Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

I surfaced into tears. When I dipped down again it was Gaynor Stead who barged through my dreams.

Gaynor Stead talking about me to Fiona and saying, ‘Natasha put her fat arse on my desk …’ ‘Interesting,’ was Fiona’s characteristic reply, warm and understanding, eager to help. ‘Black arse … fat arse …’ Gaynor was younger in the dream and Fiona, with her arm around her, was older. ‘They are mother and daughter,’ I realised even though in real life they were not. ‘How could I have missed it before?’ my sleeping mind insisted on the connection. ‘They are really mother and daughter.’ ‘Black arse … fat black arse …’ The words looped and steadied, they became rhythmic. I woke up warm with humiliation, not sure where I was.

I tried to find Malak’s number through Directory Enquiries but she was not listed. I would have liked to speak to her now, not to tell her my dream but to listen to her voice. She would tell me that dreams mattered to Shamil, that they influenced decisions he took and manoeuvres he devised. I rummaged in my bag and found my notebook. In it I had written some of the things Malak had said. ‘Sufism is based on the belief that the seeker needs a guide. Even Muhammad, on his miraculous night’s ascent through the seven heavens needed Gabriel as his guide.’

In the margins I had scribbled the word ‘guru’. And so how would it work in modern life? I taught for a living but it was learning that had always been more fulfilling. Malak the actor, Natasha the teacher. Sufism delves into the hidden truth behind the disguise. Perhaps Malak was only an actor in disguise. Perhaps Natasha was acting the part of a teacher. If I ever started to seek the kind of knowledge that couldn’t be found in books, who would I want as a guide? Does the student seek the teacher or the other way round?

Anna stumbled around, repeating the same question to anyone who would stop and listen — Avars, Lezgins, Russian prisoners of war, serfs from the Tsinondali estate who had been captured in separate raids, wounded Armenians and Georgian villagers who, with a shock, recognised her — she would clutch their arm and say, ‘Have you seen my baby?’

The hostages were in Polahi now, a Russian outpost that had been captured by Shamil. His troops were stationed around the watchtower and the surrounding areas. The attack on Tsinondali had been part of a series of raids into the Alazani Valley. Now some of the men brandished severed heads as trophies; they herded cattle, slaves and horses up the mountains.

‘Have you seen my baby?’ Anna’s words did not need to be translated, they were understood, but no one wanted to answer her or even meet her eyes. Madame Drancy straggled after the princess. Sometimes she succeeded in leading her back to where they were camped. Sometimes she crouched helplessly, watching Anna, on hands and knees, sifting through rocks and brambles looking for the impossible. ‘Be strong for Alexander. Look at him. See how distraught he is to see you like this.’

Anna turned dutifully towards her son. She understood the logic of Drancy’s argument but she could do nothing about it. A storm was inside her and she could not subdue it. If she could be sure, if she could hold Lydia again, if she could kiss her cool cheeks, if she could put her finger on that mouth that couldn’t swallow, that couldn’t cry, that no longer needed her, that no longer knew her, then maybe she could settle down. Hope was the devil, hope wrestled with her and wouldn’t let her rest. ‘Someone saw her fall and picked her up. Someone found her, someone saved my daughter.’ How could she not believe this? Why should she not believe it? No one dared, not even Madame Drancy, to contradict her or to say that they had seen the horses ride over a bundle that should never have been on the floor of a forest.

‘Come and lie down, Your Highness. Come and have a rest.’

When she lay down, the tears started. ‘I had her by the leg. But I couldn’t keep holding her,’ she mumbled over and over again. She dozed but jerked awake. ‘She is too small … too small for all this …’

Alexander snuggled close to her, his head pushing her stomach. His tears were those of fear rather than grief. So much was happening around him that he could scarcely remember his baby sister.

The next morning Anna’s breasts were hard as rocks. She needed the baby to relieve the discomfort but now she was on her own. Expressing the milk gave her a few lucid moments, a recess from grief. She knew from her experience of farming that if a cow was left unmilked it would eventually dry off. But the process had to be gradual otherwise the milk would curdle, there could be an abscess with fever setting in. She lay down on her side and let the milk seep into the burka she had been given to use as bedding. One of her breasts already had less milk than the other; it would dry up first. When Lydia came back to her, what would she feed on?

‘Madame Drancy, why have we stopped?’

‘The men seem to be expecting someone of high rank to come and see us. It might even be Shamil himself, as they say he has come down from the mountains to inspect his troops. I am terrified of him. He sounds like a monster by all accounts.’ The governess sounded more curious, though, than anxious.

Anna, still lying down, told herself, ‘In this audience I will not be a prisoner. I will be what I really am, a princess of Georgia.’ But it was as if she could still hear herself weeping, it was as if her heart still beat the words Lydia, Lydia.

‘Heathens,’ Madame Drancy was saying. ‘All these men revere Shamil as if he is God’s representative on earth. Just the mention of his name and they’re mumbling salutations and chanting.’

Despite the language barrier, Madame Drancy was communicating with the men. This was done in a mixture of sign language and the little Russian that some of the men spoke. The ordeal seemed to have awakened in her an anthropological interest, an intellectual ability to detach herself and make observations. She had even taken to wearing the burka, stretching inside it as if she were under the bedsheets. It soothed Anna to listen to her voice.

‘Do you know what one of their laws is, Your Highness? No woman is allowed to remain a widow for longer than five months. I might end up in a harem!’

‘Oh you are fanciful.’

‘But I wonder though. We seem valuable to them. Didn’t you notice, yesterday when we entered that village and we were surrounded by crowds, our captors shouted, ‘For Shamil Imam’ and then everyone stepped back?’

Anna couldn’t remember passing a village. Two days or more were a blur, as smoky and as eerie as a nightmare. She turned to wake Alexander up with a kiss, to reassure him that his mother was still with him.

It was not Imam Shamil who came to inspect them but a young man with bright eyes and a roughness to his skin that contrasted with his easy smile. He bowed to Anna. ‘My name is Ghazi Muhammad. I am Imam Shamil’s son and the viceroy of Gagatli and the governor of Karata.’ He spoke Russian poorly and with a heavy accent. Her full concentration was needed to understand every word.

Ghazi went on, ‘These incursions into Georgia are aimed at inducing the population to join our resistance. On behalf of my father, I welcome you as our guests.’

‘Guests! Is this the treatment of guests?’

He said lightly, ‘Clothes will be provided for you to replace your torn ones. And warm food too. I will immediately order this.’

‘This is not enough. Not after what we’ve gone through. I lost my daughter because of you.’ She must not let her voice break, she must not show weakness in front of him.