Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran Read Free Page A

They’re going to arrest us. They are going to kill us. All of us.”
    And now he had come to my home. I stepped out into the street and watched him as he walked away. He was out of breath walking up the steep road, and that four-wheel-drive car was still parked onthe other side of the street, right in front of our house. Later, I realized that from very early on they had been watching our home from inside that car. Did Rahman, the deputy editor-in-chief of
Kayhan
9 newspaper and one of the leaders of our clandestine Party, know about this? Is that why he didn’t come himself? What had happened during this last month? Why didn’t he warn us? He had always worried for my wife. I went upstairs. I woke my wife; she slept late and only after taking sleeping pills.
    I gave her the news. Waves of worry washed over her face and have never left since. She jumped up, quick as lightning.
    “What time is it? Manuchehr Khan might be stranded.”
    Nooshabeh, my wife was very fond of that calm, kind, likeable man, and even though she was neither interested in politics nor a Party member, she was always ready to help him. The bell rang again. This time it was one of the members of the Party Central Committee. He had assumed that Manuchehr Behzadi, a fellow member of the Central Committee and editor-in-chief of
Mardom
,
The People’s Letter
, the Party’s official newspaper, would be with us and had come to let him know that the Guards had gone down early that morning to the building where Manuchehr lived. I said: “We have to collect Manuchehr Khan at eight o’clock, so we will let him know what is happening. But you shouldn’t go home. Stay somewhere else for a few days.”
    He left, and I heard later that he had managed to get out of the country. I told my wife that we had better leave the house.
    Nooshabeh was rushing to get ready to collect Manuchehr. “Pack up everything we need,” she said, “I’ll be back very quickly.”
    I insisted that she stayed so that we could go together, but she was worried about Manuchehr, and left the house in a hurry. First of all, I tore up Party paperwork, and threw it into the toilet. I grabbed a small bag into which I put any books that I thought might appear compromising, and my passport, which had a stamp from my trip to the Soviet Union. I put the bag in the cellar. I went back upstairs. Ipicked up another small bag. I tried to make sure that my wife’s mother, who was living with us, wouldn’t notice. I threw in basic necessities. I considered phoning the
Mardom
office, but instead quietly left the house with the bag in my hand and phoned the
Mardom
office from a public phone box nearby. Usually, one of the guys I knew well picked up the phone, but this time an unfamiliar voice answered. I realized from the way he spoke that the authorities had already taken over the office. I put down the phone. I didn’t know what to do. For a while I waited at the side of the street for Nooshabeh to get back, but there was no sign of her. I couldn’t leave without her. I went back into the house. Since then, I’ve asked myself a thousand times whether I was stupid to do that.
    Whatever the answer, that return changed the course of my life. Or perhaps it moved it in a predetermined direction.
    Back home, I paced up and down, waiting for my wife. I remember the time exactly. It was precisely twenty to ten on the morning of 6 February 1983 when they knocked on the door. Whoever they were, they hadn’t been able to find the doorbell and had come into the hallway and knocked on the inner door instead. I went down and opened the door. Three people were standing there in civilian clothing. One was holding my photograph, and asked: “Are you Houshang Asadi?”
    “Yes.”
    “Let’s go to the third floor.”
    They knew that we lived on the third floor. Together we went upstairs. My mother-in-law was busy with some housework. They closed the door behind them and one of them said: “We’ve been