Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [78]
You can be freed in a couple of days if you perform well. These were the only words I could hear as I read through Haj Agha’s script again. Outside the room, the camera crews were moving in their equipment. I could hear the familiar noise of tripods being set up, the lights adjusted, and tapes placed in the camera. The crew members spoke about shot sizes, testing the sound, and daily life. I used to be one of them, I thought. I missed my camera equipment. One of the cameramen complained that his wife was not helping him much in the house.
“She works during the day and when she comes home she just watches television,” he said. “She doesn’t even iron my shirt. I even have to cook for the children.”
“How old are they?” another guy asked.
“My daughter is twelve. My son is ten,” said the cameraman. “And, you know, during the demonstrations after the elections I always had to carry the camera on my shoulders. My back is killing me, but my wife doesn’t care.”
“I was lucky,” said someone else. “I was working in the studio during the demonstrations. I have four daughters. One of them cooks, another one washes, the third one cleans the house, and the fourth one irons my shirts!”
“Lucky you!” another said. They all laughed and went on telling stories as I tried to read Haj Agha’s script.
Suddenly the men became quiet, as if uncomfortable with the presence of a stranger in their midst. The unwelcome guest was Rosewater.
“I guess I’m lucky that I don’t have any children,” he said, with an obvious sadness in his voice. “I don’t have any such stories to tell.”
“Don’t say that,” someone said. “Children are the best things that can happen to you.”
“They’re God’s gifts,” said the man with four children.
Suddenly the door opened. I knew by then not to look up. “Put this on,” a voice instructed, and a black blindfold was thrown onto the ornately patterned Persian carpet in the middle of the room.
Rosewater led me to Haj Agha’s office and instructed me to remove the blindfold after he left. There were three camera crews in the room. I was told to sit in a single chair placed in front of a red curtain hung at the back. I understood from this that the “journalists” interviewing me would not be in the shots.
The first interview was with a reporter from Channel One of the state television network. He held a photocopy of the same script I had. Talking to a prisoner under duress can be the most shameful thing a journalist will ever do. I stared at him, willing him to look me in the eye. I held the blindfold on my lap so that he could clearly see it.
“So,” I asked him, “we’re both journalists. Do you do many interviews in prison?” He fumbled with the papers in his lap. “Oh, those?” I said. “Those are the questions you have to ask me. I have a copy of them too, as well as the answers I’m supposed to give you.”
He finally looked up at me with an expression of helplessness in his eyes, as if telling me, “I know what I’m doing is wrong, but I have to feed my family.”
Even though the interviewer had the script, Rosewater kept passing him more questions from behind a screen. He also guided me on how to answer. Each time I did not answer the questions according to Haj Agha’s notes, Rosewater would remind me of the counterespionage unit. “Mr. Bahari, maybe we should wrap up the interview and follow the other option?” he would say, then direct me to look at the script. “Maybe we should repeat the question again,” he would tell the TV crew.
The second interviewer was from Press TV, the Iranian government’s English-language satellite channel, which has offices all over the world. While the Iranian government was harassing and imprisoning journalists, its reporters could work freely in Western countries. The Press TV reporter didn’t seem to have any problem with this. He was a particularly nasty character and spoke with a British accent.
“If you’re a journalist, what are you doing here?” he asked me in English with a smirk on his face.