Fionnuala’s Reviews > Open Wide the Doors: A Memoir of Faith, Hope and Freedom in Iran > Status Update

"Whatever you've committed to memory is a precious treasure in prison. And in solitary confinement, it becomes an elixir of life itself."

The sound of the buzzer echoing down the Main Corridor should not have been for me that day. But I recognised the unremitting, incessant, uninterrupted sound; it was Bad Mouth's way of pressing the button. So soon? I had been tortured that same Tuesday. Surely he was not coming back for me already on Thursday. But the footsteps of the guard stopping outside my door quashed all my calculations...

'This cant go on,' the interrogator stormed. 'Confrontation with you people is inevitable.' I suggested he might want to review the effectiveness of confrontation in the light of history. Had oppression and conflict ever yielded positive results? Had tyranny ever succeeded in crushing the human spirit at any time or anywhere in the world? Had it not conversely fortified people's defiance, encouraged their resistance?

They used to say that you could hear the flap of a fly's wing in the Isolation Wards of Evin prison. Even the echo of footsteps was muffled to a soft shlip-shlep, because you had to wear plastic slippers in there. Shoes were not allowed. Human voices were not allowed. You had to whisper. No one else appeared as we walked past door after door towards the end of the corridor that turned left into another passageway...

I had always known that time was not a fixed quantity but in solitary confinement I realised it had no fixed quality either. For the quality of time varies with circumstances and depends on the point of view of each person. It was hard to believe that time was the same for the [warden]... when she returned to 'check' on me [after lunch], the gulp of a second for her had taken a whole month for me to swallow.

Once back in prison [from court], we waited to be delivered back to our various cells. You have the impression, as a prisoner, that you are less a person than a parcel. Even your own legs have no authority to carry you from one place to the next, unless some paper is stamped, some order given. Every movement involves an escort, and you end up with a sensation of paralysis.
But the mind keeps moving.

As I stepped into the cell and untied my blindfold, the old man held something out to me. A tiny bar of soap...How grateful I was to him. That's all it took to feel less alienated in the world: a bar of soap and kindness. Despite the solitary confinement, it was still better to shower in this cell than [the other]. I was getting dressed again when the old man called out once more. 'Get ready for your interrogation'.

That night, as I struggled to find a comfortable position, I found a piece of dried bread in one corner of the bunk. After several days [without food] I was terribly tempted to eat it. At first, I counseled myself to forget about it. What a vile idea to eat a piece of dirty bread. Who knows how long it had been up there? But I kept thinking about that revolting husk...and before I knew it, I had eaten the whole thing

'You're late,' spat the judge with a jerk of his head. He was a grim-faced sullen man in his mid-fifties, and had evidently been expecting me for some time. He ordered me to fill out a form...He glanced at the completed form, cursorily, without saying a word and then turned to leave...'Wait here,' he barked over his shoulder. 'You'll need to answer more questions.' The door slammed shut. I waited...No one came...