There was a heaviness in my chest when I thought of them. They hadn’t been good parents and I hadn’t been a good daughter to them. Still, regret was neither attractive nor dignified. My father had sounded pathetic on the phone, wild even. ‘I shouldn’t have let another man support my own flesh and blood,’ he had also said. ‘I made a mistake.’ And what happened when mistakes couldn’t be rectified? Where did one go? To what? To whom? From outside came the sound of a car screeching to a halt, horns and a few shouts. My skin felt more sensitive than usual, my eyes prone to tears; all was vivid and louder. I decided to go out for a walk.
The pavements were narrow and broken and sometimes there was no pavement at all. Toyota pickups zoomed past me. Motorcycles, vans and more four-wheel-drives. Tea ladies sitting in a row. A man stared at me, the whites of his eyes almost yellow. He was squatting in front of a mechanic’s yard doing nothing. Rubbish piled on the side of a street; broken chairs stacked on top of each other. Too much struck me as incongruous. A donkey stood in the middle of a dusty street corner with no purpose or owner in sight – I stopped and, like a tourist, took a picture of it with my phone. But I was not wandering aimlessly; I wanted to find Tony’s old house. I wanted to see the metal railing with the cut-out letters of the alphabet. If it was still there, if the garden wall hadn’t been changed, then I wanted to look at it again. It would be a long walk by my reckoning, but I had nothing else to do and would rather not get on the wrong transport.
The city was larger than I remembered it to be. It stretched out, amorphous and repetitive with the supreme heat of the sun hanging down like a low ceiling. I started to sweat and lost focus. My thighs rubbed against each other; gritty sand entered my sandals and chaffed against my skin. But I did not want to give up and return. I needed to see the alphabet railing, that façade that entered my childhood and changed me. Crossing one street after the other, I was unfit and my memory was playing tricks on me. I should be there by now.
Suddenly I found myself in front of the Russian Embassy. Its flat exterior, large, solid and unwelcoming. It was exactly as it had been when I was young except for the change in the name board. It was as if time hadn’t passed and I was back holding my mother’s hand; she had come to renew our passports. The Russian official looked down at me, not with the open curiosity I usually triggered in Georgia but with a knowing look, a thin sneer, veiled disgust. Then my mother’s sudden impatience, the pressure of her hand on my arm yanking me outside. She carried me all the way to the car even though I was big enough to walk; she kissed me and hugged me and I wasn’t sure what it was that made her feel so sorry for me, but I was happy to be the centre of her attention.
I stopped to ask directions. My rudimentary Arabic made the girl snigger; I tried English and she shrugged. She had no idea what I was talking about. I was the only woman in the street with my head uncovered. An army truck lumbered past full of uniformed soldiers. I turned the corner and there was a pickup truck with a gun aiming at the traffic. It was as if another civil war was about to erupt. My T-shirt was soaked with sweat, my head pounded from the sun, my eyes watered. I acknowledged that I was lost and the most dignified thing to do was to retrace my steps, have a shower and wait for my hosts. I was sure that my feet were covered in blisters.
Late afternoon, before sunset, Grusha and I walked into my father’s house. When I had lived here, there was nothing around it but dust and a few scattered villas. Now the whole area was built up, the gardens mature, the newish streets already eaten away by potholes. In my memory the work on the house was still incomplete, it was without adequate flooring, without paint on the walls. Now it was completely unrecognisable. From the outside it looked brand new, ostentatious even. Floor-to-ceiling windows tinted blue, a modern façade and a tiled, spacious porch.
In the shade, a young boy was lounging in a large garden chair, an electronic tablet in his hand. To my surprise, he stood up when he saw us and held out his hand. True, he did all this with reluctance and apathy but still it was an impressive show of politeness. I liked him immediately. ‘This is Mekki,’ Grusha said and the pleasure I felt was thick and visceral. I looked at his forehead that was like mine, his eyes that were not, his skin that was darker. But I knew, instinctively, before he even spoke that his mind was like my mind and that we were both, mentally, introspectively, like our father.
‘I am your sister, Natasha,’ I said, in English because if this was one of the happiest sentences I ever said in my life, I wanted to say it in a language I was comfortable in.
His eyes widened and he was no longer bored, no longer wanting to get back to his game. He said, ‘My sister Natasha.’ His accent was heavy and his smile was one to treasure. This was love at first sight and I wanted to hug him.
He put his tablet on the chair and asked, ‘Do you live in Russia?’
‘No, in Scotland.’
‘Scotland,’ he repeated.
It didn’t seem to matter what he said or what I said. Just this connection was enough. ‘You must come and visit me,’ I said. ‘You would have a great time. I promise you.’
He listened to me describe the sights he would see, the snow, the castles, ski slopes and football matches. Suddenly I was desperately selling the idea of a visit. He listened, his eyes shining and dimming, a few nods, a few smiles. I kept on speaking until Grusha said, ‘Let us go inside to pay respects to Safia and then you two can talk later.’
Indoors the furniture was grotesque, huge and gilded. The house seemed to be full of women. Apparently the men’s period of condolence had come to an end and now my stepmother was only receiving women visitors. She was younger than I thought she would be. Mid-forties perhaps, striking-looking, even though she was wearing a plain white tobe. Her complexion was rough but here were the slanting attractive eyes Mekki had inherited. ‘I’ve never really got on with her,’ Grusha had said on the way. ‘But she is a very capable woman.’
I greeted my stepmother, still hazy from meeting Mekki, already wanting to be with him again. When Grusha introduced me, Safia launched into a monologue, soft at first but then her voice rose. I could not understand what she was saying. The Arabic words bounced off me. I strained to distinguish them from one another, to pin them down to a meaning. I understood the phrase, ‘her mother’ and concluded that, perhaps, she was not talking to me directly but performing for her friends. They were taken aback, I could tell. She was sounding more and more hostile. A few elderly ladies started to intervene. She ignored them. One of them led me and Grusha out to another, adjoining room. ‘Safia is upset,’ she explained. ‘She doesn’t know what she is saying.’
Grusha and I sat in that other, smaller room. There was a large television set and a pair of men’s glasses. My father’s. There were shelves of books, some in Russian. Who would read them now? There was a walking stick leaning against the door; it was made from warm, high-quality wood. Grusha looked distressed and I assumed it was because she understood everything Safia had said. I wanted to ask her, but my father’s room overwhelmed me. Newspapers folded up, a box of cigars, a bottle of cologne. A large print of Vladimir Tretchikoff’s Zulu Girl was hanging on the wall. I remembered gazing at this print when I was young. I was a fan of Madonna then and the Zulu Girl did not fit into my idea of beauty. Perhaps if I had stayed I would have matured more fully. Perhaps my father could have taught me a thing or two. The room had a bed in one corner with no cover, just a pillow and a sheet. He must have stretched there and watched television.
I stood up to look at the bookshelf more closely. Here was the very same paperback of Love Story I remembered my mother reading, with Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw on the cover. Here was a box with my Bambi puzzle. We had left these things behind knowing we were going to find better replacements. How had he felt, all alone, seeing what reminded him of us? I picked up a copy of Hadji Murat – he had read it. I would have liked to talk to him about it, especially to discuss Tolstoy’s depiction of Shamil. I flipped the pages and found that my father h
ad underlined certain lines and words. Perhaps he read it at a time when he was trying to improve his Russian. I turned to see Safia standing at the door. Another torrent of words but this time the gestures were clear enough: ‘Get out of my house.’
In the car Grusha repeated, in Russian, the gist of Safia’s outburst. This and what she explained about my father’s material circumstances at the time of his death clarified the picture.
My father struck lucky in the last years of his life. He worked with a Chinese petroleum company during the oil boom (likely to come to an end if the South, where most of the oil was, decided to secede in next month’s referendum) and he made quick, good money. With it, he revamped the house that I remembered as being half-built with dirt-cheap materials. It used to be in the middle of nowhere, and was now, as I had witnessed, in a popular desirable suburb. Given that my father had passed away, this perfectly decent estate would be divided, as Yasha later explained, according to Sharia law, in descending order of proportions between Mekki, myself and Safia.
I looked back at the scene that took place in the afternoon, furnishing it with what I now knew. Safia the bereaved widow is sitting in her nice house surrounded by relations and friends. In walks her husband’s daughter, having just bonded outdoors with her half-brother. After twenty years of absence, after discarding her father’s name, after moving further and further away from any semblance of Sudanese identity, this Natasha Wilson has a greater share of the roof that is over Safia’s head. It is this that infuriates her. It is this that causes her outburst. ‘Now you are coming back?’ she says to me in Arabic. ‘After it’s too late. Where were you when he was ill? Where were you all these years? You disowned your father. Just like that. You don’t want his name any more. What does it say in your passport? It doesn’t say Natasha Hussein any more. But why should we expect any better of you? Your mother was a slut and you’re no better. Don’t think we don’t hear the rumours about you. Don’t think we are simple-minded and gullible. You certainly aren’t getting a welcome, not from me.’
If I had understood Safia when she said all this to me, I would have felt more hurt. Instead her Arabic words swept over me only as harsh and as irritating as sand. Hearing them translated by Grusha, they remained somewhat at a distance. My only concern was how all this would affect seeing my brother, Mekki, again. My brother. The words had a clarity to them, an awesomeness that stood out in contrast to everything else.
2. GEORGIA, MARCH 1855
For her very first dinner in freedom, David made sure that the garrison’s kitchen cooked Anna’s favourite food. It was, though, the napkins and candles that held her attention, the sensation of sitting on a chair at a dining table; all the mundane things she used to take for granted, were now to be singled out and either appreciated or silently ridiculed. Earlier they had gone to the fortress church to give thanks. It was a relief to do so, her whole body ached; the service was a medley of sounds and sights that were soothing and undemanding. Only when it was time to receive the small triangular holy bread did she start to feel moved by her surroundings. Next to her was David, a stranger who cared about her, who hovered close watching her every movement, her every response. She shied away from his masculinity, from his intent to claim her, and clung instead to Alexander. He was real enough, familiar enough. They would always share this bond. Everyone was saying he was young enough to forget all that had happened but she did not want him to forget Dargo. If he forgot the strangeness of it, who else could she talk to?
Madame Drancy wept and was extravagant in extolling her thanks to the whole of the Russian army. The governess spoke volumes to the officers who asked questions, who wanted intelligence. She elaborated on the position of Dargo, on details of the aoul, on Shamil’s house. Anna, next to her, corroborated the information, jogged her memory, mentioned the map she had drawn. There was no alternative. Inside her shadows could shift over layers of secrets, the mind’s eye could glance sideways and glimpse other possibilities, as different and as similar as a foreign language, but it was now clear on whose side she belonged, whose loyalty she was committed to. Let Madame Drancy speak; no power could stop her. Describe the specific peaks they had seen from the roof, how many sentries manned each portal, describe the twists and turns they encountered on the way down. Let these good soldiers jot down their notes and do their work. Years later when Dargo was bombed and flattened to the ground, Anna would remember these conversations, the information passed from her and Madame Drancy to the enemies of Shamil.
‘What happened to Alexander’s hair?’ David asked. They were alone now for the first time, watching their son fall asleep. Tomorrow they would start their travels, make their way home to Tiflis. This bedroom was temporary; it was the same one David had shared with Jamaleldin.
With the lightest touch David stroked Alexander’s spiky hair. It rose up from his scalp, rougher than it had ever been. Alexander stirred but did not open his eyes.
‘They shaved it,’ Anna said slowly. The spread of food at dinner had disgusted her. She could only eat very little and now had indigestion. After eight months of abstinence, the smell of wine had gone straight to her head and after two sips she had given up. ‘It’s their custom this time of year – to make the children bald. Apparently it’s the only guaranteed way to protect them from lice and other infestation.’
‘Oh you must have suffered!’ He drew her to him. Their bodies fitted awkwardly. With the best of intentions, they embraced.
‘You suffered too,’ she said. He looked older than she remembered him to be, less confident. They had not spoken about Lydia yet. If they did, they would both weep. But she was there between them like a faint colour or a scent.
Even though the room was sparsely furnished, to Anna it seemed cluttered. Her sense of dimension, of bearings, had all been altered. David was larger than she remembered him to be, his uniform bulky – boots, spurs, gloves without elegance. She could not remember if he had always been that pushy and nervous; if his voice had always been this loud.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘I had almost forgotten about Madame Drancy until I saw her today. I thought to myself “Who on earth is this sitting next to Anna?”’
She smiled. ‘This is cruel of you. The poor woman was dragged into all this. And she was stoical. Incredibly polite, too, in the most tense of circumstances.’
‘She will have to go back to France now.’ He paused as if he wanted to say more. To mention their new straitened circumstances, perhaps. He was in debt and they could hardly afford a governess if they wanted to regain Tsinondali.
‘I am sure that she would be eager to go home to her family.’
‘Not until after we go to Petersburg, though.’
‘Why?’
‘To thank the emperor in person.’
‘Really, David?’
He put his hands on her shoulder. ‘It’s necessary.’
‘I’m so tired.’
His hand cupped her elbow. ‘There is no rush. We can wait for the summer. When you have regained your strength. Look at you! Wasted away.’ Anger crept into his voice.
She closed her eyes. They were unpalatable to her now – anger and revenge. They were too simple.
‘You were so calm during the exchange,’ he whispered. ‘One would think you were not happy to see me.’
She started to warm to him. ‘I was. Of course I was.’
Alexander sighed in his sleep and rolled over. She covered him and moved towards her husband feeling tight and needy, aloof and yet grateful, tainted and not sure what she was guilty of.
‘David,’ she said.
He looked up at her surprised, hesitant.
‘I am a princess in my own right.’
It took time for him to absorb what she was saying, to understand it in his own way. Then he knelt in front of her and kissed her hand.
3. THE CAUCASUS, MARCH 1855–APRIL 1856
The first days had a magical, honeyed quality. Turning to find Ghazi next to him, getting ac
customed once more to his voice. Such reassurance in the touch of his brother. And there was more – his younger brother Muhammad-Sheffi, a stranger who turned out to be mischievous, lovable, elusive. His sisters, artlessly beautiful, coming up to him, their eyes shining with trust and welcome. His grandmother, blubbering, caressing him, and he did remember her, her voice, her laugh, and her tilt of the head so like his late mother’s. With her, he could sense Fatima close, in this flesh and blood that was surrounding him, claiming him. And there was more. His father saying, ‘Let me hold you. I cannot have enough of you.’ Shots fired to celebrate his arrival and that of the returned prisoners. Cousins, friends. ‘I remember you when you were young,’ they laughed. ‘You look exactly like Ghazi but paler,’ they said and slapped him on the back. The sound of his name tossed about. His little crippled half-sister climbing on his lap. All this uninhibited love falling on him, voluminous and weighty.
He began to unfurl. Slowly. It was peculiar after all these years of hovering in the background to be thrust forward like this, to matter. To be the top man’s son, the celebrated warrior’s brother, to be gazed at and listened to. He began to speak and move. He began to talk about what he knew and what they didn’t.
The Kindness of Enemies Page 25