First Grain of Sand — Page 108
92 FIRST GRAIN OF SAND and occasionally speak with the soldier stationed at my door. In response, however, the soldiers at the door would run into my room and beat me ruthlessly for the noise. Sometimes, out of frustration, they would take me to a cramped and dark room, throw me inside, and lock the door. And sometimes they would throw me into an ice-cold room and leave me there all night. They would even tie me up with rope and elicit fear within me. Whenever my relentless efforts to yell at the head officer finally succeeded and a presiding officer entered my room, I would tell him to search through all my belongings on my bed to take full stock and determine whether there is any piece of paper in my possession. Each time, he would respond by saying he was unable to look that day but could do so in a couple of days. I would question why he could not conduct the search immedi- ately, and out of frustration, I would lay out my quilt, bedsheet, blanket, pillow and any clothes so that he could see them in plain view. However, despite displaying everything, he would always repeat that he would not conduct the search that day and would do so in a couple of days before leaving the room. A few days later, when they realised that my persistent yell- ing was making all the prisoners, whether Turkish, Russian or Armenian, aware that the authorities were attempting to trap me by dropping a false confession through the ventilation window, they changed their tactics. They started ploughing the fields late at night outside the window facing the courtyard. This was meant to give the impression to other prisoners that the soldiers were sim- ply working at night and to make me think that the soldiers sta- tioned near the ventilation window had nothing to do with me- they were just carrying out their own tasks. However I noticed