5 months into my eight-month solitary confinement and proper earlier than the Persian New 12 months, Nowruz, the guards put me in a brand new cell on the different finish of the Evin jail high-security facility in Tehran. Measuring 3 by 3 meters, it was a lot bigger than my previous cell, which meant I may stroll in a determine eight throughout the corners. Within the absence of anything to do, steady walks had been my sole routine, they usually rapidly grew to become an habit.
I walked and walked. Remembered and imagined, anticipated and deliberate for all attainable eventualities, and infrequently conversed with myself out loud, in any languages I had any information of. Throughout these figure-eight walks, I confronted the home windows or the half-marble-covered partitions. Daylight seeped into the room, tracing paths of gold over the ground, then scaling the partitions. It danced, warmed, then vanished, promising to return tomorrow. The marble canvas revealed photographs: the curved, nude again of a seated lady, surrounded by profiles of faces and clouds.
Disadvantaged of sights, I sought refuge in sounds. The brand new cell acquired much less mild because of the tall, attractive airplane and mulberry timber proper outdoors. nevertheless it was proper subsequent to the primary entrance and thus, inside Evin requirements, extra eventful and entertaining—even when solely by means of listening to. I may hear when the bored guards gossiped about their shift supervisors on the finish of the corridor, or after they responded to different inmates’ requests, or after they watched soccer or drama on state tv. (I by no means heard any information, since they had been strictly suggested to not watch the information.) As soon as, a couple of seconds of an instrumental model of Radiohead’s “A Punch Up at a Wedding ceremony” on a silly TV business made me cry my coronary heart out. I wasn’t certain which I craved extra: hugs or books. I believe it is vitally uncommon to be disadvantaged of each on the identical time.
My solely consolation got here from our equality on this distress, or no less than the notion of it. The guards and interrogators had all the time stated nobody was given books or newspapers in our ward. I had believed them, as a result of I had seen no sight (nor heard any sound) of them.
One afternoon, although, I heard one thing that shattered this tiny consolation. 4 pairs of slippers had appeared outdoors a cell two down from me, hinting at 4 inmates who almost definitely had simply come out of solitary to be stored in a big cell collectively. Just a few hours later, by means of the air flow shafts that linked the cells, I heard newspaper rustling. It broke my coronary heart, actually. That widespread shaft and what I may hear by means of it deeply unsettled me for the following three months. Of all of the injustices of a high-security jail ward, from the blindfolded strolling breaks within the yard to the terrible grey polyester uniform and a budget blue nylon underwear, this one felt the harshest.
However what if there have been no shared air flow shafts between cells through which I heard the opposite cell? What if the ward had been so huge that we by no means felt the presence of others? What if they might make us deaf as they made us blind? What if they might enclose our senses as they trapped our our bodies? Broader questions emerge: If we all know nothing about our colleagues’ salaries or the place and with which requirements they stay, can we even know if we’re handled pretty? Can injustice be felt if there’s not a shared house the place we will see and find out about others’ lives?