Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [89]
I started to hum songs as I drew more things—maps and images of every house I ever lived in, schools I’d attended, cities I had visited. I couldn’t believe how much I was enjoying myself. Suddenly, I panicked. What if they found me drawing my houses and accused me of practicing drawing the map of Evin for an intelligence agency? Who knew what they would accuse me of, if they found the drawings. I spat on the maps and frantically tried to wipe them away, but this only made a big blue ink mess on the tiles. My fingers were dark blue with ink, which I tried to wipe on my prison uniform. What had I done? What if they opened the door and found this mess? I rubbed my fingers against the tiles to get rid of the ink. Despite the blasting air-conditioning, sweat dripped down my back.
“What are you doing, Mazi jaan?” I heard my father ask in my head, in his usual sarcastic tone. “What is this mess you’ve made here?” He smiled.
“What if they find the drawings?”
“Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t,” I heard him say calmly. “Remember that for these hypocrite bastards, instilling in you the idea that they control your life is much more important than what they can actually do. They want you to be afraid of them even in your dreams. What if they find the maps? They are already accusing you of espionage. What more can they do? Screw them. Relax and be yourself.”
I pulled the carpet back over the drawings and stared at the sliver of blue sky and the slice of a tree I could see through my tiny window. Sunshine was reflecting off the leaves. There was a slight summer breeze outside, and the leaves moved in a gentle rhythm. I was lucky to be alive. I was lucky to be able to enjoy the blue sky, the breeze, the summer. I played Miles Davis’s rendition of Gershwin’s “Summertime” in my head.
I closed my eyes, and I slept.
· · ·
“Do you have your papers ready?” A guard was standing over me, nudging me awake.
I felt panic rising inside me, until I remembered that I had covered the drawings with the carpet. I hadn’t even begun to answer Rosewater’s questions. “Almost. I need just half an hour to finish,” I said.
“Hurry up—your specialist wants them back.”
I set about answering the questions as quickly as I could, writing just the truth and no more: I had no personal relationship with any of the people he’d named and knew them only in my capacity as a reporter. I gave the answers back to the guard and prepared myself to be called to the interrogation room and, I was sure, receive another brutal beating. But I didn’t hear back from Rosewater that day at all. The next morning, a guard came to my cell to tell me that I was being moved. When I walked into the new cell, my heart sank. It was just three doors down from my old one, but less than half the size: maybe twenty square feet. It had no window and was much dirtier than the first. One of its two light bulbs was broken.
Rosewater did not call for me that day, or the next day, either. Losing the sunlight meant that I had no idea of the passage of time except for when they sounded the call to prayers at different times of the day. I knew that the smaller cell and the solitary confinement were part of my punishment, but I somehow found a renewed sense of strength. I spent hours exercising. I knew I was losing weight. My stomach had become flat, and my ribs were more prominent. I started a rigid yoga, stretching, and strengthening program to help me pass the time. I lay on my back with my eyes closed, kicked the air with my legs, and pretended that I was jogging with Paola along the route we usually ran back in London: past houses