from Chapter 1: ABDUCTION

I stared around me, half-stunned. The cell was about ten metres square, with a basin and a shower stall in one corner and a pile of blankets in another. But I had hardly registered more than the dullness of the walls before there was a knock at the door again, and a shout.

“Get yourself ready!” The old man had come back.

That’s when I noticed that the black chador I had borrowed from a neighbour was no longer hanging on the hook. Had the woman taken it away with her? In its place was a navy-blue chador speckled with tiny flowers, which stank. I put it on, overwhelmed with revulsion, and followed the old man down the corridor again, blindfolded, and filled with mounting dread. Once more the long passages, once more the twists and turns through this labyrinth, until he brought me into – where?

The space seemed to widen into a room as I walked in.

A chair was pushed at me: I backed into it blindly. A piece of paper was lying on the armrest of the chair: I rolled up the lower edge of the blindfold an inch to see it. A logo was stamped at the top of the page: the Intelligence Ministry of Mashhad. Was I in the detention centre of the Khorasan Razavi Intelligence Bureau? There was no knowing. I was handed a pen and a list of written questions. Not a word, not a single gesture, apart from sheet after sheet of paper placed on my armrest in rapid succession – all with the same questions on the same subject as before: the dead man.

I completed the last answer on the final form and was startled by a voice behind me.

“Take her away!”

What an icy tone. What an iron hard voice. It was not the old man. And it was certainly not the corpse in my head. Someone else had been in the room with me all this time, watching me write, handing me the pen, giving me the forms to fill.

The interrogator!

I stood up with a shudder and blundered after whoever was pulling me by the chador. Back we went, through the winding corridors to the same grey cell, and when I finally took the blindfold off and the door closed, I wasn’t sure my eyes were actually seeing anything. I had been in the dark for hours. I was tired and longed for a shower. But even as I began washing my hands and face in the sink, I heard another sharp rap behind me.

“Get ready!”

It was the old man again and this time he flung the door wide open as he called for me. I was taken aback; it was just as well I hadn’t had time to undress! And that’s when I noticed, for the first time, there was no doorknob on the door.

How strange – a door that can only be opened from the outside?

“This way!” he ordered, as I put on the blindfold and stumbled into double-darkness again. “That way!” The cold air pricked my skin. “Mind the step.” A sharp smell of gas. A car was waiting by the curbside, the engine throbbing. “Watch your head!” I bent slightly as a door squeaked open and barely managed to be seated before it slammed shut behind me.

“Lean forward and place your forehead against the front seat.”

Someone else was giving the orders this time. A different thug. Another male voice, throwing words at me like bones. I could only hear him, not see him, but I sensed the violence. Same words, different man. After a drive of about twenty minutes, he spoke again.

“Take off your blindfold and put it under the seat.”

I blinked in the darkness and saw that we were parked at the back entrance of the Revolutionary Court, where I had been dropped off earlier that afternoon. With sight restored, it was easier to walk fast. I hurried through the front lobby, as instructed, and just as I reached the top of the stairs, my eyes fell on a worn old clockface on the wall.

10 p.m. Eight whole hours had passed since my arrival in Mashhad!

Another judge was in the office I entered, seated behind a large desk. He was not the sour-faced man I had encountered earlier but was younger, perhaps about forty, short, stocky and trimly dressed. Two other men were sitting side by side some distance away from him. I guessed from their tell-tale three-day beards and resolutely scruffy appearances that, like the previous gentlemen I had met, they too were agents of the Intelligence Bureau.

The judge called me forward and asked me again to verify my name, then placed a typed document before me. I read it, standing in front of him. An indictment. The charges were as stated: the unauthorised burial of a Muslim in the Bahá’í cemetery of Mashhad. I was guilty of a corpse being interred in the wrong bit of earth. As “evidence” of this heinous crime, he handed me the letter from the Yárán granting admission to bury the dead man in our cemetery. It bore the signature of my aide, who assisted me with such routine matters.

“Is this your signature?” he demanded.

I told him it was written at my request and signed on my behalf.

“If you have a defense,” he said, “you’d better write it now.”

Once again, I took up the pen and scribbled as fast and as fully as six paragraphs and a margin would allow, repeating that the matter had been thoroughly investigated, that the dead man had never formally renounced his faith, that he had stayed in touch with our community, and that the burial had been arranged at his personal request, and with the written approval of his family. I signed my name at the bottom of the page, with a mental nod at the corpse.

Let’s hope this will allow you to be left alone at last.

The judge skimmed the page perfunctorily and responded with measured sarcasm.

“Your reasons seem very convincing,” he drawled, with barely a glance in my direction. Then after a moment, he said, “I rule 10 million tumans as bail. Can you pay that?”

“Yes, certainly,” I replied, feeling a dizzying surge of relief. “Of course, yes indeed, the money can be sent at once, wherever you wish, with a single phone call, yes!”

Thank God! I thought. The worst is over. Bail. Ten million isn’t that much. Some bail bonds amounted to three or four billion tumans (roughly $100,000). My arguments must have convinced this judge that the offence was not so severe. Perhaps I could go home now?

He scrawled on the page and then said dismissively, “Call to arrange for bail.”

“Thank you, sir,” I babbled, my words tumbling over each other. “Thank you very much indeed, sir.” I was so dazed with gratitude that I barely noticed the two agents had risen to their feet and were shambling over to stand on each side of me.

“Come along then,” said one.

“Let’s go!” growled the other.

I was taken aback. But what about phoning for bail? I wanted to leave this place but not with these men. I turned to the judge anxiously, earnestly. “Please allow me to phone first, sir,” I urged. “Please let me arrange for the money transfer directly from here.”

But he brushed off the request, as if I was just a fussy, melodramatic woman.

“What’s your problem?” he said, with cool disdain. “These gentlemen have mobile phones, you know. You can call from anywhere.”

I started to panic. If the phone call was not made then and there in front of this judge, or if the judge himself did not explicitly instruct these grim-looking men to phone on my behalf, I had no guarantee of anything. My case could be delayed interminably.

“Please, sir, please won’t you order these gentlemen to make the call right now please, about the bail?” I insisted incoherently. It was more of a spill than a speech. I had become the very archetype of the hysteric the judge had dismissed me for being.

He disregarded me completely, swung round on his swivel chair and busied himself with paperwork. The two men shrugged and left the room. I could see them waiting outside the door and grew desperate. I appealed to the judge’s humanity, still assuming that he could, would, and surely should protect the innocent, still believing that he might, must, at least try to administer justice. But it was no use. He continued to ignore me, and after a few minutes, it was clear that he had no intention of doing otherwise. His papers were far more important, and there was no alternative for me but to turn from his well-tailored back in dismay.

As soon as I stepped through the door, the two agents frog-marched me straight to the car. It was late. It was dark. The whole city seemed as suffocated as I was in the back seat. But when the driver finally came to a halt, and I removed the blindfold, I could not believe my eyes. We were parked in front of Vakilabad – the public prison of Mashhad!

The agent next to the driver leapt to his feet and opened the back door of the car.

“Get out!” he hissed.

From OPEN WIDE THE DOORS: A Memoir of Faith, Hope, and Freedom in Iran by Mahvash Sabet, pages 12-17; Copyright © 2026 (Oneworld Publications, Ltd., London, UK, 2026), Translation copyright © 2026 by A. Mottahedeh and B. Nakhjavani