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

worldviews, two separate cultures. Two separate worlds that an oppressive regime had brought together under the same roof. Apparently, of the two worlds, one was supposed to leave and the other to stay. One world was to return home, the other to be sent into exile. Maybe if someone from my world was in power, many in my cellmate’s world would have ended up in exile. I am glad that my world failed to come to power, so that the lovers were not transformed into torturers. I know that until the two worlds find some sort of compromise, my life is not going to change.
    A month passed in this manner inside the tiny cell intended for solitary confinement, where the two of us were kept. Khamenei was called up for interrogation once or twice and I too was called up once more. The questions, written in illegible handwriting on a piece of paper, were a repetition of the ones I had been asked on my arrest. They focused on my earlier arrest in Ahvaz, and the way my father had handled the court procedures. And I wrote down the beliefs that I used to hold in those days and mixed them with the scenario dictated to me by Rahman. I wrote: “I have lost interest in politics. I just want to get on with my life.”
    I was in a constant state of anxiety that they might ask me to cooperate with them. I was prepared to refuse, no matter what the consequences. At that time I still had no idea what it meant to find oneself caught in a trap set by a security agency.
    One night, around midnight, the cell door opened and someone was thrown in. He was a slight teenager, with badly beaten feet. We sorted out a corner for him. We kept asking him questions but he wouldn’t reply. He just kept crying. We stayed up the whole night and asked the first guard that took us to the bathroom for help. The guard ignored us. We dragged the teenager to the bathroom and brought him back. We kept banging on the cell door, requesting a guard, but nothing happened until the evening. Eventually, a guardturned up and opened the door. Khamenei said: “This boy is dying!”
    The guard glanced down at the youngster and said: “So what?” and left. I don’t remember how much time passed before they finally came back, to take him away and then return him with bandaged feet. Later, when he started to say a word or two, we found out that his name was Sasan and that he had been a supporter of a guerrilla group called Fedayeen-e Khalq, a Marxist guerrilla organization. He had been beaten severely and had suffered a nervous breakdown. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t sleep and worst of all, he couldn’t eat. We began to try out different ways of getting food into his body. We finally figured out that he reacted to the threat of physical violence, jolting back to himself momentarily and allowing his otherwise perpetually sealed teeth to open a bit. Once we discovered this solution, when the food arrived I would play the role of the interrogator while Khamenei dipped his hand into the bowl, pulling out small pieces of meat. The food was always a piece of meat, always served in a metal bowl filled with water, and we were forced to eat with our hands.
    I would threaten Sasan with physical violence and as soon as his mouth opened a bit, Khamenei would pop the meat into his mouth. That is how we kept him alive. I recently traced Sasan, who is now living in exile in Germany.
    Another night, the cell door opened around midnight and this time a tall young man was thrown into the cell. He had been arrested in a town near Tehran when he had turned up in the main square carrying a bag of explosives, intending to blow up the Shah’s statue. He had already been interrogated on his arrest and had been transferred to Tehran for further questioning. He was convinced he was going to be hanged. When he noticed Khamenei, his manners became very respectful. We soon knew everything about him. His name was Ali Husseini, and years later, while in exile, I was to see a photograph of him with some