Prison Memoirs of Azam Haj-Heydari from the book The Price of Being Human — Part 29
In this installment of her memoir, Azam Haj-Heydari describes a different kind of resistance: breaking the ward’s deathly silence through collective laughter and a renewed sense of solidarity. After enduring five years in the prisons of Khomeini’s regime and suffering its brutal torture, she recalls how the women prisoners found simple but powerful ways to transform the atmosphere in Ward 2, despite the pressure exerted by the executioners and their informers.
From organizing group games to turning an ordinary meal into an uproar of laughter, the women seized every opportunity to make noise, laugh together, and strengthen their bonds. When a snail turned up in their food, they passed it around the room to everyone’s amusement. On another occasion, they distributed adhesive bandages found in the food among the rooms and arranged for the discovery to be announced simultaneously, setting off a commotion throughout the ward.
Azam Haj -Heydari shows how even a small minority can change the atmosphere around them when they refuse to give in and are prepared to face the consequences. The women’s growing closeness also provoked the guards and informers, who tried to undermine their relationships and terrorize them with cruel tricks, including the use of snakes, mice, and bags full of cockroaches. Yet the prisoners found ways to resist even these attempts to frighten them into submission.
Transferred Back to the General Ward
Gradually, we introduced other group games, too. We were especially interested in games that would involve as many people as possible and generate plenty of noise and commotion. We even turned crossword puzzles into team competitions, which everyone took part in with great enthusiasm.
One of the funniest contests, and one that really infuriated the traitors, was a yogurt-eating competition. We even awarded prizes. One of the most popular prizes was tahdig—the crispy golden crust that formed at the bottom of a pot of rice.[1] The winner received an extra portion on top of her usual share.
We seized every opportunity to disrupt the ward’s graveyard-like peace.
One day, I found a snail in my food. I put it aside and waited until the others had finished eating. Then I stood up and, with a very serious expression, announced, “Everyone, please pay attention!”
When everyone fell silent, I continued: “I’m sorry to tell you this after you’ve already eaten, but today there was a little something extra in your meal. If your food tasted better than usual, this snail was the secret ingredient!”
Then I handed the snail to the woman beside me and told her to pass it to the next person. It went from hand to hand around the room, while the women created such an uproar of laughter, chatter, and shouting that they practically brought the roof down. The traitors were beside themselves with rage, but all they could do was swear at us and make threats.
On another day, some of our women were assigned to work with the food. They found several adhesive bandages in the cooking pot. We distributed them among the rooms and agreed that everyone would announce the discovery of bandages in the food at the same time. At exactly five o’clock, the women responsible for the food in each room made their announcements. Within an hour, the entire ward was in an uproar, with noise and shouting everywhere.
In this way, we transformed the atmosphere in Ward 2. The deadness and stagnation gave way to a lively ward, even if that meant ending up in the informers’ reports, being beaten and whipped by the interrogators, or being accused of “violating the rules.”
Of course, there were collective punishments, such as having the cell doors kept shut for several days and nights. But everyone agreed that this was the price we had to pay for preserving our vitality and our will to live in the face of executioners who wanted to bury us alive.
We, the new arrivals, learned an important lesson, too. How fortunate we were that we hadn’t allowed ourselves to be influenced by the atmosphere that had prevailed in Ward 2! We also learned that even if there are only a few of you, and you are completely outnumbered, you can still change the atmosphere if you are prepared to pay the price.
The women in the ward had grown much closer to one another as a result of this change. Let me share an example that might make you laugh.
I was twenty-two when I was arrested, which made me seem relatively old and mature compared with most of the women in the ward, many of whom were schoolgirls or teenagers aged fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen.
I remember Mahboubeh, one of the schoolgirls, who was only sixteen. She was an extraordinarily mischievous, beautiful, and lively girl who could never sit still. She always called me “Uncle!”
One day, I asked her, “Mahboubeh, why do you call me Uncle?”
“Because the way you look after me reminds me of my uncle!” she replied.
Narges, another one of the girls, called me “Auntie.”
These terms of endearment really got under the skin of the executioners and the informers. Several times, when I was taken for interrogation, my interrogator would pace back and forth behind me, repeatedly shouting, “You filthy hypocrite! What do you do in that ward that makes them call you Auntie and Uncle?”
In their vile worldview, they twisted these affectionate nicknames into all sorts of filthy insinuations, trying to break me down and prevent such closeness from developing among us. But I took pleasure in knowing that even the way we addressed one another was enough to upset them.
Both the guards and their hired collaborators were so despised that nobody wanted to speak to them, not even people with no political involvement who happened to be arrested.
The executioners used every means they could to torment the women and spread fear. I heard from prisoners in Ward 209[2] that after each interrogation and torture session, Masoumeh Azdanlou was taken away and thrown alone into one of the ward’s cells.[3] Torture had left her so weak and helpless that she barely had the strength to call out to a guard.
One day, after she had been severely tortured, the guards opened her cell door to torment her further and threw a water snake inside.
The snake slithered over and curled up beside Masoumeh. She looked at it and recognized from its green color that it was a water snake. As it sat beside her, she gently stroked it and gazed at it with a tender expression. The snake remained curled up beside her until the end, without moving.
The executioners had apparently expected her to scream and shout when they threw the snake into her cell. They waited outside the door, listening for her reaction. But no matter how long they listened, they heard nothing. After several hours, they grew tired of waiting and opened the door on the pretext of bringing her food. The snake slithered out on its own, leaving the executioners thoroughly embarrassed.
The executioners also used bags full of cockroaches to torment people and frighten them. They would use this method on young prisoners taken for interrogation and on women arrested for ordinary, nonpolitical offenses, forcing their feet into bags full of cockroaches. They also tried to terrorize women prisoners by releasing mice or snakes into their cells.
I remember the first time I arrived at Ward 7 in Qezel-Hesar Prison. Mice were running through every cell. During dinner, they darted around us so boldly that, for a moment, I was frightened.
After dinner, I climbed onto the top bunk to get some rest. Then I noticed mice running along the upper tiers where the women had hung their laundry to dry. They were scampering about and performing acrobatics.
I stared at them for a few minutes. Then I laughed and asked, “Is there a circus on today, or is it always like this?”
The woman beside me realized I was talking about the mice. She laughed and said, “You haven’t even been here for two hours, and you already want to know the whole program? Walk around the ward and explore a little. You’ll find out soon enough.”
I thought to myself, Why am I letting these mice occupy my mind? Forget them. Everyone does their own thing. The mice can play their games, and I’ll get some sleep.
I rested for about an hour before I was woken by one of the mice crawling over my leg. Later, I asked two or three women who were talking together, “What do you do about these mice? They’re constantly running around right over your heads!”
They exchanged glances, laughed, and said, “You get used to these things here. There are all sorts of things like that.”
One day in the exercise yard, I saw Hengameh standing and talking to something she was holding in her hand. Several women were gathered around her, laughing. I walked over and asked, “Who are you talking to?”
She opened her fist slightly and showed me a mouse.
“I’m talking to this little lady mouse!” she said.
I realized that I was no longer afraid of or disgusted by mice.
To get under the skin of the mullahs and their hired thugs, we learned together how to live alongside snakes and mice, and to show the executioners that such tactics could not weaken a PMOI member’s determination to resist, not even in the slightest.
To be continued…
[1] Tahdig: A prized part of Persian rice dishes, tahdig is the crisp, browned layer that forms at the bottom of the cooking pot. It is often shared out as a special treat, making it a fitting prize in the prisoners’ competition.
[2] Ward 209: A section of Evin Prison associated with intelligence and security interrogations and the detention of political prisoners. The memoir refers to prisoners who had been held there and told Haj-Heydari about the treatment of Masoumeh Azdanlou.
[3] Masoumeh Azdanlou: Also recorded as Ma’sumeh Qajar Azdanlu, she was a PMOI supporter who was arrested by the Revolutionary Guards on April 2, 1982, after being shot in the jaw and arm during an attack on her residence. Human-rights documentation records that she was severely tortured during six months in Evin Prison and was executed by firing squad there on September 29, 1982.
