Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [99]
I woke up feeling nauseous. I threw up in the plastic bag in which my breakfast had been delivered that morning. I sat in the corner of my cell, sweating and shivering.
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A week later, I was walking as fast as I could with my blindfold on during my hava khori. My body was still hurting from Rosewater’s beatings and many nights of fitful sleep, and the fact that I hadn’t seen him in several days made me anxious about what they might have in store for me.
“You exercise too much,” Blue-Eyed Seyyed said, leading me back to my cell afterward. But this time, he didn’t shut and lock the door behind me as he usually did. Instead, he looked around my small cell. “We think you need a smaller place. Pack your stuff. You have to change cells.”
My “stuff” included two blankets, a bottle of water, the Koran, and a book of prayers. I was desperate for anything to read, but both books were written in Arabic, which I didn’t know. I gathered them and followed him up a flight of stairs. Despite what Blue-Eyed Seyyed had said, the new cell was much bigger and, most importantly, had a window. Left alone there, I could hear two other prisoners speaking to the guard. I immediately recognized their voices: former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi was in the cell next to mine, and former deputy speaker of parliament Behzad Nabavi was in the cell across the hall.
They were both among the most outspoken and influential figures in the reformist movement. Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a rotund man in his early fifties with a permanent smile, was an open-minded cleric. Abtahi had been reformist Mohammad Khatami’s vice president for eight years. He was also the first prominent Iranian politician to start his own blog, in which he criticized the conservatives who ran the courts and the army.
Behzad Nabavi had spent many years in prison before the revolution and had held a number of high-ranking positions in the early years of the Islamic regime. Prior to the election, Newsweek had asked me to compile a list of the most influential Iranians. According to a pro-Ahmadinejad conservative pundit I interviewed, Nabavi was “the most devious element in Iranian politics.
“I’m sure he’s behind all the conspiracies against the supreme leader,” the pundit said. Khamenei must have thought the same thing. Nabavi had been among the first group of people arrested after the election, on Khamenei’s specific orders. Nabavi later claimed that his arrest warrant had been issued weeks before the election, and that the Guards had only been waiting for an opportunity to jail him.
I didn’t know why they had put me on the same level with such influential figures. I sat on the floor, gazed out the window, and searched for the strength to look on the bright side. After all, my cell was larger and cleaner, and I could see the sunlight again. I carefully rolled the blankets into a wide pillow, like the ones that covered our big bed in London. Placing the pillow on the floor, I leaned back into it, closed my eyes, and focused on the sun.
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A few days later, on the morning of August 1, 2009—forty-two days into my stay at Evin—I was dreaming the most beautiful dream. I was in Croatia, making love with Paola. We had just finished one of my favorite dishes in the world: Croatian grilled calamari, accompanied by a cold glass of white wine. We were lying on a sandy beach and her soft skin was slowly growing dark with the sun. I rubbed the beads of sweat that covered the small of her back.
The top slot of my door opened. “Shazdeh, pasho. Get up, my prince.” It was Brown Sandals. “Put these on.” A new prison uniform and my blindfold landed on the floor of my cell. Brown Sandals waited outside while I changed. I wasn’t sure what was going on, and my thoughts remained with Paola in Croatia.
“I feel privileged to be in the company of Mr. Abtahi and Mr. Nabavi,” I said as I dressed, hoping to get any information about why I had been moved. I was shocked when Brown