Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

The Russian column retreated and Djawarat burst into tears. Dazed and shaking, Jamaleldin stumbled back to his mother talking gibberish. He had wet his pants as if he was little, but she did not scold him. There was not enough time to rest and forget, not enough time to heal properly. Hungry and feverish, the nightmare weeks blurred. His father and his naibs deep in discussion, changing tactics, arranging for the wounded to be smuggled out of Akhulgo, arranging for reinforcements to sneak past the Russians. Already two months — for how long could they hold out? The summer sun was merciless, the well was drying up, there was hardly any food left and no timber to reconstruct. Typhoid swept through the Russian forces while in Akhulgo men, women and children were slowly starving. Death below and with them — carrion birds circled above.

Preserve us from regression, was the desperate prayer. Grant us an honourable death. Then a lull in the fighting. The Russians were willing to open negotiations. At last, at long last, peace was near. But as proof of Shamil’s good intentions, the Russians wanted Jamaleldin as a hostage.

‘No,’ was Shamil’s reply. ‘Not my son.’

Jamaleldin heard his name mentioned in the naibs’ council and sensed the concern in his father’s voice. Soon the whole of Akhulgo bristled with the news. The women held their breath. The children stared at Jamaleldin in a way that made him feel important. Pleas were sent to the Russians to accept another child, a nephew or a cousin, but they would accept only Shamil’s eldest son. Jamaleldin wanted to talk to Djawarat but it was as if she was avoiding him. At home, the naibs came over to argue with Shamil. He refused again and this time angry voices were raised. When the naibs left, Fatima started to cry. His parents talked in whispers until his father got up and left the house.

Because he couldn’t sleep, Jamaleldin sat outdoors. The summer sky was clear but there was a bad smell, the stench of war and waste, of fire and his own unwashed body. He knew the custom of hostage-taking during negotiations. Hostages were treated well; they were given clean clothes and food. At the thought of food, his stomach rumbled and there was moisture in his mouth. Pancakes in butter, rolled-out bread with honey. The Russians would give him cheese. But he could not imagine being away from his father, living in a place where Shamil did not command and forbid. Jamaleldin did not want to leave Ghazi, he did not want to leave his mother or Akhulgo or Djawarat.

He dozed, his head lolling on his chest, and found his father sitting beside him, propping him. It was all he wanted, to be in his father’s arms, to be approved of, to be safe.

‘I lost my finest men,’ Shamil said and there was a catch in his voice. ‘When I think of each of them, when I think of his qualities, I know that he cannot be replaced. He was worth ten or more, a hundred even. Now the others are becoming too feeble to fight. I can see it coming. In days, in a week or so they will no longer gather for battle. They might not even show up at their posts.’

Jamaleldin understood but what he understood could wait — there was no need to voice it, no need to put it into words. He wanted these moments to continue. His father talking to him as if he were a man, recalling the brave, strong fighters who were now granted eternal life; men who had once jested with Jamaleldin, who had taught him how to wield a kinjal, who had carried him on their shoulders. Father and son listened to the sounds of the night.

‘Tell me the story of the chicken, Father.’

Shamil smiled in the dark and Jamaleldin felt the warmth coming from him, all the memories of peace. ‘Long ago before you were born, when I was a young lad, our people, sadly, allowed themselves to forget Allah. Instead of the Sharia they followed the adaat. Do you know what the adaat are?’

‘They are our ancient customs and laws. They told people to worship the forest and the trees but they also taught us hospitality and honour.’

‘Yes, the adaat were a mixture of good and bad,’ Shamil continued. ‘A mixture of Allah’s laws and the traditional laws of the tribes. They taught us to be brave warriors but they allowed us to ferment grapes and get drunk. And worse than that the adaat supported blood feuds. Once a man stole a chicken …’

Jamaleldin smiled and drew nearer for here the story was starting.

‘He stole a chicken from his neighbour’s village. In reply the owner of the chicken stole a cow. The first man got angry and said,’ Shamil’s voice rose, ‘“A chicken is a chicken. It is not a cow!” In revenge he stole the man’s horse. When you steal a man’s horse it is as if you are stealing his honour. The horse owner went and killed the thief. Blood was spilled, it was serious now. The families got involved. A vendetta began. Generation after generation carried on this feud. There were raids and fires, there was kidnapping and treachery. Hundreds of men died, all because of …?’

This was the pause that had delighted Jamaleldin when he was little. That part in the story where he would chip in and squeal out loud, ‘A chicken!’

It had been Shamil’s predecessors, Ghazi Muhammad (after whom little Ghazi was named) and Hamza Bek, who had first urged the people of Dagestan to stop the blood feuds and obey the Sharia. To draw strength from Allah’s laws, to tap into His power and push away the Russians. The invaders set aouls ablaze and destroyed crops; they were even destroying the forests in order to build their military roads. And when they captured a village, they defecated in the houses as if to mark their territory. At times they would also foul the wells. But it was not always easy to resist the Russians. Many tribes did not have the strength. They shirked the hardship involved or were lured by the riches of the red and white coins the Russians promised. Some succumbed to the pressure so wholeheartedly that they even joined in the aggression against their fellow highlanders. These traitors would ride with the severed heads of their own people dangling from their saddle bows.

Ghazi Muhammad al-Ghimrawi preached from region to region and from aoul to aoul, ‘What kind of repose could there be in a place where the heart is not at ease and the authority of Allah not accepted? Grab the strong cable of Islam and our enemies will not even find a weak protector!’ Ghazi Muhammad mobilised an army in which Shamil was a young naib. In one battle after another they took back the villages that had fallen to the Russians. But Ghazi Muhammad was martyred and his successor Hamza Bek only ruled for two years.

When Shamil became leader, he did not find support in Gimrah, his birthplace. The villagers insisted on obeying the Russian commander’s order of supplying five donkey-loads of grape vines and fruit. Shamil argued and threatened but he could not convince them. This was Jamaleldin’s earliest memory — his mother and father packing throughout the night. After the dawn prayer, Shamil came out of the mosque and addressed his fellow villagers. ‘I am leaving you because I am unable to uphold the faith among you. After all, the best of Allah’s creation, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, left the best of cities, Makkah, when it was no longer easy for him to maintain his faith there. If Allah wills the faith to be strong in you, then I will return. If not, then what can you offer me, you whose houses have been smeared with the shit of Russian soldiers!’

The family moved to Ashilta and had to move again — always fearful of the Russians and suspicious of the hypocrites who were tired of fighting, who were bitter against the strictness of the Sharia. ‘Would the Russians have advanced so far without collaborators from among us?’ The answer was a painful no. That was why Shamil taught the prayer, ‘Preserve us from regression. Don’t try us, Lord, beyond our means.’ Too often the villagers would listen to Shamil preach his resistance and say ruefully, ‘What is he saying, when we can’t even defend our women against the Russians!’ It was the modern cannon that filled them with dread, the ‘Father of the Guns’, that beast set to devour them. Then when the tide turned, in twists and surprising turns, Shamil would leap from one victory to another and the spirit of resistance would rekindle in men’s chests. They would swell with pride and remember the old days of freedom. They would move to join Shamil and be among his murids. An autonomous Caucasus would shimmer in the horizon, credible again.