparation. Akram began basting the lamb roast that was in the oven. Ali’s mother poured some tea for the men and, on her way to the living room, asked me if I could make salad. There was some washed lettuce and a few tomatoes and cucumbers in a colander by the sink. I grabbed a knife, and as I was chopping, I remembered that I had had a dream about Akram the night before.

  “I had a dream about you last night,” I said.

  “What dream?”

  I paused, trying to decide whether to tell her or not.

  “Come on, tell me! Did something bad happen?”

  “No, no. Not at all.”

  “Then what was it? I believe in dreams. Do you remember it?”

  I told her that it was a strange dream: she was in my church, lighting a candle, and she told me that I had told her to say the Hail Mary nine times a day for nine days to have a baby.

  She was surprised and asked m
e what Hail Mary was, and I told her.

  “You really believe that Mary was the Mother of God?” she asked after hearing the prayer.

  I explained that Christians believed that God had willed his son, Jesus, to become flesh inside Mary’s womb and that Mary was not an ordinary woman; she had been born for this.

  “We believe that Mary was a great woman but not the mother of God!” said Akram.

  “I’m not asking you to believe in anything. You asked me about my dream, and I told you,” I snapped.

  She looked down, trying to make up her mind. “I’ll do it. I’ll say this prayer. There’s nothing to lose, is there?”

  A couple of days later, early in the afternoon, Ali came into my cell. This was unusual; he always came in the evening. I was taking a nap and woke up startled. He sat next to me, leaned against the wall, and closed his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  He put his arms around me.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The guards brought in a girl a couple of nights ago. She’s seventeen or so. She was caught writing DEATH TO KHOMEINI and KHOMEINI IS A MURDERER and other things like that with spray paint on a wall on Enghelab Avenue. When they arrested her, she said she hated the imam because he had killed her little sister. She’s been saying the same things here. I think she’s lost it. Hamehd beat her pretty bad, but she’s still saying the same things. She’ll be executed soon if she doesn’t behave herself and cooperate. Will you talk to her? What she needs is a psychologist or something, but that’s not going to happen.” He sighed. “Don’t say it. I know this isn’t fair. And I know there’s a good chance you won’t be able to talk sense into her. I hate doing this to you. But I can’t think of anything else.”

  “I’ll talk to her. Where is she?”

  “Interrogation building. I’ll go get her.”

  About half an hour later, Ali pushed a wheelchair into my cell. The girl sitting in it was covered with a dark blue chador and was leaning to one side, her head resting against her shoulder.

  “Mina, you can take off your blindfold now,” said Ali, but she didn’t move. Ali pulled off her blindfold, and she opened her eyes a little. Her right cheek was blue and swollen. I knew she couldn’t see, hear, or understand much. Everything would seem like a senseless nightmare to her.