Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

‘Oz didn’t tick the right boxes,’ I said to Iain.

He remained standing and I remained sitting. The stripes of his shirt dazzled my eyes. They merged and moved. ‘Oz wasn’t lonely, he wasn’t depressed or isolated. He didn’t seem to me to have more political grievances than average. He wasn’t disadvantaged, and he wasn’t estranged from his family. His parents are divorced but his father supports him. His father is, as far as I gathered, a successful businessman in South Africa and his mother’s an actor, so I judged Oz to be integrated and well adjusted. They’re pretty well off. I mean, how many people can afford a state-of-the-art treadmill in their house?’

My last sentence didn’t soften the mood. Iain’s head was tilted down towards me. I noticed that he was holding a pen in his hand. ‘Natasha, if this boy is found guilty how are we going to look?’

‘He’s not guilty,’ I said.

‘The police don’t go around arresting people at random.’

‘It still doesn’t make him guilty.’

Iain spoke to me as if I was someone else. ‘You aren’t answering my question. So I will ask you again. If he goes down, how are you going to look?’

‘Not good.’

‘That’s right. And I don’t want that and you don’t want that. So here is what you’re going to do. You are going to write me a report on every conversation you’ve had with Oz Raja. I want every email he sent you and every paper he’s ever submitted in your course.’

So I would write that he made snowmen and chopped practised cutting their heads off with a sword.

So I would write that he joked spoke about setting up a jihadist camp in the countryside.

So I would write that he was researching weapons used to use for jihad.

I must have scowled. I might have even shut my eyes. I couldn’t look at his shirt stripes any more. They were like electrical circuits.

Iain said, ‘I think the police might want to ask you more questions and check your desktop. I hope they won’t decide to seal off this room. Everyone walking down the corridor will want to know why!’ His tone then became friendlier, as if we had finished a meeting and now we were chatting informally. He even put his hand on the back of my chair. ‘Natasha, you’re astute enough to know what needs to be done. You’ve always been an asset to us and I want you to continue to be so.’

He turned to leave the room. He put his pen in the pocket of his shirt and his hand on the doorknob. ‘And I don’t need to remind you that your contract of employment warns you against bringing the university into disrepute.’

No, he did not need to remind me. And I noted that he had not mentioned Gaynor Stead or the fact that her complaint had been upheld. A complaint against me was already in the system, being examined, being processed. Iain would expect me to feel grateful that he hadn’t brought this up. He would expect me to respond.

Quickly it became also about money. Zeidat towered over her. ‘Shamil Imam doesn’t want it for himself; he doesn’t care.’ Her Russian had improved or more likely Anna was finding it easier to understand. ‘Look how we live!’ Zeidat’s hand swept over the bare room ridiculously referred to as the guest quarters, the walls stained with damp, the tired cushion Anna was sitting on. She was mending a ragged piece of netting brought in to protect Alexander from the flying insects that bit him through the night.

‘Look,’ Zeidat repeated as if Anna, in this confinement, had not noticed the broken chimney or the small lopsided window — and this room, as she had found out, was one of the better ones.

Anna continued with her sewing while Zeidat paced up and down. This flexing of muscles, her voice louder than usual, was because Shamil was away. His departure, a dawn gallop of horses, had not woken Anna. After bedtime, she would listen to Alexander’s steady breathing and to Madame Drancy who snored softly in her sleep. For hours, Anna would vibrate with injustice until, in the middle of an unspoken accusation, sleep would dunk her down and keep her oblivious to the break of dawn and the early movements of the aoul. ‘Lazy,’ Zeidat had said in front of the other women. ‘Brought up in the lap of luxury, never done a day’s work. Satan pisses in her ear, that’s why the infidel can’t hear the call to the dawn prayers,’ she would laugh to the others, who always objected, who often defended Anna. Shamil’s orders were that she be treated as a guest but she was not fully shielded from Zeidat’s daily knocks, her twists of the mouth and sighs of exasperation. Today she was even more reckless because she was the one solely in charge now, she commanded and forbade. So breakfast had been water and dried bread for the hostages, no tea. Later, Anna guessed, it would be tepid unappetising soup or even no dinner at all.

Zeidat swept down and squatted in front of her, her breath dry and sour. She clicked her fingers in front of Anna’s face so that the diamond on her ring flashed. ‘Recognise this!’ It had belonged to David’s mother; it was looted from Tsinondali. ‘Your husband is rich, isn’t he? So he needs to pay us. We must have fifty thousand roubles. We need to build our villages again, the ones you burnt down, the trees you cut down, the crops you destroyed, the pastures you razed, the cattle you did not pull away like decent warriors but shot down for no reason other than that you are evil Russians.’

I am Georgian, not Russian.

It was difficult to stop the words from coming out but still it was a challenge that she welcomed. Being able to restrain herself was itself a reassurance that she had control. She needed these proofs throughout the day. A little while ago, when Zeidat walked in, Anna had ordered Drancy to step out of the room and noted with bitter satisfaction the reply of ‘Yes, Your Highness’. Insisting that Alexander continue with his lessons, asking him to speak French at all times with Madame Drancy. She was clinging to who she had been, insisting on being more than a prisoner. ‘Anna, Princess of Georgia’ was how Shamil had addressed her. He knew who she was.

‘Write a letter,’ Zeidat hissed.

‘I have written to my husband.’

A smirk. ‘And he has not paid up. Maybe your husband has forgotten you. Write to that rich tsar of yours. Tell him to pay your ransom. Beg him for help.’

‘No.’ She should have heeded the warnings and stayed in Tiflis for the summer; later on she should have escaped immediately to the forest. Now, especially, she could not approach the emperor when he was so troubled by the campaigns in the Crimea.

Zeidat looked like she wanted to hit her. She opened her mouth but Anna interrupted, ‘The tsar will not hand over Jamaleldin.’ She remembered him clearly now as the exotically handsome aide-decamp, walking two paces behind the tsar. ‘And Jamaleldin himself would never want to come here.’

A vagueness skimmed over Zeidat’s eyes. Jamaleldin was not her son; perhaps that was why she cared more about the money. But Anna had heard Shamil say, ‘I want my son back.’ She had understood him because of Lydia.

Zeidat cocked her head to one side. ‘The tsar will return Shamil Imam’s son. And your husband will pay the money.’

‘My husband does not have fifty thousand roubles.’

‘Liar,’ Zeidat snorted.

‘I am not a liar. His wealth is in the land.’

‘Then he will have to sell it, won’t he?’

‘We don’t sell our land. It belongs to our ancestors and to our children. It is more than a possession.’ Tsinondali was vivid to her, more so than the present. Tsinondali was big and bright and waiting for her. When she was young, her father would speak disapprovingly of a neighbour who sold his land to cover debts, of a cousin who neglected his estate, of a friend who mistreated his serfs. The land was a responsibility, part of the fabric of the family. Not for sale.