City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Evin prison, Tehran, September 1988

Days in prison are identical; Shahla, Manuchehr and Amir are suspended in time. Today is like any other day. Amir is playing with Maryam while the mothers sleep. It is dawn. There is the jangle of keys, which signals the arrival of
a guard. It is either a new prisoner, or an inmate being taken away for another interrogation. This is part of the routine. The guard steps into the room.
‘Shahla Azadi. Come with me.’ The guard fixes her stare on the wall as Shahla gives Amir a hug and tells him she will be back in a little while. And because this is not an irregular occurrence, Amir barely notices. He continues to play with Maryam.
Half an hour or several hours later – it is impossible to remember how long – the whole room erupts into crying. ‘Oh God. Oh God!’ Maryam’s mother almost shouts the words. Then a deep, rasping sob. The women cluster around each other. Amir and Maryam are shaken out of their imaginary world by human howling. Maryam runs to her mother and Amir looks for Shahla. But Shahla is not there. Amir feels more alone than he has ever felt in his entire little life. Maryam runs back to him. He jumps up, a tiny creature in the corner of a room.
‘Don’t you know why they’re crying?’ ‘No, what’s happened? Where’s mummy?’
‘She’s dead. They just killed her. They hanged her with a rope.’ And that is how Amir learns of his mother’s execution.
He remembers crying. Remembers being held by adults. Nobody knows what to say to a six-year-old boy whose mother has just been executed.
An hour later, he is escorted out of the prison. A guard opens the gates and stands with him, this child with skinny legs poking out of his shorts. Amir does not know that the guard, an eighteen-year-old on his military service, has witnessed the executions and his face is now streaked with tears. The guard cannot bear to look at Amir, the quivering little bird holding onto his hand.
Amir sees his grandfather and uncle running towards him, their faces pale. His grandfather is shaking. ‘Where’s daddy?’ Amir remembers this is all he said when he saw them. Those were the last words Amir spoke for two years. His uncle Fariborz breaks down, sobbing into Amir’s neck. Amir has never seen a grown man cry. With it he understands: his father has been killed as well.