Camelia (14 page)

I collapsed in my cell after the hours of interrogation. A guard
brought me a cold copper bowl full of rice with stew on top. “That's your lunch. You missed lunchtime, so it was refrigerated. In two hours, they'll give you dinner. If you haven't done your noon and evening prayers, you can go do your ablutions.”

“Oh. Yes, prayers. Definitely. What time is it?” I stood up, exhausted and dizzy. It was five in the afternoon. Had I really been up there all day? With that polyester chador over my head, I faced the
qibleh
and knelt and stood a few times, cursing inside.

My throat was like lead, so tense and stiff I couldn't even swallow water. I didn't want dinner. I wanted to be alone. My cell was like an empty crypt with white walls and a blue iron door. There was nothing in the room. The floor was covered with moist gray carpet, and above me a bright light bulb lit up the room like a spotlight. “Turning it off is out of the question!”

I began the “homework” my interrogator had given me—several sheets of paper marked “Ministry of Intelligence, Interrogation Form.” They wanted to know how many boyfriends I'd had and what we had done together, how religious my parents were, whether I had ever drunk alcohol, what I believed about God. An expression in Arabic was printed in bold black ink at the top of each page:
an-Najat fi Sidq
(Deliverance lies in honesty). Below the Arabic, the Persian translation read, “
Nejat-e shoma dar rastgui ast
” (Save yourself by telling the truth). I spread the papers over the rough, damp carpet and lay down on them.

 

I couldn't sleep. That first night seemed it would never come to an end, as I shivered, listening to the moaning and crying throughout the prison. When they opened my cell at daybreak, I picked up the pages scattered beneath me. They glistened with the moisture they had absorbed from the floor. I performed my ablutions numbly. I had forgotten how to pray, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that I went through the motions, as unseen eyes were watching me
and would report my every move to the interrogator. When I finished, the bitch on duty barked, “Get ready. Your interrogator is waiting outside.”

In those plastic slippers three sizes too big, I shuffled along noisily behind him up the stairs, this time more calmly. The ill-fitting, stinking polyester chador was fastened firmly to my head by the blindfold. I watched his feet, and in a self-assured Islamic tone I greeted him, “
Salaamu aleikum
.”

“
Aleikum as-salaam
.”

His shoes told me that he was different from the other guards. Out of the corner of my eye, through a small gap along the bottom of the blindfold, I could see that rather than the plastic sandals the other guards invariably wore, my interrogator, who was walking a few steps ahead of me, was wearing neatly polished brown leather shoes. I could see his white socks and the sharp crease in his pressed khaki pants. He must not usually work in this building to be able to come in so neat and clean. I remembered how the day before he had said that he hadn't come in for an interrogation in ten years. He must be a person of higher stature, perhaps a departmental chief in the Ministry of Intelligence. I put the puzzle off to one side but kept it in mind.

The future would prove me right. To be saved from this mess, I needed someone strong, someone with influence. He would be my savior.

The days passed, dragged on like a thousand years, without a glimmer of hope in the darkness. It was as if I had disappeared. When I was sent to the court on the second day of my detention with two intelligence agents, they required the usual formalities. I lay blindfolded in the back of a van with tinted windows, with a sheet over my head so I wouldn't be identified in the Tehran traffic. Our vehicle
drove down the congested avenues and sometimes stopped at red lights. In the parking lot at the Revolutionary Courts, they said that I could sit up and take off the blindfold. The city was there before my eyes. I was alive and surging with energy. But I was a prisoner. I was tied up. As I was escorted through the courthouse parking lot, I felt like the criminals I had seen time after time on television or when I was on assignment, brought to the courts in the same detestable prison clothes that I was wearing. Did passersby think I was a female smuggler? Or a woman who had stabbed her abusive husband with a dainty little dagger? I hung my head in shame. Who was I?

I was thrust into a room before the judge appointed to my case to hear the charges against me. The middle-aged judge with gray hair at the tip of his beard was the same man who, at the request of the Ministry of Intelligence, had issued the warrants for my arrest and the search of my home. Judge Yadegarfar looked at me and said, “Are you a human being or a monster? Understand that an execution order is waiting for you.” He opened the file and read, “Having Israeli contacts and spying for the State of Israel. Engaging in activities for American spy organizations and for those with interests in harming the Islamic Republic. Working for foreign media outlets by means of transmitting intelligence, research, and published reports fabricated for the purpose of harming the rule of and inflicting wounds upon the Islamic Revolution.”

“Believe me, none of these accusations are true. Hajj Agha, you have made a mistake. I am a writer. I am a reporter. You have made a mistake. In what way have I been a spy? Let me go home. We are a respectable family, and I really don't understand what you are talking about. I don't know anyone in Israel, and I am not working for any American organization and . . .” And like a cloud in early spring, I burst into tears.

Yadegarfar pointed at the file and said, “It's all documented
clearly in here. The brothers have conducted the necessary investigations, and you will not escape easily from Islamic justice. The punishment for spies is death. Your crimes are very serious. Relations with an Israeli spy . . .” He shook his head sadly and said, “This is a court of justice. It is the Revolutionary Court, and no one is brought here without reason. Confess. Ask forgiveness. Your crimes will be lessened, and God will have mercy on you.”

With the total composure with which he might have asked someone to sample a pastry or to write an essay on springtime, the interrogator asked me, “OK, tell me how many people you've slept with so far.”

I couldn't believe my ears.

“Don't play innocent. I know you've even been with the local butcher—I have his testimony in my hand. Why don't you say anything, you whore? Don't tell me you're a virgin, that you've kept yourself hidden from the sun and the moon. Talk. Tell me, you spy. Fine, so now you're dumb. Well, I'm going to make you tell me about the first time you gave it up, play-by-play. In the name of God, you will tell me or you're going to the basement!”

I knew where the basement was. The basement was where they took the other prisoners. The woman who had made herself crazy or maybe had just gone crazy. All night she screamed, “Nafisaaaaa!” and banged on the door of her cell, shouting that her sister Nafisa was waiting for her on the other side of the door. The sisters called the brothers, and they dragged the helpless woman across the floor, saying they would show her Nafisa. Her screams echoed in the distance, and later I could hear her throwing up in pain and crying out to God. My heart flew about, battering my chest like a wild bird.

I asked Hajiya Khanum as they brought me to my cell, “What happens to the lady who calls for her sister when you take her to the
basement?”

“The basement? You really want to see it?” she asked. Leila, standing next to her, chewing a big wad of gum, winked and said, “
In sha' Allah
, you'll get a chance to go to the basement, too!” Laughing, she slammed the door and closed the latch.

 

And Leila's wish came true. . . . On the way to the basement I cried, “I'll tell you! Let's go back up! I swear to God I'll tell you!” My knees were shaking, and the guards grabbed my arms before I collapsed. They pulled me up, half off the ground, and it was as if I was flying through the air back to the interrogation room. I'll say whatever he wants, I told myself. I'll make up whatever he's asking for, I'll find something to tell him. I won't let myself be tortured, and I won't stay in prison. I'm getting out of here, I told myself and clenched my teeth. “I swear to God I'll tell you.”

“Shut up, you idiot—don't bring God's name into this! Now you're being a sensible girl. When I ask you nicely to talk, you talk. In the name of God, sit down and let's hear what you have to say. . . . I have a list of sixty-seven men who've been with you. Start from the beginning, the beginning of the beginning . . .”

I lied and made up stories to answer all the names on his ridiculous list. But to begin at the beginning . . . that meant beginning with a name well known in Iran. And in that first confession, I told the truth.

It was twilight when we turned the corner in our blue Renault and almost hit a late model car speeding around the corner. “Maman, watch out!” Before I could finish, my mother swerved expertly and slammed on the brakes. The guy driving the other car lowered his
window, and my mother aggressively stuck her head out hers to tell him off. All three of us fell silent for a second. The young man got out, and my mother's angry tone turned reverent. I tried to hide my exhilaration as I stepped out to meet him. That morning, more than ten hours before, I had managed to lose my celebrity admirer at Mehrabad airport, and now, by chance, here I was face-to-face with him in my own neighborhood.

“I waited for you. I looked all over so I could give you a hand. Where did you go?” A big smile had spread across his face.

“Forgive me,” I answered. “You had a lot on your mind. I didn't want to trouble you.”

I had first seen him at the Frankfurt airport, when I was shopping at the duty-free store. I was wearing a dark blue coat and skirt, and I had my head scarf handy to put on before I boarded Iran Air. As I compared chocolates and perfume, I noticed a young man following my every step. He looked Iranian and very familiar. But I just couldn't place him. On the plane, business class was practically empty, and he sat down in my row. He got up a dozen times to shift his luggage around in the overhead compartments, and all at once I recognized him. He had been a guest of a newspaper I wrote for,
Aftabgardan
, at our press booth at the international book fair. I had interviewed him. He was Ali Daei, the soccer champion.

“Excuse me, would you care for some chocolate?” I thanked him and reminded him that we'd met before. He laughed.

“You've done some serious shopping!” he said, pointing at the baby seat that I had carried onto the plane and stored in the cabin with some effort. Alert to the question politely concealed in this comment, I answered, “It's for my sister, for her baby shower. She has a little girl on the way. And no, I'm not married.” He was charming, and I had to make myself sleep the rest of the flight so I wouldn't keep talking to him. When we arrived in Tehran, he found
the slightest pretenses to help me with my bags.