Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [54]
“Thank you, Seyyed,” the specialist said to the guard.
I could tell by his scent and voice as he greeted the guard that it was Rosewater. He took my arm and gently led me down several hallways; we entered and exited, I thought, a few different buildings. Eventually, he brought me into a room. He shut the door behind us and sat me down in a chair. It was the kind with a writing arm, like I’d used back in school. The air-conditioning was on full blast, and the room was freezing.
I could feel him close behind me.
“Mr. Bahari,” he said, his voice in my ear. “This is the end of the line for you. There is nothing beyond here. You have to reveal everything you know.”
It felt strange to be speaking to another person under the darkness of the blindfold. “Can you tell me why I’m here, please?”
“You know why. Because you are an agent of foreign intelligence organizations,” he began.
I was completely caught off guard. Of what? “Could you let me know which ones?” I managed to say.
“Speak louder!” he shouted. He bent closer toward me, his face an inch away from mine. “What did you say?”
“I was wondering if you could be kind enough to let me know which organizations,” I repeated.
“CIA, MI6, Mossad, and Newsweek.”
I thought at first that he was joking.
“Do you mean Newsweek magazine?”
“Yes. Your ‘magazine’ is part of the American intelligence apparatus.”
I wondered if someone else was in the room—someone in charge of this incredibly ignorant man. “Let me explain,” I said. “I’m a journalist for Newsweek magazine, which is almost eighty years old. It’s not part of the American intelligence network. If it were, people would know that. Other magazines in the United States would report this. I can assure you of this because the media organizations in the West are very competitive and ruthless.”
“Don’t try to teach me a lesson about the media, Mr. Bahari. We know everything. We know what you did.” Rosewater walked around me. The smell of his sweat overpowered the scent of his perfume.
“I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. I’m an accredited journalist. I have been accredited by the Islamic Republic government for the past twelve years.”
“So?”
“Well, that means that the government of the Islamic Republic has known what I’ve been doing for twelve years and that they haven’t had any problems with my reporting. If they did, they would have revoked my press card.”
Rosewater walked around me for a while, silently. When he stopped behind me, he flicked his fingers gently on my shoulder. “The very same people who gave you that press card will end up in a chair similar to this one,” he said. “They committed an even more serious crime, by accrediting people like you.” Every sentence was marked by a touch on my shoulder. “We have all of your colleagues here now, as well. All of your agents in Iran. They are all in this prison. Don’t think you can cheat us or misguide us. We know everything about you. We know you are the mastermind of the Western media in Iran.”
This was so unexpected that I had trouble following him. “Masterminding the foreign media?” I asked. “Me?”
“No, not you. My aunt!” he said sarcastically. “She is the mastermind of the foreign media in Iran.”
I sat quietly in the chair, unable to speak. I wouldn’t allow myself to entertain the idea that my stay at Evin might be less temporary than I had hoped. But the thought kept finding its way to the surface nonetheless.
No, I thought, this man is just trying to scare me—so that when they release me a few days from now, I’ll stop writing stories about the demonstrations. I tried to convince myself that they would find out that I had done nothing wrong and would let me go before too long.