Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran by Houshang Asadi

killing myself a little bit more and at your hands, and I am not aware of it. The time is passing or not passing. I have no idea. I am yelling or not yelling. I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I hear the sound of the door opening. From far away. Very far away. I want to reach my blindfold with my hands and put it on. But my hands are tied up. I hear your voice, Brother Hamid: “You are only pretending to have fainted.”
    I can’t believe it is me who is saying: “Woof, woof.”
    You are laughing: “What’s up?”
    “Woof, woof.”
    “You are late, little lion.”
    “I am a spy ...”
    “Well done! Whose spy are you?”
    “A Soviet spy ...”
    You laugh in mockery: “That’s obvious. The Tudeh party is entirely composed of Russian spies. But who are you spying for?”
    I say it again: “A Soviet spy.”
    “You are not getting it. A Savak agent cannot be a Soviet spy. Now get to the heart of the matter”, you say ...
    ... and you leave.
    Yes, Brother Hamid, you have left and I am yelling. I yell for as long as I can breathe. You come in every now and then, lower me to the ground, and force me to move my hands and feet. The blood rushing back into my fingers and toes brings new agonies. You tie me up again and leave. Without a sound. You don’t even say a word. All I get is the smell of onions. What perfume, what spirituality you are displaying. Your words are spinning round and round in my head. The pain reaches a climax and floods my brain. Deep inside me a silent struggle is taking place between life and death. Somebody is saying: “Spare me and I’ll talk. I can’t bear it anymore.”
    Someone else answers: “No. Never accept his filthy accusations.”
    Whoever wins this battle between the handcuffs and the bones and flesh, whoever wins this unequal struggle between suffering and soul, is the one who’ll decide the prisoner’s fate. I remember the comment that the Athens police chief made to Oriana Fallaci during an interview: “Only one in a million can withstand torture.”
    Everyone would like to be the one. I am vacillating between being the one and the rest. I am hanging from a ceiling in the cellar of Moshtarek prison, my body swinging back and forth. The one who wants to be released is going to find the answer. He is analysing Brother Hamid’s words: “You are a spy. But not a Soviet spy ... Therefore you must be a ‘Western’ spy.”
    The one who’s putting up resistance protests, driven by righteous anger: “No! No! All my life I have hated the CIA and MI6. I despise the West and I hate the thought of spying for anyone ...”
    The one who’s intent on getting himself released, whispers: “So, it’s a lie ... But there’s no harm in it for anyone. When you get to court, you’ll simply admit that you lied.”
    The battle carries on, back and forth, at the heart of my inner struggle.
    “This kind of confession can get you hanged.”
    “Never mind. The main issue is not to talk about the Party.”
    The door opens at that exact moment and you come in. It’s as if you have been following on a monitor the inner battle between my two selves. I am still able to identify the shuffling of your feet amid a thousand similar sounds. A thousand years pass until you reach me. The final decision is taken by a part of me that I have only just begun to get in touch with in my frenzied inner battle.
    “Brother Hamid ...”
    “You have forgotten, little lion. You have forgotten to bark.”
    The part of me that has won obeys: “Woof, woof ...”
    You are laughing and are untying me. You are placing me on the bed. You are removing the handcuffs, taking them off my body. This“handcuff kindness” has a far greater effect than the violence. As a prisoner, you are ready to give your whole being in return for having the handcuffs removed, not to experience the agony of being strung up, not to hear the sound of the metal lock clicking into place.
    I blurt out a question: “What am I supposed to