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“Ghardash,” I said, referring to him as “brother.” “I am not an American. I am Iranian.”

“Yes, but you are working for them, so you are one of them,” he said, confident that he knew everything he needed to know about me.

I wondered what my father would say to this man. My father had been a master of communication, no matter the circumstance. I could hear him now: “Talk to him, Mazi jaan. You will be in his hands for the foreseeable future. Talk to him.” I wanted to, but I didn’t know what to say. Before I had a chance to think of something, I was led down a darkened corridor. The sound of a steel door closing behind me echoed in the hallway.

“Give me back the blindfold,” the guard said to me. The door to my cell had two slots: a small square along the top and a wider one below. I handed the blindfold to him through the top slot.

Granted the privilege of sight once again, I looked around my cell. It was small: maybe twelve feet by five. There were two light fixtures attached to the ceiling, only one of which was working, and a small window on one wall, near the ceiling. The only things in the room were a copy of the Koran and a blanket. No toilet and no bed. I sat down on the floor and took everything in. At Concordia University, in Montreal, where I’d received my degree in communications and film, I had taken a course in communication analysis. One of our assignments was to analyze different spaces: to get a feel for the emotions they conjured. This one was impenetrable. The walls, which were covered in sheets of faux marble, felt as if they were made of cement blocks. Everything was dusty. The dirty carpet on which I sat was made of three different patches of green, laid together clumsily. The cell very much reminded me of how the Iranian government tries to portray itself: strong, enclosed, dominating.

I noticed something written on the wall of the cell. My captors had kept my eyeglasses, so I had to stand up and walk close to read it. There were three sentences, two in Persian and one in Arabic.

My God, I repent.

My God, have mercy on me.

Please, God, help me.

I sat back down on the floor, closed my eyes, and whispered these words to myself. I was petrified.

· · ·

I must have fallen asleep, and when I woke up, noticing the spiderwebs on the ceiling, I thought of Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian-Canadian photographer. Zahra, who was known to her friends as Ziba, was an ambitious, dedicated journalist. One day, she called me to discuss story ideas and the difficulties of reporting in Iran. I advised her to be careful while working in Iran, no matter what the story: you never knew what would upset the authorities.

A few days after our conversation, Ziba was arrested while taking pictures of families of prisoners waiting outside Evin. From what I heard later, the head of Evin security, a man named Elias, came out and tried to take her camera. When she refused to hand it over, he punched her in the head. Elias was wearing an Aqiq Yamani stone ring on his finger, a type of ring the Prophet Mohammad advised Muslims to wear to protect themselves from potential dangers. The force of the ring against Ziba’s head fractured her skull. She fell to the ground and her head hit the pavement. According to the person who told me the story, Elias did not intend to kill her. But after they dragged her into the prison, they did not get her medical attention, and she soon died of internal bleeding.

Judge Mortazavi—the man who had signed my arrest warrant—declared that Ziba was a spy and that her death was the result of a stroke. Mortazavi was later accused of being personally responsible for Ziba’s death by repeatedly kicking her in the head inside the prison when she objected to her arrest. Her body was buried under tight security. Elias was never tried and, as far as everyone knew, he still worked in Evin. To this day, no one has been held responsible for the murder.

I paced the length and width of my cell thinking about Ziba’s tragic death, knowing that the man in charge of her case could be the one handling my case. I continued