The Kindness of Enemies

by Leila Aboulela

  She smiled. ‘Yes, fine. Exam tension, I suppose.’

  I started to walk away when she said, ‘Do you have any news about Oz?’

  I repeated what Malak had told me but it did not seem new to her.

  ‘He missed the exams.’ This was said in such a poignant tone as if it alone underlined the seriousness of his predicament.

  ‘He can resit them,’ I reassured her.

  ‘The police questioned me,’ she said. ‘They questioned all of his friends.’ She told me the details, speaking in a matter-of-fact way as if she was neither intimidated nor surprised. But her voice hardened when she said, ‘My parents told me to unfriend him on Facebook and not even to try to get in touch.’

  ‘They’re concerned about you.’

  She rolled her eyes.

  It was gratifying that she was open with me. ‘Was Oz very active in the Muslim Students’ Society?’

  ‘Not really. He’s different from everyone else.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘The way he was brought up. His mother’s an actor and for a lot in the MSS that’s not how a good Muslim woman should be. I remember, once, an invited speaker came to give a talk and afterwards Oz was one of those who took him back to the station. Apparently he spent the whole ride telling Oz that it was his duty as a son to convince his mother to quit her job! He got to him so much that he was almost crying.’

  I could imagine the scene, the packed car, shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee. The colour rising to Oz’s face, the clenched fists. ‘But Oz and his mother are descended from Imam Shamil. Surely that counts.’

  She gave a little laugh. ‘Not to that lot. They hate the Sufis.’

  She was putting it bluntly. Theologically, Sufism’s veneration of its saints and the belief in their mystical powers was problematic. In modern times as Political Islam embraced transnationalism and activism, the Sufis were perceived to be not only passive and traditional, but often, also, reactionary and neo-cons.

  ‘That speaker shouldn’t have been invited in the first place,’ she was saying. ‘He’s on some list or other.’

  ‘What was his talk about?’

  She made a face. ‘I don’t know. I arrived late, slipped into the first free seat on the front row and he suddenly stops talking and says to me, ‘Move to the back with the other sisters.’ It was so embarrassing. Everyone turned to look at me. I hadn’t even noticed that the seating was segregated! I felt like an idiot so I just got up and left. But he’s not going to say anything controversial in a lecture hall, is he? They save that kind of thing for private meetings in peoples’ homes.’

  ‘Could Oz have gone to such a meeting?’

  ‘Maybe. Do you think that’s why he’s in trouble? But why him? There are others.’

  Perhaps he did something rash as a way of showing off, just because he was keen to fit in, to prove himself. He had struck me as being proud of Shamil, deeply loyal to Malak. Still, I knew that ache to belong. When you’re young, it could drag you against your better judgement.

  I wrote the report that night. I could not put it off any further. On Friday morning I dithered before emailing it to Iain. Three hours later I clicked the send button. Then I waited for something to happen. I wanted something to happen. A penalty. Not this silence. Sometimes we do get what we want. My mobile phone rang. It was Grusha from Sudan. I had previously texted her so that we would stay in touch. Although she said the same thing she had said before – ‘Your father is getting worse. Can you come and see him?’ – this time I answered differently. I said yes, I would be there as soon as I could.

  My request for compassionate leave was granted. Now that Iain had his report he inclined towards generosity. There was one more week to go before the holidays. Fiona would take over my hours of invigilation. As always, because her output was poor, he threw every extra administrative and teaching task onto her.

  I was just heading out for lunch when I found a voicemail message. ‘Natasha, it’s Malak. I’m back home, not in Glasgow. Oz was released yesterday. We’re home now. He’s not talking to me. He’s not leaving his room. He won’t eat … I don’t know what to do. Can you come over? Maybe he’ll talk to you.’

  I drove to Brechin straight away. I still had time before I needed to catch the overnight train to London. I was lucky with the traffic. Oz was innocent and that made me smile to myself. I had sensed the relief in Malak’s voice despite the concern. The countryside was still covered in snow. It ceased to amaze and was now part of the landscape as if it had always been there. I counted the days Oz had been held – eleven. They must have felt longer to him.

  Malak opened the door. She was pleased to see me and her warm welcome lifted my spirit. ‘It took you no time to get here,’ she said. ‘Easy and smooth.’ This house had cause for celebration but she spoke in hushed tones, as if there was someone ill inside.

  ‘We came back yesterday,’ she explained. ‘I hired a car because he refused to take the train. He said he didn’t want to be around people. All the way in the car, he lay in the back seat. He wouldn’t speak to me. He said he wanted to sleep but I could tell he wasn’t asleep. I could tell he was just tense, staring in the dark. I put on the radio and he shouted at me to turn it off. Rudely. Not like himself at all. Then when we came back, he wouldn’t eat dinner. He wouldn’t shower. He just went to his room and stayed there. I knock, he doesn’t answer. But he is there. I hear him moving around. I eavesdropped.’ She ran her hand through her hair. She looked like she too hadn’t slept well.

  ‘You have to look after yourself,’ I said to her. ‘How can you take care of him, if you are in a state?’

  She shook her head. ‘I need to take the rented car back into town. And the day after tomorrow I have to fly to London to record a radio play. How am I going to leave him like this?’

  ‘He’s had a bad experience. Give him time. Why don’t you grab yourself a bite to eat and I’ll stay here while you take the car back into town.’

  ‘Thank you, Natasha. I’ll pick up a few groceries for him too.’

  I left her in the kitchen and went upstairs. I knocked on the door of his room. ‘Oz, it’s me, Natasha.’

  There was no sound from inside. Perhaps he was asleep. I stood at the door not sure what to do next. Then I heard him moving, getting up from the bed, walking around. I knocked again. ‘Oz, I know you’re not feeling well. But do you think you’re up to coming downstairs and lying down on the sofa for a bit? I’ll wait for you downstairs. Your mum is just going into town for a bit.’

  In the sitting room, I sat staring at the empty space on the wall where Shamil’s sword had been. The sun shone at an acute angle low in the sky. A flash of brilliance before the early darkness.

  Oz came down in his pyjamas, wrapped in a blanket. Unshaven, his hair greasy, streaks of dark skin under his eyes. He sat on the sofa, drew his feet up underneath him and bunched up under the blanket. He lowered his head.

  I told him about my father being ill and how I was going to Sudan. I spoke about the weather. He listened to me or at least to my voice. He emitted anger and some bewilderment.

  When he finally spoke, he said, ‘I’m not going back to uni. If that’s why you’re here.’

  It seemed an odd thing to say. I chose my words carefully. ‘There is no rush to go back to uni. You’ve missed the first week of the exams and I wouldn’t advise you to try and sit for the second week. What you would need to do is fill out an Extenuating Circumstances form –’

  ‘Extenuating circumstances!’ He looked straight at me for the first time and gave a forced laugh. ‘Oh yes, I was just pulled in for a whole ten days of fucking questions. One stupid question after another. They locked me up in a tiny room. I couldn’t even sleep. They were watching me every single minute of the day, writing things down, every little thing I said or did …’ He stopped abruptly and looked out of the window. A bird had flown past and made him nervous.

  ‘What sort of questions did they ask you?’
>
  ‘Don’t you start asking me questions! That’s what Malak was doing and I can’t stand it. One question after the other. What did they feed you? What did they say? What did you do to make them suspicious? I don’t want to answer any more questions. Enough.’ He put his head back on his bunched-up knees.

  ‘You are out now,’ I said. ‘They’ve released you without charge. This is excellent.’ I tried to sound pleased or at least grateful. The room was getting darker.

  He spoke without looking up and his voice was muffled. ‘I shouldn’t have been there in the first place.’

  ‘You’ve had a terrible experience. In time you will get over it. A few weeks’ rest and recuperation is what you need. You can even take the next semester off. Why not? Just start the new academic year fresh in September.’

  He shook his head, threw the blanket on the floor and stood up. ‘I’m not going back there.’ He headed towards the kitchen. I heard him rummaging in the fridge then slamming shut the door of the microwave. ‘Good,’ I thought. ‘At least he is starting to eat.’

  I drew the curtains and switched on the lights. These were the shortest days of the year.

  2. LONDON, DECEMBER 2010

  I went to the Sudanese Embassy to get a visa. My Sudanese passport had expired years ago and I never renewed it. I actually didn’t even know where it was. Lost over the years. In one move or the other. In it my name was Natasha Hussein. But on everything else – my British passport, my Russian passport, my driving licence, PhD – I had a different surname. In the spatial details of the embassy, in its hue, tones and pace my planned destination started to take shape. Men who spoke like my father, a woman in a tobe coming in to renew her passport, pictures of the Nile on the wall, younger versions of Tony waiting to collect their visas. A certain casualness, a slower tempo, a difference that made me, for the first time, excited to be travelling.

  ‘Your visa will take four to six weeks.’

  I was taken aback. ‘But I need to go now. My father is seriously ill.’

  ‘Are you Sudanese?’

  Why ask such a difficult question?

  ‘When was the last time you were there?’

  ‘Twenty years ago.’

  I also, they said, needed a sponsor. On Cleveland Row, I called Grusha. She told me not to worry. She said that Yasha could pull a few strings for me at my end. I was to fill out the form and wait a few days in London.

  In my hotel room I surfed for news of Oz’s release without charge. His arrest had been a news item; would his release also be one? There was nothing among the snow warnings, cancelled flights and delayed trains. I had been lucky to get here. Instead a news item from Sudan caught my eye, a video posted on YouTube of a woman being whipped by the police. She is unrestrained in her cries, pleading and shuffling on her knees, raising her arms uselessly to obstruct the blows. A small crowd watches. The scene is slow and saturated in humiliation, a world removed from valour or decency. The policeman is laughing at this vocal plaything rolling on the ground; the sun shines on his blue uniform and on the white of a nearby parked car. I don’t want to go there.

  I spent the following day at the National Archives among the correspondence of the Foreign Office. Here was the response of the British ambassador in Turkey to the news of the kidnapping: ‘Shamil is a fanatic and a barbarian with whom it would be difficult for us … to entertain any credible or satisfactory relations.’ Lord Clarendon, the foreign secretary, certainly agreed, calling it an ‘atrocious and revolting outrage’. This was the end of British support for Shamil. His reputation, strong in the previous decades, was shattered. The admiration he had roused after Akhulgo turned to disgust. Did he guess this would happen? Did he care? Or was Jamaleldin more important to him? I might never know.

  As I left the archives, I ‘heard’ my mother talk about shopping. She had loved London, loved Harrods. And now the city went on without her. Of course it did. The whole world had. On Oxford Street I joined the Christmas shoppers, looked at the window displays, wondering if I should buy new Sudan-friendly clothes, but I did not want to be stuck with them if my visa didn’t come through. Instead I bought gifts for Grusha and Yasha; I bought a dressing gown for my father. I could post them if I ended up not going.

  With time on my hands, I called Malak. She asked me to meet her tomorrow in the Starbucks near the BBC. She would be finished by six, she said. I got there before her and waited for quite a time. She came in looking tired and distracted after a whole day of recording. She said she was playing the part of a Jewish postmistress in 1940s Poland but did not give more details. ‘It was hard to leave Oz though he insisted he would be fine,’ she said, sitting back in the sofa, the mug huge in her hands. She was wearing layers of grey and blue, loosening the scarf around her neck, pulling strands of her hair behind her ears.

  ‘He needs a good rest,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I lost my temper with him, though. I shouldn’t have but I did.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He told me he wanted to leave and join his father in South Africa. Give up his studies, give up his whole life here. Just up and go!’

  ‘What’s he going to do there?’

  ‘He doesn’t know. He hasn’t thought about it.’

  ‘He’ll come to his senses. Give him time.’

  ‘He’s not thinking things through. As if the authorities won’t be watching him! He’s been given a police warning against accessing prohibited materials online. Why suddenly leave the country? That would raise their suspicions!’

  We fell silent after that. I ate more of my cake.

  Malak sighed. ‘I am the one being asked the questions now.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘The money I send to my relatives in Chechnya.’ She put on an accent. ‘It better not be funding terrorism.’ She was more rattled about this than she was letting on. It was in the way she held her mug, the slight tremble of her lips before she bent her neck down to sip her latte.

  And here I was with my laptop still held by the anti-terror squad, applying for a visa to a pariah state. We were both tainted.

  Should we swap reassurances or bolster our defences? Quickly she had swapped roles. From the optimistic ‘activist mum campaigning for release of her son’ to the shadows of being under suspicion. Here she was saying, ‘I can see this unravelling. My dinner invitations drying up, even the offers of roles dwindling ever so slowly without knowing exactly why. Not much needs to be said, does it? One day you are okay, strong and acceptable and then, just like that, everyone turns their back. If I didn’t have my faith, I would go mad. If I didn’t believe that I was following my destiny, I would …’ She stopped abruptly.

  ‘I think you are being unduly pessimistic,’ I said, trying to convince myself.

  ‘But I never am,’ she laughed. ‘All my life I have been hugely optimistic. I have gone ahead with loads of energy, loads of goodwill. Until now. I am stumped. I stay up at night wondering about Oz’s future. Will he get through this? I don’t know what is going on in his head right now. Will he give up on uni? Will this brand him for life and be on his records? Will he lose his faith or his mind?’

  ‘He is young, he will get over it,’ I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

  ‘He had a narrow escape,’ her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘But what about the others out there? The ones who are really guilty. What do I know about them? As long as the threat is there, there will always be suspects being pulled in.’

  ‘What would Shamil have done?’

  She smiled and sat back. ‘I wonder.’ She took a sip of her drink. ‘He would have seen through these militants – that they “fulfil neither a contract nor a covenant. That they call to the truth but they are not its people”. He would have gone after the hate preachers who say to the young men of this day and age, “go out and make jihad”.’

  Interesting that, from her point of view, the leader of one of the longest and most significant jihads
in modern history would, if he were alive today, be a supporter of the War on Terror. Unlike Shamil and his highlanders, radical Islamist organisations were inspired by Hegel and Marx, their inner workings ticked along the lines of Trotskyist parties in their suppression of dissent and critical opinion. No wonder that the founders of Political Islam, those revolutionary elite who turned their backs on tradition and worked towards a perfect society, never took Shamil as a role model. Al-Qaeda was a modern phenomenon, with no patience for Shamil’s traditional spirituality and utter contempt for the choices he made at the end of his career.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Malak. ‘Shamil would have gone after these bigoted preachers. But I don’t have his credibility. No Muslim would listen to me. I got some hate mail when Oz’s case was mentioned in the newspaper and someone made the connection. “You slut,” he or she wrote. “Serves you right for taking off your clothes just to entertain the British public.” I don’t know what that’s about. I’ve never done a nude scene in my life!’

  ‘Eat,’ I said, pointing to the sandwich she had only nibbled at. Eating was a solution of sorts.

  She smiled and sounded like her normal self again. ‘The only good thing out of all this is that I’ve lost my appetite.’

  Malak invited me to go to a zikr with her. She said that she always attended this particular one when she was in London. It was performed by the same Sufi tariqat that Imam Shamil had belonged to. I agreed to join her for anthropological reasons. The confrontation with religious belief and practice faced every modern historical researcher. We, staunchly secular and sure of ourselves, plunged into politics and economics, ideology and warfare, power and pressures, then hit against the faith of the characters we were studying. The prayer book Anne Boleyn was reading during her last days in the Tower, Genghis Khan bowing in thanks to the sacred Burkhan Khaldun mountain and now, for me, Shamil’s Sufism. I had read how the captives in Dargo heard the chants coming from Shamil’s apartments when such gatherings took place. To Madame Drancy (who put her fingers in her ears and cried out that she’d had enough) the zikr had sounded like a repetitive song in chorus, a chant of ‘la ilaha illa Allah’ accompanied by a movement that increased in rapidity until it reached a climax then stopped to restart again with a different phrase, ‘astaghfir Allah’ or peace and blessings on the Prophet Muhammad.