Authors: Marina Nemat

After Tehran (32 page)

I told Dr. Payne that I didn’t go to the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture when we first came to Canada because for a
long time after we arrived, I was not at all ready to admit that I was a torture victim. He agreed that most victims didn’t go there, and noted that the main aim of the CCTV was to assist victims with their settlement issues—learning English and finding a job and proper housing—not give them psychiatric help.

“It’s very difficult for victims of torture to trust anyone,” he told me, “except for those who were in prison with them and who share their experiences. I worked with a young woman for a while. One night I was driving her and a few others home, and she was the last one for me to drop off. I asked her what her address was, and she refused to give it to me. Even though I had been helping her for a while and she seemed to now trust me, she still didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell me her exact address and wanted to be let off at a corner.”

I agreed that trust was a serious issue. Many ex–political prisoners from Iran don’t even trust one another. Even now, they carry with them the political disagreements that plagued them in prisons. I have heard that after my release from Evin, ideological conflicts between prisoners gradually became so severe that some prisoners boycotted the others. Supporters of different political groups refrained from speaking to one another in prisons. These divisions became quite destructive and drained a great deal of the prisoners’ energy.

Dr. Payne—or Don, as I came to call him—and I remained in touch. We had lunch together a few times and talked about recovery from torture and trauma, good and evil in the world and in individuals, and God and religion. One day, Don surprised me by bringing me cookies he had baked himself. The cookies were moist and delicious and my favourite—oatmeal cranberry and chocolate chip. I enjoyed them so much I decided to try to bake more often, because nothing is more comforting than the scent of freshly baked cookies on a cold day. Don’s cookies made me
think of all the things that gave me a sense of peace and happiness: books, rosaries, prayers, the sea, mountains, being close to Andre, my Prayer Rock, our cottage by the Caspian Sea … and my Barbie doll.

As a child I had always wanted a Barbie, but my mother believed that dolls were a waste of money. I had only two dolls: one I called “Lucy,” after Lucy Pevensie, the youngest Pevensie child in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
; my brother gave her to me as a Christmas gift when I was about nine. The other was a nameless one that my father’s closest friend, whom I called Uncle Partef, had brought for me when I was five. She was almost as tall as I was and wore a pink princess dress. I was scared of her, so I asked
Bahboo
to hide her in our basement.

When I was twelve, a year before the revolution, I saved up some money and bought a Barbie, even though I was too old to play with her. She had brown hair and came dressed in a long blue dress and white high heels. I kept her on my bookshelf next to my favourite books. She made me smile.

After the revolution, my Barbie became one of my sources of courage when female members of the Revolutionary Guard replaced our teachers. Our new nineteen-year-old principal stood by the entrance of the school every day, inspecting all of us to make sure that we were not wearing makeup and that our head scarf completely covered our hair. If she suspected that a student had makeup on, she would wash that student’s face in a bucket of dirty water. Every morning before leaving for school, I looked at my Barbie and promised myself that I would one day be as beautiful as she was without being afraid.

After my release from prison I discovered that my mother had thrown out my Barbie. She had probably thought that a young woman who had been a political prisoner had no use for something as silly as a doll, but I missed her.

Following the publication of
Prisoner of Tehran
, a friend gave me a Barbie for my birthday after I told her how badly I had wanted one as a child. My new Barbie is blond. She has blue eyes and a perfect smile and looks very pretty in her pink ballerina dress. She sits on my desk, keeping me company as I write. To me, she is a reminder of every child’s right to enjoy beautiful things without facing imprisonment, abuse, or torture.

An Elastic Band
for Making a Ponytail

I
n February 2009, as I was working on this book and after I had found Jasmine’s name on a list of the executed, I began having flashbacks again. I had not had any since late 2004, and they caught me off guard. I had been writing seven hours a day, had at least two speaking engagements a week, had taken on too many projects, and my father was ill. As a result, I was emotionally and physically exhausted.

After having flashbacks several days in a row, I decided to discuss them with Don, but he was away on holidays, so I waited impatiently, worried about my mental health. When I knew Don was back, I sent him an email, asking for advice, and he replied:

Sorry to hear that you had such upsetting experiences. I have known people to have vivid flashbacks many years later when under stress. They are usually isolated incidents and related to general stress. One Argentine woman, more than twenty years after her detention and torture, reported that when she was under the stress of preparing for her PhD thesis defense, she had a flashback of her detention while she was teaching a class …

I would agree that your flashbacks were related to your high stress level and being exhausted physically and emotionally … The intensity of the content of your book would also be a factor. You should get enough rest and try to cut down on some of your stress. Very much easier to say than to do, especially when some things get thrown at you without control over them
.

I hope and expect that they will not recur. If any do, accept that it is a flashback, rather than anything to be realistically afraid of, and that it will pass. Again easier to say than to do when you are feeling very fearful
.

Do not hold back in contacting me if it would be helpful
.

I felt much better after reading Don’s words. Being reminded that other people in the world had gone through experiences similar to mine helped me put things into perspective.

One of the flashbacks that haunted me seemed benign at first, and its appearance puzzled me. The first few episodes were not exactly visual: I was gathering my hair into a ponytail without a mirror in front of me, so I couldn’t see myself, but I could feel my fingers going through my hair. Every time, my heart would race. The memory was upsetting, but I couldn’t place it. It was like a blurry, forgotten photo, without a past or a future and disconnected from the flow of time. Why would I be afraid of making a ponytail? I couldn’t sleep. Where was the memory coming from? The more I thought about it, the more it recurred. But I still couldn’t understand its meaning. I decided to do what Don had suggested: control my fear and tell myself that it was just a memory. Maybe if I wasn’t so terrified, I would discover its origin. I gradually remembered more and more. Slowly, I managed to see my surroundings. I was in a cell at 209 in Evin. I dug deeper, asking myself, “Do I hear anything? Do I see anyone?”

“Tie your hair back,” Ali says. “I don’t want it to get in the way.” He is standing over me
.

My hands go toward my head and my fingers comb through my hair. I pull off the elastic that sits on my wrist like a bracelet, gather my hair, and make a ponytail. I close my eyes and tears fall down my face
.

The past has a way of catching up with us. No matter how fast we run, we cannot escape it. One of the reasons I finally confronted my past was that I needed to prove to myself it could not control me. The large gap between the day I was released from prison and the day I started to write created a buffer that helped me keep my balance as I travelled back in time. I began almost to believe that I was in charge and in complete control. What I sometimes forgot to bring into account was that nothing in this world is absolute. I had never considered the possibility that what had happened years earlier could come back to life and haunt me.

In September 2009, I accepted a radio interview on a Persian-language station based in Canada. The host, whom I will call Setareh here, phoned me, and during our pre-interview talk, she told me that she had not read my book because she feared it would be too upsetting for her, but she
had
watched my TV interviews and read articles about me. I told her that I understood how she felt, but I believed that we had to face our past in order to have a better future. She asked me if it would be okay for listeners to email their questions to her, and I said it was fine. The interview went well and I answered all the questions, which were similar to the ones I had been asked many times before. There was one odd comment from a woman who claimed that
Prisoner of Tehran
had been published in Canada by a small publisher first and then by Penguin, and that on
page 19
of the first edition I had mentioned that my father’s name was Gholamreza and my mother’s Roghieh,
which are very Muslim names. I couldn’t understand why she was making a false claim about my publisher, but I suspected that she somehow believed she had found some form of discrepancy in my work. I said that my book had been published in this country only by Penguin Canada and that I had never had another publisher here. Then I explained that during the time of Reza Shah when my grandparents obtained official identification papers for themselves and their children, Iranian citizens were not allowed to have foreign names, even if they were not Muslim. My parents’ names had never been a secret. After the interview, Setareh said that she had received many questions from her listeners, but there was not enough time for them all. I mentioned that people could post any other questions they had on my Facebook wall, and I would respond to them all.

Three days later, I checked my Facebook page shortly after I awoke at 6:30 a.m. Setareh had posted a comment on my wall, claiming that she had a “solid source” who said Ali was alive in Iran.

I could not believe my eyes. Ali was alive? This was ridiculous. I was there when he died. No one could bleed that much and live. He stopped breathing in my arms. He was dead. He had been dead for twenty-six years. I got up and paced the room. Was this a mistake? A malicious attack? Pain knifed my chest. I had had this before. My family physician had run tests and had found nothing wrong with my heart. She recommended that I breathe slowly and deeply when pain occurred. I sat down, did that, and felt better. Then I went to my computer and read the comment again. Setareh had said that her information came from a “solid source.” To post something like that in such a public way, she must have been sure the information was valid. I had met many journalists during the previous two years, and gotten to know a few of them very well. They would never risk sharing
information without enough research. Why hadn’t she called me first? Why did I have to read about this on the Internet? My mind raced back in time. I went through all my memories of the night Ali died.

On Monday, September 26, 1983, at eleven o’clock at night, Ali and I say good night to his parents and step out of their house. It is a cold night, so they don’t come out with us. The metal door connecting their yard to the street creaks as Ali pushes it open, and its lock clicks loudly as it closes behind us. We walk toward the car, which is parked about eighty feet away where the street is a little wider. A dog barks in the distance
.

Suddenly, the loud sound of a motorcycle fills the night. I look up to see the bike come toward us from around the corner. Two dark figures are riding on it, and as soon as I see them, I instinctively know what is about to happen. Ali also knows, and he pushes me. I lose my balance and fall to the ground. Shots are fired. For a moment that stretches between life and death, a weightless darkness wraps its smooth, silky body around me. Then a faint light spreads into my eyes and a dull pain fills my bones. Ali is lying on top of me. Barely able to move, I manage to turn to him
.

“Ali, are you okay?”

He moans, looking at me with shock and pain in his eyes. My body and legs feel strangely warm, as if wrapped in a blanket
.

His parents run toward us
.

“Ambulance!” I yell. “Call an ambulance!”

His mother runs back inside. Her white
chador
has fallen on her shoulders, revealing her grey hair. His father kneels beside us
.

“Are you okay?” Ali asks me
.

My body aches a little, but I am not in pain. His blood is all over me
.

“I’m okay.”

Ali grasps my hand. “Father, take her to her family,” he manages to say
.

I hold him close to me. His head rests against my chest. If he hadn’t pushed me, I would have been hit
.

“God, please, don’t let him die!” I cry
.

He smiles
.