Captive in Iran (20 page)

One day when I was washing clothes, Tahmasebi came in to talk with
me. “I don’t think you value freedom,” she said. “Why do you insist on defending your faith and giving these people an excuse to keep you here? All you have to do is tell them what they want to hear and you’ll be free. If you were in my shoes, you’d know how precious that opportunity is! I’ve been here for thirteen years, and day and night my only dream is to be free. You can have freedom anytime you want, yet you stubbornly refuse.”

“I understand your position,” I said. “Thirteen years is almost half your life. You have every right to feel tired and hopeless. But my life and Maryam’s life are dedicated to God. For us, freedom makes sense only in the context of our relationship with Him. If I can’t live and act according to the principles of my faith, then I’m not free, whether I’m in prison or outside. Real freedom means being allowed to follow the faith you choose, not having to lock it up or hide it in a cage. In here, I’m free because the regime can’t force me to abandon my faith for theirs.”

This answer got Tahmasebi’s attention. “I don’t understand,” she said. “What kind of faith is it that erodes your freedom and forces you to spend your young life locked away here?”

“It’s pure love,” I explained. “When you are in love with God, when you live with Him and He becomes your world, the problems of this world become unimportant. The only thing that matters is to be with your love—with God—even inside a prison. They have imprisoned only our bodies; they can’t imprison our souls. My faith and beliefs are still mine. As long as I have God, I am free.”

“I still don’t understand,” Tahmasebi said. “You are so lucky to have such faith. At least you’re sure God loves you.”

“I believe God loves you, too, Tahmasebi. More than you can imagine.”

A few nights later, I dreamed that I was handing out fish to all the prisoners, and Tahmasebi wanted the biggest one. I wasn’t sure what the dream meant, but I thought it could mean that Tahmasebi was in for a big surprise. At breakfast that morning, I told Tahmasebi about the dream and announced to the whole room that it meant she would be released within six months.

Prisoners were transferred both from prison to prison and from room to room within a prison. I told Tahmasebi, “This room is the last one you will be held in before you have your freedom.”

Everybody was astonished at such a bold and outrageous prediction. “I appreciate your sympathy,” Tahmasebi said, “but I’ve heard this sort of thing many times before. I’m serving a life sentence, and I will not be freed.”

Rozita turned to Tahmasebi. “You had better believe Marziyeh,” she said. “I have every confidence in her dreams and her faith. She’s predicted the release of several prisoners, and every one of her predictions has come true.” Then to me she added, “In fact, it’s high time you had a dream about me!”

“My dear Rozita,” I said, “I’m not a fortune-teller. God reveals these predictions to me. It isn’t my word, it’s God’s. All I can do is pray for these people and for you.”

“Why does God answer your prayers and not ours?”

“God hears the prayers of the faithful and always answers. But only according to His plans, not ours.”

Thirteen years behind bars had given Tahmasebi the physical strength and resilience to survive and endure. Others didn’t withstand the conditions as well, and their spirits were broken by threats and abuse from the government.

Kianoosh was a young woman who had saved some antigovernment news reports on her office computer after the elections. She had not subscribed to the stories and didn’t know where they had come from. But because the security forces found them on her hard drive, she was charged with using the Internet to spread the word about postelection protests.

When she first arrived at Evin, all she did was sit in a corner and cry. She finally opened up a little, but remained very quiet and kept to herself. The authorities told her that if she wanted to be released, she had to make a video confessing that she had sent e-mails to friends and relatives asking them to take part in the protests. She did as they ordered but told me she regretted doing it.

“Why did you confess?” I asked. “They’ll surely use it against you later on, and they may not even release you now, despite their promise.”

“I couldn’t refuse,” she said, shaken and angry. “They scared me to death. They said if I didn’t cooperate, they’d keep me in prison and pass a heavy sentence on me. I had to repeat what they told me to say.”

I was afraid she might also have “confessed” to other crimes that she
didn’t tell me about. She was newly married and worried that her husband would leave her. She spoke to him every day and came back from each call red-eyed from crying. She had overheard some of our conversations about Christianity, and she asked us to pray for her. “Your prayers calm me down,” she said.

MARYAM

The conversations Kianoosh heard were some I’d had with Mrs. Arab, whose bed was next to mine. We sometimes talked late into the night. I had met Mrs. Arab before Marziyeh and I went to Ward 209. She was an unusually generous person who bought food for the poorest prisoners. She was also expert at knitting. Though we had tried to resume our friendship with her when we returned to Ward 2, she seemed to avoid us.

One day, I asked Mrs. Arab to teach me some knitting patterns. As she demonstrated the designs, she said, “I’ve heard that you and your friend talk a lot about Christ. I’ve seen you praying for other prisoners and being kind to them, but I’ve avoided getting close to you.”

“We noticed that,” I said. “We figured you hated us because we were Christians. Many people here consider us unclean and
najes
[untouchable], and so they shun us.”

“I never hated you,” Mrs. Arab insisted. “On the contrary, I was envious of your faith. Yes, I heard that you are untouchable because you abandoned Islam, but I always defended you and asked your critics how they can be so sure of their own piety. In my view, you two girls have more faith than those of us who consider ourselves Muslims.

“To tell you the truth, I knew that one day you’d talk to me about Christ, and that’s why I was avoiding you. I was afraid you would influence me, and I didn’t want that to happen.”

“Why?” I asked, genuinely puzzled. “I’ve heard you are a pious woman. If you have genuine faith in the path you’ve taken, why should you be afraid to talk to me?”

“I come from a completely Muslim background,” Mrs. Arab said. “I can never turn my back on that. But I also respect Christians and believe
everyone should be free to practice their own faith. Islam has special meaning for me. Even so, I would like for you to pray for me and my problems. I think God hears your voice. But please don’t speak to me about Christianity. I don’t want to have any doubts.”

“Don’t worry,” I said with a smile. “I’m sure that if God has chosen you and wants to reveal His truth to you, He doesn’t need me to do it. But if you lose your Islamic faith by talking to others or reading the Bible, then that belief is not through faith but through fear, and you’re better off without it.” I prayed as we walked together in the courtyard. When I finished, Mrs. Arab was crying.

“I’m afraid because I feel Christ wanting to talk to me,” she admitted. “Years ago, my son was kidnapped and held for millions in ransom. After several months, the situation seemed hopeless. One rainy night, I passed by a building where a man stood at the door. ‘Do you have a problem?’ he asked. I told him I was desperate and didn’t know how to pray so that God would hear me.

“The building was a church. The man said, ‘You can ask Christ to help you. He will hear your voice. We will pray for you too.’ That night, I promised Christ that if my son was released, I would light candles and make charitable donations to the church every year, and I would call my son by the name ‘Christ’ when we were in private. Three days later, the kidnappers reduced their ransom demands and my son was released.

“I have kept my promises to the church, but have told no one about any of this. When I heard you and your friend were here for your faith in Christ, it made me shudder. To me it was another sign from Jesus.”

Sometime later, Mrs. Arab stopped me in the courtyard during a break. “I’ve thought about it, and I want you to talk to me about Christ. Who is He? Why should I know about Him? What does He want from me?”

I shared my Christian testimony with Mrs. Arab, and she and I agreed to pray for each other every day. As her understanding of Christianity deepened, Mrs. Arab got more worried. “I don’t feel worthy of getting close to Christ,” she said. “I have committed many sins. I’m afraid of meeting Jesus.”

The idea of God as a benevolent Father who forgives all our sins is entirely foreign to many Muslims, who’ve been taught all their lives that
God is a God of retribution and punishment. Over time, more prayer and discussion helped Mrs. Arab understand. She promised she would find a Bible when she was freed and was very excited about taking part in a church service in the future.

As the postelection protests intensified, the prison became more crowded than ever. The rate of arrests skyrocketed, while the number of women released on parole slowed to a trickle. Women were jammed so tightly into the cells that there was scarcely room to move at night. The air became even more stale, and the smell of so many bodies in close quarters was sickening. Many new prisoners, especially young girls, were sent to our room because we’d gotten a reputation for being able to calm newcomers down and make them less afraid. When other prisoners didn’t want to hear their crying or answer their questions anymore, they sent them to “the Christian girls.” Marziyeh and I liked meeting new arrivals because they brought the latest news from outside. Since the protests had intensified, our TV and newspapers had been cut off. Even telephone privileges were restricted. We were always eager for updates.

One night, after lights out, Shirin Alam Hooli rushed into our room and said that two girls had just been transferred from Ward 209. She wanted us to come introduce ourselves. We followed her through the dark hallway to a cell where the young women sat in a corner on the floor, still dressed in the Islamic covering they’d had to wear on their walk from 209. A knot of women crowded around, pelting them with questions.

We worked our way through the cluster and introduced ourselves. The girls said their names were Maedeh and Magda. Maedeh immediately asked, “Are you the Christian girls?” We said we were. “I’ve heard a lot about you from Fereshteh.”

“Were you in Fereshteh’s cell in 209?” I asked excitedly. “How is she? Does she still have her TV? What happened to her court hearing?” I was so happy to hear about my dear friend and former cellmate that I rattled off questions faster than Maedeh could answer.

When I finally gave her a moment’s reprieve, she smiled and said, “Yes,
Fereshteh told me she was cellmates with you. She was very upset to be separated from you and talked about you day and night. And yes, she still has her TV.

“Before I was with her, I was in a different cell in 209, and I saw the messages you had written on the walls—your names and the charges against you. How did you do it?”

“We marked in the fresh paint with yogurt lids.”

Maedeh went on, even more animated than before. “Were you also at the Vozara Detention Center? Magda and I spent a few days there, where the walls and even the ceiling had messages like ‘Christ is the Savior,’ and ‘God is love.’ They gave us a feeling of peace during some very frightening days, and we wondered who’d left them there.”

“Yes, we did that,” Marziyeh said. “We spent fifteen days at Vozara.” Maedeh was very interested in Christianity and asked a lot of questions. She had visited a church and felt joy listening to the prayers and hymns, even though she didn’t understand the language. Eventually, we shared some stories of our lives and our faith journeys with each other, and we prayed together. After a while, Maedeh and Magda were released.

Maedeh was a great example of God’s love and power even in situations that seem hopeless. If we hadn’t been in prison, we wouldn’t have had the chance to leave our messages at Vozara and Ward 209. If Maedeh hadn’t been in prison, she never would have seen them and we never would have met her. What looked like a failure by worldly standards was a great victory for Christ: His message proclaimed under the very noses of a regime desperate to stop it.