Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [113]
The next day, he had more questions for me. “Mazi, is it true that one can go to the Champs-Élysées street in Paris, grab a woman’s hand, and have sex with her anytime he wants?”
“Sir, you’ll be arrested within a few seconds and charged with rape,” I explained. “I’m sure no one does that.”
“Why not?”
“In the West, a woman can call the police even if you touch her hand,” I said.
“But wait a second,” Rosewater objected. “One of our lecturers at the university who’d spent so many years in the West and received his PhD degree from a Western university told us that people behave like animals in the West. That you can live with a woman without being married to her.”
“Sir, there’s a difference between living with someone you’re not married to and jumping on anyone you desire on the street, like an animal,” I said as respectfully as I could. “Marriage is a symbolic gesture for many people in the West and also legally entitles you to certain things, but I know people who’ve been together for decades and are not married. Yet in terms of being faithful, they’re more dedicated to each other than any married couple.”
“I can’t believe it,” Rosewater said. “So why did you marry your wife?” Once again, I felt extremely grateful that Rosewater believed I was married. If he knew that I lived with Paola and, worse, that she was pregnant and we were not married, I could be accused of having an illegal affair.
“Because both her family and my family are very traditional,” I lied. “Neither of us could even think about living together without first being married.”
“It must be liberating not to be bound by traditions,” Rosewater said. I wasn’t sure if he was testing me or was genuinely distilling his frustrations.
“Well, we are always trapped by our traditions wherever we go,” I answered. “It is like a virtual cage we take around with us.”
“It is not a cage, Maziar,” Rosewater chuckled. “But I often wonder how people live without any religious values. You may feel free and happy in this world, but what about the hereafter? How would you be able to answer God about all the sins you have committed in this world?
“Every time I think about life in the West, my whole body trembles,” he went on. “How would I be able to control my desires, how would I control my relationship with my wife? It must be hell to live in such a decadent environment.”
I had often wondered why Rosewater had chosen to be an interrogator. Maybe, I thought, the answer lay in the fact that in his head, freedom was synonymous with sin and punishment. Could it be that he felt safe only in a restricted, claustrophobic environment?
· · ·
One day, after many hours of asking about different aspects of life in the West, Rosewater returned to a subject he’d only briefly mentioned earlier in the interrogation.
“Have you spent much time in New Jersey?” he asked anxiously.
“Not really,” I said. “Maybe a few days.”
“Why is New Jersey so famous?” he asked.
Is it? I wondered. “I’m not sure it is famous,” I said.
“Really?” He sounded embarrassed about his lack of New Jersey knowledge. “People who go to America are always saying, ‘New Jersey this, New Jersey that.’ ”
“I really don’t know, sir,” I said, in my best it’s-okay-not-to-know-about-New-Jersey tone of voice. “It’s a state like any other state in the U.S. It has nice places and not-so-nice places. Many people who work in New York live in New Jersey.”
“Is it because it’s nicer?” Rosewater asked.
“It’s more affordable,” I said, thinking that making a scathing comment about New Jersey could lead him to beat me. “But New Jersey is full of nice places. It is even called the Garden State.”
“And the health system?” he asked. “Is it better than other places in the U.S.?”
“I’m really not sure, sir,” I answered apologetically.