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After about 20 minutes, the electrode was shifted from my breast to my right ear. These shocks seemed to be taking off the top of my skull. A blue-white lightning filled my head. Spasms forced open my mouth in screams, then slammed it shut on my tongue. My agony was highly entertaining to my inquisitors; there was much laughter in the room.
Next, the electrode was removed from my ear, and my shorts were pushed down. I remember saying "Oh, no!" I knew what was coming. The spring clip was placed at the base of my penis. Spasms threw my legs out from under me, causing me to fall with all my weight on my back. This ordeal continued for about an hour: questions, shocks, blows to head and body, falling to the floor, getting up to repeat the process.
Then I was dragged back to the cell. The handcuffs were taken off, passed around the outside of one of the bars of the door, at eye level, and refastened with my hands in front of my face. After about 15 minutes, back to the torture chamber for more questions, beatings and shocks. This continued for several hours. Then I was strapped to an armchair, wired with one electrode on my now bleeding right breast and the other on my right ear. The shocks were unbearably painful. At least twice I blacked out.
Finally, the real reason for their interest in me emerged: my inquisitors began asking endless questions about Roman Catholic Archbishop Helder Camara, a vocal critic of the regime and a friend of mine. They were furious about stories that I had filed to TIME and the Associated Press that they considered favorable to the Recife archbishop and unflattering to the dictatorship. They cursed Dom Helder, claiming that he was a liar when he accused the government of condoning torture. Their tirade was accompanied by more shocks and my screams. Twice during the afternoon they tortured me in front of Luis in an effort to get information from him. He refused to give in, though I could tell he was distressed by my pain.
Fat Man. At one point, the most vicious of my tormentors got down on his knees in front of me, lifted up my hood so I could see his face and said that he would kill me if I did not cooperate. I believed him. Later, he told me his name: Luis Miranda Filho, a swarthy fat man with a huge black mustache. He is a notorious sadist, known in Recife to be responsible for countless tortures. He and a Colonel Meziat, identified as chief of intelligence of the Fourth Army and the man responsible for my imprisonment and torture, were the only ones I saw whose names I learned.
After more than eight hours of torture, I was allowed to use a bathroom for the first time, then taken back to my cell and hung by handcuffs on the door for the night. I was in a standing position, the handcuffs so tight on my wrists that circulation was nearly cut off; my left hand had been sprained and was painfully swollen. I passed the night standing and occasionally dozing, then being jerked awake as I sagged toward the floor and the cuffs pulled painfully on my wrists.