Leila Aboulela - The Kindness of Enemies

I kept in touch with Mekki and with Grusha and Yasha more regularly. When I told them that I missed them, I meant it, aware now of that parallel life I could have led if my parents’ marriage hadn’t ended. I valued the sense of belonging they gave me, the certainty that I was not an isolated member of a species but simply one who had wandered far from the flock and still managed to survive, for better or for worse, in a different habitat. Chatting with them, we would skip from Russian to English to Arabic and I relaxed without the need to prove, explain or distinguish myself. Nor squeeze to fit in, nor watch out of the corner of my eye the threats that my very existence could provoke in the wrong place in the wrong time among the wrong crowd.

A last-minute Call for Papers for an international conference on Suicide, Conflict and Peace Research galvanised me into preparing a submission. I wanted to compare Shamil’s defeat and surrender, how he made peace with his enemies, with modern-day Islamic terrorism that promoted suicide bombings instead of accepting in Shamil’s words, ‘that martyrdom is Allah’s prerogative to bestow’. How did this historical change in the very definition of jihad come about?

The Easter break passed in a daze, the days getting longer but the cold still teasing; generous hours of light but the temperature refusing to rise. It was, though, a relatively warm Sunday in May when the telephone rang and it was Malak talking to me as if we had only just seen each other the week before. I could tell from her voice that she was outdoors, somewhere windy.

‘I’m not far from you,’ she said. ‘At Dunnottar Castle. Are you free to come over? I know it’s short notice. But you came to my mind, just now, and I thought why not call and see. Just in case.’

And I was driving again, this time with a few drops of rain on my front window. Clouds that started to clear as I neared my destination. I sensed a welcome purity in my motivation, an energy that made the drive effortless, the distance bridgeable. She had always given me a sense of communion with Shamil, oriented me towards the unexpected, and guided me to what could never be written down in history.

I bought a ticket and was told that they would be closing in an hour’s time. I hurried down the long path, the castle ahead of me protruding into the water, the sound of the seagulls all around. A number of people walked in the opposite direction, having finished their visit. I was the only one heading to the ruins. It made me feel as if I was running late, that my situation was touch and go, I would either make it in time or not.

The path was narrow and the dark rocky land dipped down straight. The cold wind messed up my hair but I felt warm from the exercise. The grass around me was high and dry, yellow and pale green. When I reached the headland I could see, below, the beach covered in pebbles. Then it was time to climb up until the sea surrounded me on three sides, until looking down at the craggy shoreline with the undulating froth made me feel slightly nauseous. Here — I reached my hand out — were the stone walls on the cliff, thicker and higher now that I was close. Large holes from which guns once stuck out. I passed through the entrance, up slippery ancient stairs, my mind automatically retrieving that Mary, Queen of Scots visited here and that on a similar day in 1652, this was the one remaining place in Scotland in which a small garrison loyal to Charles II resisted Cromwell’s army. But I was here to see Malak and she was somewhere inside, waiting for me.

I did not find her as easily as I thought I would. I walked on the cobbled floor, passed through the semi-ruined keep and the drawing room, which was in better shape. Out in the quadrangle the sun shone on the moss-covered walls that rose up in incomplete storeys, upstairs rooms without ceilings. The grass was even here, a lawn, a sense of enclosure, hardly any wind and a stillness as if the seagulls were politely staying away. In front of the chapel Malak sat dressed in what could only be described as a kaftan, wearing a turban on her head. The other visitors must have thought she was in medieval costume; if she popped up in the background of one of their photos, they could claim they had spotted a ghost.

She was sitting on the grass on what I recognised to be one of the small Persian carpets from her house. She was reading a large hard-backed book which, when I came close, I recognised as the Qur’an. I stood watching her for a while, amused by her clothes and sense of the theatrical. What part did she think she was playing? Not that I suspected her of insincerity, but there had always been an attractive self-consciousness about her as if she were trying to please an invisible figure, an unseen audience who mattered only to her.

I joined her on the carpet, listened to her reciting. Not a single word was comprehensible to me. This must be how animals feel when they hear humans talk, this must be how infants experience language long before they are ready to learn it. When she finished the page she was on, she marked it with a brown ribbon and put it in the canvas bag she had at her side. ‘I am halfway through,’ she said. ‘The Qur’an is divided into thirty sections and, over a fortnight, I have read fifteen. Every day I go somewhere different to pray and read a section. I’ve travelled up and down the country.’

I smiled. ‘You’re on tour then for a full month.’

She laughed. ‘It’s probably the most fulfilling one I’ve ever done.’

‘How do you decide where to go?’

‘Well, that is the fun part. I’ve been to spiritual places like Stonehenge, places where I have always sensed a powerful presence. This is one of them, can you feel it?’

I did not know how to answer her. If I said ‘No’ it would seem ungracious. If I said ‘Yes’ I might be lying. So I said, ‘Centuries ago, people in this very spot worshipped as you were worshipping just now. They believed like you believe.’ And centuries ago, as Covenanter history teaches, they also waged wars, resisted and rebelled around issues of faith.

She said, ‘Yesterday I prayed further north. In the middle of a suburb which was so artificial and depressing that I almost couldn’t bear to be there. But I stuck it out, telling myself that I would be the first one there ever to say the word “Allah”.’

‘Who heard you?’

‘No one. I don’t want anyone to hear me. The trees, the wind, the angels. That’s enough for me. Sometimes, I can’t bear to talk to people, Natasha. Not after what happened to Oz. I can’t be the same again. Sorry for not answering your messages. You are the easiest one to talk to because you understand. But I went through days when I did not want to talk to anyone at all.’

‘Why, Malak? It’s over and done with.’

‘I can’t let go of the disappointment, it’s held inside me like a grudge. I carry it from place to place. It’s not that I love him less. Love doesn’t change, it doesn’t go away. But he was suspected of not behaving with the decency and broad-mindedness I brought him up with.’

‘And he was released without charge. So why are you judging him?’

‘Because I expected better of him, that’s all. He allowed the dark side to distract him even if it didn’t win him over completely.’

I smiled at her dramatic choice of words. The dark side. I smelt the sea and heard the seagulls. ‘Did you get Shamil’s sword back?’

‘Oz got his laptop back. And we both got our phones back. But not the sword.’

‘How come?’

She shook her head. ‘I have no idea. But in a strange way I don’t mind waiting. He surrendered it, didn’t he? He didn’t fight with it and shatter it to pieces. He knew better. He understood that surrender meant humility. He accepted defeat graciously and saw it as Allah’s will. There aren’t many like him now. Wisdom is in short supply.’