Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran (13 page)

“Keep your mind busy. He’s about to come back. He’s reading your report.”

I am in my cell, alone with my pain. The guard closes the door and leaves. I take off the blindfold and am about to sit down when the door opens. The guard says: “Stand up! You have no right to sit down – or to lean. Either stand up or walk.”

He closes the door. I think he’s joking. I’ve just dropped to the floor in pain and fatigue when the door opens and a heavily booted leg gives a kick to my side.

“Didn’t you hear what I said? You’ve got to stand up. I am watching!”

He closes the door. I know that he’s watching through the tiny holes in the cardboard. He is watching me through the same holes that enabled me to see you, Brother Hamid. I can’t stand up. I put my hand, the tips of my fingers, against the wall. I quickly remove them. A moment of contact with something to lean on gives me energy. A famous film comes into my mind. It’s war time. Prisoners are causing havoc. The Nazis pick up the film’s hero. They take him to a place within shooting range of the watchtower. They have drawn a circle on the ground. The make him stand there. They tell him, “The guard has been ordered to shoot you if you sit down or leave the circle.”

That was a scene from a film. It was war. And that guy was a hero. I am not a hero. I have never been a hero. But you were like those guards, worse than them. You were worse than those guards, harsher. And that night, my situation was more or less like that of the film hero. That hero put up resistance until the morning. But I am
not a hero. I am a sensitive, slender young guy and I collapse, I don’t know when. It’s not up to me. I hear the sound of the door. Then I feel the kick. It’s less painful than the pain of standing up. It can’t even begin to compare with the toothache. The guard leaves and I assume I am done. I think about sleeping. I think I am dying. Again I hear voices. It’s two or three people. They are hitting me on my face. A voice says, “He has fainted.” Another one is saying, “He’s pretending,” and a hand hits my face. Hits my teeth. I open my eyes and see two people standing over me. I later find out that they are Dr Heydari and Dr Shalchi. The second one really is a doctor and a Baluch lord. He’s the doctor in charge of Moshtarek Prison. Dr Heydari is a member of the Revolutionary Guard. He’s being trained by Dr Shalchi and is also Shalchi’s bodyguard. One of them, who speaks with an accent (I later discover that it’s Shalchi), says in a gentle voice: “What’s up?”

“My teeth ... ache ...”

He opens my mouth and touches the broken tooth. My yelling reaches the sky.

Shalchi says: “Put some toothpaste on it for now.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Give them money to buy some for you.”

I don’t have money. At that moment, I hear the shuffling of slippers. The doctors stand up. They leave. The guard comes, grabs me under my arms and makes me stand up. He puts on my blindfold. I put on the slippers and leave the cell. It’s you, Brother Hamid, standing outside the door. You drag me along. How frightening is the cold in the courtyard. You throw me onto a chair. I say: “My tooth ...”

You say: “Shut up! Stop playing tricks, okay?”

And you leave. I take off my blindfold. I put on my glasses. A pile of white paper has been placed on the table.

“Which day of March is it, Brother Hamid?”

Only once did I ask you, and you mocked me: “Got an appointment with the British ambassador?”

You must still be looking for me. Apparently I’m a British spy and I have made you shoot blanks. Just how clever are the British? Even now they are delaying my visa, just in case. A year ago, I had a heart attack in front of their embassy. Such kindness they showed me. They quickly made a phone call and got me to the hospital. It didn’t occur to them that I might have been trained in pretending to have a heart attack.

I have lost track of time and space. I am in the room upstairs, writing with great difficulty because of my seriously swollen hands. Day by day, you are becoming kinder, picking up piles of paper and leaving. You personally accompany me to the treatment room and back. You monitor Brother Heydari at his work. You are like a specialist doctor concerned with the way my foot injuries are being treated. You are my only point of reference; I have no contact with anyone else. You don’t even trust the guards with me. What affection you have for me. You accompany me to the showers and the bathroom. You open the door of the room and say, mockingly: “Please come in, little lion.”

I enter. I am totally broken now. I sit down on the chair, facing the wall. I wait for you to say: “Take off your blindfold.”

I take it off and put on my glasses. You put a photograph in front of me. It’s Rahman, stepping out of a taxi in a place covered in snow. Rahman has not been arrested!

But I heard his voice on the day of my arrest. I am stupefied. Years after his death I discover that he had been arrested and released on the same day, after a routine interrogation. They let him go so he could serve as bait.

“Who is this?”

“Rahman Hatefi.”

“His alias?”

“Haidar Mehrgan.”

You put other photographs of Rahman on the arm of the chair. The photographs show him in front of some doors. On different days, in different clothes. I say: “No, I don’t recognize ...”

You hit me hard on the head: “Forgotten to bark?”

You put some more photographs on the arm of the chair. My heart jumps into my throat. I try not to react, so you cannot see my fear. A number of photographs had been taken inside the summer garden, near Tehran, that belonged to Rahman’s wife’s sister.

“Write about these photographs and write everything you know about the meetings of the ‘great comrade’ with Khamenei. Everything. We can check the details with both of them. You had better not misplace a word.”

You leave. I lean against the chair. My world is spinning. I’m reminded of the seventh plenum. When I realize that it’s about the day prior to the plenum, I get stomach cramps. Why was I not there? This annoys me. I had asked Rahman indirectly. He had said that only members of the Central Committee, advisors and top leaders participated in the plenum. I had no idea that this ranking would be to my advantage when the court came to discussing the death penalty
for me. I ask myself: “How did they get hold of these pictures? Maybe they had a mole in the garden?”

Be that as it may, all I know are the names of these individuals, I have no addresses. I don’t know the man who’s with Rahman. I write this down. I don’t even know where the garden is, I’ve only been there three times, once with Rahman and twice during the “danger period”.

Less than a month had passed since the revolution when we were all declared counter-revolutionaries and made redundant from
Kayhan
. We were sacked towards the end of March 1979.

It was on one of those early days of redundancy that I sought out Khamenei. I wanted to see my former cellmate again. I still had no idea that he was also a member of the Revolutionary Counci1.
³⁸
It was evening when I turned into the narrow lane in that old neighbourhood and knocked on the door of a decrepit building at the bottom of the lane. A guard opened the door and asked what I wanted. I said: “Is Mr Khamenei home?”

“His Excellency is not at home. You are?”

I still remember the jolt of astonishment when I heard the term “His Excellency”. This was one of the early “Islamic revolution” terms, and had stuck in my mind. I introduced myself. He shut the door and left, returning with Mustafa, Khamenei’s oldest son. Back in the cell Khamenei had talked so much about his son that when I met him, I felt like I had known him for years. Mustafa kissed me on my cheeks and said: “Aqa will be back late tonight.”

I left, and returned to Khamenei’s home at eleven that evening. This time, Mustafa himself opened the door. We walked through the old courtyard, passed the pool, and went up the stairs. On the top floor, there was a simple, sparsely furnished room with five doors and stained-glass windows. The whole room was covered in cushions and carpets and when I entered, I saw that the place was jam-packed with clerics. I started shaking their hands, starting by the door. One by one, they would respectfully rise, either fully or half, and shake my
hand. The last one, who sat on a small cushion right next to the host’s, was a thin cleric with a Turkman’s face. Later, I found out that he was Ayatollah Sane’i.
³⁹
He is now one of the leaders of the reformist movement, and opposed to Khamenei.

I had just sat down when Khamenei arrived home. He was holding a huge pile of folders under his arm. He headed towards me as soon as he caught sight of me. We hugged and kissed each other’s cheeks. He handed the files to his son and sat down. A small black and white TV was on, showing a prison film. Khamenei faced the guests and said: “It’s better than the prison we were in. Our dear Houshang is a leftist and we were cellmates.”

Then dinner was served. Adas polow,
⁴⁰
rice mixed with lentils, without any meat. At the time, Khamenei was still living a simple life. Khamenei invited me to sit down and eat with them. I picked up a spoon. After we had exchanged a few sentences, he asked me to visit him the next day in the office of the Islamic Republican Party.
⁴¹
I stood up to leave, Khamenei also stood up and we shook hands. I went in the direction of the first cleric, Ayatollah Sane’i, to shake hands with him but saw that he was holding his hands together and shaking his head. I realized that clerics do not shake hands with leftists. I turned to the guests, said goodbye and left.

The following evening I went to the office of the Islamic Republican Party. Khamenei was teaching a class. I waited outside the classroom until it finished. All around me were young bearded men, girls who were covered up with black chadors, and busy clerics. They were all new to me. I could see them but I still couldn’t fathom what had taken place. To us the Islamic Revolution had been reduced to the Party’s definition of it: these were the temporary allies of the working class.

The classroom door opened and Khamenei came out. I lit his pipe. We shook hands and went to his large office. He closed the door and sat down next to me. He asked me what I was up to. I summarized what had happened at
Kayhan
. He thought it over and said:
“We intend to set up a newspaper. The permit is under my name. Come, help the new paper.”

I said: “I am a journalist and I am not disinclined to work with you ...”

“Come on then.”

Khamenei stood up and we set off. We walked through a long corridor and entered a room where some clerics and people dressed in civilian clothing were seated behind a large desk. They all stood up when Khamenei entered. Addressing the gathering, he said: “This is our dear Houshang. I have arranged for him to help us launch our newspaper. Back in prison, he taught me a great deal about newspapers, most importantly, how to read between the lines ...”

We said our goodbyes and left the meeting. We went back to Khamenei’s room and lunch was brought for us. Again it was rice with lentils but no meat.

While we were eating, Khamenei told me that the paper’s name would be
The Islamic Republic
and it was supposed to be the party’s mouthpiece. He was considering making me editor-in-chief. I said: “I’ll think about it and I’ll get back to you in one or two days.”

When we were standing by the door to say our goodbyes, Khamenei said: “Take my hand. I’ll get you to places you haven’t dreamed of.”

I gave him
The Enchanted Soul
by Roman Rolland, which we had discussed back in prison, and urged him to read it.

I left. I kept thinking about our conversation and Khamenei’s offer all the way home. It was only much later that I understood what it really meant. At the time, I was only thinking of one issue: I’d be forced to live in an environment like that of the Islamic Republican Party. Grow a beard and even perform prayers. I felt like laughing and my heart prepared an answer for Khamenei. A few days later I returned, taking with me Mikhail Sholokhov’s famous
Virgin Soil Upturned
. We had talked about it while we were in prison.

Khamenei was in his office this time. We embraced and greeted each other warmly, kissing each other’s cheeks and then we sat down. He immediately launched into a discussion of
The Enchanted Soul
. It was clear that he had just finished reading the book. I gave him
The Virgin Soil Upturned
and asked: “When do you get time to read all these books?”

He took a long draw on his pipe and said: “When I’m being driven in my car.”

Laughing, he then said: “Have you made up your mind?”

I said: “Yes. You see, I am a leftist. If I worked for your paper, I’d be lying to myself and to you.”

I don’t think Khamenei had anticipated this kind of answer. He drew on his pipe and stood up. I said: “But I can help you launch your newspaper.”

And I did help.
⁴²
The Islamic Republic
was launched from the old editorial desk of the
Rastakhiz
⁴³
paper. I taught Khamenei’s editorial team what a newspaper actually was, what its structure should be, and how to manage and run a paper.
The Islamic Republic
was finally published with Mir Hussein Mousavi as its editor-in-chief. Later, he rose to become prime minister of the Islamic Republic, but subsequently lost that position when the post was abolished in 1988. Now he is the leader of the Green Movement in Iran, and opposes Khamenei.

Early one morning, in the summer of 1979, Rahman came to my house. He asked me to go out with him, and told me that we were going to meet Comrade Kia.

We had not yet finished saying hello to each other when, with his usual forthright manner, Kianuri got straight to the point: “They have closed down the newspaper
Mardom
. I have heard you are friends with Khamenei. I want you to take the Party’s letter to him.”