We shook hands and bid each other a lengthy farewell. I took Khamenei’s phone number. He waved to me and shut the door with a smile. We were walking out of the drive into the main road when Rahman asked me: “This friend of yours, who is he?”
I said: “He’s a cleric, of course. We were in prison together.”
Rahman said: “He is one of the most important leaders supporting Ayatollah Khomeini.”
These two men of politics had summed each other up very astutely.
Chapter 5
Playing “Full or Empty” with Mehdi Karroubi
Greetings, Brother Hamid. As I write, Sheikh Mehdi Karroubi is courageously standing up to the oppressive regime for which you have been both torturer and ambassador. When he ran for the presidency in 2009, you were probably in charge of security for the administration. But you probably weren’t even born when we used to play Full or Empty23 with Mehdi Karroubi24 in a prison cell during the Shah’s regime. This is a very straightforward children’s game. Sheikh Mehdi, who, to be fair to him, was a kind man, never managed to learn how to play it. But later, he proved that he was a master of the political games, and now he’s leading one of the main opposition parties in the country.
You are now reading my fifth letter, Brother Hamid. That day, when you took me out of the cell and straight into the room downstairs and with absolutely no warning launched into administering a “punishment”, gave you such pleasure. And just think how much more pleasure it’ll give you later on, in the afterlife, when in return for doing your religious duty you will be rewarded with a thousand houris25 and dare I say, a thousand male slaves.
I am in the room upstairs at the moment. I am lifting my blindfold and putting on my glasses. My feet are hurting. I look at them; they are only slightly swollen, but they’re excruciatingly painful. There are a few spots that have turned red and are throbbing, like a red light that keeps going on and off. Two of the spots are on my calf, one on the medial cuneiform bone of the foot. Even now, on this cold summer morning in Paris, when I recall those days, the three spots begin to throb again. The paper is on the table, and I carry on writing.
Tehran, April 1975
We left the tiny cell where I had been locked up with Khamenei, and walked down the corridor, up the stairs, and through Under the Eight. We went through the door and immediately, another door opened. Cell number nine, block number five. They threw me in. I removed my jacket from my head. A number of people were standing around in a spacious cell, looking at me. We shook hands and sat down. An hour later, we had already become acquainted with each other. To begin with, there were seven of us.
Sheikh Karroubi, now a key figure in the Islamic Republic, had the same personality then that he has now. Sometimes it seems to me that he hasn’t changed a bit. Hot tempered and outspoken, but very straightforward and incredibly kind. He had been prescribed a small bottle of milk every day because of his stomach ulcer. Initially, he would insist everyone took a sip of the milk before he gulped it down. “Everyone” even included the leftist inmates.
Karroubi spoke in a very simple way, typical of rural Iran, and said that this was not the real Islam. One had to look to Mr Khomeini in order to understand true Islam. Everyone called him Mr Khomeini in those days; it wasn’t until much later that he gained the title of Imam. Karroubi spoke with such passion that his mouth started foaming. He said that Islam was capable of creating the true Plato’s Republic. Recently, he has said in interviews that when he was young, he wanted to recreate Plato’s Republic. Everyone would be free in that republic. Islamic scholars would debate with representatives of other worldviews. Moshtarek prison would be destroyed and its ruins turned into a park.
The atmosphere in the cell changed with the arrival of a man who was clearly a mole. We avoided all talk of politics. We divided into two groups to play a game called Full or Empty. I was the leader of the Tehran group and Ahmad, “the likeable rascal”, to quote his own words, was the leader of the Isfahan group. We would change the team members for each round of the game and no one would go for Karroubi. We had figured out after a few rounds that he was incapable of learning the rules of the game. Together or separately, Ahmad and I had explained them to him many times: “You are not supposed to open the hand that the stone is hidden in until the leader of the rival team touches that hand and says, ‘give me the stone’.”
Karroubi would nod that he understood. But when he had the stone, if a member of the rival team asked, “Mr Karroubi, do you have the stone?” he would say, “Yes, I do have it,” and would immediately open his hand to reveal it. If he didn’t have it he would say: “No, they haven’t given me the stone.”
Initially, this situation made us laugh so loudly that the guards had to register their objection by banging on the door. But soon the situation created a problem, because it kept interrupting the game. Ahmad and I decided not to give Mr Karroubi another chance; we made him persona non grata in the game and wouldn’t give him the stone. But this created a new problem for now Mr Karroubi would open his hand for the other team and say: “They haven’t given me the stone.”
And so we were obliged to give him the stone yet again. Each time we spent ages explaining the rules. And he would wave his hand to signal he understood and the game would start. But again, as soon as a member of the rival team asked Mr Karroubi whether he was holding the stone, he would either open his hand or tell the truth, and the game would come to an abrupt end.
On bathing days, they would divide us between two showers. We would do a quick solitary confinement-style wash and return. Sheikh Karroubi did not share Khamenei’s sensitivities. He felt comfortable with us.
One time, on returning from the shower, I felt my body itching. I took off my shirt. My armpits were full of tiny creatures. I showed them to Mr Karroubi. He picked one up, squeezed it with his fingers and said: “Lice.”
The rest of the men searched through their clothes and it became clear that the clean clothes that had just been handed out were infested with lice. We reported this to the guards in charge of bringing the food; they laughed. They laughed and left.
So it became our business to kill the lice, while sitting in the sunlight that came through the cell window and listening to Iranian pop music. The police station’s administrative unit was located just outside our cell and the staff used to listen to the radio; thus the prison inmates, considered a threat to national security, enjoyed music at their leisure, courtesy of the police.
When I was released, I saw Sheikh Mehdi Karroubi and the spiritual fathers of Iran’s own fundamentalist Taliban on television. It turned out that the Sheikh had become a master of political games. The Sheikh and the representatives of the Islamic Coalition Party26 had used their struggle against Marxism as the reason to be granted an amnesty by the Shah, and had consequently been released. The rest of us, who had done so well playing Full or Empty, had less luck in the real political game, and remained in custody. We were collectively released only when the revolution began. Later on, the cell’s leftists met up once again in one of the prisoner’s homes on Bahar Street, but political intrigues eventually destroyed the friendships that had been forged in the cells, and we scattered in different directions.
One day they came for me out of the blue. I quickly kissed and hugged my cellmates, threw my jacket over my head and left. When I reached the interrogator’s office, he immediately stood up behind his desk, picked up a file and passed it to the soldier who had brought me in, saying: “Take him away.”
To me, he said: “Go, get some fuck and get on with your life. That Jewish broad is quite a good one, right? Do you know that she’s been to Her Majesty’s office? We’d better not catch you again.”
That was it. I knew that I was going to be released. He asked: “Are you going to go back to Kayhan?”
I said: “I have to finish my military service first. The navy is expecting me to give some answers, right?”
He laughed and said: “How much time do you have left
?”
“Four months.”
He laughed again and said: “You’ll spend four months with the navy, but with us, you’ll spend the rest of your life.”
This pronouncement, with its veiled threats, made me shiver. I thought they were about to try to make me promise to cooperate with them, which I’d already decided to refuse to do. But the interrogator said: “Just tell your commander that you’ve been in the police station. They know what to do next.”
He gestured towards the guard, who took me away. Again, I put my jacket over my head. When we walked down the stairs, I saw a girl, her legs bandaged up to her knees, dragging herself down the stairs step by step. The guard and I entered a room. They asked for my name and brought in my clothes. A few minutes later, I found myself alone on Foroughi Road. It was in the middle of the summer of 1975. The heat was incredible and passers-by were looking at me in a curious way. I thought to myself: “They realize that I have been in political confinement and have just been released.”
It made me feel proud. It was only when the searing heat brought me back to my senses that I realized I was still wearing the winter clothes in which I had been arrested and was standing in a thick coat under Tehran’s mid-August sun. I took it off and threw it into the gutter.
I am busy writing when the door opens and someone comes in. I hear the clump of boots so I immediately know it’s not you, Brother Hamid.
“Put on the blindfold.”
His voice is coarse. I put on the blindfold. He comes and grasps my sleeve. He takes me out of the room into the corridor. The papers are left on the seat of the chair.
“Go downstairs. Do you know the way? Wait by the door until your guard comes to sort you out.”
“Alright.”
I walk down the stairs gingerly, touching the wall with my hand. I stand outside the door. I don’t know why, but I think that inside there’s a white telephone and someone is talking into it. The guard arrives and hands me the tip of a stick. We walk to the courtyard. It’s seriously cold. I hear a voice: “Is that him?”
Someone answers: “Yes, the man himself.”
Suddenly, a slap hits my face. First, second, third and fourth. From beneath the blindfold I see the hem of a cloak. His hands are heavier than your hands, Brother Hamid. On the night of the supposed coup, he marks my face with his stamp for good. I have not yet come back to my senses. Someone is grabbing at my sleeve and dragging me along. We go through a number of doors. He pushes me down. I land on a metal bed.
“Take off your socks.”
I take off my socks.
“Lie down.”
I lay down on my back.
“No. Face down.”
I lay on my stomach. My hands and feet are quickly tied up.
“In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful!”
The whip descends. I yell. I am being whipped for the first time in my life. The lash bites into the soles of my feet. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. I am losing count of the lashes. The door opens with a jolt. The next lash descends. I hear the shuffling sound of slippers. It’s you, Brother Hamid. My guardian angel. I hear your voice: “Hey! What are you doing to this poor creature of God?”
You untie my hands. You support me under my arms: “Stand up. Can you walk?”
I feel that my legs have swollen. I think they are covered in blood.
“I’m bleeding.”
You are laughing, Brother Hamid.
“No, Mr Hero.”
You are carrying me out, slowly. We reach Under the Eight.
Face the wall.
I am standing, facing the wall.
Take off your slippers.
I do as I’m told.
Stamp your feet and count up to one thousand.
I have no idea what “stamp your feet” means. You are instructing me, Brother Hamid: “Walk on your feet and count to one thousand.”
I set off. I hear your voice and you are talking: “Haj Aqa beat you by mistake. He punished you instead of somebody else. If you don’t write properly, that’s what’s going to happen to you.”
I keep walking until you come back and take me away, Brother Hamid. You have grabbed hold of my sleeve and are talking to me very gently and kindly. You whisper into my ear that you know everything. That you don’t want to resort to physical punishment. Neither does Haj Aqa. This is my last chance, I should start writing. You are taking me into a wooden room. You ask me in a gentle voice: “Want some tea? Cigarettes?”
“I am not a tea-drinker and I do not smoke.”
“How peculiar. You, a man of the pen, and you don’t smoke and you don’t drink tea!”
You are leaving, Brother Hamid.
Chapter 6
As Always There’s a Woman Involved ...
I arranged to meet the British ambassador at the Naderi Cafe,27 which is located right behind the British Embassy.
In fact, the drama began with a trip to England. And as always, there was a woman involved.
This is my sixth letter to you. You came and took me away, Brother Hamid. I saw the other prisoners, sitting outside the room downstairs. They all had their feet in bandages. Later, I will notice raw whipmarks on the feet of many of them. That morning, I had a toothache. The pain’s centre was on the right side where my molars are.
Later on, I got that tooth pulled out. Years later, while writing this book, those same teeth suddenly started to ache, and I had a heart attack and collapsed in the Parisian rain, in front of the British Embassy. Inside the ambulance I was yelling in pain and it was this same tooth that was aching. The French doctors couldn’t find a connection between the heart and the tooth. They kept shaking their heads and walking away. Later, when my Iranian dentist treated the tooth it would remind him of the drama of my life and he would come close to crying.
London, end of summer 1977
My tooth is aching right now. It’s aching badly. I stand up and move around. I knock on the door a few times. There’s no answer. Finally, someone turns up. I say: “My toothache is killing me.”
“I’ll make enquiries with your interrogator.”
Brother Hamid, my interrogator, is not around. Maybe you are around but you are busy. I don’t remember how much time passed until you arrived.
“Hello.”
“What’s up little lion?”
Asad means lion, hence my surname, Asadi, means lion-like. Your tone is one of kindness mixed with mockery. I answer you with my eyes closed: “I am dying of toothache.”
Astonished, you ask me: “Tooth? Was it aching when you were abroad, Mr Hero? Aren’t the Russians masters at treating dental problems?”
Are you hinting at my trip to the Soviet Union? I pretend I haven’t noticed it. I’ve always had this fear of being marked with the stigma of espionage. I try not to react, but you must have seen my fingers shake.
“Can you walk?”
You make me stand up. You grab hold of my sleeve and pull it. When we reach the stone stairs, you ask gently: “Can you make it up three floors?”
I realize that we are going to the treatment room. It takes me a long time to get myself up the ancient stone stairs on my bandaged feet, but you are patient. You even chat to me. You say, have you read this book, A Man? You ask me, “Do you know the author, Oriana Fallaci?”28
I shake my head and you inform me that arresting journalists is a common tradition in all intelligence agencies around the world, particularly in the CIA and MI6. I have reproduced your speech in full through the character of the interrogator in my novel The Cat.
After changing the bandages on my feet, Heydari, the guard, asks as usual: “Any complaints?”
I say: “My tooth is killing me.”
And I hear your voice: “This poor creature of God deserves pity. Why don’t you take him to the dentist?”
Heydari hands me a tube of toothpaste: “We’ve got to find out when the dentist is coming. Until then, put this on your tooth whenever you feel the pain.”
; You take me out of the room. You tell me to keep standing, facing the wall. It’s sunny and cold. I am shivering. You go back into the treatment room and it’s a while before you come back out. You grab my sleeve and we return. You are mumbling a poem: “Life is beautiful, indeed, indeed.”
How interesting, you have read the famous poem by Siavash Kasrai.29
Then you say: “That’s what poetry is about. You Tudeh dogs and Savak guys, do you have a single person capable of composing such a poem?”
I exclaim: “That is a famous poem by Siavash Kasrai.”
You say: “Yeah, he’s in here too. I’ll ask him whether you are telling the truth or not.”
My heart sinks. I say to myself: “So they have arrested Siavash as well.”
It appears that you are carefully monitoring every movement of my lips and hands, and my body language. You say: “No worries. We haven’t brought your wife to this secret location ...”
And you interrupt yourself. At Under the Eight, you hand me over to the guard: “Go, get some rest.”
You hesitate. Then you say, sarcastically: “Listen, little lion, I really don’t get it. I mean, you have worked so hard for this revolution.”
The guard takes me back to the cell. When the door closes, I feel strangely calm. I feel like sleeping for a thousand hours. I stretch out. Exhaustion overwhelms the pain in my feet and tooth. A flare of hope warms my heart until I fall asleep. I will eventually realize that kindness is the interrogator’s most dangerous weapon. When whipping is immediately followed by kindness, the prisoner willingly hands himself over to the latter. Torture is intended to break down physical resistance, but the body’s defence mechanism automatically puts up resistance. Kindness, by contrast, completely disarms the victim.
Letters to My Torturer Page 7
