Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [95]
Hearing that I would be able to see Moloojoon and Mohammad soothed my pain. I lowered my head and willed myself not to cry out my mother’s name. I could feel cold drops of sweat on my back. “Moloojoon,” I said silently to myself. “Maryam. Paola. Moloojoon.”
Rosewater gently patted me on my back. “What are you humming, Maziar?” he asked with a laugh. “Go back to your cell, and think about what we just discussed.”
It sometimes surprised me that in my imaginary conversations, my mother’s voice didn’t come to me as often as my father’s and Maryam’s. But I knew that I didn’t need to hear her voice to be inspired by her strength. Just as she had shielded me from many dangerous things throughout my life, Moloojoon now shielded me from Rosewater’s torture. I could stand his verbal and physical abuse because I knew Moloojoon protected me.
As I looked forward to my mother’s visit, I remembered the way she had supported me during my difficult high school years. I’d never been interested in my studies. My mother was often called to my school after I was caught skipping class to go to the national library to read old newspapers or, during class, when I was caught reading novels or books about politics or cinema instead of listening to my teachers. Whereas other parents might have been infuriated by such rebellious behavior, my mother, who had been a primary school teacher for twenty-seven years, until she retired in 1973, always defended me. “You just don’t understand the youth,” my mother would say to the principal. “You don’t know about their ideas, their needs, and what a difficult time they have in this society. So you just kick them out of your institutions and think your problems are solved.”
The incompetent school administrators never knew how to rationally answer my mother. But in their minds, the fact that I had such a strong mother was just one more reason to expel me and not have to deal with me for another year.
· · ·
In the days before the visit of my mother and Mohammad, I was allowed to call home twice, for a few minutes each time. Rosewater wanted to know which of my friends were in touch with my family. Each time I called, Rosewater would put his head against mine and say, “Ask who’s been calling your family.”
Rosewater didn’t know that my mother was too smart for this. “No one,” she would answer. “No one is calling us except for Paola and your nephew.”
I couldn’t even imagine what my mother was going through. But her trembling voice calmed me down. I remembered the times when Maryam used to call us from prison in Ahvaz—how Moloojoon would cry immediately before and after talking to Maryam, always in her room, so she wouldn’t upset anyone else. But when she talked to Maryam she would muster every ounce of courage and strength she could for the duration of the call. Afterward, I often thought that my mother’s soothing words and her compassionate, strong tone helped Maryam endure prison.
On the morning of the visit, I was given a haircut and allowed to shave. As the barber cut my hair, Rosewater stood behind me and gave me instructions on what I should and should not say during the meeting. I could not ask my mother anything about the lawyer she had mentioned or my case. “Nothing about your friends outside of Iran and nothing about political events in the country,” Rosewater said. Our conversation had to be limited to family matters and my mother’s and Mohammad’s health. Someone was going to be assigned to sit at the