Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

‘Can you swim, Princess?’

She did not answer him.

‘Then hold on tight and keep your baby close to you!’

Everyone had told her that the Alazani was too deep to cross this time of year. David had said so, Gregov had said so. She had believed it and now these riders were patting their horses with encouragement; they were tensing up as if for an adventure.

‘Too deep for your horses,’ the Lezgin said. ‘But ours are trained. You will see how they will swim.’

When they entered the water, the riders fell silent. There were no more shouts and boasts, no argumentative exchanges and indecipherable grunts. The horses were indeed swimming even though they were weighed down with their riders and the cattle they were pulling. Anna’s lower half was plunged into the cold water. It filled her shoes and pulled down her petticoats and dress. She turned and saw the amazement in Alexander’s face. He had forgotten his fear and the bruise on his arm. Anna lifted Lydia even higher.

A sound of a splash as Madame Drancy fell into the river. The men burst out laughing while she flailed in the water shouting for help.

‘Hey, drag her out … enough,’ the Lezgin ordered and they obeyed, good-natured and at ease. It filled Anna with loathing and the urge to escape. Then panic rose in her throat like vomit. She was away from home now, floating weirdly on water. This Lezgin and his devilish horse were keeping her alive. Where were the Russian defences? She wanted the nightmare to end. Enough. Lydia was fidgeting against her. She needed her nappy changed.

Madame Drancy was now up behind her captor; she was breathless and soaked. Anna shouted out, ‘Are you all right?’ The spluttered reply elicited another foreign joke.

At the other side of the river, they stopped while the men made their ablutions and lined up to pray. Alexander took an interest in what they were doing, watching them from a distance. Anna took the opportunity to clean Lydia’s nappy but she did not have a change of clothes. She did her best under the circumstances but was not satisfied. The baby’s skin was sensitive and it would chafe. She washed the dirty nappy in the river and wrung it out. She hung it on a bush but they did not stop long enough for it to dry. She had to carry it damp.

‘You should give your baby to one of the men,’ said the Lezgin. They had been coming up to Anna with pantomime gestures, offering to do so.

‘Never.’ She held Lydia closer.

‘Suit yourself.’ He adjusted his turban. ‘It will be a dangerous climb.’

Lydia slept but was jolted awake with every leap and jerk of the horse. She started to cry, working herself up to such a pitch that her face turned red and her body rigid. She was so loud that some of the other riders heard her. They turned around and made lewd gestures as if to instruct Anna to feed her. She did eventually because she had to, because there was no other way to make this piercing, frustrating sound stop. Lydia was so overwrought that she could not at first settle and suck. The unsteady movement of the horse over the rocks made matters even worse. Still whimpering as if feeling sorry for herself, as if berating and reproaching her mother, she finally was able to draw in and swallow. But true satisfaction didn’t come. Anna’s milk was watery and insufficient. So long ago, it seemed, she had skimped breakfast in order to start the packing. Since then she had not had anything except gulps of water from the river. Lydia squirmed, sucking intensely until it made Anna’s nipple sore. She strained her ears for the Russian picket; surely they were stationed near, surely they would come to rescue them.

When the sun started to set, they made camp on the mountainside. It startled Anna to see Madame Drancy in a burka. It belonged to her captor and he had flung it over her to keep her warm. ‘The water was freezing,’ she said sitting down next to Anna, and arranging the folds around her. ‘Hideous outfit.’

They sat in front of the fire. A campfire like the ones they used to see from the windows of Tsinondali. ‘The water made my fingers numb,’ said Anna. ‘I had trouble holding Lydia.’

‘Luckily Alexander didn’t get wet,’ said Madame Drancy. He too was wrapped in a burka, sound asleep.

Anna’s stomach growled. She had pushed away the dinner of dried millet they had been offered. It was unappetising and touched by their dirty fingers. Lydia was asleep now but she would not stay asleep for long; fretting and hungry, she would want to be nursed all night.

‘They say the journey up the mountains will take five weeks.’ Madame Drancy spoke in a matter-of-fact way.

Anna could not even visualise one week. She turned to look at Madame Drancy’s face. It looked fresher and leaner, like she had been on a brisk walk.

Madame Drancy said, ‘I wonder if one of these highlanders would be sympathetic enough to help us escape. I can teach him a little bit of French. We can bribe him …’

‘With what? They’ve taken everything.’

‘We can promise to reward him once we are free.’

Anna sighed, ‘You are so fanciful. We will be rescued. Surely by now David will have heard of our predicament.’

‘It’s only been a few hours,’ was the governess’s terse reply.

Of course it felt more than that. The night was long too. Anna couldn’t sleep even though she was exhausted and bruised. It was uncomfortable to lie on the ground without a pillow. The moonlight was too bright and there were the menacing sounds of the forests, the torrential river, the snores of these violent men. It seemed that whenever she dozed, Lydia would wake up whimpering and whenever Lydia fell asleep, Anna lay anxious, alert to the dangers around her. Images of the day pounded the gap between wakefulness and dreams; the pistol snatched away, a cow being dragged from the stables, Gregov’s body sprawled on the ground. She closed her eyes and saw Madame Drancy fall in the river. The water had been icy, it had chilled Anna’s legs and when her hands got wet, her fingers became numb. They felt clumsy and fat and it was awkward to hold up Lydia. She had been afraid that she would let her slip, straining all the time to keep her from sliding, forcing herself closer to her captor’s back because that was the only way to keep the baby safe.

Anna finally fell asleep a little before dawn and woke up to a foreign chant. It was some of the men praying. A part of her had hoped that she would wake up in her bedroom in Tsinondali and all of this would have been the longest of nightmares. Her body was stiff as she followed Madame Drancy deeper behind a clump of trees. This was their toilet and surprisingly the men were decent enough to stay at a distance. Perhaps they judged them too weak to escape or else they knew she would never run off and leave Alexander.

He was faring better than her and did not complain. He ate the food they put before him and drank a mug of tea. ‘I have to eat for Lydia’s sake,’ thought Anna. No food and drink meant no milk. It was as simple as that. She forced herself to eat. Her stomach felt full even though it wasn’t; her mouth was dry. One of the highlanders shambled close and pointed at Lydia, making gestures as if he wanted to carry her when they next rode off. His plebeian face was in smiles and he spoke in a dialect Anna couldn’t understand. She held Lydia close and waved him away, shaking her head. He persisted, trying to ingratiate himself by bowing and begging. Exasperated and eager to get rid of him, she took off her pearl earrings and tossed them to him. The bribe worked. He put them in his pocket and turned away.

When it was time to mount again, Anna retched out her breakfast. It splattered on her dress. She used to be clean and sweet-smelling. And Lydia too, used to be clean and sweet-smelling. Now her wispy hair was matted against her scalp, there was congealed milk behind her ears and in the folds of her neck. As expected, her lower half had risen in a red rash that extended even to the folds around her knees. She needed a bath, talcum powder, a change of clothes. But where would these come from?