Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

Chuanat’s eyes were on the baby. She was a new mother, attuned to her infant’s needs, the two of them in harmony with each other, understanding and possessive. Anna handed her back the baby and left the room.

She went up to the roof, another concession she had fought for and won — fresh night air. She walked slowly around, breathing, wishing it were a full moon so that she could see more of the mountains. It had been almost four months since they were kidnapped, three months in Dargo. How slowly time passed! She must think of Alexander and not of Lydia. She must talk to Alexander more. He was left too often with the other children, fussed over by the women of the household. Madame Drancy had been shocked to hear him speak their captor’s language but Anna did not object. She was relieved that he was adjusting to this new situation better than she was. Last month he had been ill and it had intensified her anger to watch him suffer, away from the amenities of home and reliable medical care. It was true her captors were deeply concerned but their strange herbs and concoctions alienated her further. Nor were such cures successful. Shamil slaughtered a sheep and wrapped the feverish Alexander with its skin. It was the best cure, he explained to Anna, but it only partially reduced his temperature. ‘He must sleep in the gallery,’ she had insisted. ‘It is the stifling air in the room that is bad for him.’ Shamil agreed and checked on Alexander several times a day. ‘See how kind he is,’ Chuanat was quick to point out. ‘He loves children.’ But Anna was more sceptical. In this war of kidnaps and ransom, Alexander was a valuable hostage.

Madame Drancy joined her on the roof and they circled around, walking more briskly. Sometimes they counted the rounds they made, sometimes they timed themselves and kept going for a full hour. ‘I want to go for a walk,’ she had demanded of Shamil and he had not understood. ‘Is there nowhere to go? Is there no such thing here as an outing? Perhaps I can walk through the village.’ He relented and left it to Chuanat to organise. But it required such extensive arrangements, deliberation on who would be included in the group, what route they should take, what time was best, which of the guards could be spared to accompany them, that by the time they set out a heaviness weighed down what should have been a recreation. The village was all narrow steep roads, poverty-stricken families who either stared, jeered or followed.

The houses embedded in the mountains reminded Anna of burrows. Uneven, lopsided, with no sense of symmetry or continuity. She stumbled over the rocks, her burka (non-negotiable) dragging her down. Of course there were no parks, no pavilions, no fountains, no boulevards. What did she expect? It was a relief to return to the house. She never asked to go out again.

Madame Drancy, matching Anna’s wide strides with quick short steps, was assessing the consequence of Chuanat’s confinement. ‘We are fully at the mercy of Zeidat now. No tea, she insists. It is bad enough that there is no morning coffee at all, but why no tea? And this will continue for six weeks. Really six weeks of confinement for a new mother is too long. Another peculiar custom is that they bury the afterbirth. Is that not quaint?’

‘It must be the practice of the mountain tribes.’

‘Onion water for dinner! I went to the kitchen to see if I can find any scraps but the cook barred my way.’ She slowed a little. ‘I am not valuable to them, Your Highness.’

This was true and Anna was unable to contradict her. She wanted to keep walking, the movement soothing in itself. She did not want Drancy to lag behind. ‘We must keep our strength up, Madame Drancy. Exercise and fresh air. At least Zeidat gives Alexander a proper meal.’ Once or twice she had found herself asking him to save her a boiled egg or an apricot. It shamed her to do so.

‘I thought I could make myself valuable by teaching Shamil’s daughters French. But the only book I have with me is the Imitation. They object to its content and I cannot risk it being taken away from me.’

Anna remembered Drancy in the drawing room of Tsinondali, her neck bent over La Dame aux Camélias. The Crimean War had ended her plan to open a bookshop in Tiflis; now the highlanders had disrupted her career as a governess. She said, ‘Madame Drancy, I will do everything I can to compensate you for this predicament.’ She paused and reminded herself to say ‘when’ and not ‘if’. ‘When we go home, I will insist on you accompanying us. I will not leave without you. You will receive your full salary and I am sure that Prince David is taking you into account in the negotiations for our release.’ Madame Drancy’s thanks did not lessen the listlessness that crept over Anna. It had not been easy to make these promises; her pace became slower as a consequence.

The heavy footsteps of the sentry could be heard coming up the stairs. Soon it would be the end of their outdoor session. They would be locked up for the night, another of Zeidat’s provocations. Make the most of these last minutes, breathe in. A northern cloud had the inflated shape of a churn of cream in the kitchen of Tsinondali and that star reminded her of the diamond badge of office she had worn when she was presented at court.

Shamil visited his teacher first before he went home. He felt Chuanat waiting for him, eager to show off the new baby, but a vague sense of unfinished business drew him to Sheikh Jamal el-Din. Grimy from travel, the din of battle still in his ears, he needed the calmness that the elderly man possessed. Sitting on the floor, they ate a meal of pilaf and raisins. Jamal el-Din said, ‘In your absence another message came through from Tabarsaran wanting you to send a representative with an army. They want Sharia rule so that they can be strong enough to resist the Russians.’

‘I will send them three thousand troops and three naibs. One will not be enough.’

‘Good. Is it true that you dismissed Umar al-Salti?’

‘He turned back on the road.’

Sheikh Jamal el-Din chuckled. ‘They say it was because he had recently taken a new wife.’ Saintly and learned, but he was partial to gossip.

Shamil frowned. ‘Is that an excuse? I appointed him as a naib, heading over a thousand, I tell him to set up camp up on Rughchah and he turns round!’

‘He was more suited to overseeing the gunpowder factory.’ Jamal el-Din had always been impressed by how the river’s current powered the machinery.

They spoke of the martyrs of the battle. Muhammad al ‘Uradi al Hidali, a scholar. Batir al-Militi, renowned for his courage, had been injured and died a few days later. Youth they did not know personally, brothers, sons, husbands and fathers. Winners who had been granted a life unlike this one, men who were to be missed and envied.

Jamal el-Din complimented him on Ghazi’s latest success in Shali. ‘At first,’ Shamil explained, ‘he was forced to retreat and rode through the night back to the mountains. He fell asleep across his saddle but a rider caught up with them saying that the Russians were in pursuit. The men gathered around him and started to sing Sleep no more, Ghazi Mohammed/ Sleeping is done/ The Russians are upon us/ There is a war to be won.’

‘And win it he did,’ said Jamal el-Din, taking a sip of water. ‘Now Muhammad-Sheffi will train even harder to catch up with his brother.’ He was Fatima’s youngest son, born in the difficult days after they were driven out of Akhulgo.

‘He rides well but his shooting is still mediocre.’ Shamil chewed on a raisin that was particularly tough.

‘Once,’ Jamal el-Din swallowed his last mouthful, ‘there was a man strolling through his grounds followed by his slave. When he reached the vegetable garden, he cut off one cucumber from its vine and took a bite. It was bitter so he gave up on it and tossed it to his slave. The youth ate it all up. Surprised by this the man asked, “Why did you eat it? Didn’t you find it bitter?” The slave replied, “Yes, it was bitter but you have been so generous to me and every day you give me the most delicious food so I felt ashamed to refuse something which, for once, was not tasty.”’