Could the trunk take one more tablecloth? ‘Just push it in.’
Madame Drancy kneeling to lock the trunk, held herself still. ‘Can you hear it?’
‘What? No. If we both sit on it, it will close.’
Sitting on the trunk, she heard the unmistakable galloping. Madame Drancy ran to the window, her voice squeaky as a girl’s. ‘They are here! They are here! We must run to the woods.’
Anna was conscious of her own heaviness – baby, Alexander, belongings. ‘No, it’s too late. It’s best to hide in the attic. Fetch Alexander from the nursery.’
Under the low ceiling of the attic, they crouched among the dust and what looked like rat droppings. Anna loaded the pistol and looked out of the window. The shock of the actual sight of them storming the gate – their turbans, some green, some white and patterned; their guns and sabres, their mouths stretched open, war cries in another language, a sense of chaos and tense power. There was Gregov carrying his gun, his familiar cap, white speckled hair, his compact figure, running towards them and shouting, ‘God save us. The Lezgins!’ He stood and fired. Then she saw his body receive the pain of a bullet and slump to the ground. She turned her head. If they were going to trample him with their horses, she could not watch.
She rocked Lydia while Alexander and Drancy peered out of the small window. The clatter of hooves on the cobbles of the courtyard. ‘Get back, they will look up and spot you,’ hissed Anna.
But that crash was the downstairs door being broken down. They were in the house now and Anna started to buzz with fear and indignation too. This violation of her property; their paws on her furniture, their hooves treading her carpets. Alexander came close to her, pushed his head against her arm. ‘Don’t be afraid. They won’t find us.’
She didn’t need to whisper. It was pandemonium below, glass breaking, the sounds of furniture being demolished, crockery smashed to the floor. So destructive, so destructive.
‘They will loot and leave. What would they want us for? They will take as much as they can and leave.’ She was speaking out loud and she jumped at the sound of the piano. One of them must have slammed his hands on the keys.
That quickening was them mounting the stairs. The voices coming closer, up to the attic. ‘Shush, not a sound.’ But Lydia was whimpering. Anna held her close. Madame Drancy was moving her lips in prayer. The doorknob juddered. A substantial group was at the door. A shout as they started to break it down. Once, twice, the door held for some time. More shouts and the wood cracked. Madame Drancy screamed as the men spilled into the attic.
Anna grabbed the pistol and started to shoot. She was not aiming, just pushing them away, wanting them down and out the door and out the gate and off the estate. A grunt as she wounded one of them. Smoke and the acrid smell of it and their smell too as the pistol was yanked out of her hand.
A Lezgin glared down at her. He had to stoop so that his head would not hit the ceiling. His turban was tight across his forehead, black beard and a snarl. ‘Enough. Not a single man among you and you think you have a chance!’
His Lezgian accent was heavy but she understood what he was saying. She could not, though, grasp the babble of the other men, all speaking at the same time as if making opposing suggestions, the word ‘Chavchavadzes’ chilly and odd in the middle of their sentences.
‘Take them downstairs,’ their leader bellowed.
She was lifted, Lydia and all, and when she resisted was dragged out of the attic, her elbow banging on the door, her toe scraping the floor. A raider lifted Alexander, who kicked and screamed.
‘I’m a French citizen,’ Madame Drancy was shouting. ‘Put me down. How dare you do this to me!’
Lydia was crying too. It took all Anna’s effort and concentration to keep her safe in her arms. Alexander bit his captor on the shoulder. He was punched in return and groaned from the pain. Grunts of laughter from the men. ‘That little devil has sharp teeth!’
‘Don’t fight him, Alexander.’ She was already downstairs, calling up. She was being pulled out of the house. It was as if there were a hundred of them crowded on the stairs. It was not only Madame Drancy and Alexander that they were carrying, but whatever they could loot. Without discipline, without logic, grabbing this and that, armfuls and their clanking weapons. The ludicrous sound of the piano as it was leant upon, fallen over or even used as a foothold. Loud jarring notes among the whoops of triumph. One of them leapt down the side of the staircase as if he were still on the mountains, jumping from boulder to boulder. Anna turned to see the heavy trunk being rolled down from the upper landing. The combined weight of people, goods and weapons brought the whole staircase crashing to the ground.
Dust rose in the centre of the house. Anna gasped at the ugliness of the splintered wood and the rubble, the strangeness of an upper storey that could not be reached. She screamed but her voice meant nothing; her orders, ‘Get out of my house’, did not raise the slightest interest. Nonchalantly, the highlanders picked themselves off the ground amidst grunts and lazy recriminations. In a flash they were looting again and she was pulled out the front door and into the courtyard.
It too was alien, crowded with their sweaty horses. The cart that carried her favourite armchair had been overturned. The familiar upholstery, the roses and lilac design was smeared with mud and horse manure. In the middle of the courtyard, Anna and her children were thrown in a heap. She examined Alexander’s arm. ‘Move it for me. Good boy.’ It was bruised but unbroken.
‘You are brave,’ she told him. ‘Papa will be proud of you.’ Her own back ached but she scarcely noticed it. One of the sleeves of her dress was torn. She could put Lydia down on her lap but she still clutched her. Around them more highlanders jostled each other to enter the house; those who had already been inside squabbled over their spoils. It was as if this was not Tsinondali any more, this was not the same garden trampled and muddied, this pillaged house not the same house, these were not the same stables, doors wide open, the horses tied up, men and more men swarming all the way to the gate. The men brandished their sabres even though they faced no resistance. No villagers had rallied round, no field-hands, no one.
Madame Drancy was being pulled and dragged between two men who were exchanging curses. One of them held her right arm; the other hooked her left arm over his shoulder and was grabbing her by the waist. A cold understanding seeped through Anna; these two were fighting over Madame Drancy. The tall Lezgin, who had taken the pistol from Anna upstairs, strode towards the scuffle, shashka in hand. He was, Anna guessed, their leader. He bellowed at the two men and they reluctantly let go of Drancy. She was dragged, instead, by her hair and thrown down on the ground next to Anna.
Lydia was whimpering and twisting her head, rooting for her next feed. It came as a surprise to Anna that several hours had already passed since she had last fed her. But yes, it was time again. Lydia started to cry, the distressed wails of a justified hunger. Here, in the middle of this, Anna must undo her bodice. She crouched behind Madame Drancy and tried to be as discreet as she could. But the Lezgin leader came over and leered down at her. With the tip of his shashka, he pierced the knot her hair was tied in. When it fell on her shoulders, he lifted a strand, the blade now touching her neck, inches above Lydia’s head, perpendicular to Alexander’s neck.
Madame Drancy shouted, ‘Get away, you turbaned monster.’ She leapt up but he pushed her down with his free hand. The blade vibrated against Anna’s cheek.
‘Well, you’re the pretty one, aren’t you?’ He hooked the shashka under the shoulder strap of her dress. It tore with the slightest of tugs.
‘How dare you do this to me! You don’t know who I am.’
He smiled, ‘Oh, but I do know, your Highness. I know it and it is a shame that I am under strict orders. You see, you are precious. Too valuable for a Lezgin like me. Maybe this one will do. If she is worth it!’ He turned to Madame Drancy and with a downward swoop of the shashka tore her dress in half. She was now in her corset and pettic
oat. She leapt at him, clawing at his face. ‘You butcher, you animal, leave me alone.’
Another highlander, with a bare shaven head, dropped the candlesticks he was holding and cut Madame Drancy across the shoulders with his whip. She fell down crying and huddled against Anna.
The Lezgin squatted down and brought his face level with the two of them. ‘Listen, you are my captives now. Until I take you up the mountains and hand you over, you will obey me. Understand. You will obey every word I say. This is better for you and easier for all of us. So now you sit here, you don’t move and you keep quiet. We have not herded your cattle yet.’
‘You will not get away with this,’ Anna said. ‘There are posts up and down the river and you will be captured. Is it brave to hit women and children? You’re a lowly criminal.’
‘Yes, I’m a bandit. I will be paid when I hand you over. But I’m following orders too. Don’t touch the princess, don’t hurt her children. But if you provoke me, you’ll see the worst side of me.’
He walked away and Anna turned to see that Madame Drancy’s shoulder was badly cut. She comforted her as best she could, her words sounding feeble even to her own ears. Had he really said take you up to the mountains? Would there be more of this, more of them? She had thought they would loot and leave, leave them humiliated, leave them hurt but leave without them. She started to fix up her own dress and managed to tie it up with a pin from Lydia’s nappy. Her toe was bleeding. She could not remember when and where she had injured it. If she wanted to change Lydia’s nappy now, how was she meant to go about it?
‘That’s my hat,’ Alexander called out. He ran towards a raider who had just stepped out of the house wearing the straw summer hat. Its flowers, crushed and askew, were dangling over his turban. Anna shouted, ‘Alexander, come back.’ But he darted ahead and managed to reach the man without being stopped. Instead of giving him his hat back, the man pushed him away. It was as if they were two children squabbling. Soon, Alexander was carried back and dumped next to Anna. She rebuked him for endangering himself. ‘They will hurt you, Alexander, they are merciless.’ Tears welled in her eyes. If anything should happen to him … but just thinking about it was unbearable. She hugged him close to her, finding comfort in his shape and the familiar sensation of his hair against her cheek.
‘Look, Mama.’ He pointed at two men who were sitting cross-legged examining their new belongings. One dipped his fingers in white powder and tasted it. It was the chalk from the schoolroom. Another one was licking Anna’s face cream.
‘He thinks it’s food.’ There was wonder in Alexander’s voice. She should laugh too, but the reflex let her down. She stared at their questioning, ignorant faces. What would they deduce apart from the realisation that chalk and face cream were inedible?
‘Grotesque,’ Madame Drancy whispered. She muttered to herself in French.
There were more men now in the courtyard, fewer in the house. Some were already mounted, leading behind them a new horse or cow. The Lezgin approached them. ‘Come on, it’s time to get out of here. Each one of you will ride with a different horseman.’ He reached out to take Lydia away from Anna.
‘No. My baby stays with me. I will not hand her to anyone else.’
There was no expression on his face. ‘Very well. Then you both ride with me.’ He dragged her away before she could even say goodbye to Alexander. ‘Mama, wait for me. Where are you going?’ But already one of the men was hoisting him off.
Anna shouted back, ‘Don’t be afraid, Alexander. I will be with you soon. Don’t fight so that they don’t hurt you.’ She wanted to tell him that David would come and rescue them. Soon. This ordeal would be over and everything would go back to how it was before. Surely David would not allow this to happen to his wife and children. But she was afraid to mention his name in front of the Lezgins. Let them be lulled into thinking that they had succeeded.
She turned to look back at the estate. Her favourite armchair toppled over on the ground, dirty and abandoned. The stables were set on fire, the shimmer of burning grass, pigs out of their pens roaming. Anna closed her eyes when she recognised the lifeless heap that only this morning was the loyal, active gardener; Gregov’s cap and his greying hair.
They rode at a moderate pace towards the river, towards those mountains that hosted the campfires of the past days. The sun was high in the sky; it made her head start to hurt. The cattle of the estate, rounded close together, bellowed and stirred the dust of the road. The gush of the water became louder and there was the Alazani, rushing over the boulders, foaming and deep.
‘Can you swim, Princess?’
She did not answer him.
‘Then hold on tight and keep your baby close to you!’
Everyone had told her that the Alazani was too deep to cross this time of year. David had said so, Gregov had said so. She had believed it and now these riders were patting their horses with encouragement; they were tensing up as if for an adventure.
‘Too deep for your horses,’ the Lezgin said. ‘But ours are trained. You will see how they will swim.’
When they entered the water, the riders fell silent. There were no more shouts and boasts, no argumentative exchanges and indecipherable grunts. The horses were indeed swimming even though they were weighed down with their riders and the cattle they were pulling. Anna’s lower half was plunged into the cold water. It filled her shoes and pulled down her petticoats and dress. She turned and saw the amazement in Alexander’s face. He had forgotten his fear and the bruise on his arm. Anna lifted Lydia even higher.
A sound of a splash as Madame Drancy fell into the river. The men burst out laughing while she flailed in the water shouting for help.
‘Hey, drag her out … enough,’ the Lezgin ordered and they obeyed, good-natured and at ease. It filled Anna with loathing and the urge to escape. Then panic rose in her throat like vomit. She was away from home now, floating weirdly on water. This Lezgin and his devilish horse were keeping her alive. Where were the Russian defences? She wanted the nightmare to end. Enough. Lydia was fidgeting against her. She needed her nappy changed.
Madame Drancy was now up behind her captor; she was breathless and soaked. Anna shouted out, ‘Are you all right?’ The spluttered reply elicited another foreign joke.
At the other side of the river, they stopped while the men made their ablutions and lined up to pray. Alexander took an interest in what they were doing, watching them from a distance. Anna took the opportunity to clean Lydia’s nappy but she did not have a change of clothes. She did her best under the circumstances but was not satisfied. The baby’s skin was sensitive and it would chafe. She washed the dirty nappy in the river and wrung it out. She hung it on a bush but they did not stop long enough for it to dry. She had to carry it damp.
‘You should give your baby to one of the men,’ said the Lezgin. They had been coming up to Anna with pantomime gestures, offering to do so.
‘Never.’ She held Lydia closer.
‘Suit yourself.’ He adjusted his turban. ‘It will be a dangerous climb.’
Lydia slept but was jolted awake with every leap and jerk of the horse. She started to cry, working herself up to such a pitch that her face turned red and her body rigid. She was so loud that some of the other riders heard her. They turned around and made lewd gestures as if to instruct Anna to feed her. She did eventually because she had to, because there was no other way to make this piercing, frustrating sound stop. Lydia was so overwrought that she could not at first settle and suck. The unsteady movement of the horse over the rocks made matters even worse. Still whimpering as if feeling sorry for herself, as if berating and reproaching her mother, she finally was able to draw in and swallow. But true satisfaction didn’t come. Anna’s milk was watery and insufficient. So long ago, it seemed, she had skimped breakfast in order to start the packing. Since then she had not had anything except gulps of water from the river. Lydia squirmed, sucking intensely until it made Anna’s nipple sore. She strained her ears for the
Russian picket; surely they were stationed near, surely they would come to rescue them.
When the sun started to set, they made camp on the mountainside. It startled Anna to see Madame Drancy in a burka. It belonged to her captor and he had flung it over her to keep her warm. ‘The water was freezing,’ she said sitting down next to Anna, and arranging the folds around her. ‘Hideous outfit.’
They sat in front of the fire. A campfire like the ones they used to see from the windows of Tsinondali. ‘The water made my fingers numb,’ said Anna. ‘I had trouble holding Lydia.’
‘Luckily Alexander didn’t get wet,’ said Madame Drancy. He too was wrapped in a burka, sound asleep.
Anna’s stomach growled. She had pushed away the dinner of dried millet they had been offered. It was unappetising and touched by their dirty fingers. Lydia was asleep now but she would not stay asleep for long; fretting and hungry, she would want to be nursed all night.
‘They say the journey up the mountains will take five weeks.’ Madame Drancy spoke in a matter-of-fact way.
Anna could not even visualise one week. She turned to look at Madame Drancy’s face. It looked fresher and leaner, like she had been on a brisk walk.
Madame Drancy said, ‘I wonder if one of these highlanders would be sympathetic enough to help us escape. I can teach him a little bit of French. We can bribe him …’
‘With what? They’ve taken everything.’
‘We can promise to reward him once we are free.’
Anna sighed, ‘You are so fanciful. We will be rescued. Surely by now David will have heard of our predicament.’
‘It’s only been a few hours,’ was the governess’s terse reply.
Of course it felt more than that. The night was long too. Anna couldn’t sleep even though she was exhausted and bruised. It was uncomfortable to lie on the ground without a pillow. The moonlight was too bright and there were the menacing sounds of the forests, the torrential river, the snores of these violent men. It seemed that whenever she dozed, Lydia would wake up whimpering and whenever Lydia fell asleep, Anna lay anxious, alert to the dangers around her. Images of the day pounded the gap between wakefulness and dreams; the pistol snatched away, a cow being dragged from the stables, Gregov’s body sprawled on the ground. She closed her eyes and saw Madame Drancy fall in the river. The water had been icy, it had chilled Anna’s legs and when her hands got wet, her fingers became numb. They felt clumsy and fat and it was awkward to hold up Lydia. She had been afraid that she would let her slip, straining all the time to keep her from sliding, forcing herself closer to her captor’s back because that was the only way to keep the baby safe.
The Kindness of Enemies Page 9