By: Nasrin Parvaz

A glimpse across the class room

He feels unhappy, raises his head and looks across. One glimpse is enough to catch Hadad’s gaze and his suddenly averted eyes. He doesn’t need to look at him again to picture Hadad with his mouth full of froth, shouting: ‘I’ll make you talk, dirty infidel. Don’t imagine you can get out of here without telling us the names of your friends.’

Although it has been five years ago since he was arrested in a university dispute, it feels like yesterday. He was trying to escape when they caught him, and when he denied it, one of his lecturers stepped in and said to them, ‘Take him and teach him’. In custody he saw Hadad, the man who is sitting in front of him now. It was Hadad who interrogated him, tying his hands to two sides of the bed and his feet to the end of it, and Hadad who beat him on the soles of his feet. Then, when he wouldn’t give the names of his friends, Hadad called for others. They tied him to the ceiling by his feet, each of them pushing him towards the other with punches. He swung back and forth while they beat him. After a while he didn’t know what was happening. When he regained consciousness, he found himself in a solitary cell, pain all over his body; he was pain. He couldn’t say which part of his body was more painful. Pain overwhelmed him. He was barely conscious when the cell door opened and someone entered. He couldn’t see the man but felt he had a blind fold and he took it off as soon as the man came to the cell. The man sat beside him and asked:

- Can you hear me?

- Yes.

- What have they done to you? Can you see me?

- No and yes. I can see a shadow beside me.

- What is your name?

- Pain. What is yours?

- Death.

- But you’re alive.

- Yes, till tomorrow morning. It’s my last night.

- How come?

- They asked me to confess in front of people in favour of the regime. How can I do that? How can I lie? How can I let them laugh at me?

- Is it worth it?

- What do you mean?

- Is your pride worth losing your life for?

- No, it is not a matter of pride. Don’t get me wrong. I can bury my pride under your feet and walk away. But by testifying in favour of them I bury myself, not my pride.

- I don’t know. I don’t understand what is going on here. I didn’t want to lose you so soon.

- Let me wash your wounds. Will you let me do so?

- Sure, your hands ease the pain.

- Who did this to you?

- I don’t know their names. They all look the same. They all call each other the same title, ‘haj-a-gha’.

- For the first few days they all look the same, but then you’ll see that one has a spot on his nose, the other has thick hands, and for example the one who is short and has frightened eyes is Hadad and so on.

- Oh, then Hadad was the one who began the beating. Yet now they all look like Hadad to me.

That night Death soaked his shirt with warm water and used it to clean Pain’s wounds. Death tried to massage Pain’s body but every time he fainted, unable to bear the slightest touch. They talked till dawn, when the door was opened and there was Hadad, with that smile he seemed to use to compensate for his frightened eyes. Hadad was looking at Death and ordered him to leave the cell. Pain doesn’t remember if Death said anything, or perhaps he didn’t hear it.

Five years have passed. He looks up to see whether Hadad still has the same frightened eyes. Pain looks at Hadad to catch his eyes and there Hadad is, gazing at each student one after the other. Hadad takes his eyes away from Pain but not before Pain has caught his eyes for a second, and he finds the same fear on them that was there five years ago.

Pain goes to his girlfriend, Ana and asks her:

- What do you see in my eyes?

- What a question. What’s up?

- Nothing, just look at my eyes and tell me what you see.

- I don’t need to look at your eyes to tell you what your eyes say. I noticed it the first time we met.

- And what was it?

- Wilderness.

- Pardon?

- Yes, you caught me with your wild eyes that contradicted your kind face. Didn’t you know that your face is a contradiction? Your eyes speak. They tell of things that you saw and should not see. Sometimes I feel your eyes are locked in the past and they are struggling to get out of it. I mean while your face seems to look to the future, your eyes seem to be seeing past pictures.

- You know, I feel eyes are unique. A person can lie when talking or pretend feelings that are the opposite of the heart’s natural response. But no one can hide his eyes, can he? Eyes are more than colors. They betray you, don’t they? You can see fear, love, hate or other feelings in one’s eyes which people do not want to show.

- You are right and seeing your eyes right now I could say something has happened today, even if you wouldn’t talk to me about the phenomenal of eyes! What’s up?

- I saw my interrogator in class today.

- No.

- Yes.

- Did he recognise you?

- No. He couldn’t possibly recognise me, because of the plastic surgery that I’ve had on my face since he saw me.

- Didn’t he look at you?

- He did, but he was looking at everyone. I’m sure he can’t identify me. You cannot recognise the same face in my pictures from those times, can you?

- No, you are a different person now. I’m glad he didn’t recognise you.

- Why?

- He may do something dangerous, try to kill you. After all, you know who he is. I’m sure he never admitted to the authorities here that he was an interrogator. Is he a refugee?

- Yes. I overheard his conversation with another man.

- What did he say?

- He told him that he was in prison for a year. After he escaped, he asked for asylum here and his case was accepted within two months.

- I can’t believe it. Has he refugee status?

- Yes.

- Bastard, he got his refugee status in two months, while you and people like you must wait years to be recognised if not rejected.

- Don’t get upset. It is our life.

- Was he really in prison? Or is it a kind of story he made up to stay here?

- I knew he was in prison, due to a political dispute between two factions of the regime. Some of those who were top officials or interrogators are in prison, as he was. But then it seems he could come out and come here!

- Are you sure he’s not here to carry out any assassinations? The regime killed many of its opponents outside of Iran.

- I don’t think he can do such things. He is nothing alone. His kind can torture or assassinate only in numbers.

- What are you going to do?

- I don’t know. What can I do?

- Tell the Home Office who he is, that he was an interrogator.

- You want me to act as an agent for the Home Office?

- No, but it is not fair to let him go like that. Perhaps he goes to the same offices that you go to, to ask for help as an ex-political prisoner.

- They see him as a victim of torture. In their eyes both of us are the same, no matter why he was in prison or why I was in prison. No matter what each of us did to other people. No matter how much pain each of us had inflicted on our wives or daughters. For them, both of us are victims of torture. Won’t it be funny to see him waiting for his turn, next time that I go to see my psychiatrist?

They both fell in silence. ‘I wonder if he has nightmares about prison, about arrest, torture and execution.’ Ana says in a way that if she is thinking aloud, ‘I wonder if he ever suffered torture.’ Pain looks at her and says: ‘But prison is torture, isn’t it?’ Ana starts to pace up and down in the room and says: ‘I don’t know. After all he chose to be in prison. Though as a guard, but it was still prison, wasn’t it? The thing is that he had no problem about being in prison as long as he wasn’t the prisoner.’ Pain holds his head and says, ‘I wonder if prison changed him.’ Ana looks at him and asks him with surprise, ‘Which prison do you mean? Prison as a prisoner or prison as a guard?’ ‘As a prisoner’, Pain replies. Ana stops pacing and asks, ‘In what sense could prison change him?’ ‘I don’t know’, Pain replies, ‘Perhaps it made him think about what he had done to others.’ While sitting on her chair Ana asks, ‘How would you find out about that?’ ‘Perhaps it’ll become clear after a while’, Pain responds, ‘because we talk about different things to improve our English.’ Ana asks him, ‘You mean he may talk about his feeling of regret towards others or something like that?’ Pain looks distressed, ‘I don’t know,’ he says, ‘Perhaps he never admits what he has done to others, but people’s opinions are like a package. All angles of it go together with each other. I mean, you can see how a person treats his wife or his children with the same attitudes that he treats other people.’ Ana says, ‘You’re wrong. A man beats his wife, because the law or custom let him to do so. But the same person doesn’t beat his neighbour, because if he does he’ll ends up prison.’ Pain looks at her and says, ‘You’re right. Life is complicated.’

***

Time passes, Pain begins to feel more and more depressed, upset that every morning he has to see his interrogator across the class room. Now he is sure that he isn’t recognised by Hadad, and it gives him a kind of security and power over him. Pain knows Hadad but Hadad knows nothing about Pain. Ana watches Pain’s changes of mood and feelings of distress and tries to help him. Ana comes home and finds Pain sitting in silence and do nothing looking into the void. She says:

- You look knackered.

- I’m sorry. I don’t want to make your life difficult, but I can’t help it.

- You don’t make my life difficult. How is Mr Interrogator?

- He is fine. The bastard is gaining weight.

- So, he is having a good time?

- I don’t know. Today for the first time I wished to cross the room and slap him on his face right in front of everybody.

- Why?

- He was with another two Hezbollah like himself, talking and laughing. It was in the break and I was reading my book. I could not avoid hearing what they said. They were talking about the advantages of the muslim religion and he was defending having four wives. He said: ‘a man must have four wives: one Iranian for her cooking, one Arab for her belly dancing, one American for fighting and one French for going out on the town.’ Then they all laughed.

- Disgusting.

- I have an idea. I want to make him a bit scared. Look at this picture.

- A hanged man? What is this? Did you draw this?

- Yes. Today when they were talking rubbish and laughing, I couldn’t pretend to read my book any more. I drew this, and the head is his head. It is his face.

- Yes, you are good at drawing. What’s your plan?

- Tomorrow, when he goes out, I’ll put this in his note book.

- He may leave your class altogether. What is the point of one assault?

- We’ll see. I know where he lives. I followed him the other day.

- Be careful. You’d better think about it more. Revenge is a blind act that may take you down with it.

- Don’t worry.

***

Next day Ana come back from her work and sees Pain sitting in dark and looking through the window at night. She kisses him and says:

- You look upset.

- I put the drawing inside Hadad’s notebook in the morning. Now and then I glanced at him to see if he had discovered himself hanged, but he didn’t open his notebook except to the page where he had been writing earlier. Not until the end of our class, when someone asked him for a piece of paper and Hadad flipped through his notebook to tear out a page.

- And? Did he see your drawing?

- Not until he was giving the man the paper. Then Hadad noticed the corner of my drawing, but as soon as he opened that page saw the whole picture, he quickly closed the notebook again and held it in such a way that only he could see the picture, the picture of him being hanged.

- What was his reaction?

- He turned pale, very pale. The man beside him asked if he was alright and Hadad said yes. He didn’t look at anybody, just stood up and left the class.

- Do you regret it? Your act? Are you sorry for him now?

- How can I regret upsetting him? When I saw him turn pale, I remembered in prison his face when I asked him for water and he said he’d pee in my mouth if I’d like a drink.

- I’m sorry, baby, you are shaking. Come here.

***

Hadad did not come to their class any more. One of their teachers asked the man who used to sit beside him about Hadad and was told that he was sick. Pain believed that now Hadad frightened eyes had taken over his soul and body. I must go and see for myself whether he is really sick or not, Pain thought. He waited outside Hadad’s house a few times, for more than an hour each time, but no one came out. Then Pain decided to post his old gaoler another picture. This time he drew Hadad hanging from the ceiling by his feet. His only regret was not being able to see Hadad’s face when he opened the letter.

Time passes. Drawing and posting pictures of Hadad being tortured becomes Pain’s habit. He imagines Hadad’s reaction when he opens the post. He imagines him waiting in fear for what the next post will bring and he imagines him frightened to go out. He wishes he could do this to all of them, all the old torturers, rather than only to one. Hadad must pay the price for all of them.

***

Ana looks at Pain and asks:

- What’s up? You look exhausted.

- Our teacher asked the man who it seems is Hadad’s friend about him, said Pain, and was told that he is very sick.

- In what way?

- He doesn’t go out any more and doesn’t speak to anyone.

- Haven’t you sent him enough pictures?

- I won’t send him anymore.

- Why are you so upset, then?

- Apparently Hadad told his friend that god was punishing him.

- He thinks that god has sent him all those drawings?

- Yes. His friend told the teacher that Hadad is a good man and is following god’s order. Now he says that god has asked him to stay at home and pray all the time. He doesn’t go out and he doesn’t eat either.

- Isn’t this what you wanted?

- No. I don’t know. I was angry to see him in the same situation as mine.

- They are all in a better situation. Why shouldn’t you bring one of them down to your own level?

- It’s true that I’m nobody here, but the reason that I’m here is something that no one can steal from me. Seeing him in the same situation in my classroom, I felt he was going to steal my past. My being was threatened by him.

- He probably thinks he should live in a castle like all his cohort in Iran, not in a council flat just like you.

- I’d prefer that. I’d rather he lived in a castle; I’d rather not share anything with him, even my poverty.

- I know, but you’re wrong. Don’t look to your past. Look to your future. Look what you are doing to yourself. He gave you a hard time in the past, but now it’s you that is doing this to yourself.

- I don’t know what to do. I feel depressed.

- You’re changed from the time when you first saw him. Since then you have been living in your past by wasting your precious time on him with your drawings.

- The thing is that he is crazy now, but I’m still not satisfied. I feel I’m not the person that I wanted to be.

- Don’t you think that during last few months you behaved like him?

- I was one of them, in a sense, wasn’t I?

- Torture is torture. No matter why one inflicts it on other people. No matter what the other person has done. What you did is torture. Don’t you see this?

- That’s why I won’t send him any drawings anymore.

- Is that all that you can do? I mean can you forget what you have done? Or can you forget how he lives now?

- I’ll try.

***

Time passes and Pain becomes more depressed. Ana decide to talk to him and tries to help him to come out of his situation. Ana says:

- It’s several days now that you haven’t talked. You do not even go to your classes. You don’t go to see your psychiatrist. You don’t eat properly. I thought you were just tired and needed some rest. But now I’m getting really worried about you.

- I’m sorry. I know I make your life miserable, but I cannot help myself right now. If you think it is better for you, we can live separately for a while and see each other when we like.

- That means leaving you to become just like your interrogator.

- What are you talking about?

- Isn’t he in the same situation or worse?

- I don’t know. I don’t care. I wish him dead.

- But you don’t want to kill him yourself, do you?

- I’m not a murderer or a torturer.

- I know, otherwise I would never live with you. But people make mistakes. You did and now you are upset because of that. You are depressed because you gave your interrogator such a hard. You know if you were a person like him, you wouldn’t be so upset now.

- What has happened is about the past. I don’t want to think about it. I can’t do anything about it now.

- You can. Talk to him. Tell him that you sent him those pictures and tell him who you are.

- He won’t believe me. He already has made up his mind and he thinks that they are sent by god.

- You can try. Do it for yourself.

- OK, I’ll talk to him. But I can’t go to his house.

- I’ll talk to his psychiatrist and make arrangements.

***

A few days pass and Pain lives with anxiety. He is given a date for the confrontation with Hadad. The day comes and he sees how Hadad is changed. He looks twenty years older and he cannot even walk without help. They sit round a table with their psychiatrists. Pain starts talking:

- Hadad, do you remember 6 years ago, one autumn day, a young boy was given to you? Do you remember saying things like: ‘What a girly face you have’, ‘Have you been fucked yet’? These were your first words, do you remember them? I had a red t-shirt under my jacket and when you took my jacket off to beat me you asked me: ‘You wear girly dresses too?’ You must remember your words, don’t you?

Hadad stands up. He is shaking like a leaf that is being gulped by a goat’s mouth.

- Sit down. I won’t harm you.

- You are not that boy. Your face is different.

- Yes, I am that boy.

- I don’t believe you. This is another test by god. Oh god forgive me.

- Shut up and listen. My face was changed by surgery. For the first year of my imprisonment you were in that prison. You worked there as an interrogator, guard or torturer and you did everything they asked you. Then you went to another prison, but I was kept in the same cell. Apart from that first night in prison I never had a cell mate. Do you remember, you came and took him to kill him?

- He spat on me up the rope and then he pissed. You know they all piss up there.

- Shut up and let me talk. Pissing is the least they can do on you and your system. Now listen, I was kept in that cell for three years. I knew there were many prisoners. Some were kept together, some were alone like me. I had connection with some of those in solitary via Morse. But then there wasn’t anybody near me for a year and I could not hold on any more. I announced a hunger strike till they took me to join the other prisoners. They didn’t do anything and I set myself a light on the fifteenth day of my hunger strike. They realised it almost immediately, but they waited before coming to put the fire out. So my face was burnt and what you see is not my real skin. I had surgery. I had it here. It was expensive, but I didn’t pay any money. I signed a paper to claim money from the government when the regime collapses and cannot harm my family. Now you can ask them to mend your soul too. Perhaps you will then become a human. After all, it’s their job to help the torturers and the tortured, in order to keep the peace.

- Now I’m both torturer and tortured, perhaps they’ll help me double.

2005