Read Online Letters to My Torturer: Love, Revolution, and Imprisonment in Iran by Houshang Asadi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Houshang Asadi
Tags: General, History, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Editors; Journalists; Publishers, 20th Century, Political Science, Modern, middle east, Human Rights
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spirituality that appealed to the heart.
Whenever I felt overwhelmed by misery, he would call to me and say: “Houshang, stand up, let’s go for a stroll.”
During those daily strolls we walked up and down the tiny cell to the point of exhaustion. Sometimes, the stroll took place along the great Tehran Boulevard, sometimes we set off towards Mashhad. We spent those long, cold hours conversing with each other. I talked about my childhood, my family and my work as a journalist. He mostly spoke about his family.
Khamenei told me about the adventure of meeting and falling in love with his wife. He talked about the day when, seated under a tree beside a stream, he had revealed his intention of marriage to his future wife. A large cloth had been spread on the ground, which was covered with salads and bread. A few years later, in the middle of a summer night in 1981, I was running up the stairs of his house on Iran Street to deliver an important piece of information, when I saw his wife for a second on the landing. She was dashing away, her head uncovered. It was then that I understood the meaning of their love. At the time of our imprisonment he had two sons, one called Mustafa and the other Ahmad. Very quickly, a peculiar affection developed between this naïve leftist youngster and that intelligent, pious man in that tiny cell, and it had political consequences.
Even though many years have passed since those days, and I am now locked in exile while Khamenei remains in our homeland, the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, that affection has not yet left my heart. My head accepts what is being said about his role in politics, but my heart rejects the accusations.
My love for and familiarity with literature, and poetry in particular, paved the way for lengthy conversations, and I quickly realized that he had a unique mastery of contemporary literature, especially poetry. Even though I was disappointed that he was not fond of Farrokhzad and Ahmad Shamlou, the two famous, contemporary poets of Iran, I joined him in his passionate love for Mehdi Akhavan Saless and Houshang Ebtehaj, two semi-classical poets. He also disliked Sadeq Hedayat, one of the early proponents of the Iranian novel, and I, who loved Hedayat, tried to persuade him otherwise. He wanted me to recount stories that I had read which were unknown to him, or to recite poems I knew by heart. He himself had memorized many poems.
Sometimes I’d sing the revolutionary songs that I had learned in Ahvaz prison and he would listen to them with pleasure. My fellow prisoners had come up with revolutionary words to Vigen’s
Once Again Companion to Drunkards
– Vigen was the founder of modern Iranian pop music – and I would sing the song in my terrible voice and Khamenei would listen. When I sang the original song, which talked about drunkards in a bar, he laughed but asked me to stop singing it.
Occasionally I gave him lessons in journalism, and explained whatever I knew in the shape of a theory. He listened with interest and asked precise questions. One of the things I taught him was: “Do not pay attention to the headlines. Look at the main content, search for those words that are repeated, though in various ways. Read between the lines.”
He listened carefully, learning how to interpret newspaper content. He was very attached to smoking. Each prisoner was allocated one cigarette per day. I was a non-smoker so I gave him my share. He would carefully divide the two cigarettes into six sections and light up each section with great pleasure.
Sometimes we exchanged jokes. He liked inoffensive jokes; they made him burst out laughing. One time, Dog Fart Number Twooverheard us laughing. He rushed into the cell and slapped us both. But Khamenei didn’t like even slightly dirty jokes, sexuality being the frontier that divided innocent jokes from dirty ones.
I also told him the story of my first love: the night on the rooftop when I watched Angie
Whenever I felt overwhelmed by misery, he would call to me and say: “Houshang, stand up, let’s go for a stroll.”
During those daily strolls we walked up and down the tiny cell to the point of exhaustion. Sometimes, the stroll took place along the great Tehran Boulevard, sometimes we set off towards Mashhad. We spent those long, cold hours conversing with each other. I talked about my childhood, my family and my work as a journalist. He mostly spoke about his family.
Khamenei told me about the adventure of meeting and falling in love with his wife. He talked about the day when, seated under a tree beside a stream, he had revealed his intention of marriage to his future wife. A large cloth had been spread on the ground, which was covered with salads and bread. A few years later, in the middle of a summer night in 1981, I was running up the stairs of his house on Iran Street to deliver an important piece of information, when I saw his wife for a second on the landing. She was dashing away, her head uncovered. It was then that I understood the meaning of their love. At the time of our imprisonment he had two sons, one called Mustafa and the other Ahmad. Very quickly, a peculiar affection developed between this naïve leftist youngster and that intelligent, pious man in that tiny cell, and it had political consequences.
Even though many years have passed since those days, and I am now locked in exile while Khamenei remains in our homeland, the successor to Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader, that affection has not yet left my heart. My head accepts what is being said about his role in politics, but my heart rejects the accusations.
My love for and familiarity with literature, and poetry in particular, paved the way for lengthy conversations, and I quickly realized that he had a unique mastery of contemporary literature, especially poetry. Even though I was disappointed that he was not fond of Farrokhzad and Ahmad Shamlou, the two famous, contemporary poets of Iran, I joined him in his passionate love for Mehdi Akhavan Saless and Houshang Ebtehaj, two semi-classical poets. He also disliked Sadeq Hedayat, one of the early proponents of the Iranian novel, and I, who loved Hedayat, tried to persuade him otherwise. He wanted me to recount stories that I had read which were unknown to him, or to recite poems I knew by heart. He himself had memorized many poems.
Sometimes I’d sing the revolutionary songs that I had learned in Ahvaz prison and he would listen to them with pleasure. My fellow prisoners had come up with revolutionary words to Vigen’s
Once Again Companion to Drunkards
– Vigen was the founder of modern Iranian pop music – and I would sing the song in my terrible voice and Khamenei would listen. When I sang the original song, which talked about drunkards in a bar, he laughed but asked me to stop singing it.
Occasionally I gave him lessons in journalism, and explained whatever I knew in the shape of a theory. He listened with interest and asked precise questions. One of the things I taught him was: “Do not pay attention to the headlines. Look at the main content, search for those words that are repeated, though in various ways. Read between the lines.”
He listened carefully, learning how to interpret newspaper content. He was very attached to smoking. Each prisoner was allocated one cigarette per day. I was a non-smoker so I gave him my share. He would carefully divide the two cigarettes into six sections and light up each section with great pleasure.
Sometimes we exchanged jokes. He liked inoffensive jokes; they made him burst out laughing. One time, Dog Fart Number Twooverheard us laughing. He rushed into the cell and slapped us both. But Khamenei didn’t like even slightly dirty jokes, sexuality being the frontier that divided innocent jokes from dirty ones.
I also told him the story of my first love: the night on the rooftop when I watched Angie
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