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“And Jews?”

Where did that come from? I wondered. “What about the Jews?”

“Are there any Jews in New Jersey?”

I knew that by saying that there were thousands of Jews living in New Jersey I might be subjected to more beatings, but the prospect of bursting his Jew-free bubble was very tempting. “Sir, there are Jews living all over the United States. They are American citizens. There are thousands if not millions of Jews living in New York and its surrounding areas, including New Jersey. So I think there must be a lot of Jews who live in New Jersey.”

Rosewater paced the room. “Ajab, ajab,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself. “I wonder why.”

I couldn’t understand why he was fascinated with New Jersey, and later in my cell, as I designed my crossword puzzles, I thought there were two possibilities. The first was simply that certain foreign names sound exotic to Iranian ears. As a child, I’d been enthralled by two places: Massachusetts and Connecticut. I’d never understood why, but they’d always sounded like fascinating places to me, and I’d made sure to visit them during my first visit to the United States, in 1988. The second involved an absurd U.S. law that bans Iranian diplomats working at the United Nations from traveling more than twenty-five miles from their offices on Third Avenue. Many diplomats live in New Jersey, and maybe Rosewater had had a conversation with an Iranian envoy. This, among so many other things about Rosewater, would forever remain a mystery to me.

· · ·

Sunday, September 13, 2009, was a hot day. The air-conditioning, though hardly cooling my cell, was making more noise than usual. I hadn’t been beaten for a few days, so I was feeling well, and walked briskly during the morning’s hava khori. Around the time of noon prayers, after I’d done more than fifty push-ups and was on to my sit-ups, Brown Sandals interrupted me.

“Mr. Hillary Clinton, get ready for your specialist after the prayers,” he said before passing my blindfold through the slot.

I sprang up from the floor, toward the door. “What? Hillary Clinton?!” I yelled, struggling to make myself heard over the clatter of the air-conditioning.

“Yeah, she’s been talking about you a lot lately,” Brown Sandals said knowingly. “Does she know you personally? Huh? You sheytoon, naughty boy?”

I didn’t answer. I sat back down on the floor and continued my sit-ups. I had grown so sure that I’d never hear good news again, and I wanted to kiss Brown Sandals for giving me the best piece of news I’d had since I’d arrived. There must be a massive campaign going on for me, I thought. Otherwise, why would the American secretary of state mention an Iranian-Canadian? “Mr. Hillary Clinton!” I said aloud as I counted the number of sit-ups. One hundred and twelve, one hundred and thirteen, one hundred and fourteen. “Mr. Maziar Hillary Bahari Clinton!” Two hundred and eighty-three, two hundred and eighty-four, two hundred and eighty-five. The possibility that Hillary Clinton was speaking publicly about me gave me an energy unlike anything I’d ever felt. Four hundred and thirty-eight, four hundred and thirty-nine, four hundred and forty.

“I’m not alone!” I shouted in my head. I continued my sit-ups and continued to count: Six hundred and eighteen, six hundred and nineteen, six hundred and twenty! I’d never done as many sit-ups in my life before being called Mr. Hillary Clinton. I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my groin. I lay back and raised my hands as if I’d won the marathon in the Olympics.

· · ·

After the noon prayers, instead of having lunch, I was taken to the interrogation room. Rosewater didn’t sound happy. I was desperate with hope that he, too, would mention Hillary Clinton to me. He started slapping my head even before he sat me down.

“Where did you meet your wife?” he asked. I’d already told him several times that Paola and I had met at a lecture in London, but he wasn’t interested in my answer. “I’m sure an intelligence agency introduced you two to each other. Otherwise, why would an English woman