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“Would you like a Nescafé?” he asked. “I know you foreigners like coffee. I’ll make you a Nescafé,” he said as he left the room.

A Nescafé?! I thought. What the hell is he up to? The word “executing” hung in the air, and I felt weak and nauseous. I took a cucumber from the plate and sprinkled salt on it, but I tasted nothing. Rosewater came back into the room and put a cup of hot water and a packet of Nescafé on the table.

“Milk and sugar?” he asked.

“No, thank you,” I said. I don’t like instant coffee.

“I can’t believe you don’t put milk and sugar in coffee,” Rosewater noted with genuine surprise.

I couldn’t help myself from asking him: “Why do they want to kill me?”

“Don’t worry about that, Maziar,” he said. “Why don’t you put milk and sugar in your coffee?”

“I can’t drink Nescafé, sir,” I lied, not knowing how to tell him that I found its taste revolting. “I’m allergic to Nescafé. What can they achieve by killing—”

Rosewater slapped me in the head. “What do you mean you’re allergic to coffee? You speak constantly of meeting people for coffee in your emails! What, my coffee isn’t good enough for you?!” He seemed genuinely insulted. He slapped my head again, the way Iranian potmakers slap the clay before they shape and glaze it.

“All right, I’ll have a Nescafé,” I said. My head was bursting with migraine pain. “And I’ll have milk and sugar.”

He prepared the cup of Nescafé and eventually regained his composure as he stood behind me. “My superiors have decided to sentence you to death this week, so that the other people involved in sedition can learn a lesson from it,” he said as he took more fruit from the basket on the table. “In an emergency situation like this, it takes only a few days from trial to execution. It will be very similar to a court-martial. Because of what you’ve done to provoke the public against the holy Islamic Republic, the supreme leader, and Allah, you’re considered a mohareb and will be sentenced to death by hanging.” He put both of his hands on my shoulders. “Don’t be mad at me, Maziar. I’m just the messenger. I really don’t want it to happen. I’m doing my best to prevent it.” He walked behind me for a few minutes and then placed an apricot on my plate. “Maziar, I really think there’s a chance for you to repent.”

I knew that the time to present my plan to him had finally come. “Sir, I have already repented. I’ve made certain mistakes in the past, but please allow me to rectify them. I can be a useful person for the Islamic system.” I worried that my voice sounded too desperate.

“How?” Rosewater was curious.

“I can reveal all the secret ways that the Western media manipulates our youth and tries to topple our government. I can do more interviews. I can repeat exactly what Haj Agha told me about the media to more reporters if you want.”

Rosewater wasn’t taking the bait. Clearly, he had specific orders: I was to incriminate Rafsanjani, Mousavi, Khatami, Karroubi, Montazeri, and Sanei. “Are you going to tell us how you put them in touch with foreign agencies?” he asked. Then he came closer. “Maziar, I’ll make a deal with you. If you can incriminate three of these six traitors, I will personally make sure that you’ll be freed tomorrow.”

He wanted to make a deal. It was a welcome new beginning.

When I’d been a university student in Montreal, I had worked as a carpet salesman. One thing I’d learned was that when someone was ready to make a deal with you, you shouldn’t accept his first offer. “But, sir, that would be lying. I don’t know any of these people, and I can’t lie about them.”

Rosewater tapped my neck with an open palm. His hand felt like a noose. “It seems that you want to die, Maziar.” He then sat on the table in front of me and started eating a salted cucumber. “One morning, just before the morning prayers, the guard will wake you up and ask you if you have any final requests. A few moments after that, you’ll find yourself in front of the noose, and a few seconds after that, you’ll find yourself hanging in the air.