Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [71]
“Do you know why you told that spy about common interests between Iran and America?” asked Rosewater’s superior.
He seemed to have an answer ready, but I had to defend myself. I thought of my father, who could communicate with anyone. “These men are weak, Maziar,” I heard him say. “Appeal to their emotions. Gain their sympathy.”
“Sir,” I began, “many people die in plane crashes in Iran because the Americans do not sell spare parts from old Boeings to Iran, and Iran has to buy worthless defunct Russian planes. It saddens me to see so many of our compatriots die every year. We are an independent nation. Having relations with America doesn’t mean that we must be American slaves. Venezuela, Syria, Russia, and China do not agree with the U.S., yet they maintain diplomatic relations. And sometimes they even cooperate with America. I advocate an equal relationship between Iran and the United States. A relationship based on mutual respect.”
“And you want us to believe you?” the boss said.
“Mutual respect!” Rosewater mocked me.
“Mr. Bahari, the only reason you are searching for a common ground between Iran and America is that you want to find a way for them to infiltrate our country,” the boss concluded.
“We have kicked them out through the door and you want to bring them back through the window,” Rosewater added, finishing his thought.
“Ahsant! Bravo! Well said,” Rosewater’s boss declared.
Bravo for what? I thought. For being a brainwashed moron?
Rosewater finally said, “ ‘Tell America to be angry with us and die of that anger!’ Do you know who said that?”
“Yes, Martyr Beheshti,” I said. Mohammad Hossein Beheshti was the first head of Iran’s judiciary after the revolution. Anti-regime terrorists killed him and several other officials in a bombing in 1981. I knew Beheshti’s family. His son, Alireza Beheshti, had been a Mousavi adviser for years, and I had met with him a few times during the campaign. He’d been arrested a few days before I had.
“I find it ironic,” I added, “that you quote a statement from the heyday of the revolution while you have arrested the son of the man who said it.” The ridiculousness of using The Daily Show as evidence against me gave me enough courage to argue with my interrogators. “With all due respect, revolutions, like people, have to grow up, gentlemen,” I said.
Rosewater was taken by surprise. He grasped my left ear in his hand and started to squeeze it as if he were wringing out a lemon. As the cartilage tore, I could feel the pain, like a slow fever, inside my brain. Rosewater let go of my ear and then whispered into it, breathing heavily. “Didn’t you hear what the judge said?” It felt like my ear was broken. “I am your owner. This kind of behavior will not help you. Many people have rotted in this prison. You can be one of them.”
“Mr. Bahari is wise,” the other man said. “He will soon realize it’s in his own interest to cooperate with us.”
The man with the creased pants said something else to me as he left the room, but I didn’t hear him. My ear was ringing with pain.
· · ·
A few minutes later, as I walked once again under the darkness of the blindfold from the interrogation room to my cell, I was hit hard by the thought that I might not be leaving anytime soon. How will I survive here? I asked myself. As my father used to say: “You can prepare yourself to go to prison, but when you get there, all you can think about is How can I keep from shitting in my pants?”
The guard locked the heavy steel door behind me. I removed the blindfold and passed it through the slot. I was coming to understand the routine.
Routine. It was, my father had said, one of the worst parts of prison. As I put my hand to my ringing ear, I thought I felt my mother’s soft fingers pressing the lobe tightly. I was eight or nine again, and she was gently scolding me. I had just returned from my friend Reza’s house, where I had gotten into trouble, again. The truth was, whenever I visited my friends I felt different, and lucky. I