A LITTLE WORLD

Year 88 [March 2009]

Our cell was our only world. A small and enclosed world, a dark and sedentary world. A world imposed on us, forced on us, and in which we were entirely cut off from the actual world. But a world too where we were always together with other cellmates, never alone. Especially during that year of the political uprisings, when the outside world was being crammed inside the prison walls of Evin.

Each inmate in a shared isolation cell has just enough space for the length of her body and just enough width for the span of her shoulders. And she has no more than a folded military blanket under and over her. We would sleep in that limited space, sit, pray, study, read, think, and exercise in that same space. The boundary of our lives was no bigger than that narrow space. My preferred place in that cell was directly opposite the door where I could keep an eye on the peep hole and see who was spying on our little world.

As a result of the cramped space, the cell could quickly become messy and even dirty. Food would fester in corners, strands of hair would accumulate on the carpeting, blankets would begin to smell and get soiled. When you are marooned in a tiny area, without the option of escape, living conditions can deteriorate fast unless you are strict with hygiene and disciplined about cleanliness. It is like living on a small boat.

One of my self-assigned tasks – maybe even a distraction – was to pick up strands of hair. This had become something of a mania after a year in prison. I kept a special clean cloth, and would regularly wipe down the beige carpet, and pick up hair strands with it. I would wash the pale green walls and the rusty sink with it too. Perhaps this fastidiousness was due to the insalubrious conditions in Mashhad. I had become obsessed with cleanliness.

But whether due to my fanaticism or more likely Fariba’s purity of spirit, our small world somehow glowed. There was an atmosphere of joy and light in there, even when we were feeling down or unwell from time to time; there was an air of hope in the place that was a result of prayers, I am sure. Later when we were able to buy tissue paper, in blue boxes with stars printed on them, I used to cut these stars out and stick them up on the walls with toothpaste. Stars, stars, stars to symbolise that light! The other three walls were gradually covered too – or as we deludedly thought, beautified – with newspaper clippings of flowers, trees, greenery, grass, and quotations or poetry.

It should never be imagined that, under these conditions, we did not become tired, homesick, or worn. Of course we did, or how could we have sympathized with all the others in there with us? At times it felt as though the walls were crowding in, pressing in and sucking the life out of us there. At times, each of us would have liked to pray alone, to weep alone, to even be angry – alone. But our misery was not the dominant mood of that place.

One reason for it, I am convinced, was that we had ceased to think of ourselves as prisoners. We knew we were not guilty. We were not a security threat to the state and had never committed the crimes conceived by the over-active imaginations of the gentlemen of the Intelligence Ministry. Another reason was that we had found a reason to be in there. We felt as though we were sitting quietly at home, within the four walls of that little cell, and if someone joined us, it was our task to welcome this guest with open arms and share the space with her, freely and gladly. We became the hosts of that cell.

I verily believe we found a path leading to celestial realms in that little world. Everything had the savour of resignation in there; everything tasted of trust and was redolent with the will of Providence. When we lifted our arms, it was not towards the suffocated windows above the door: we were reaching towards heaven with the tips of our fingers. When we lifted our eyes, it was not to the dim light hidden in the shoebox niche beneath the ceiling: we were receiving glimpses of certitude. After struggling and resisting, striving and finally submitting, we had arrived at the conviction that what was best would ultimately happen, was in fact happening. If we were here, there was a reason for it. We embraced it. And this was pure liberation!

Perhaps it was also because we had relinquished time in that cell; we forgot how long our detention had been and or might still be. Our detachment helped us let go of the passing days and weeks, and we simply waited for our trial and were prepared for our probable execution. I used to tell Fariba: “Who would believe that each time that buzzer resonates through this passageway, we hear it reconciled to both death and freedom? Who would understand that these two possibilities feel equally close to us, and we feel equally free from them?”

It is easy to recount the memories of those days but difficult to convey the sheer wonder that enveloped us, the shining atmosphere of joy we experienced in that starry cell. Many have spent a portion of their lives in captivity and have written about their experiences. But what is remembered from such searing words of suffering, is whether or not their spirits have been crushed, whether they have given up in despair or risen from abject misery to beautifully survive. Our challenge, too, was to transform hardship into beauty, hopelessness into gratitude, if we could. But it was only possible, deed by deed, on a daily basis.

Before long, gossip began to circulate in Passage 100. Whispers were exchanged about these two peculiar women in cell 113, two Bahá’í women who had been imprisoned for over a year in Section 209, who slipped food into the pockets of other peoples’ clothes, or left surprises of fruit in their bags in the Small Patio. Some of the prisoners who moved in with us would say –

“We knew you were here; we’d heard about you!”

Others even told us that they had been hoping to be brought to our cell because of what they heard. Several would quote the guards as saying things like –

“You’re going to a place you’ll really like!”

– or –

“I’ll take you to some women whom you’ll enjoy meeting.”

– or –

“You’re going to go somewhere very clean.”

– or –

“You’ll be in a place where they’re as good as you are!”

We heard such comments frequently, and it struck us as delightfully droll. But it was actually very simple. Since we had gained some experience at being traumatised and tortured, we knew that love was the only healer. We had tested this in an almost scientific fashion and found that it worked, so we immersed those who shared our cell with care and affection.

Of course, some of the guards cautioned other prisoners against us, advised them not to get too friendly with us. They warned them, as if against exposure to infection by a virulently contagious disease, that we were Bahá’ís. Others were told by their interrogators that if they felt uncomfortable about being with us, they could request to be moved. None of them did.

But it did not matter to us what people said. It did not matter who our guest was either, or what her crime had been, what others thought of her or what she might think of us. We too were sometimes cautioned against one or other prisoner, told in hushed tones by a friendly guard or one of our other guests to watch out for such and such or so and so, who was a spy, or a government mole, or in the pay of the Ministry. And we did not care a fig. On the contrary, we used to go out of our way to befriend such people. The only emotion we refused to entertain towards our guests was suspicion. The thought never even entered our minds.

Throughout our years of imprisonment, Fariba and I were repeatedly mocked for our lack of guile. But for us, it was the only way. No matter how cynical our guests might have been before meeting us, no matter how guarded and fearful they felt during the first few hours, after a short time whoever shared our cell would begin to relax and express – at first warily and timidly and finally openly and gladly – their relief at being there. This trust was neither artificial on their part nor forced on ours. Our little world turned on an axis of love.

In those days, to be at peace, for me, was to grasp the pure oneness of everything, which depended on love. A oneness with myself. A oneness with others. A sense of oneness with all the people of my country and beyond. I saw this principle at work over and over again, and it made me realize that individual characteristics and spiritual identity were also one, weakness and strength, like body and mind, were as close as breath to life, as deed to word. And if I separated the two it was at my own cost.

To develop spiritually, you have to be psychologically honest. You have to recognise that motives are neither entirely black nor perfectly white; we are neither absolute sinners nor total saints. The meaning of grey changed for me, in prison. It was not merely a compromise, or an excuse to relativize: it became a recognition of our common humanity, our oneness with everyone we met. We were all creatures of the half-light with our struggles as well as our surrenders, with high-minded ideals and beliefs, and also self-delusions and hypocrisies. Our little lives turned on our cell’s world-encircling oneness.