The Kindness of Enemies: A Novel (21 page)

Chuanat’s eyes were on the baby. She was a new mother, attuned to her infant’s needs, the two of them in harmony with each other, understanding and possessive. Anna handed her back the baby and left the room.

She went up to the roof, another concession she had fought for and won – fresh night air. She walked slowly around, breathing, wishing it were a full moon so that she could see more of the mountains. It had been almost four months since they were kidnapped, three months in Dargo. How slowly time passed! She must think of Alexander and not of Lydia. She must talk to Alexander more. He was left too often with the other children, fussed over by the
women of the household. Madame Drancy had been shocked to hear him speak their captor’s language but Anna did not object. She was relieved that he was adjusting to this new situation better than she was. Last month he had been ill and it had intensified her anger to watch him suffer, away from the amenities of home and reliable medical care. It was true her captors were deeply concerned but their strange herbs and concoctions alienated her further. Nor were such cures successful. Shamil slaughtered a sheep and wrapped the feverish Alexander with its skin. It was the best cure, he explained to Anna, but it only partially reduced his temperature. ‘He must sleep in the gallery,’ she had insisted. ‘It is the stifling air in the room that is bad for him.’ Shamil agreed and checked on Alexander several times a day. ‘See how kind he is,’ Chuanat was quick to point out. ‘He loves children.’ But Anna was more sceptical. In this war of kidnaps and ransom, Alexander was a valuable hostage.

Madame Drancy joined her on the roof and they circled around, walking more briskly. Sometimes they counted the rounds they made, sometimes they timed themselves and kept going for a full hour. ‘I want to go for a walk,’ she had demanded of Shamil and he had not understood. ‘Is there nowhere to go? Is there no such thing here as an outing? Perhaps I can walk through the village.’ He relented and left it to Chuanat to organise. But it required such extensive arrangements, deliberation on who would be included in the group, what route they should take, what time was best, which of the guards could be spared to accompany them, that by the time they set out a heaviness weighed down what should have been a recreation. The village was all narrow steep roads, poverty-stricken families who either stared, jeered or followed.

The houses embedded in the mountains reminded Anna of burrows. Uneven, lopsided, with no sense of symmetry or continuity. She stumbled over the rocks, her burka (non-negotiable) dragging her down. Of course there were no parks, no pavilions, no fountains, no boulevards. What did she expect? It was a relief to return to the house. She never asked to go out again.

Madame Drancy, matching Anna’s wide strides with quick short steps, was assessing the consequence of Chuanat’s confinement. ‘We are fully at the mercy of Zeidat now. No tea, she insists. It is bad enough that there is no morning coffee at all, but why no tea? And this will continue for six weeks. Really six weeks of confinement for a new mother is too long. Another peculiar custom is that they bury the afterbirth. Is that not quaint?’

‘It must be the practice of the mountain tribes.’

‘Onion water for dinner! I went to the kitchen to see if I can find any scraps but the cook barred my way.’ She slowed a little. ‘I am not valuable to them, Your Highness.’

This was true and Anna was unable to contradict her. She wanted to keep walking, the movement soothing in itself. She did not want Drancy to lag behind. ‘We must keep our strength up, Madame Drancy. Exercise and fresh air. At least Zeidat gives Alexander a proper meal.’ Once or twice she had found herself asking him to save her a boiled egg or an apricot. It shamed her to do so.

‘I thought I could make myself valuable by teaching Shamil’s daughters French. But the only book I have with me is the
Imitation.
They object to its content and I cannot risk it being taken away from me.’

Anna remembered Drancy in the drawing room of Tsinondali, her neck bent over
La Dame aux Camélias.
The Crimean War had ended her plan to open a bookshop in Tiflis; now the highlanders had disrupted her career as a governess. She said, ‘Madame Drancy, I will do everything I can to compensate you for this predicament.’ She paused and reminded herself to say ‘when’ and not ‘if’. ‘When we go home, I will insist on you accompanying us. I will not leave without you. You will receive your full salary and I am sure that Prince David is taking you into account in the negotiations for our release.’ Madame Drancy’s thanks did not lessen the listlessness that crept over Anna. It had not been easy to make these promises; her pace became slower as a consequence.

The heavy footsteps of the sentry could be heard coming up the stairs. Soon it would be the end of their outdoor session. They would be locked up for the night, another of Zeidat’s provocations. Make the most of these last minutes, breathe in. A northern cloud had the inflated shape of a churn of cream in the kitchen of Tsinondali and that star reminded her of the diamond badge of office she had worn when she was presented at court.

3. D
ARGO
, T
HE
C
AUCASUS
, O
CTOBER
1854

Shamil visited his teacher first before he went home. He felt Chuanat waiting for him, eager to show off the new baby, but a vague sense of unfinished business drew him to Sheikh Jamal el-Din. Grimy from travel, the din of battle still in his ears, he needed the calmness that the elderly man possessed. Sitting on the floor, they ate a meal of pilaf and raisins. Jamal el-Din said, ‘In your absence another message came through from Tabarsaran wanting you to send a representative with an army. They want Sharia rule so that they can be strong enough to resist the Russians.’

‘I will send them three thousand troops and three naibs. One will not be enough.’

‘Good. Is it true that you dismissed Umar al-Salti?’

‘He turned back on the road.’

Sheikh Jamal el-Din chuckled. ‘They say it was because he had recently taken a new wife.’ Saintly and learned, but he was partial to gossip.

Shamil frowned. ‘Is that an excuse? I appointed him as a naib, heading over a thousand, I tell him to set up camp up on Rughchah and he turns round!’

‘He was more suited to overseeing the gunpowder factory.’ Jamal el-Din had always been impressed by how the river’s current powered the machinery.

They spoke of the martyrs of the battle. Muhammad al ‘Uradi al Hidali, a scholar. Batir al-Militi, renowned for his courage, had been injured and died a few days later. Youth they did not know personally, brothers, sons, husbands and fathers. Winners who had been granted a life unlike this one, men who were to be missed and envied.

Jamal el-Din complimented him on Ghazi’s latest success in Shali. ‘At first,’ Shamil explained, ‘he was forced to retreat and rode through the night back to the mountains. He fell asleep across his saddle but a rider caught up with them saying that the Russians were in pursuit. The men gathered around him and started to sing
Sleep no more, Ghazi Mohammed/ Sleeping is done/ The Russians are upon us/ There is a war to be won.’

‘And win it he did,’ said Jamal el-Din, taking a sip of water. ‘Now Muhammad-Sheffi will train even harder to catch up with his brother.’ He was Fatima’s youngest son, born in the difficult days after they were driven out of Akhulgo.

‘He rides well but his shooting is still mediocre.’ Shamil chewed on a raisin that was particularly tough.

‘Once,’ Jamal el-Din swallowed his last mouthful, ‘there was a man strolling through his grounds followed by his slave. When he reached the vegetable garden, he cut off one cucumber from its vine and took a bite. It was bitter so he gave up on it and tossed it to his slave. The youth ate it all up. Surprised by this the man asked, “Why did you eat it? Didn’t you find it bitter?” The slave replied, “Yes, it was bitter but you have been so generous to me and every day you give me the most delicious food so I felt ashamed to refuse something which, for once, was not tasty.”’

Jamal el-Din sat back, gesturing for Shamil to wipe clean the dish. ‘The man turned to his slave and said, “You have gained your freedom. Go now as you please.”’

Shamil fetched water and a basin so that they could rinse their hands. He would drink tea later with Chuanat. She always had the samovar ready by her side.

‘You did not consult me on the kidnapping of the princess,’ Jamal el-Din said.

Shamil bristled but he understood now why he had been drawn here, to face the disapproval he had suspected. ‘With due respect my master, but I do not usually go over with you every raid and operation.’

‘If you had asked my permission I would not have given it. And that is why you did not ask my permission.’

Shamil felt young, like a child caught out. He expected to receive a loving reprimand, a chuff on the shoulder, a gentle tug to his ear. ‘She is valuable,’ he said. ‘High enough to shake the tsar.’

Jamal el-Din’s eyes widened. He leaned forward. ‘You’re not going to ask me why I would have withheld my permission.’

‘It is too late to ask.’ His voice was louder than he expected it to be.

‘This is a new arrogance in you, Shamil.’

‘I want my son back.’

‘You want your son back?’

‘Yes, I want him with me where he belongs.’

‘You want. You want. Weakness lies in desire.’

‘I see no harm in trying, in making another attempt.’

Jam el-Din raised his voice. ‘All this and no harm.’

Shamil flinched. ‘I was appalled at how much she suffered on the journey. And the loss of the daughter was unfortunate to an extreme. But now she is in my house, living with the same amenities as my family. I have ordered my wives to treat her as a guest.’

Jamal el-Din interrupted him with wide eyes, his tone slightly mocking. ‘You entrusted my daughter as a hostess!’ He knew Zeidat’s faults, indeed they were well known. How the gentlest of men could father a shrew, how an upbringing steeped in wisdom
and compassion could produce a fanatic, was in itself a curiosity to puzzle over.

Shamil’s voice took on a more defensive edge. ‘I myself make sure that the princess gets good food. Her son was ill and I fetched him the rarest herbs but they didn’t cure him. At last I sent down into Tiflis for medicine. What more can I do?’ He was speaking too much and he was conscious of his voice getting louder. ‘If Her Highness continues to suffer it is not my fault but the fault of the pampered lifestyle she has been accustomed to.’

‘I see no blessing in this risk you are taking. My heart is not at ease.’

Shamil glanced at his old teacher, the delicacy in him that came from a life of peace, eyes toned by books, tongue moist from reciting the praises of Allah, sensitive fingers that tended plants, milked goats, folded prayer rugs. He said, ‘Sheikh, leave warfare to me. I know more about it.’

‘Who is the go-between in this?’

‘Isaac Gramoff, an Armenian interpreter serving in the Russian army. He knows our dialect.’

‘From where?’

‘He’s lived among the mountain tribes all his life.’

Jamal el-Din sat back and closed his eyes. ‘Return her to her husband.’

Shamil lifted up his hands in exasperation.

Jamal el-Din opened his eyes, pointed his finger and raised his voice. ‘I am telling you: return her to her husband.’

It was a direct order and Shamil stood up. ‘No.’

Jamal el-Din looked up at him with eyes that still requested, that still held out. ‘What do you mean, “no”?’

‘Until my son comes back, she is staying.’ He picked up his gun, which was hanging on the nail on the wall, and walked out of the door.

He walked out of the door without kissing his teacher’s hand, without begging as he had always done these past thirty years for
blessings, for support, for prayers to grant continuous triumph in battle, without humbling himself to kiss his sheikh’s feet, knowing that only in this humility, in this love could the spray of a miracle reach him, to anoint him invincible in the face of the enemy. He walked out of the door into heat, haste and darkness; it was several yards before he stopped and collected his bearings. The night was dense, moonless. The crescent to herald the new month, a sacred one, had not yet appeared. Autumn was holding off this year – usually by now the nights were pleasant. He needed a bath but a bath would not resolve the angry sadness he had landed in. This grappling with ugliness, this touch of inner disease. There was no merit in a student defying his teacher, no sweetness in a murid disobeying his sheikh. In his own aoul, his wives five minutes away, his children waiting and yet he veered into exile.

Decades ago Shamil had sworn allegiance to Sheikh Jamal el-Din. He had soaked up the sheikh’s Sufi teachings, eager for enlightenment, eager for the grace and strength that came from the Creator. Ghazi Muhammad al-Ghimrawi, too, had been a disciple. Together they had stood up in prayer and gone into seclusion; together they chanted and studied. And they had known that perfection could not be reached without the instructions of a master; they were seekers and Sheikh Jamal el-Din their spiritual guide. Keeping company with him yielded more than reading one thousand books; loving him was the gate to a higher love. Yet Ghazi Muhammad al-Ghimrawi dared to stand up to his teacher, opting for action when the older man favoured passivity. Al-Ghimrawi threatened the tribes that did not implement the Sharia; he raised the banner for jihad against the Russians. After his death, Shamil had succeeded him; by then the foundation of resistance had been laid down, the jihad in full swing.

Now stopping on the outskirts of the aoul, feet away from the sentry who would think he was inspecting them, he tried to calm himself with this thought. Jamal el-Din had always disliked war and hostage-taking; he had always turned away from conflict and
strife. But I have a son who belongs with me, I have a son in need of rescue.