REALITIES: Despair and Hope
2011
THE VISIT
All over the world, buried in prisons, are the souls of conscience, faith, and hope. This small work of fiction is dedicated to them. It is dedicated most of all to my innocent fellow Bahá’ís who are imprisoned in Iran for nothing more, or less, than their faith.
When they tell me in advance that I will have a visitor, I never know whether it will come true. It’s the same when they tell me that I will be executed soon. Over the past few years I’ve learned that I must simply wait. I can’t react too much, or they’ll think they have more control over me, and I can’t react too little, or they’ll decide I’m depressed and about to start a hunger strike, and then they’ll strap me to a table and shove a feeding tube down my throat. So when they say, “Get ready, because you’re going to have a visitor soon,” I nod and smile with my eyes looking down, making a grateful face.
Sometimes a few days pass, and they say nothing, and then I know that they expect me to ask about the visit. If I don’t ask about it, they send the doctor to look at me and tell them what to do to me. So I ask them, “Is the visitor coming soon?” with just the right note of anticipation in my voice. Then they’ll smile and say, “Of course! Soon!” Then more days pass.
Waiting is pain. They know this. I must retreat into myself to pray and meditate, but I must not let them know I’m doing this, because then the doctor will come. So I show them a continued interest and anticipation for my visitor. My prayers flow like a secret river.
At night the lights go on and off at random intervals. Day and night, also at random intervals, the screams echo through my cell from places nearby and far away. At such times, my torrents of prayers fill me and tend me like angels. I pray for the sufferers around me, all the time.
Sometimes I see the suffering mirrored in the eyes of the guards here, and I pray for them too. I see in their eyes the lost sleep, the sudden shock, all the signs they try so hard to set aside when they go home to their outside lives. Prison work is destroying their souls. That is why I pray for them. Occasionally a guard becomes sympathetic, but the others watch for this like birds of prey, and then the guard is replaced.
My visitor might be my sister or brother. It might be a cousin - maybe even one who hasn’t yet been arrested. Since my sister and brother recanted, the authorities don’t bother them, and they can come and go, but my three cousins haven’t recanted. Every time they come here to see me they take the chance that they will not be allowed to leave. Love rules them, though, and they still come.
Then one day the guard comes and escorts me to the shower room, and I know that the visit may be today. The authorities want me to look and smell good to my visitor, so they let me clean off all the dirt and odor left from not being able to cleanse any part of my body in any effective way for many days. They escort me to the barber, where all of my tangled, filthy hair gets cut and shaped and trimmed away, and comb and brush finally have a chance to do their work. They dress me in a modest prison coverall that smells of disinfectant and a little floral scent. It looks clean, except for a few small dark stains at the wrist cuffs.
Once in a while – the last time was over a year ago, I think – they dress me in my own clothes, and that means I will be filmed or viewed on camera. This is not one of those visits. As the guard takes me along the corridor to the visiting room, we chat lightly about nothing much. Then we go in.
It’s my sister, with our brother standing behind her. We all sit down with the guard standing near. A camera watches the room.
“How are you?” she asks me, taking my hands in hers. As soon as she touches my hands, her fingers seem to recoil a bit. They are very soft compared to mine. She does not look up at me at first, and then she raises her eyes, and they fill with tears. She stands and turns away.
“Are you all right?” my brother asks me, but as he says the words his glance to the side tells me his question is for her.
“I’m doing well,” I say, making my voice come out as strong and firm as I can. Even with my best efforts, I sound hoarse. There is only one hour during each day in prison when I can speak at length with anyone.
He talks with me about the family. We don’t have a code the way some do, so that we can’t exchange any news of any significance without bad consequences to me or to one of them. We’ve learned to pass the time in easy chatter, just being in the same room. But today my sister can’t turn again to face me. I know it’s the way I look. The sadness envelops me. If I could, I would take her in my arms and reassure her, just the way I did when we were children and she was in pain.
“It’s time,” the guard finally says, matter-of-fact.
I smile at my brother. His eyes are dark with despair. I squeeze his hand. “It will be all right,” I whisper to him. “It will be all right.” And I stand and watch them leave, his arm around the shaking shoulders of our sister. Their prison, with all its visual, casual freedoms, can be worse than mine.
The guard’s hand gently takes my arm, and we return to my cell. It is quiet today – no screaming. I sit on the concrete floor on a thin, folded blanket, my back against the wall of my cell, and I feel once more the upwelling of prayer. It will be a long time, no doubt, until the next visit, and I will practice speaking as often as I can, to strengthen and smooth my voice. Maybe then my family will find things easier when we visit again.
