Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

Great portions of Shamil’s day were spent reliving the fall of Dargo and then Gunaib. He would not talk to Runovsky about this, he could not. In private, in solitude, he wanted to identify the errors made and by whom; he wanted to pinpoint the moment when the tide turned against him. Not for the sake of learning from his mistakes and improving his future performance (he was not in denial) but for the sake of knowledge. Those last weeks before the surrender were worse than the surrender itself. There he was from mosque to mosque preaching, no, begging, bullying, cajoling, for more men to join the jihad, for those who were already enlisted not to drop out. It was no use. Had he not taught that martyrdom was better than surrender? And yet Allah had not graced him with it, had not crowned his achievements in the best of ways. When the Russians gained the peaks above them and that was a sign that they were done for, that the end was near, that even Gunaib, that impenetrable fortress, had been betrayed and was now ready to crumble, he had gone around with fire in his heart pleading with his men to kill him. ‘Kill me,’ he said. ‘I give you permission to kill me before they come for me. Spare me the shame.’ They turned away though he held their arms, held their faces between his hands and saw in their eyes helplessness and love. ‘If you won’t kill me then leave me,’ he said. ‘Save yourselves. I give you permission to leave Gunaib and I will stay here alone. I will fight when they come; I will fight them until my sword is shattered into small pieces and I will die alone.’ But they would not go. These men who had lasted this long and would last for ever. They were the upright, the robust whom the Russians couldn’t buy with their ‘red and white’ coins. By this time, many of his naibs had already changed sides, naibs who had been his friends, naibs he had esteemed and trusted. ‘We must be pragmatic,’ they said to him but he never listened. ‘We must think ahead.’ All he knew was that fire is better than shame and he had won before, he had rebuffed them before, decade after decade, year after year, so why was it all slipping away now?

In the last short night, which he spent in prayer at the mosque, surrounded by the moans of the wounded and the smell of the dead, Ghazi came in and hovered. When Shamil turned his head to the right and the left to finish, Ghazi fell to his knees before him. Ghazi wanted to say spare the children of Gunaib, spare the woman you love, Chuanat; spare your lovely daughters, your newborn grandson. Spare the crooked legs of your favourite daughter. The longer Ghazi knelt before him, the more selfish martyrdom became; the longer Ghazi knelt the clearer it dawned that this was defeat and that defeat was Allah’s will. Instead of martyrdom, it was time for Shamil to accept this failure. Disappointment stabbed him like an arrow.

He agreed but he had conditions of his own. First, he and his men would still be carrying their arms when they surrendered to the Russian general. Second, he would be allowed to go on pilgrimage to Makkah accompanied by his family and anyone who wished to join him.

Neither condition was honoured. As he rode out, they came between him and his followers and disarmed him, claiming that the general was afraid of armed men. His sword, which he wanted to keep fighting with until it was shattered to pieces, was taken from him and handed over to Field-Marshal Bariatinsky. And instead of setting out for the pilgrimage, here he was in Kaluga being asked by this pleasant Russian minder about what he thought of the local women’s low necklines.

Apparently every officer arriving in Kaluga had strict orders to pay him an official visit. They liked to hear him praise the tsar and Russia, they beamed when he expressed gratitude for the house he was living in. Sometimes they asked to see the fabled seventeen wounds on his body. Sometimes they just stared. He waited to find out what more they wanted from him. Days spent with memories, nights spent in prayer. Often he thought of his son Jamaleldin and longed to talk to him. If Jamaleldin were here now, he would translate for him, explain to him and help him. The son would lead the father. This was yet another thought that made him feel old.

Zeidat covered her ears with her hands. ‘Oh this sound is intolerable. Must the Russians have all this clamour to remind them to pray?’

The church bells of Kaluga were tolling. The sound filled the large family room on the first floor, furnished all round with cushions in the Ottoman style. Shamil looked across at Chuanat, who was sewing. He was relieved that she was here, that they were together at last. It had lifted his spirits to have the family gathered around him. They were all here except Ameena, whom he had divorced before leaving Dargo and made sure that she was safely back home with her family in Bavaria. The elderly Bahou, too, had not been able to attempt the journey. Now with him in Kaluga were his two sons, Ghazi with his wife and baby and young Muhammad-Sheffi; his two older daughters and their new husbands, the younger children and their nannies. The house was full of their voices and footsteps. A piece of the Caucasus to wrap around him.

Chuanat looked up at Zeidat, who was now not only covering her ears but swaying from side to side in exaggerated agony. ‘You are so rude. When Anna was with us in Dargo, she was often complimentary of the azan and never complained about it.’

He smiled at Chuanat. In the months before she came to Kaluga he was anxious that he would lose her. She could have asked the Russians to return her to her family in Armenia but she didn’t. Instead, she chose to join him in exile. Her presence made all the difference. Here she was evoking the memory of Anna. It was right to do so. He said, ‘Anna is a princess and she conducted herself like one. You must distinguish, Chuanat, between royalty and a tribeswoman.’

Zeidat snorted. ‘I am proud of my heritage, Shamil Imam.’ The daughter of Sheikh Jamal el-Din had every reason to be.

‘Your heritage should have given you more sensitive ears. Listen to what these bells are saying.’

She made a face. ‘There aren’t any words, just a ding ding.’

He paused to listen to the bells but not with his ears. ‘They are saying “Haqq! Haqq!”’

Zeidat raised her eyebrows. ‘Is that what they are saying to you?’

‘Yes, they too can remind us of Allah. If you listen carefully you will hear them say His name. Truth! Truth!’

There were quarrels in the house because everyone was cooped up together. The young ones were bored and when they were bored they quarrelled. The air was not as pure as in the mountains. Ghazi’s wife fell ill with fever. Permission was granted for Shamil to build a mosque in the garden. Good, resourceful Runovsky facilitated the whole process. As time dragged on the mosque become a haven for Shamil, a place to escape to. He spent longer hours there, reciting the Qur’an in a place where it had not been heard before, kneeling down on a piece of earth that had never been pressed by the forehead of a believer. There was a sense of peace in this. To be told don’t fight any more, you have done enough, stand aside, stand aside and worship. That was how he interpreted his defeat in Gunaib. It was a command from the Almighty to stand aside and worship because the years were running out.

Gifts came to him from the tsar and from other dignitaries. He could not accept the gold tea tray and when he found that, instead of returning it, young Muhammad-Sheffi had hidden it in his room, Shamil ground each cup under his feet. He made Chuanat cry when he tore her new green dress. ‘When women in Dagestan can afford silk, then you can wear it,’ he shouted. A subtle danger was creeping into his household.

Often he thought of his son Jamaleldin. This was the world he had been thrown into when he was eight years old. No wonder it had seeped into him, weakening his resolve, gnawing at him from within. So strongly did he feel Jamaleldin’s presence that he was not surprised when on one fine summer afternoon, a peasant woman knocked on the door and said that she had known Jamaleldin. In the reception room fitted for visitors, furnished in the Russian style, she sat across from Shamil, her kerchief knotted around a wide face, and told him that she had been Jamaleldin’s nanny, long ago, when he first came from Akhulgo. He listened to her, as the shadows in the room lengthened, describe a shy little boy who could not speak a word of Russian, a child cut off, bereft and still restrained because his mother and father had taught him to be brave, had told him that an Avar mustn’t break down into tears. She visited again, bringing an officer who had been Jamaleldin’s childhood friend, bringing others who had known him well. These people nurtured his son when he could not and, years later, were still loyal to Jamaleldin’s memory. They could not be Shamil’s enemies. He owed them friendship and gratitude.