Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

It became a habit, whenever possible, to walk in the garden and stop at the greenhouse where she could look up at the mountains. Occasionally she would see plumes of smoke, imagine or actually hear a faraway sound of gunfire, but what was actually happening eluded her. There were only things David said and her imagination. A new policy towards the Caucasus, a new Russian leader, Field-Marshal Bariatinsky, who was brilliant and effective. For the first time in all these years, almost overnight, Shamil was losing one battle after another. Aoul after aoul fell to the Russians; the tribal chiefs who had fought by his side were now turning against him.

Anna held Ilia’s hand and walked at his pace. His other hand brushed the flowers and bushes along the path. Sometimes he wanted to stop and examine a pebble or a beetle crawling in the mud. The slowness of this walk suited her. It was her first time attempting a full round of the garden after her confinement last month. She still sensed the new lightness of giving birth to Tamar, shifting the weight from her stomach to the outside world, the pressure lifting from her pelvis and lower back. But she was still weak from losing too much blood; once in a while she felt her womb contracting. While the deliveries were quicker, these after-birth pains seemed to get more painful with each successive birth. She had missed Ilia these past few weeks, unable to focus on much other than the newborn and her own health, but he had made his misery and jealousy felt. Crying at times until he sweated and shook; regressing into baby habits he had given up many months ago. ‘Ilia is a good boy,’ she sang to him. ‘Ilia is Mama’s friend.’ She understood how overlooked he was feeling, how he had been demoted from that important spot of being the youngest in the family. And how special Tamar’s birth had been, a little girl again, resembling Lydia so much that it was as if time had looped back. David doted on her, and poor Ilia struggled to gain the attention he had until recently enjoyed.

He leaned forward now to tear up a flower. He shoved it in his mouth. She knelt down to remove petals and dust from his tongue. ‘Does it taste nice?’ He shook his head, spitting out the rest. ‘Ilia, Prince of Georgia.’ She looked into his eyes. They were like David’s.

He repeated the words after her. This stress on the name and the title as if it were being granted for the first time, this affirmation, was something that Shamil had taught her when he used to say Anna, Princess of Georgia, Alexander, Prince of Georgia. Squatting now on the garden path, she would like to stand up again with some elegance, or at least dignity, without using her hands to push herself up. Her mind wandered to worry again about Alexander’s lessons and how his new tutor was a disappointment. She had said to David that she would give him another month, another chance, before starting to search for a replacement. A faint clutch deep in her stomach. She could not help it, she had to pitch herself on all fours before heaving herself up to stand again. The children claimed, it seemed, every part of her body — from mind to womb.

She took Ilia’s hand again and they headed back to the house. She repeated, ‘Alexander, Prince of Georgia; Ilia, Prince of Georgia; Tamar, Princess of Georgia.’ And to herself, she whispered what Shamil had said to her that one time, ‘Anna, Queen of Georgia.’ How far-fetched all this was. A free Georgia, indeed. Unless it happened one day in the distant future, long after she was gone. But she wanted the children to carry the idea, to know who they were, to not lose themselves completely just because the reality around them insisted otherwise.

News came that Dargo had fallen. The room in which Anna, Alexander and Madame Drancy had been held was now rubble. Shamil and his family had fled to Gunaib, high up in the mountains. There he was making ‘one last stand’ as David, excitedly, put it. David might have left the army but he still had access to the news. And he was not alone. Georgia held its breath and suddenly everyone was competing to gather information about Gunaib. A desolate rocky plateau, near Shamil’s birthplace. Gathered around Shamil were his family and closest allies, his firmest supporters. Day after day the Russians sent envoys to demand his surrender, to negotiate conditions that would be acceptable to both.

‘But he’s stubborn,’ David said over dinner. ‘Down to four hundred followers now and he’d rather die fighting than give up. Did you know that on the way to Gunaib, his gunpowder and wagons were robbed by his own people? They hurled insults at him as he passed. I tell you, he’s finished.’

The food was straw and cloth in Anna’s mouth. These days she avoided company so as not to get drawn into arguments or cause her milk to curdle from aggravation. But she could not possibly get away from David. She must listen to such talk.

‘Rewards have been posted for him in case he flees. We want him alive but can one reason with a fanatic who prefers martyrdom?’

In desperation she steered him to their latest disagreement — a governess for Alexander instead of a tutor. The predictable banter was preferable to the news.

But David was relentless. ‘Another of his naibs came to his senses and betrayed him, giving us direct access to Gunaib. Every regional commander is there now with his own detachment of men. Shamil is outnumbered ten to one. It’s a matter of days now.’

The siege of Gunaib lasted for two weeks. Two weeks of rumours and counter-rumours. It was said that Shamil offered to surrender if he and his family would be released and allowed safe passage to go on Haj. It was said that he challenged the Russian commander to personally come and take his sword away from him. It was said that the final ultimatum was given — unconditional surrender or the death of the whole village, women and children included. And this was not a rumour. This was true.

Anna, standing in the garden near the greenhouse, looking up at the mountains, could do nothing. Through tears — which were in themselves hypocritical, indulgent, ridiculous — she imagined the scene that captured the imagination of the nation. Shamil on his white horse, followed by the remnant of his bedraggled army, their torn banners held up high for one last time. It shamed her that he was lied to. Promised that none of the tribal chiefs who had turned against him would be allowed to be present and yet there they were, gloating. Promised that he would not be disarmed but at the last minute, just before the surrender, they took away his sword.

It was said that his face was impassive. It was said that he was noble in defeat as he had been in success.

Then the newspapers took over. She would sit with Ilia perched on her knees, his arms swatting the pages, and she would read about Shamil’s ‘triumphal progress’ as he left Dagestan, as he descended the mountains and headed towards Stavropol. The young and the curious ran after his carriage, military wives welcomed him with garlands, crowds lined the streets to see him drive past and parks were lit up in his honour, choirs performed … ‘A ball at Mozdok railway station!’ her voice rose loud and sudden to the extent that Ilia slipped down to the floor in surprise.

David laughed in satisfaction. ‘Orders from the tsar himself. Shamil is to be respected and celebrated as a worthy, honourable adversary.’

There was a lot to take in as she nursed Tamar, cajoled Ilia, hired a new nurse, remonstrated with Alexander to obey his hapless tutor. She took to accusing David of exaggerating only to find it a day later in print.

The tsar receiving Shamil during a military parade. The two swap comments on military matters and embrace. Really?