Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

‘What language is that?’ Good-natured curiosity, a trusting smile.

Jamaleldin knew he should dismiss the question and change the subject. It was the best way for the slip to be forgotten. But something had changed and he was less in control. Or something had changed and he had less to lose. He said, ‘The Avar language. It means “The world is a carcass and the one who goes after it is a dog.” ’

Bafflement in the eyes of the two officers and the expected drawing back. Jamaleldin’s face was now hot and tipped towards his plate. He could feel them exchange looks and yearned towards them. He yearned towards the steady ground under their feet and their one-dimensional vision. He wanted to be them and he was tired of this wanting. Unease — that feeling of panic before it sharpened and rose, before it ballooned and caught in his throat. A slight nausea as he lifted another piece of steak to his mouth and chewed. He had slipped up because his ears were straining for the tsar’s summons.

‘See you at the ball tonight,’ one of the officers said as they drifted away to give him the wide berth he deserved.

Yes, he would be at the ballroom tonight. He would dive into all that Warsaw could offer, a city more elegant, closer to Western Europe. The railway line ran to Paris and the theatres staged all the latest plays from Germany. Quick, time was running out. His days in Warsaw were numbered. The summons would come soon and he would be in a troika heading back to Petersburg. So he should waltz tonight. Here it was danced in a faster manner; a livelier twirl was the norm. His arms around a girl, spinning her out of control. A girl who didn’t resemble Daria, a girl who was just a waist, her face a blur, her name quickly forgotten. He still had Daria Semyonovich’s letters and he reread them once in a while. But it was as if he was playing the role of the jilted lover — in reality his heart was distracted, his thoughts about her starting to curl bitter. After the tsar had refused them permission to marry, Daria’s mother forbade her daughter to meet Jamaleldin or write to him. And Daria, a good daughter, had acquiesced. Out of clumsiness or misery, Jamaleldin had refused to give her back her letters. There was no dramatic scene of farewell between them; there should have been. Tomorrow he would tear her letters and throw the pieces in the Vistula. And tonight, which might be the last night of freedom, he would indulge himself without pleasure.

There was a mosque in Cracow but he did not visit it. There was a Tartar colony in Vilno but he had learnt early on that success was correlated to the distance he must keep away. He was on his own. His passions, his thoughts were so often held in check because language (which one?) could not come to his aid. And he did not, above all, trust his own loyalties. They trusted him, though; in one magnanimous sweep they were inclusive and tolerant, but that was not from any merit in him. It was because of their own convictions of superiority, their own sweet arrogance.

In Poland’s courts, petitions were heard only in Russian. Interpreters were not provided for the prisoners. Polish youth were conscripted into the Russian army, revolutionary dissent was squashed and every independent institution was systematically weakened. This was why the Poles smiled at the news coming in from the Crimea. They took deep breaths of the wind that was blowing in favour of England, France, Turkey and their allies. There were even rumours of Austrian troops marching into St Petersburg and talk of the tsar’s abdication. In the slums of Moscow and the vodka cellars of St Petersburg they were saying that he had failed the country. It touched Jamaleldin that his patron was weakening. It altered the chemistry of the situation. The tsar was ailing and, from high up in the mountains, Shamil was calling him back.

He pushed his plate away. If he was truly courageous he would join the others bent over the newspaper. Instead he listened to the sound of the billiard balls and he drained his glass of water. How thirsty he had been all this time without knowing it! The news was not only in the Russian papers; Europe’s too were shouting.

Princess of the Blood Royal prisoner of barbaric tribesmen.

Savagery in Russian Territory — French citizen abducted for ransom.

Only the Turkish newspapers put forward a reason: Shamil Imam, Viceroy of Georgia, has made a successful sortie into territories seized by the infidel invaders and is holding a Christian family as hostages against the return of his son Jamaleldin, torn from him by the infidels and brought up in the Christian faith since 1839.

A few minutes into the lecture, I ran out of words. I stalled. I left the subject I was teaching and stood staring. Gaynor Stead was sitting in my class. She should not be in this room because this was a second-year class and she was repeating third year. It was really her, not a lookalike. No one else had that dopey look or that shaggy hairstyle. But, it flashed through my mind and made my shoulders weak, perhaps I was the one who had walked into the wrong room, I was the one who was going over revision questions on the Crimean War instead of the Bolshevik Revolution. I searched the faces of the students for some indication. They seemed undisturbed at my presence, yawning this early in the morning, pushing away damp fringes from their eyes, hunched as usual over laptops and notes. The room smelt of cheap shower gel, a mix of deodorants and styling mousse. ‘Excuse me a minute,’ I said. I took my bag and left the room. I stood in the corridor, I checked my timetable, I checked the room number and completely reassured of my sanity, I walked back in. Laughter gurgled in my throat now. Gaynor Stead must have surpassed the breadth of her own stupidity. She was now sitting in classes she was not required to take, listening to a course she had (disingenuously, erroneously, miraculously) been awarded a pass for at one resit or the other.

As the students filed out at the end of the class I was tempted to stop her. But I did not trust myself. Could I be civil after she had falsely accused me of breaking her finger? She, on her part, did not acknowledge me in any way. I gathered my lecture notes and with them I saw a pro-life leaflet that didn’t belong to me, a picture of a foetus in sad blue tones. One of the students must have put it there either when I was out of the room or earlier when filing in. Perhaps it was Gaynor out to intimidate me. Perhaps that was why she was here. To target me. But this was a ludicrous idea. How on earth would she know? I was being paranoid, too easily rattled.

Surgical instruments used in the abortion process. I put the leaflet away and for the first time felt the urge to escape. But where to? To go back to Malak and see the vacuum Oz left behind? To fly to Sudan and sit at my father’s deathbed? Instead I went into town because I needed to be surrounded by people, by normal life.

I needed tea and cake, not proper food, and I found a shop that specialised in cupcakes. All kinds of them were set out, with different coloured icing and flavours: lemon, chocolate and raspberry. My mother, to make life in Khartoum less austere, had at one time started her own cake business. She baked at home and then delivered by car but it was not easy. There was a sugar shortage; cooking gas was difficult to get — she had to sit in the petrol queue for hours in order to refuel. I helped her as much as I could. In the kitchen, answering the phone for orders and going with her in the car to deliver. We had to be nice to all the customers. This was difficult when they cancelled orders after my mother had started baking or they delayed bringing back the containers in which we had delivered the cakes. When we passed by to pick them up, they would spend ages searching their kitchen and end up saying, ‘Oh, we must have lent that tray out.’ Then my mother would raise her voice to harangue them and they would take offence, punishing us by withdrawing their custom.