Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

David looked out of the window. ‘Two campfires tonight.’

She moved and stood next to him. ‘You are sure they are on the other side of the river?’

‘Definitely.’ He turned away from the window and went to sit on the bed. ‘Shamil cannot take on Georgia. Marauding bands up and down the river, that’s all he’s capable of. A skirmish here, a run-in there, just enough to keep us on our feet and persuade us that we’re a little bit more than a token force.’ David sounded resentful. He would rather have been sent to the Crimea. The David Anna had first married used to be more good-natured, more inclined to enjoy life. There was an added seriousness in him now, new ambitions.

‘It is such a comfort to me that you are near.’ She crawled on to the bed, bunching up her nightdress so that it wouldn’t entangle her. Her dark hair fell from the chignon she had pinned up for dinner.

‘Don’t worry. If I was worried, I would tell you to leave.’

She hugged him. ‘Thank you for understanding that I need to be here.’

He did not return her embrace and instead lit a cigar. ‘In truth I don’t understand. It is a mystery to me.’

She sensed that they were stepping into the murky area of their marriage. That cove which nurtured differences, rather than peace. Further in and they would reach the point where everything she could say was of little use; everything he could say was hurtful.

Yet she had to speak, ‘Because this estate is the most beautiful place in the world. Because it’s been in your family for years. It’s our children’s heritage. It’s what we are.’

‘Then don’t complain. I’ve tried for years to loosen your attachment to it and convince you to move to Petersburg. You’ve chosen the edge of civilisation so you must accept its hazards.’

She drew away from him. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘It means a country lady should learn to look after herself.’

‘I will. I will look after myself and our home and our future.’

He looked at her as if he was sorry for her. Then with a gesture of impatience he picked up an ashtray. ‘My future and my children’s future is Russia.’

‘Why are you differentiating yourself from me? We are the same — we’re Georgians, not Russians.’

He shook his head. ‘Your own grandfather, a wise king and a man of peace, ceded Georgia to Russia. He spared us bloodshed. Look at these Chechens, hard-headed as the mountains that bred them, fighting years on end, and every day I lose one lad after the other. Every day my clerk writes a letter to the family of a Seregin or a Panov, telling them that their son has been killed defending tsar, fatherland and the Orthodox faith. Why all this waste, why does Shamil continue when common sense says that we will win, when common sense says that they are resisting all that would be good for them?’

‘What good?’ She was sullen now, the arguments narrowing around her.

‘What good?’ he snorted. ‘Peace for one, prosperity too. Modern roads, sanitation, education, enlightened thinking. Everything that is uncouth and reprehensible to be replaced by what is civilised and rational. No one in his right mind, given a choice, would choose primitiveness over advancement. You can’t live in the past, Anna, you can’t be like them.’

Tears came into her eyes and as if in sympathy her breasts, though not full, started to leak. Lydia’s milk. She would like to feed her now, to douse the baby’s thirst and her own anger. Instead it was her nightdress that was becoming wet. Not every Georgian was glad to submit to Russia. But David deliberately shunned those objecting members of the family who had had their lands confiscated and were held in Moscow against the threat of political intrigue. It irked Anna that her grandmother, the dethroned Queen Maria, was commanded at times to attend court for certain functions, then ridiculed for her clothes and tanned skin. Why did these humiliations not touch David too? In Petersburg society, hangers-on went around describing themselves as ‘Georgian princesses’ as if the phrase had no protection or use. In Anna’s case, the title was a right — she was granddaughter of George XII, the last king. David would accuse her of being proud if she mentioned this. In turn she would defend herself by saying that she wanted simplicity and closeness to the peasants, that she worked hard and did not indulge herself in luxuries. Then they would argue even more.

She looked at him now, holding his cigar in one hand, the mother-of-pearl ashtray in the other, and saw what she had not wanted to acknowledge. This was not the bridegroom she had exchanged vows with in church, the husband who brought her to Tsinondali, the lover who swam with her in the river. It was not only that he was older, the lustre lost from his hair, the boyish look in his eyes replaced with the keen desire to advance. His beard was gone; his clothes, his concerns, his watch with the double chain and seal, his manner of speaking, were more Russian than she could ever be.

Jamaleldin, granted an audience with the tsar, waited in the reception room on the upper floor of the Winter Palace. His uniform was that of a young officer in the Imperial Escort. He had even volunteered to fight in the Caucasus and was awaiting the tsar’s consent. All this would pave the way to his marriage to Daria Semyonovich. It would subdue her parents’ doubts, manifested in the cool reception he often received from Daria’s mother, the veiled comments about his slanting eyes. To fight the highlanders would seal his loyalty; it would, he believed, dispel the memory that he was Shamil’s flesh and blood. Let everyone know him only as the tsar’s godson. Let them remember his outstanding performance in his military examinations, his accomplishments that included astronomy, painting, a fluency in English and French, and not least his horsemanship. When he was with Daria they spoke of their love and not his past, they dreamt of the future, and unlike other girls he had known, she did not pry with questions about his family or where he was born. Daria was content to listen to him praising her eyes and her lips, her little hands and the curls that fell naturally on her wide, smooth forehead. She lapped up his devotion with a serenity that was part of her nature; a silence that hinted at either emptiness or pliancy.

It might be a long wait. The minister of war was inside, briefing the tsar, and Jamaleldin did not know how long it had been since their meeting began. He could ask the duty officer, a newly appointed aide-de-camp, whom he had never met before, but he preferred not to. The sound of murmured voices and the scratch of the officer’s pen, while inside fates were being decided. Troops deployed, peasants made to run the gauntlet, promotions and demotions. The atmosphere was solemn and strangely foggy. Jamaleldin stared at the portrait of Emperor Alexander I, his reddish sideburns and an enigmatic smile on his lips. May Allah have mercy on his soul. The phrase, learnt in Arabic as a child, bobbed up unbidden. It was a natural, internal reflex. The sort of response he must not say out loud. He worried, sometimes, that these words would slip out of him on their own accord. It was for this reason that he never allowed himself to get drunk. There were limits to how much he could reveal, restraints that he imposed on himself in order to continue to succeed.

During his long journey away from Akhulgo, he had expected his father to rescue him. Spending the night at a military garrison near Moscow, he boasted of this and they took away his kinjal. He lashed out at his minders, biting, kicking and screaming. They locked him up and punished him with hunger and a darkness in which evil spirits thickened and floated because there was no lamplight to drive them off. Surely Shamil would not allow this injustice to continue. Surely he would save him. Jamaleldin waited, strained for the sounds of horses, prepared himself for a raid in which he would be carried off back to safety.