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

say?”
    You explode in such anger that you slap me on my ear. The slap is even harder than the one on the first night.
    “You are asking me? Try answering it yourself. We know everything. We want you, in your own words, to talk about the espionage!”
    “I’ve already told you that I am a Soviet spy.”
    “Shut up, useless wimp. This place is full of Soviet spies. They have started singing like nightingales. It only took one slap. Kianuri has already filled four hundred pages.”
    “You can ask him about me as well.”
    You laugh out aloud.
    “Don’t try to teach us our job. Keep your expertise to yourself. Comrade Kia is equally interested in finding out which embassy you have been supplying with information about the Party.”
    Then you drag me to my feet. You haul me up into the air again, and leave. I am spinning helplessly, and yelling. When I come back to my senses, I find myself back in my cell, with my hands tied behind my back. They’ve even inserted a line into my arm for some sort of liquid. The door is open. The guard, a shepherd who’s sitting in the doorway, looks over at me and says gently: “What have you done for them to treat you like this? Why do you refuse to confess?”
    I am feeling a terrible urge to urinate. I am about to explode. I say: “Bathroom ...”
    He shakes his head with regret: “We are not allowed. Your interrogator has to be present.”
    He departs, leaving the door open. A sharp pain is moving up and down my legs, shooting up to the roots of my teeth. My shoulders feel like they will break under the strain of the handcuffs and thepressure on my bladder is driving me insane. Bladder pain is different from other types of pain. It’s yellow. I feel the urine move up and circulate in my veins in place of my blood. I decide to release myself. Reason tells me that as long as I am dressed, that’s just not going to be possible for me. It’s a lifelong habit. I brush my back against the floor. I put the foot with the thinner bandage into the other trouser leg and try to pull down my trousers. I am all ears for the door, for the shuffling sound of slippers. With great difficulty, I pull my trousers down a little. I try to relieve myself. It’s not working. It’s burning but not working. I increase the pressure, the pain moves to my shoulders and my teeth. I apply pressure again. There is no relief. My mind is telling me that it’s not possible to relieve myself, lying on the floor like this. The blanket will get wet and it will stink. Ah, human habits. The sickness that is called hygiene. My eyes fall on the food bowl on the floor. Stale noodle soup. So it must be night. Eternity, where are you? I have no idea. I push myself towards the bowl. I place my hips over the bowl, with difficulty. My hands, tied behind my back, cannot bear my weight. I try to focus. I apply pressure and imagine the sound of trickling water. I find myself in the same predicament twenty-five years later, in exile, after a heart operation. Doctors have a curious term for what we might simply call urinary retention –
ischuria
. In my case the result of extensive damage to my nervous system.
    And suddenly, it’s as if I have been given the universe. It starts dribbling and then flows. No, it has just begun to trickle when the guard rushes in and then I hear your voice: “Useless wimp. God help you ...”
    A hand grabs hold of my handcuffs and drags me up. Before I know it, my head is inside the soup mixed with urine. You shove my head back in a few times and then pull it out. Then you drag me along behind you. It must be the guard who is pulling up my trousers in the middle of the corridor. We cross the courtyard. We are not returning to the room downstairs. You are dragging me up the stairs.
    I haven’t been able to stop myself along the way. When you throw me onto the chair, I realize that I am wet. You stand behind me. You pull up my blindfold. There’s something on the arm of the chair. I can’t see