He is one of the lucky ones here, with his short legs, stupid laugh, thick neck, bald head, and rough hands that look as if they’ve been made to clean sewers. Had it not been for Muhammad Ali, who stands there inspecting lunch and dinner, Hasan would have sent all of us to God. But Muhammad Ali himself is also just one of the people of this realm. No matter what they say about this place, the fact is that this is a different world to the world of normal people. We have a doctor who, I swear to God, doesn’t notice anything. If I were in his place, one night I would put poison into everyone’s supper and give them it to eat. Then in the morning I would stand in the garden with my hands on my hips and watch the corpses being carried out. When they first brought me here I was obsessively watching my food, fearing that they might poison me. I wouldn’t touch lunch or supper unless Muhammad Ali had tasted the food first. Only then would I eat. At night I would leap awake frightened, imagining that they had come to kill me. How far away and vague that all seems now. Always the same people, the same food, the same room which is blue half way up the wall.

It was two months ago when they threw a lunatic into that prison at the end of the courtyard. With a broken piece of marble he cut out his own stomach, pulled out his intestines and played with them. They said he was a butcher – he was used to cutting stomachs. But that other one had pulled out his own eyes with his own nails. They tied his hands behind his back. He was screaming and the blood had dried on his eyes. I know that all of this is the supervisor’s fault.

Not everyone here is like this. Many of them would be unhappy if they were cured and released. For example that Soghra Sultan who is in the women’s section. Two or three times she tried to escape but they caught her. She’s an old woman, but she scratches plaster off the wall and rubs it on her face for powder. She even uses geraniums to make her cheeks look rosy. She thinks she’s a young girl. If she was to recover and look in the mirror she would have a heart attack. Worst of all is our own Taqi, who wants to turn the world upside down. In his opinion women are the cause of men’s misfortune, and to improve the world all women must be killed. He has fallen in love with Soghra Sultan.

All this is the fault of our very own supervisor. He is so crazy that he puts the rest of us to shame.