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When I walked inside, I felt as if I had stepped into one of the drawings I’d left behind on the floor of my cell. Everything I had experienced since leaving Evin still didn’t seem real. It felt more like the way I had imagined things when dreaming in my prison cell. I felt Rosewater’s ghost following me everywhere. I needed to get rid of him.

I took my laptop to our bedroom and typed the email I had been composing in my mind for the last several hours:

“Baa man tamas nagirid. Man ta beh hal barayeh hitch kas jasoosi nakardam va barayeh shoma ham nakhaham kard.”

Don’t contact me anymore. I’ve never spied for anyone and I’m not going to start by spying for you.

I couldn’t stop myself from adding one more sentence: “Gooreh pedaretoon!” Fuck you!

I breathed a deep sigh of relief. At last, I was free. I turned off the light and walked downstairs, ready, finally, to see Paola, prepare for Marianna, and take back my life.

· · ·

I was on the fourth floor of the hospital, outside Paola’s room. I opened the door slowly. On hearing me, Paola, who had been lying down in bed, pulled herself up into a sitting position. As I walked into the room, my eyes immediately met hers. For a moment we stared at each other like shy strangers. Then tears overwhelmed us both. We smiled at each other weakly, with an unparalleled relief and a look that seemed to say, “We’ve both changed, haven’t we?” She was shocked by how thin I was, and I, by how beautiful she was. I felt overwhelmed by sadness. I had missed most of Paola’s pregnancy.

I crossed the room and sat down beside her. Taking her in my arms, I leaned over and kissed her belly for a long time. I put my head on her bump and talked to our daughter inside her belly: “Hello, honey bunny, hello, darling, Mummy and Daddy are waiting for you.” I had been imagining this moment for months.

I could feel Paola’s tears on the nape of my neck. I was assaulted by so many thoughts and emotions that I felt numb. I didn’t want this moment to end. All I could do was tell Paola how much I’d missed her and ask her questions. The last thing I wanted to do was to speak of my experience.

As Paola ran her fingers through my hair, I was transported to the time before my ordeal. Her touch felt unnaturally normal. I held Paola’s beautiful face in my palms and looked into her wide blue eyes. I almost felt normal. I had defeated my captors. I hadn’t turned into what they wanted me to be.

· · ·

I decided that I was not going to do any interviews for the time being. Instead, I spent almost all my time with Paola. We asked for an extra bed in the hospital room so that I could stay overnight with her. I also threw myself into the many practical tasks—rearranging the spare room for the baby, and buying clothes and other necessary items for the nursery—so that I didn’t have much time to think of anything else. And thanks to the fact that Newsweek had continued to deposit my monthly retainer into Paola’s account, I didn’t have to worry about my finances.

But at night, as soon as I shut my eyes, I was back in Evin, back beside Rosewater. His face hovered in my dreams, turning them into nightmares. In a recurring nightmare, I was sitting in the school chair in the interrogation room while Rosewater walked around me, kicking and punching me intermittently.

In my waking hours, I forced the images of him—his stubble, his glasses, his stench—out of my head and strove to replace them with images of Marianna growing up. I would often think about the “Sisters of Mercy” dream I’d had in prison. When I played the Leonard Cohen song for Paola in the hospital room, she understood that I was still grieving over the death of my sister, Maryam. I knew that one of the sisters in my dream was Maryam, but I wondered who the other one was.

The next day I listened to the Cohen song over and over again. In the afternoon, Paola hummed the song in her hospital bed while reading a book. I watched her without saying anything. Knowing that I was sitting only a few feet from her, Paola looked peaceful and relaxed.