Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [79]
I’d like to ask you the same question, I thought. I smiled at him and said, “I am here because I am a journalist.”
No one in the third and last crew even bothered to introduce himself.
“Where are you from?” I asked the interviewer as he sat down and hooked up his microphone.
“We are supposed to ask the questions,” he said. I later found out that this crew was from the Fars News Agency, which is owned by the Revolutionary Guards.
All the so-called journalists I spoke to that day were at the service of the government. A free press was an alien concept to them. To Haj Agha, Rosewater, and the journalists, this was a normal state of affairs; they were utterly convinced that the same situation existed in the rest of the world.
I don’t know how many hours passed while I sat in that chair, answering their questions, telling them what they wanted to hear. Their questions, written by Haj Agha, were mostly about the evil Western media, and my answers, also written by Haj Agha, verified that their information was correct. As the day wore on, my thoughts drifted to Paola. I imagined her, pregnant with our baby, walking around our London neighborhood. She had on a long white maternity shirt and a floral skirt. As soon as this was over, I would go back to London, spend the summer with her, and finally get around to reading my pregnancy and parenthood books. I was really looking forward to that.
“One characteristic of the velvet revolutions is their relation to the media. International media pave the way for such revolutions, and without their presence, these revolutions cannot happen,” I heard myself saying.
I had very little idea of how to handle babies in their early months. Ever since Paola had told me she was pregnant, on that humid day in a small village in Cambodia, I’d been keeping a list of the baby books I wanted to read. I needed guidance on so many things: changing diapers, sleep patterns, being a good dad. The pile of books on my bedside table was tall, but the list of books I’d yet to buy was even longer.
“Can you give us a few examples?”
What to Expect When You’re Expecting. Be Prepared: A Practical Handbook for New Dads. “BBC. CNN. Euronews. New York Times.”
“Are you forgetting one?”
My Boys Can Swim! The Official Guy’s Guide to Pregnancy. “Newsweek.”
When it was over, they unhooked my microphone. Rosewater led me back to my cell.
“Names, Maziar,” he said. “You forgot names.”
I smiled. I nodded. I turned my back to him. And inside, I seethed.
Chapter Twelve
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
I hit my head hard against the faux marble wall, again and again, ignoring the pain that crept up my neck. I deserved the pain. I had betrayed my family, my colleagues, myself. My father.
What had I admitted to? What had I told them? I stood up and paced through the silence of my cell, and tried to speak to Maryam. After the confession, they had forgotten to take my glasses away from me again, and for the first time since I’d arrived, I could see every detail of the cell. In focus, it seemed less clinical—less impenetrable. The walls were covered in tiny, spidery cracks I had missed before, as well as dozens of scribbles: Your interrogator is more afraid of you than you are of him, that is why he forces you to wear a blindfold. This too will pass. Moghavem bash.” Be strong.
Near where the wall met the floor, I found dozens of straight lines, marking the number of days different prisoners had spent in my cell: Twenty-two days. Ninety days. It had already been ten days, and I couldn’t begin to imagine spending even another night in this place. But, I thought with relief, I didn’t have to. The confession was worth it, even if I felt I’d let everyone down. Now I could go back to London, and be with Paola, and nothing was more important to me than that.
It was hard to gauge how much time I spent pacing the small cell—maybe several minutes, maybe hours—but eventually, I fell to the floor again and curled the blanket around myself. I needed to sleep so that I’d be as alert as possible when the prison guard came the next morning