She looked down at the ground. ‘If only it was winter and the mountains covered in snow. If only, like long, long ago, they fought with swords and not gunfire.’
But it was June and the Russians had more artillery than they did. Jamaleldin regretted his question.
‘It is Allah’s will that we fight,’ continued Djawarat. She straightened up and put her hand on his shoulder. He gazed at her big, attractive teeth, her eyebrows that were high and thick. ‘Jamaleldin, when the Merciful honours a slave with His power, then no other creature can ever humiliate him. This is how it is with your father.’
They both knew that Shamil was backed by mystical powers – the kind that could make him tame a jackal or bless a handful of millet so that it would feed five men instead of one. Djawarat sat down on the rocks and put her baby on her lap. ‘Remember when he leapt over a line of soldiers who surrounded him …’
‘They were just about to fire on him …’ The story was in Jamaleldin’s mind as if he had been present.
‘He whirled round and struck two with his sword.’
‘Three,’ Jamaleldin corrected her.
‘The fourth one hit him but he pulled the bayonet blade from his own shoulder …’
‘Jumped over a five-foot wall.’
‘Seven,’ Djawarat corrected him.
‘In one leap.’
Djawarat was smiling. She bent down and gave her baby a kiss. ‘No one is like your father, little one.’
And there was Shamil now, tall and still, as if he had willed himself into this particular place and time. He was dressed for battle in a long cherkesska and a large white turban, the end of which hung down his neck. Two black cartridge pouches crisscrossed his torso and a leather halter held his scimitar. Jamaleldin moved forward to kiss his hand. The familiar warmth emitted from his father, an energy that surfaced in his dark eyes. He lifted Jamaleldin up; it had been a long time since his father had carried him. He was a big boy now, not a baby, not like Ghazi. He heard Djawarat laugh but he was too full to make any sound. His father’s beard, his smell, the groove under his cheek. Jamaleldin felt a slight pressure on his stomach; it was his father’s cartridge pouch digging into his own skin. ‘If only they would leave us in peace,’ his father whispered and then he started to pray, ‘Lord, this is my son and he is under Your protection. Oh Lord, shake up our enemy …’
The attack started almost gently. The Russian soldiers would try to scale the bluffs and slip. They climbed on each other’s shoulders to reach ledges and any rocks that protruded as footholds. Shamil and his murids bided their time and held their fire. When the soldiers came close, they drove them back with rocks and burning logs, javelins and daggers. A soldier only needed to lose his balance once. By nightfall three-hundred and fifty Russians were killed. Akhulgo had stood firm but, after a lull of four days, the Russians changed their tactics. Batteries were manoeuvred into better positions out of reach of the murids’ range. Cannons started to blast the walls of Akhulgo and bury the murids one by one under the rubble.
Day after day Jamaleldin woke up to the stifled sobs of women mourning their men, to the clap of gunfire, to the ugly moans of the wounded. Shamil and his murids fought on, charged with energy, flooded with a strength that seeped too into Jamaleldin. He pitted rocks at the climbing soldiers, large heavy ones he would not normally be capable of raising high. He threw daggers and didn’t miss. He heaved burning pieces of timber and didn’t wince when his palms got scorched. Yet there was no time or occasion to exult; the mere pressure of his father’s hand on his head or his mother, Fatima, saying, ‘Eat now,’ gave way to the sudden submersion of sleep. Days punctuated by prayers taken in turn, a rawness in the chest, a cleaving to everyone who was around him; men, women and children in stress.
Week after week, with less food and more wounded, a jagged airy sensation was felt all around when their outer defences came down and left them exposed. The Russians were looming nearer. But Shamil still resisted with a firmness his enemy had not been prepared for. The tsar’s army had not counted on losing so many officers. Reinforcements were brought in, a forced march of troops from the north. They divided into columns and approached Akhulgo from different directions.
In desperation, women and children joined in an ambush. To fool the Russians that they had more fighters, Djawarat and a group of women dressed like men. Reluctantly their husbands, fathers and brothers shared battle tactics and turbans, lent them swords and sharpened daggers, whispered advice. These were dark times, indeed (but temporary, they reassured themselves), when even the prettiest could not be spared the proximity of the enemy. Yet, these wives and daughters were as eager as any man to pitch themselves at the enemy, to help protect their homes, to win the day. And if they died in battle, they too would become martyrs, granted everlasting life. A ferocity was rising up in them, like mothers in the animal kingdom baring their teeth and hissing to protect their young. Jamaleldin’s mother, Fatima, was pregnant and she stayed behind with the younger children. Djawarat called for Jamaleldin and they lay in wait on a ledge overhanging a precipice. Djawarat crouched next to him, praying softly to herself. If she died, her baby would scream with hunger. Jamaleldin could feel his heart beating; he held a dagger in each sweaty hand. ‘Bend down below their bayonets and aim at their bellies,’ Djawarat said. ‘Wait, wait till they come close, take them by surprise. This is your advantage; they tread unknown territory while you stand on higher ground, your own higher ground, your home.’
He heard them approaching, voices in another language, a thud of boots, the lethal metal clank of their weapons. Bend down below their bayonets. Spring together. The blinding gleam of the sun on a bayonet. Shock in the wide eyes of an enemy. A roar in Jamaleldin’s ears. A gun had gone off and the smoke choked him. Where was the bayonet he must bend under? All his strength and that terrible sound of his dagger ripping flesh. But it was either them or us. Them or Ghazi. The women around him brandished swords; one threw hers aside and, grabbing a soldier’s bayonet, used the weight of her body to pitch him headlong over the cliffs.
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.
The morning after sitting outdoors with his father, Jamaleldin watched his mother, Fatima, sob as she handed him his best clothes. A white tunic and a high lambskin papakhi. He must look his best today even though he was thin and fatigued with dark shadows under his eyes. ‘Take your kinjal with you,’ said Fatima, controlling herself. ‘But never use it against your captors.’ She was eight months pregnant and her face was puffy. ‘You must always act honourably, with courage and patience. Never cry. Never let them see you crying. Remember, you are an Avar. Remember always that you are the son of Shamil, Imam of Dagestan.’
Jamaleldin adjusted the halter around his neck and put his kinjal in place. He was ready to go now, his mother breaking down, his father’s hand on his shoulder. The whole of Akhulgo was gathered and Shamil lifted his palms up in prayer. ‘Lord, You raised up Your prophet Moses, upon him be peace, when he was in the hands of Pharaoh. Here is my son. If I formally hand him over to the infidels, then he is under Your care and protection. You are the best of guardians.’
Ghazi tugged at his brother’s sleeve and said with characteristic bravado, ‘Let me go instead of you.’
‘Don’t be silly. I am more valuable to them.’
There was Djawarat giving him a small handful of fried grain with salt as a goodbye gift. Her sweet smile and her sleepy, docile baby.
There was Akhulgo ugly around him. A woman crouched over a dead relative raised her arm up to flap wildly at carrion birds. Keep off, keep off, she repeated, keening softly. The siege had prevented them from burying the dead. They lay in piles, decomposing and starting to smell, shameful under the morning sun.
Fatima was still clinging to him and crying; Djawarat was by Fatima’s side, her arms around her.
Three of his father’s naibs escorted him away, carrying their banners. They guided their horses down the tricky slopes and Jamaleldin breathed the air of the lowl
ands. Akhulgo was above him now, and here, at last, were the Russian lines. The enemy, smiling men who held their arms out to their prized hostage. Tears of anger rose to Jamaleldin’s eyes but he would not break down. The naibs were lowering their banners in a final salute; they would go back and tell his father that Jamaleldin was brave and did not flinch. He walked into enemy territory with his kinjal at his side. They would tell Shamil that the Russians treated his son with respect and did not disarm him.
Forward now into a mass of tents and horses, men whose words made no sense. Their large beardless faces; their own particular smell. They stared at him and some laughed. Laughter was a language Jamaleldin could understand. Some of it was good-natured; he was, after all, a symbol of the ceasefire, a reason to celebrate. Tonight, they would be issued extra rations of vodka and there would be songs around the campfire. But there was another kind of laughter. He was little and they were grown men. He was something and they were something else; men who made faces and pretended to snatch away his kinjal.
‘Watch him. He’s like a trapped animal.’
‘He’ll use his dagger on you given the chance.’
‘Give me that!’
Jamaleldin leapt at the soldier, punching and scratching. Without the kinjal he was a mere prisoner. Without the kinjal he was a disgrace. Jeering, the worst kind of laughter.
‘We’ll tame you, you little savage. We’ll tame you in no time.’
‘Look at these wild eyes!’
‘Enough. Give him back his kinjal, Alexi.’ Always, as Jamaleldin was to learn, there were kind ones embedded among the rest. They would pop out like secrets, ready to make a difference.
Inside a Russian tent, the size of it, a world so much softer than the houses made of rock. The pistols of the soldiers, their boots. To see a cigar for the first time. It smoked and glowed! An object that entered the mouth and was neither food nor a twig for cleaning your teeth. The sun moved in the sky, shadows lengthened and no Russian stood to make the call to prayer. His father would be at the mosque now, Ghazi too. Were they thinking of him? He stared at two lamb cutlets, he sniffed the porter wine. This was not for him. Where was the cheese and the flat bread? Where were the honey and the pancakes? His stomach growled and for the first time in that long clumsy day, he burst into tears.
The Kindness of Enemies Page 3