Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [0]
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Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
Arcade Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.: Translation by Ahmad Karimi Hakkak of “In This Blind Alley” by Ahmad Shamlou. Published by arrangement with Arcade Publishing, an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Maryam Dilmighani: Translation of “The Wind Will Carry Us” by Forough Farrokhzad.
Reprinted by permission of Maryam Dilmaghani.
Sony/ATV Music Publishing: Excerpt from “Sisters of Mercy” by Leonard Cohen, copyright © 1967 by Sony/ATV Songs, LLC. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Wixen Music Publishing, Inc.: Excerpt from “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen, copyright © 1988 by Sharon Robinson Songs (ASCAP), administered by Wixen Music Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bahari, Maziar.
Then they came for me : a family’s story of love, captivity, and survival / Maziar Bahari with Aimee Molloy.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-60419-8
1. Bahari, Maziar. 2. Bahari, Maziar—Imprisonment. 3. Bahari, Maziar—Family. 4. Iran—History—1997– —Biography. 5. Iran—Politics and government—1997– 6. Political prisoners—Iran—Biography. 7. Journalists—Iran—Biography. 8. Journalists—Canada—Biography. 9. Motion picture producers and directors—Canada—Biography. I. Molloy, Aimee. II. Title.
DS318.9.B35 2010
365′.45092—dc22
[B]
2010053882
www.atrandom.com
Jacket design: Misa Erder
Jacket photograph: Shutterstock
v3.1
To Moloojoon, Baba Akbar, Maryam,
Paola, and Marianna
They smell your breath
lest you have said: I love you,
They smell your heart:
These are strange times, my dear.…
They chop smiles off lips,
and songs off the mouth.…
These are strange times, my dear.
—AHMAD SHAMLOU, 1979
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
PART ONE
The Tunnel at the End of the Light
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
PART TWO
Neither Departed Nor Gone
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
PART THREE
Survival
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Who’s Who
Time Line
Glossary of Terms
Further Reading, Listening, and Watching
About the Authors
Prologue
I could smell him before I saw him. His scent was a mixture of sweat and rosewater, and it reminded me of my youth.
When I was six years old, I would often accompany my aunts to a shrine in the holy city of Qom. It was customary to remove your shoes before entering the shrine, and the caretakers of the shrine would sprinkle rosewater everywhere, to mask the odor of perspiration and leather.
That morning in June 2009, when they came for me, I was in the delicate space between sleep and wakefulness, taking in his scent. I didn’t realize that I was a man of forty-two in my bedroom in Tehran; I thought, instead, that I was six years old again, and back in that shrine with my aunts.
“Mazi jaan, wake up,” my mother said. “There are four gentlemen here. They say they are from the prosecutor’s office. They want to take you away.” I opened my eyes. It was a few minutes before eight, and my mother was standing beside my bed—her small eighty-three-year-old frame protecting me from the four men behind her. I sleep without clothes, and in my half-awake state, my first thought wasn’t that I was in danger, but that I was naked in a shrine. I felt ashamed and reached down to make sure the sheets were covering my body.
Mr.