The Kindness of Enemies

1. SCOTLAND, DECEMBER 2010

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, to check out of the hotel, to get in the car and just drive. I had been unable to sleep and couldn’t bear any more the raspy blow of the heating, all the coughs and noises from the other bedrooms. My mind was switched on, uncontrollably scanning the events of the day. In the afternoon, the police had come to the university and checked my desktop; they searched my office and asked me question after question. On the titles of my papers, Royal Support for Jihad and Jihad as Resistance; on my political opinions, on my other nationalities and, of course, on Oz.

They sealed the entrance and though my colleagues were restrained in their curiosity, I shrank. Every step climbed, every achievement, every recognition — all that hard work — had not taken me far enough, not truly redeemed me, not landed me on the safest shore. The skin on my skull tensed so that I could not form a facial expression; even pushing my glasses up my nose felt strange, as if my skin was both numb and ultra-sensitive at the same time. To have your personal files examined, to reveal what is exceedingly intimate — a password and search engine history — felt a hundred times worse than having luggage examined at the airport. Perhaps Oz’s email to me was worth their search. I downloaded the al-Qaeda training manual from the US Justice Department website and I didn’t even have to pay for it! They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I could not bring myself to speak naturally to them. When they finally left, hours later, the corridors and rooms around me were empty. In the floor below, the sociology department were finishing up their Christmas party. I walked out of the building as if it was the end of just another ordinary week, as if I had not had my dignity shaken and my balance broken.

I drove into Aberdeen a little after 3 a.m. I crossed the dark river, its surface surprisingly still, like a creased sheet of metal. Orange streetlights on the black roads and the hidden white buildings. Despite the ice warning, I had been speeding all the way, enjoying the emptiness of the dual carriageway, overtaking one truck after another; Amy Winehouse on full volume, the heating just right. Now South Anderson Drive swept up ahead of me, the smooth curves of one roundabout after another. I owned the brightly lit road and could drive longer, all the way to Inverness and beyond. I slowed down, reluctant now to reach my destination, still without the pleasant tiredness that preceded sleep. Tony was not expecting me until Saturday afternoon but I had the key to the back door. I had kept it all these years and when I parked across the road I lingered in the car, remembering other homecomings. That early switch from new independence to entering the life Mum and Tony continued without me. The time I had come from the hospital stunned and still bleeding but I never told them why, just stayed in bed for a whole weekend. Fast forward to finding Mum ill and in her dressing gown, the evening I found her wearing a wig. Back to less dramatic times: coming home from a club on the night bus, the weather blustery, and fiddling with the back-door key, knocking my handbag against the wheelie bin. Birthdays that were boring, gaps between moving from one set of digs to the next, storing my things. A whole summer in which I worked in Waterstones and took driving lessons in long sunny evenings.

I let myself in through the back door into the kitchen. It looked messier and barer than in my mother’s time. A sudden pang of hunger made me open the fridge and sit at the table, still in my coat, helping myself to potato salad and cream crackers. My old room, now the guest room, was on the ground floor. I had liked that a lot, being downstairs by myself, away from the two of them, close to the kitchen, close to the road.

I rolled my suitcase into the room and decided to nip into the sitting room to see if Tony had some vodka in the cabinet. Then I heard a noise from upstairs. I was sorry I had woken him. The sound of a door opening, a whisper and I stepped into the hallway, stood at the foot of the stairs. Up on the landing he looked vulnerable, not at all as if he was about to confront an intruder. His longish grey hair was dishevelled, his pyjama trousers sagging. ‘It’s me,’ I called out loudly. ‘I’m sorry I woke you up, it’s just I had the worst night. That hotel …’ I stopped when I saw her behind him. For a minute my blood went cold. But it was not my mother, healthy and young again. Of course. It was the cleaner, Kornelia, in a satin nightdress.

I turned and headed towards my room. Tony shouted down after me, ‘You can’t do this! You can’t just barge in here in the middle of the night. Who the hell do you think you are? First thing in the morning you give me this key back, Natasha. Bloody inconsiderate.’

I heard the whisper of Kornelia’s soothing words, her accent. I imagined her holding his arm, pulling him back to bed. It turned my stomach. I stumbled into my room — something was on the floor blocking my way. It was only when I switched on the light that I saw that the room was full of boxes, suitcases and clothes. They covered the whole floor area without even a path to the bed. My mother’s things had been tossed into reusable shopping bags. Her cardigans, her shoes, her toiletries. Long evening dresses lay across the bed. Her fluffy slippers, a belt in leopard print, the belly-dancing outfit (she had taken classes at one time and purchased this on holiday in Istanbul), her curling tongs, hairdryer, fake fur, real silk. Photos of family members in Georgia, photos of me as a baby and at school, my graduation. Things from way back, I Can Make You Thin and things she had used at the very end — the wig, the hot-water bottle and the walking frame. A lifetime of possessions had been dumped here. A testament to a mania triggered by having financial access to shopping centres and channels after a communist upbringing. My poor mother who, as a child protégé in the Russian Olympic team, returned from the games in Rome with a doll, only to have it confiscated at the airport. She never got over the resentment, what she felt as a theft. But it was not dolls that she wanted when she came to Aberdeen, it was all this. What lay now before me, valuable rubbish. Tony could never have risen to this task by himself or even taken the initiative. It was Kornelia who had done it, I was sure, to evict every trace of my mother from the master bedroom.

For the first time since her death, I cried. I cried over the wasted time, conversations in which all I did was mock her accent and taste; time wasted in aching to be white like her and blaming her for the failure as if she were the one barring me from entry into a privileged world, as if she were begrudging me a gift she could give.

It was noon when I woke up, the pale light coming in through the curtains. The house around me was silent. I walked around and there was no sign of either Tony or Kornelia. In the kitchen I made myself breakfast and was annoyed that there was only one bun left in the bread bin. Where did this entitlement come from? It was as if I had regressed to a younger version of myself, lost my bearings, and was coming back expecting to recharge. But so far this was not the homecoming I expected. The things in the room were still there, even more numerous in daylight. The telephone rang and I picked it up. It was Grusha Babiker and I felt a sense of relief, as if she, from her home in Khartoum, was coming to my rescue. We had not spoken since my mother died. Now the words tumbled out of me; I told her about Kornelia, about my mother’s things dumped in my old room.

‘They are yours — you must not let this Kornelia take them. Listen to me, Natasha, you need to go over everything carefully. Take the valuable things and give the rest to charity. Do it now, do it today. You are actually lucky, you arrived just at the right time. That woman must have been plotting to remove them out of the house and taking them downstairs was just the first step.’

I managed to laugh at her paranoia, her willingness to think badly of Kornelia. What did I know about her? She was the only cleaner Mum hadn’t found fault with. We bumped into her once at the Bon Accord Centre, all decked out, almost unrecognisable. Her English kept getting better with time. She had a son in Torry Academy and a husband still in Warsaw. Every Christmas she gave Tony and Mum a box of chocolate liqueurs.

‘Tony is gullible,’ Grusha was now saying. ‘I’ve always said that about him. A simpleton where women are concerned.’ She knew things about him from way back before he met my mother. I had heard variations of these ‘Tony, the playboy of Khartoum’ stories before. ‘But really, now, he could do better,’ she concluded.

I agreed with her and promised to deal with my mother’s belongings. It was my responsibility after all. I should have done it months ago. But this was not why she was calling. ‘I tried your mobile,’ she said. ‘The number that Tony gave me. But it was off. For days now. So I am really happy to find you at last. Not that I have good news. Your father is not well, Natasha, and he is asking about you. If you can’t come then at least phone him, Skype with him in hospital. It would mean so much for him just to hear your voice, just to know that you are well. He is proud of you.’

Anger made my neck stiff, my voice impatient to end the conversation. I decided to change the subject. ‘How is Yasha?’

She seemed taken aback, her voice distant as if she was thinking of something else. ‘He’s busy, you know. More and more, he is involved in human rights abuses and with these recent upheavals there’s been more for him to do and more cases to defend. I will tell him you asked after him.’

Galvanised by this conversation, I rolled up my sleeves and started to work. Immediately I found what I badly needed, a laptop and a mobile phone. I could get myself a temporary pay-as-you-go SIM card, I could download my work from a USB onto this laptop. An hour later Tony found me cross-legged on the floor, still sifting through things, but I had already filled three black bin liners ready to give away.

He stood at the door of the room. It seemed he was alone, but I was not going to ask him about Kornelia. ‘If we pack my car and yours,’ I said, ‘we could take the bags to a charity shop.’

‘Sure.’ He looked surprised but also relieved that I was doing all this.

‘Unless you have something else in mind?’ I folded a purple dress. I folded a pair of leggings.

‘No. It’s got to be done.’ His shoulders were slumped but he looked better because he had gone for a haircut.

‘Remember,’ I picked up a deep red velvet dress. ‘She wore this not last Christmas but the year before.’

He shook his head and stepped into the room, sat on the bed. ‘Keep it. Don’t give it away.’

At least he had stopped saying, ‘I’m gutted.’ I must have heard him say it a hundred times. On and on like a mantra. ‘I’m gutted, Natasha.’

I stood up to try on a black jumper. It looked baggy enough to fit me. Just about. A large A5 envelope caught Tony’s attention. He extracted it from the box it had been thrown into, pushed down by a travel pillow.

‘X-rays,’ he said. ‘That time she twisted her ankle in Prague. We had it X-rayed. Do you have a bag for rubbish?’

I pointed to the one nearest the window. He dropped the envelope into it and turned back to pick up the travel pillow. ‘I suppose I could use this, no?’

‘Of course,’ I said. ‘The more you keep the better. I just thought you had gone through all this stuff?’

‘No,’ he said, rummaging inside a shoulder bag. ‘Kornelia did it all.’

Now that her name was mentioned there was an opportunity for him to expound. But I sensed a weariness in him and I accepted it. He did not owe me an apology or an explanation.

‘Would Naomi like these?’ I pointed to a pile of fitness-related things — a Slendertone Abs Belt, a power ball, pieces from a dumbbell set.

‘Yes, I think she would. She said she might drop by tomorrow on her way into town for more shopping.’ He was beginning to systematically look through the box nearest to him.

Naomi was a good ten years older than me. I had always looked up to her and she was generous, giving me time and encouraging my studies. Often I did things to impress her, feeling that she knew more than me, that she had an edge and access to privileges that were beyond my reach. If she was not who she was, down-to-earth, accessible, without malice, I would have envied the uncomplicated way she got on with her life, the sense of rootedness and belonging that was out of my grasp. I would even have envied her closeness to Tony. ‘Will the boys come with her?’ I asked him now.

‘Not this time.’ Tony adored his grandchildren. I had never seen him happier than when he was playing football with them in the back garden or taking them out for the day.

‘Look,’ he said, holding out a large baby doll dressed in a white christening dress. I had never seen it before. ‘I bought it for her on eBay,’ he said and smiled. ‘Vintage 1960s. To substitute the one that got confiscated at the airport.’

‘You knew that story too?’

‘Yes, she told me she never got over it. It still made her angry. She had felt chuffed with herself, participating in the Olympic Games in Rome, coming home to a special welcome; instead they confiscate her new doll at the airport. So I got her to describe the doll and we went online together so that she could show me what it looked like. She didn’t imagine I would actually buy one for her until it came in the post.’ He tilted the doll and the eyelids with their thick lashes closed over the blue eyes. The hair was also plastic, shaped as if it were combed back. ‘Do you want it, Natasha? She would have liked you to have it.’

He held it out for me and even as I took hold of one hard, chubby arm, I felt a stab of irrational dislike. A familiar envy. Yes, this was the baby my mother would rather have had, creamy pink with blue eyes, a child with blonde hair that she could comb straight and pat down, not me.

We worked together, Tony and I, until it became dark outside. We packed the two cars and headed into town, braving the Christmas rush. We made it in time to the charity shop before it closed. Buoyed by a sense of achievement we decided to go for a drink and a bite to eat. It was not easy to find two parking spots but we managed in the end. The road in front of the vodka bar was thronged with a farmers’ market. Various stalls sold cheeses, organic vegetables and fish. It seemed like a long time before we were seated with a menu in our hands.

Near the end of the meal Tony said, ‘Yesterday I went to my solicitor and changed my will. I had to because of how everything is different now. I’ve left the house to the two lads with Naomi as their executor in case they are not yet of age before my time comes. If I don’t overstay my welcome and spend left, right and centre, there will be a bit of cash left over for you.’

The house had been in his name, never my mother’s. I swallowed, thinking that the former playboy of Khartoum would indeed find himself spending left, right and centre, especially if Kornelia started to make demands.

‘Thank you, Tony, for all you have done for me,’ I said flatly, wishing that he would not want to be thanked. But he did. I saw it in the way he put down his knife and fork and sat back. I managed a few more sentences, a more genuine show of gratitude. Something was slipping away from me, an opportunity I had never acknowledged as such.

The next morning Tony went swimming at his gym and I read the Sunday papers. It was there, why shouldn’t it be, pared down, words standing up thin on the page like spikes. A twenty-one-year-old man is being held at a high-security area of Glasgow’s Govan police station after officers raided a property near Brechin on Thursday. His arrest is understood to be related to downloading radical Islamist material.

He should not have been downloading material. He was looking into weapons used for jihad. That’s what he told me.

After lunch, Tony suggested we visit the Garden of Remembrance in Hazelhead. We walked around but the atmosphere was heavy, toxic. We did not stay long. ‘I don’t think I will come again,’ he said when we got back into the car. And I felt the same way. He dropped me back at the house and stayed away most of the afternoon. It felt strange without my mother, as if the house was full of her and drained of her at the same time. It struck me for the first time as strange that we always went to Naomi’s for Christmas dinner. Why didn’t they come to us? It must have been a throwback to Tony’s time in Khartoum. He would come for a short holiday and spend it at Naomi’s house in Fraserburgh. Even after he married Mum and after they moved to Aberdeen, he kept the same habit. Perhaps Mum wasn’t confident of pulling off a British Christmas dinner. Perhaps she didn’t mind falling into his regular routine.

Naomi didn’t drop by as promised and I was disappointed. I had always liked her because she was not presumptuous. She had a talent for accepting others as they were, on their own terms. Tony must have been like that in Khartoum — no wonder he was popular. When I went into the kitchen to make dinner, I overheard him talking to Naomi on the phone. I burnt the onions hearing him mention in the same breath Kornelia and Christmas in Fraserburgh.

‘I don’t want her to be there,’ I said when he put the phone down. ‘This is the first Christmas without Mum. It’s not right.’

I had misjudged. His anger was swift, as if it had been building up all weekend. His voice rose sharp as a slap and everything he said was the truth, no exaggerations, no lies. ‘Listen, you can’t suddenly turn up and tell me what to do. I call you and you don’t pick up, you don’t get back to me. Where were you when your mother was in hospital, when she needed you, when I needed you? She was dying, for God’s sake, and you just went on with your selfish life. I had to practically beg you to come up for the funeral. So now back off and let me do what I like.’

Early the next morning, I let myself out quietly and pushed my key through the letter box. My car was full of those things of my mother’s I had decided to keep. When I stopped for petrol, the clock in the shop showed 5.50 a.m. I bought a new SIM card, a buttery and the new edition of Classic Car. I was going to visit Malak on the way. This was how I got through the night, thinking of her and her house and how good I had felt staying with her and Oz, like I was worth something and we were ringed by wider spaces, the past, the future, the Caucasus, the Grampians, my memories of Khartoum. It should not have ended, not in the way that it did. I had not been able to speak to her since the police took our phones. Now I wanted more news of Oz. And she always got up early to pray so I would not be disturbing her.

It was a little after dawn when I parked in front of her house. Without the snow, the fields and the house itself looked bleak. She came out of the front door or at least it seemed to be her. Her appearance was noticeably different. Hair straight as a helmet, pencil skirt, leather jacket, boots reaching her knees. It was as if she was dressed for a part — what part, I wasn’t sure.

‘I thought you were the taxi,’ she said and explained that she was going to Glasgow for a few days.

I persuaded her to cancel the taxi booking and that I would give her a lift to the station. We went back indoors so that she could use the phone. I was grateful for those moments inside the house, to wander around and recharge myself. I was looking at the empty space on the wall where the sword had been, when she joined me. ‘My great grandfather said that he got it back from the Russians. This is the sword Shamil wanted to fight with until it was shattered into pieces. The fact that it is whole represents the sacrifice he made. The other day when Oz was playing with it in the snow, he wasn’t respecting it enough. He has — as I have — a heritage which is moral and thoughtful and merciful. Did he honour it? Or did he choose to go along with those who claim they’re acting in the name of Islam and at the same time don’t follow the principles of submission and restraint?’

I was taken aback. ‘You don’t believe he’s guilty, do you?’ Maybe she knew more than I did.

She tensed a little. ‘He’s involved. But I can’t be sure. It’s all moved online these days. You can do it all on a laptop — run a website, fundraise, send money abroad, post this and that. Search for whatever needs searching for. He’s ruined his life; how will he ever get out of this?’

She was not asking me a question. She went on, ‘Or I think “that little squirt ruined my life”. Because I forget he is old, I forget that to the world he is a man. I keep going back to when he was little, when he was nine, fifteen. My memory mixes all these versions of him together. And I feel the same anger that I felt for him when he muddied his brand new trainers or went out without locking the front door. Then I shake myself, this isn’t a prank … I keep going back over things he said, the way I brought him up. I don’t believe it. Except that I remember one time. There was something on the radio about a suicide bomber and he said “cool”.’ She looked down to the ground.

I could imagine him breathing the word without smiling, without intending to shock. ‘So what did you say to him?’ I asked.

‘I let it pass. We do that sometimes, we mums, we pretend not to hear.’

That stung. We mums. As if I would never find out, as if I would never be part of that group.

‘We bury our heads in the sand,’ she continued. ‘Because we are busy or we can’t be bothered to start an argument or because we can’t keep tabs on every little thing. And they do pass, these fads and moods. They go through phases. He went through a phase, I remember, of believing all these conspiracy theories about 9/11 — that it wasn’t Muslims that did it. I argued with him then, I talked him out of it, or at least I thought I did.’

I too had my misgivings about Oz. No situation at any given time is entirely new; the constraints and conversations are different, the fears are different, but still today is a ripple of former times, a version of what has been passed down. Supposing Oz was neither completely guilty nor completely innocent. Suppose he had done something wrong but that something might not be what he was arrested for, might not be what he would be punished for. And at the end of the day we would all accept what was happening. We would all have a rationale for it, a way of putting it into perspective.

I said, ‘We should go. I don’t want you to miss your train.’

She picked up the house keys. Her movements were a little nervous, her shoulders dropping. Despite the effort over her appearance, she looked the slightest bit gaunt, she looked her age. ‘I’ve got an appointment with a London lawyer who specialises in terrorist arrests. He’s coming up to Glasgow to meet me and talk to Oz. They haven’t charged him with anything yet.’

It was when she started talking about Oz that I guessed the part she was dressed up for: activist mum campaigning for the release of her son.

I gave her my new mobile number, she gave me her house phone and the number of the hotel she was staying at in Glasgow. We would be in touch from now on. I drove slowly, wanting her company but unable to tell her about the last few days.

‘I was in denial when he was first arrested,’ she said. ‘Then I told myself I have to help him in every way, every possible way. I have to get him out of this mess. I can’t just sit back and cry. What good would it do? Yes, it’s been a shock for me but it’s not about me now, it’s about him.’

Light was beginning to gather around us but below the clouds I could still see the full moon. It looked like a sun. ‘I haven’t spoken to him,’ she said in reply to my question. ‘They wouldn’t let me. And they wouldn’t let me take him anything. No change of clothes, no food, no nothing. I called his father in Cape Town.’ She sounded breathless, maybe because she was speaking too fast. ‘Instead of getting on the next plane, he says, “They might drag me into it and then what use would I be to him?” Can you believe it!’

Yes, I could believe it, but I kept my eyes on the road. She sighed and touched her forehead. ‘So I’m on my own now in this. But I know people in London. I know people in the media and in human rights groups and I am not going to take this lying down.’

We were inside Montrose now, passing the caravan park, empty now, nothing like in the summer. She said, ‘You don’t look well, Natasha. You look like you haven’t been sleeping properly.’

I told her about my flat and the nights in hotels. I told her why I couldn’t stay with Tony any more.

‘Come and stay with me,’ she said. ‘When I get back. I mean it.’

It touched me, this not unexpected invitation, but I would need somewhere closer to the university. I felt heavy with what I couldn’t tell her — the mistakes I had made; my conversation with Iain, all the reports I had written on the ‘vulnerable students’. I stopped the car in the parking bay of the train station. She undid her seat belt.

I wanted to tell her that the days I had spent with her and Oz were special. Days in which I needed neither drink nor medication. Days in which I liked myself — no, that was not what it was; it was days in which I was free of the burden of myself. Instead I blurted out, ‘Malak, I’ve committed a sin.’ Since when did I use such language! Gaynor’s pro-life leaflet had hit me where it hurt.

She laughed and turned towards me, touched my arm. ‘Only one? You’re lucky.’

I pressed my lips together. The impulse to confess passed.

Her voice changed. ‘Don’t do it again.’

I looked at her dark eyes, not fierce like Shamil’s, not as wise, not as profound, but still there was something weighty there, the smallest remnant of power, just for me. I asked her, ‘Don’t do what again?’

‘What you believe is a sin. And don’t even talk about it. Let it go. Many things in life are out of our control but our egos insist that they are leaders.’ She stepped out of the car, the first rays of sun making her hair gleam. ‘Better a sin that leaves us broken-hearted, than a virtuous act that puffs us up with pride,’ she quoted. In this small Scottish station there were, directed at her, a few glances of surprise, glances of not quite admiration but an acknowledgement of that special quality she carried.

2. DARGO, THE CAUCASUS, NOVEMBER 1854

In spite of the fog, she insisted on her regular walk on the roof. Exercise was the cure for her restlessness, the outdoors an escape from the smoky chimney, the sound of the wind banging the doors and windows. But today the mountains were not visible. Holding Alexander’s hand, they could only see a few feet in front of them. Enough for a slower than usual walk, not too brisk, not like the other time when they ran a race. It made them feel as if they were entirely alone, in the kind of privacy they had been accustomed to in their life in Georgia and were now, as captives, deprived of.

The fog thinned and Anna could see the curved edges of dense clouds trapped between the lower peaks. Then all became grey again. We could be anywhere, she thought. This silvery blindness was a neutral surface she could impose her imagination on. The garden in Tsinondali, Alexander in his summer hat. She must talk to him about home so that he did not forget. She must talk to him about his father.

But Alexander could not be pinned down to the subject of home. He surprised her by asking, ‘Is Baby Lydia in Heaven now?’

It had been a long time since he had mentioned his sister. ‘Yes,’ Anna replied. ‘Yes she is.’

‘Is she happy?’

‘Yes, she is well and happy.’ She squeezed her son’s shoulder. When he looked up, she bent down and gave him a kiss. It was a comfort to her that, despite everything, he was well and happy. Her own hair was falling out; all she had to do was run her fingers through it for strands to loosen and fall. Dampness had crept into her chest so that she often coughed and wheezed through the night. A heavy downpour the previous week had caused the courtyard to flood; all became mud and dirt, dankness a smell she couldn’t shake off. Since Shamil’s arrival, their food had increased but it continued to be unappetising and limited in variety.

‘Imam Shamil said he would let me ride his horse tomorrow,’ Alexander was saying. ‘If the weather is good. He really said that. He promised.’

‘Aren’t you afraid of him?’ She was a little. The stories his wives liked to recount of his mystical abilities made her nervous. At first she had mocked them saying, ‘If he were so holy, he would bring my daughter back to me,’ but the way he looked at her on the few times they met made her feel that he knew more than he should.

‘Why should I be afraid of him? He gave me sweets today,’ Alexander said. ‘He gave all the children sweets. We had to stand in line. And I got extra because I was a guest.’

‘Lucky you.’ She meant it. Sometimes the craving for toffees and chocolates made her dizzy. At other times she desired nothing, her body arid and flat as paper. In the Eid al Adha oxen and sheep were slaughtered and there was enough meat for all. But the smell of the meat had made her crave wine and the feast did not feel like a feast without it.

Alexander said, ‘When he is not speaking, he looks like a lion.’

‘So you are afraid of him?’ She could just make out the stairs, which meant they had come full circle. For the sake of variety, she switched sides with Alexander. He was now on her left.

‘No I’m not. A lion who is very quiet. You almost think he’s asleep.’

She smiled. ‘When did you ever see a lion?’

‘In a picture book.’

‘Poor Alexander, you must miss all your books and toys.’ She wanted him to talk about his playthings but he suddenly cried out because he had seen something that she couldn’t. He let go of her hand and surged into the milky space ahead. The sound of an unfamiliar laugh as Shamil lifted him up off the ground. This is what Anna could see now. Shamil, with one arm, holding Alexander up high. His hand supported her son’s chest. Alexander lifted his arms out to the side, his legs straight out behind him. ‘Look Mama, I’m flying like an eagle!’ She caught the pleasure in his voice and laughed out loud as Shamil bent so that Alexander swooped down and Shamil twisted and moved so that Alexander, the eagle, veered left and right, weightless and free.

When he put him down, gently in case he was dizzy, Shamil took out of his pocket a few pieces of dried fruit and gave them to Alexander. He turned to her and said, his Russian words carefully chosen, his accent familiar to her, ‘Would Anna Elinichna, Princess of Georgia, like some figs?’

She warmed to the way he addressed her. It had a meaning these days, in this place; it was necessary that who she was should be acknowledged. She liked figs too, but pride made her say, ‘No, thank you.’

Alexander wandered off with his mouth full. The fog thinned; he spotted the sentry and walked towards him.

‘Alexander and I have become friends,’ Shamil said.

‘Yes you have. In Georgia he used to hear that you eat Russian children.’

‘Raw or cooked?’

She smiled. ‘I am sure this particular rumour is untrue.’

‘What else have you heard about me?’

‘That you miraculously escaped more than once.’ She started to walk and he fell in step with her.

‘They are cumbersome and slow these Russians. Heavy-handed bombing, brute strength — that’s what they’re good at. But you are right. I escaped by the will of Allah Almighty; my abilities are not enough.’

‘Did you really jump over a line of soldiers who surrounded you, slashed two with your sword …’

‘Three,’ he corrected her.

‘… and then over a five-foot wall.’

‘Seven.’

‘With one leap?’

‘I was young then. What else?’

She flushed, sensing that she had been praising him and he was enjoying it. ‘That’s all. Do you keep your word?’

‘I do. And if my demands are met I will set you free.’

A coolness settled over her. He was reminding her of something she would rather have forgotten. But she was the one who had asked the question.

‘Does Anna, Princess of Georgia not believe me?’

She turned to look at him, beard, turban, worn-out coat; no weapons. ‘Yes, I believe you.’

‘Nothing has caused me so much pain as treachery. If the Russians would fight me honourably, I would not mind living the rest of my life in a state of war. But they tricked me; in Akhulgo they treated me like a criminal, not a warrior, and they sent my son far away to St Petersburg.’

She could imagine how he must have felt. It was not difficult. ‘My grandfather, George the twelfth, did not want to go to war. He did not want his children to live in a state of war. This is why he bequeathed Georgia to the tsar.’

‘Is that what you’ve been told? He had first wanted protection from the tsar but instead Georgia was annexed.’

‘For the sake of prosperity.’

‘Are you sure?’

As a child her instinct had been repelled by the loss of the Georgian throne; Georgia distinctive, whole, should not be swallowed up. Her questions were at first received with indulgent sighs and then disapproval — it was unbecoming for a young princess to express dissatisfaction with the king’s will. And so now she repeated to Shamil the answers she had received over the years. ‘My grandfather believed in progress. Progress meant following Russia. It meant education in the European manner. It meant change for the better.’

‘You do not sound convinced.’

‘My husband is more European than me. He often remarks that I am too Georgian, too traditional.’ She regretted the confidence immediately. It felt as if she had tripped.

He caught her in time. ‘Here in Dargo, you are more modern than any of us.’

She stopped walking. ‘I should not have said that about my husband. It was not my intention to sound disloyal.’

‘You are not disloyal.’

She nodded and moved briskly away, stumbled in the mist, scraped her shoulders against the wall, until she found the stairs.

In the evening Ameena tiptoed into her room. Her ankle bracelets jingled, the kohl rimmed around her eyes made them wider. ‘I will hide with you, Anna,’ she said. She had a gleeful smile on her face. It made her look like a child set on a prank. She drew the door behind her but left a crack open, flounced down on the floor and peered out. Anna joined her. She could see the entrance to Ameena’s room across the gallery. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Shush,’ giggled Ameena. ‘Wait and see.’

Anna saw Shamil approach Ameena’s room and knock on the door. Ameena shifted on her knees, breath held. Shamil stood in his long white coat, head bowed; he knocked again. Finding no response, he stood waiting at the door.

Anna whispered, ‘Why doesn’t he just walk in?’ The key was visible in the lock.

Ameena breathed in to supress a laugh. ‘He’s waiting for me to let him in.’

Time passed and yet there was no expression of impatience on Shamil’s face. He did not knock again on the door, he did not fidget or stamp his feet. Yet it must be cold to stand so still. Anna drew her shawl closer around her. She watch the breath come out of him like smoke.

‘I’m going to keep him waiting and waiting.’ Ameena’s voice was a pitch higher. Would he hear her, would he sense her? If so, Anna would rather she was not with Ameena, giving the false impression that she was her accomplice. She moved away from the door and went back to where she had been sitting on a cushion on the floor. Chairs were one of the things she missed but it no longer hurt her thighs to sit on the floor. Not like when she had first arrived — the pins and needles, the stiffness in standing up again.

Ameena turned and beckoned. Anna quickly took up her position behind the door again. She saw Shamil turn the key of the room but instead of unlocking it and walking in, he locked it, put the key in his pocket and walked in the opposite direction.

Ameena groaned. She was now locked out of her own room.

The following morning Alexander insisted that she accompany him to the goodbye gathering in the courtyard. Shamil was riding out to battle or so Anna assumed. He could be going to inspect troops or visit other aouls but she did not want to ask. Ameena was indiscreet and often let slip the kind of military information Anna should not know about, but the others were tight-lipped, Chuanat out of fear for his safety, and the snippets Zeidat dropped were deliberately guaranteed to lower Anna’s morale. ‘We must stand in line to see him ride out,’ Alexander insisted but Madame Drancy refused to budge and it was Anna now, shivering in the cold, who was crammed with the whole household, children, servants and an added group of eager beggars. The weather was brighter today and she could see all the way down to the successive stone walls that circled the aoul, each with its wide low entrance. The mountains beyond and all around were covered in snow, the sky a bluish grey in contrast.

Anna had woken up to a busy household. From the window, she watched Zeidat, with full concentration, saddling Shamil’s horse as if she wanted to ride out herself, before walking off shouting at the servants for their tardy packing. In the meantime Shamil was indoors, spending a long time visiting the elderly Bahou in her room. When she shuffled with him to the door, Anna saw him kiss her hand one last time and ask for her blessings. Then he sat with his crippled daughter, Najdat, who was unwell, crooning to her and feeding her breakfast. Now in his long sheepskin coat, his scimitar held by a leather halter, a tall Circassian hat on top of his white turban, he carried his newborn baby and walked slowly in the windy courtyard bidding everyone goodbye and asking them to pray for his safety.

‘I should not be here,’ Anna thought but the delight on Alexander’s face made her stay. Tugging at her hand, he was caught up in the thrill of the moment. Shamil’s white Arabian stallion, now led from the stables, had a red bridle and a bright crimson blanket under the saddle. More horsemen gathered outside the gate. The canter and snorts of their horses filled the air. They carried banners and a few began to chant. The whole aoul, it seemed, was out and Anna felt nervous of the fervour that was building up. The repetition of La ilaha illa Allah rose up around her and even Alexander joined in. Later, when he kept on singing it, Madame Drancy, ever sensitive to religious differences, would scold him and in vain teach him Cadet Roussel as a substitute. But now Anna looked at his animated face and could not bring herself to censure him. To see him enjoying himself was enough and when they went home, she deliberately reassured herself, all this would become a childish memory.

Shamil, in what must be a farewell custom, handed out pieces of cotton cloth to the beggars and servants. He seemed reluctant to leave. The fervour of his men, the excitement of battle had not yet reached him. He was giving pieces of silk to his wives when Chuanat burst into tears. She took the baby from him and, overcome, had to be helped indoors by Ameena. Sweets for the children, and Shamil was now in front of them both. Anna could see the fringes of black fur around his collar and sleeves. He was more distant than he had been that day on the roof, but his sadness weighed him down and bobbed him towards her. Alexander was cheeky enough to demand his extra guest’s ration.

‘You are right, young prince,’ said Shamil. ‘I owe you two coloured creams instead of one.’

In imitation of the other children, Alexander bent and kissed his hand. Thank God Madame Drancy didn’t see this, thought Anna. Shamil turned to her now, looked straight into her eyes. ‘Anna Elinichna, Princess of Georgia, I have no gift worthy of you. I am not a rich man.’

She remembered her rude refusal of the dried figs, opened her mouth but there was nothing to say.

‘So instead I will send you a dream.’

Later she would wonder if she had heard him correctly. Later when she waited for the dream and rebuked herself for waiting for the dream and marvelled that she was waiting for a dream. Later she would doubt that she had heard him correctly. He must have meant something else, a weakness in his Russian, a misunderstanding. But she was almost sure he had said it. ‘I will send you a dream.’ And then it was all over immediately, the individual and collective farewells, the melancholy air, the mixture of anxiety and loss. He turned and leapt on his horse. The chanting rose like cheers. He gathered speed and cantered towards the gate. Joined now by the other men, he galloped towards the outskirts of the aoul. The portal was too low for him to ride through and yet he didn’t slow down his pace. At the very last minute, to the thrill of the crowd, he pitched himself low over the horse’s side. Once through the first portal, he stood up on the stirrups of the speeding horse, and again, this time with Alexander gripping her hand, swung himself to the side of the horse just in time to pass under the second entrance. The chants grew louder as the riders, crouching low over their saddles, followed him out of the aoul and into the distance of the lowlands.

‘Madame Drancy, you certainly missed a show of equestrian skill today.’ Anna was flushed from the cold. She stood by the fire rubbing her hands. Madame Drancy, bent over the Imitation de Jesus-Christ, looked up at her with tears in her eyes. ‘If Imam Shamil dies in battle, we are completely lost.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘If he is killed, they will cut our throats. Zeidat said so.’

‘To frighten you, I am sure.’

‘I told her I would rather die than live here the rest of my life.’

‘And what did she say to that?’

‘She flew into a rage. But I am not afraid of her. If she wants me to despair, I will not.’

Anna felt the familiar soberness creep up on her, the duty to bolster Madame Drancy. ‘You are right, we must not despair.’ She sat down next to the governess. ‘Tell me about your book. Have you been thinking more about it?’

Madame Drancy was planning to write about their kidnap and captivity. Sometimes when she could get hold of ink and paper, she scribbled down notes. But a carefully drawn map of the compound had been confiscated by Zeidat and there would have been dire consequences had not Chuanat intervened. ‘It is always on my mind,’ Drancy said. ‘I am constantly recording all that I see and hear so that I don’t forget. Remember that pit we saw when we went for our walk?’

It had been a large empty pit and they had speculated about its use.

A faint expression of glee crossed Madame Drancy’s face. ‘There is a woman in it now, a young woman with a baby in his cradle.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘She killed the murderer of her husband. Her punishment is to stay there for four months. After which she will be promptly married off.’

The marriages of widows was a subject that fascinated Madame Drancy. ‘I have never been in such close proximity to a people so different from me. It is a marvel.’

A marvel. For a person to send another a dream would indeed be a marvel. Anna waited a day, a week. She slept better than she had ever slept before but in the morning there was nothing to remember, only fragments of sights and sounds, poor in quality, nothing wholly formed, nothing distinct.

Shamil’s absence meant reduced rations at mealtimes, all of which were poorer quality. There was also no response to requests for an extra blanket or for a coat for Alexander when it started to snow. Shamil’s absence meant longer visits from Chuanat and her baby, Ameena showing off her talent to sing, egging Drancy on for more descriptions of Paris, insisting that Anna teach her the difference between the mazurka and the quadrille. His absence meant that when the sound of gunfire echoed around the mountains, Chuanat would cry, Drancy would cross herself and no one would want to talk. His absence meant no protection from Zeidat. She banged into the room one morning brandishing a copy of the Russki Invalid.

‘Read this!’ She pointed at a paragraph. It was an article about Queen Victoria granting sums of money to the Crimean War.

‘See,’ said Zeidat. ‘This is proof that such big sums of money do exist. If the Empress of England can pay millions so can the Empress of Russia. You were her lady-in-waiting. She will pay if you ask her.’

Anna wondered if Zeidat was serious or merely bluffing. ‘The empress will not be fooled into paying such exorbitant sums.’

‘Well, your family can. Today I spoke to the mother of a man who has been to your estate in Tsinondali. Such riches and trees and gardens. With all this evidence I will put pressure on Shamil Imam to raise the ransom to sixty thousand roubles. And his naibs will support this. See if they won’t!’

‘Do you understand these figures you are talking about? No one has so much money.’

Zeidat stabbed the newspaper. ‘It’s right here.’ She sat down cross-legged on the floor and lowered her voice into a whisper. ‘Listen, Imam Shamil wants his son back but we’ve been hearing reports about Jamaleldin. What good is a man who drinks wine and dances with half-naked women? What kind of fighter will he be? I cannot say this to my husband but I am telling you now, woman to woman: what use would Jamaleldin be to us? I say better a larger ransom than such a son.’

Anna tried to hide her dismay, to sound calm and confident. ‘My husband will not be able to raise sixty thousand roubles.’

Zeidat folded up the newspaper. ‘You think I am an ignorant tribeswoman, don’t you? You think I can’t think and I don’t know. But I do. Your husband married his sister off to none other than the Prince of Mingrelia — so tell me that you are poor!’

Anna sighed. ‘The Prince of Mingrelia is an honorary title. It does not mean he is wealthy. You might find this hard to believe but I am telling you the truth.’

‘The truth,’ Zeidat snorted. ‘The truth is your husband is not eager to have you back. Unlike you, he is completely Westernised. He has acquired all these Russian tastes and you were unable to keep up with him.’

‘How dare you talk about my private life!’ She stood up. ‘Get out of here. At once.’

It worked. Zeidat did leave the room and later Ameena tossed the words out in passing, as if they were not poison, as if they did not turn the day inside out, ‘She’s jealous of you. That’s why. She knows what’s on Shamil Imam’s mind. If the ransom isn’t paid, he will keep you for himself.’

She dreams of Georgia. All of it. Its Alazani river, gardens, Tsinondali. Riches spread before her. Vines, grass plateaus, forests. She can see it all because she sits on a cloud. It is comfortable, voluptuous. She hovers over this beauty knowing that she is part of it. She dangles her feet, she rolls. She moves her body without the fear of falling. One time running her fingers through the river, one time picking up a flower with her toes. The cloud holds her up with the most gentle of pressure. It responds to her desire to rise or move. Time passes and there is only more to enjoy, more to look at. The silver, blue, grey, cream colours of the water, the breath of air. There can be no doubt. Only Georgia smells like this, feels like this, has these shapes and sounds and tones. Her presence here is enough, without language or tasks or aspirations. Without hunger. Only harmony. Only light. Time passes as it would for a child. Everything is close, larger, infinitely interesting. Jasmine, fruit, fish. There is no gap between herself and her surroundings. The fibres of her body, her skin, her pulse, her blood spring from this water and soil. It is the longest dream she has ever had.

When he came back, she wanted to thank him but did not get the chance. He was superficially wounded but many of the other fighters were in a more serious condition. The hushed atmosphere of the aoul, the intermittent wailing from families who had lost lives, the darkening of Zeidat’s face could only mean that the battle had not gone well. ‘Their loss, our gain,’ Madame Drancy whispered and Anna wished it was as simple as that. Was anyone really winning? Yours kill ours — ours kill yours. What would it take to raise the white flag of peace? Madame Drancy was keeping a close watch over the dates. Unless she had miscalculated, Christmas Day was next week.

Ameena was unlike herself. She no longer played with the children. Anna tried to cajole her. ‘What’s wrong? You have not sung to us for a long time. Nor are you climbing to the roof or playing with Alexander.’

‘Shamil offered me my freedom,’ she said. ‘A divorce. This is because I told him I was not happy. I told him I would rather be with someone my age.’

Anna was taken aback. ‘He must have been furious.’

‘No,’ Ameena said. ‘He was very gentle. We’ve been married for four years and still no children. He said I could go back to my tribe but I really don’t want to go away. I want to stay here in Dargo.’

The arrival of Ghazi Muhammad brought more cheer to the household. Anna had disliked him when they first met at Polahi but now she was ready to reconsider. Arms were fired in his honour, the villagers vied to kiss his hand and he strode into the house full of smiles. His grandmother, sisters and stepmothers were all eager to see him and there was much coming and going, gifts shown off and special meals cooked. The marks on Ghazi’s face that had given him a rough appearance were scars from the pox. He might have resembled Shamil physically but his disposition was considerably jollier. Like his father too, Ghazi had a talent for winning the affection of children. Alexander was soon following him around. One clear afternoon, he dragged Anna off to watch Ghazi give the youth a fencing lesson. Soon, Shamil joined them and stood next to Anna, watching the young men.

At last she had the opportunity to say it. ‘Thank you for the gift.’

‘The gift?’

The clink of sabre against sabre and her face started to go hot. He had forgotten? She had conjured it all herself? And now to explain by saying, ‘Thank you for the dream,’ would be utter folly.

‘Ah,’ he had remembered. ‘A throne for Anna to sit on.’

Relief made her limbs loose, the start of a laugh in her throat. ‘Oh no, it was a cloud.’

He heard her but did not hear her. Instead he turned his back to the lesson. Eyes to eyes, like a pledge. He said, ‘The throne of Georgia is for you. We defeat the Russians and then there would be justice. What they have taken would come back to us. And you too would be lifted up high. To become Anna Elinichna, Queen of Georgia.’

She felt herself fall, even though she remained standing. Alexander thrusting his body in imitation of Ghazi, the sunny shine of steel, the snow-capped mountains — all folded back like a curtain and there was only a glittering darkness. He had excavated an ambition from deep down. He had picked out one nebulous desire and given it a name. The throne back to Georgia, as it should be. Georgia, free and autonomous, as it should be. And she would be the one to make this happen. She would be worthy of it. Anna Elinichna, Queen of Georgia. She could feel Shamil place the crown on her head — the weight of one hundred and forty-five diamonds, fifty-eight rubies, twenty-four emeralds. Russia was losing the Crimean War, he explained. Soon, the Allies would take over the Black Sea Coast and drive the Russians out of Georgia. The throne would be restored.

She should know better. There was another name for this kind of talk and these kinds of alliances. Treason. For centuries Georgia was a Christian nation at the mercy of its aggressive neighbours, the Persians and the Ottomans who were, like him, Muslim. She should know better than to trust him.

3. ST PETERSBURG, JANUARY 1855

Jamaleldin sat by the tsar’s bedside. The figure on the bed was wasted, eyes sunken into dark sockets, wisps of white hair on the satin pillow. Jamaleldin had been told that Emperor Nicholas was ill, possibly dying, but it was still a shock to see the alteration, this accelerated aging, said to be exacerbated by the bad reports coming from the Crimea. The familiar scent of the tsar’s eau de cologne struggled to mask the odours of a sick room. Jamaleldin wished he was somewhere else. He needed fresh air and brightness.

With tremendous effort, Nicholas was telling Jamaleldin the story of the kidnapping. He was croaking it out as if his health depended upon it. Jamaleldin, who already knew the details, flinched at every mention of his father’s name. The tsar’s attendants and nurses glanced at their patient from time to time, followed the inflection of his voice for signs of agitation or deterioration. He was a vulnerable man, at the mercy of bad news from the front. The war he had passionately believed in had played out in such a way that the admiral of the British ship that reached Kronstadt was boasting that, come May, he would be toasting Queen Victoria’s birthday in the Winter Palace. Nicholas raised his head and attempted to sit up higher. The nurse rushed to rearrange the pillows. Jamaleldin moved, pressing his back against the chair.

‘David Chavchavadze came to see me,’ Nicholas said. ‘He is mortgaging his estate to pay for the ransom. But the ransom is not enough. Shamil wants you. I told David I cannot order you to make such a sacrifice. It is too much.’

Jamaleldin said, ‘I was not given a choice when I came here. I do not have a choice now.’

Nicholas’s fingers grabbed at the sheets. He tossed his head impatiently from side to side and moaned. ‘Show more gratitude. It took David a long time to approach me. He knows how dear you are to me. He did try to rescue his family but failed.’

Jamaleldin felt conscious of his well-shined boots, his leather gloves that lay across his knees. The distance between him and Nicholas was growing. There was a time when it had all been much simpler. He rescued from the wild, Nicholas the benevolent godfather. He the pet, Nicholas the mighty. He the puppet, Nicholas the conductor, the thrower of crumbs, the arranger of roles, the changer of destinies. Jamaleldin the chess piece, and now Shamil had changed the rules of the game.

‘Sire,’ Jamaleldin said, wanting more than anything to stretch his legs, to run down the stairs. ‘I will not shy away from my duty.’

The tsar raised his hand. ‘You do not have to give me your decision now. Go away and reflect on the sacrifice that is asked of you. I will give you two days.’

To reflect — was that to realise that he would not be entering the military academy, that he would never serve on the staff, that in terms of his career in the Russian army this was the end? Or to reflect that if he did not buy an atlas and take it with him, he would never see one again? Or to attend the ballet one last time, really the very last time? Or alternatively to think “I will see Ghazi again” and laugh out loud in a rush of elation? Or to reflect that if he fell ill in Dargo, there would be nothing but herbal concoctions and superstition? But these recent pangs of hunger to hug his little brother again — how else could they be subdued? No, he did not want two days to reflect. He could not visit this sick bed again.

Jamaleldin fell to his knees. ‘There is only one right thing to do. I will use the two days to prepare for the journey and say my goodbyes.’

The tsar blessed him and gave him a parting gift, words to keep hearing in the mountains. ‘Never forget that I made you a civilised man.’

He walked down the stairway, of course, he did not run. The palace was gloomy; for some time now there had been no balls, no receptions, just echoes of better days. Near the archway, Jamaleldin had a sudden memory of Anna. Ever since he had heard the news, he had searched his mind for a recollection of her, sure that he must have met her at one point. Now her face and figure slotted into place under this particular chandelier. Slightly older than him, too beautiful to be considered dowdy, but still the provincial had cast a pall over her. He had danced the mazurka with her once and found her distracted, a little awkward, not Russian enough. She did not fit in and this had lowered her instinctively in his estimation. Perhaps she reminded him of himself, perhaps in his competitive desire for court approval he surmised that her acquaintance could not be an asset. And now, exponentially, she would be his downfall. But blaming her was hardly chivalrous, let alone logical. His father. This was all about his father. His father’s love had done all this. But what took you so long? Why not after six months or a year or even two, when I stayed up at night listening out for your men’s footsteps then cried myself to sleep. Before I forgot your language.

Once in his first week at the Kadetsky Corpus, on a particularly windy night, the branches of the tree kept tapping on the dorm window. Jamaleldin had imagined it as a code. He crept out of bed and crouched by the window. ‘Younis,’ he had whispered and then in the Avar language, ‘Is it you?’ until the cold sense of his foolishness sent him back between the sheets to dream of the last highlander he had seen, the teacher who gingerly made his way down the mountains, passed the Russian lines and visited him in the garrison at Akhulgo, to lead him in prayer and continue with the Qur’an lessons. Younis, who left one day saying, ‘We will continue tomorrow insh’Allah’, but by tomorrow Jamaleldin was on his way to Moscow, without ever saying a proper goodbye. At cadet school the following day, hardened and grateful that no one had seen or heard him talking to a window, he plunged into the race to prove himself. No time to be homesick, no time for memories. So why now, after all these years? Because Anna Chavchavadze had not heeded the military governor’s warning and stayed in Tiflis. Or because, when the raiders came, she didn’t escape to the woods in time. Or because, as his father would no doubt say, it was Allah’s will and nothing could be done to change it.

Jamaleldin packed his drawing materials, he packed books and what he reckoned he would not find in Dargo, what people carried from civilisation to the back of beyond. A clock, a globe, a music box. The tsar signed a travel order, a small group of Cossacks of the imperial escort were gathered, a troika with a bearskin rug was prepared and Jamaleldin sat in it. The journey south, via Moscow, took him along the river Don. When the Caucasus came into view, the awe he felt was mixed with oppression. The peaks were higher than he remembered, barren, stony. The troika, rendered fragile by the landscape, was exchanged for a tarantass. On and on, he travelled. It took a month to reach Vladikavkaz. There David Chavchavadze was waiting to meet him and say, ‘I cannot thank you enough.’

Jamaleldin noticed the anxiety and pain on the prince’s face. He was tall and rangy, too direct to be clumsy and too socially aware to be deep. Ironically he had recently been awarded the Order of St Anna and raised to the rank of colonel for his heroic defence of the river forts against Shamil’s invading army. That very same invasion which had carried off his family and killed his daughter. Entering David’s solicitous care and companionship, Jamaleldin could not help but think that it was only these peculiar circumstances that had thrown them together. Ordinarily he would not merit the prince’s attention or presume upon his time.

During a walk by the Terek river, David updated him on the negotiation process. He said, ‘Your father has been informed that you are on the way.’ Six months since the princess was kidnapped, one month on the journey and five in Dargo. ‘She is suffering,’ David said and Jamaleldin did not want to hear the details, did not want to dwell on the spot she would be giving up for him.

In the evening a dinner at the commanding officer’s house was arranged in Jamaleldin’s honour. Thirty ladies and gentlemen, lulled by the monotony of this outpost, deprived of the pleasures of the metropolis, seized on the diversion of Jamaleldin’s arrival. They were curious too and he sensed the hush when he and David walked into the drawing room, noticed the plump red-headed woman who turned away from the window. Soft introductions and then time to walk into dinner where instead of sitting on the far end of the table with the other young aides-de-camp and officials, he was seated in the middle of the long side. Prince David was across from him. Next to David was the wife of a general, a tall, heavily bejewelled woman. Jamaleldin took note of all that was to pass away: the footmen in their livery, the silver tureen and the shifting breasts of the red-headed woman inches away from his left elbow.

The conversation looped reluctantly around the tsar’s health, the further bad news from the Crimea, until the general launched into a first-hand description of Hadji Murat’s defection in 1851, lauding the highlander’s courage and humanity. It must have been a story he had told often before or it was familiar enough to his audience, because no one paid much attention. It was only when Jamaleldin spoke out that everyone turned and gave him their full attention.

‘After failing in a mission, Hadji Murat was removed from office by my father, who also publicly forgave him. Instead of accepting this decree, however, Hadji Murat defected. This show of ingratitude brought down on him the charge of apostasy.’

‘An unfair charge,’ said the general, moustache bristling. ‘Everyone who was with him could see that Hadji Murat was fastidious in performing his prayers. He did not give up his religion.’

‘A pragmatic man then,’ said Prince David. ‘An opportunist who shifted his alliances when necessary.’

The general launched into an account of Hadji Murat’s unfortunate demise and Jamaleldin wished he hadn’t spoken out. He was able to give them extra information, the view from Shamil’s side, but they preferred their own speculations and opinions. They knew best. Jamaleldin turned to the lovely lady next to him and whispered, ‘I am a condemned man. But it is worth it for the pleasure of sitting next to you.’

She smiled and put down her knife and fork, turned to him with shining eyes. ‘I have never met anyone as self-sacrificing as you. Never.’

He decided to push further. ‘To spend my last days of liberty in company such as yours will help me bear more stoically my impending return to the wilds. Would you deny a dying man a drink of water?’

She was visibly moved but prevented from answering by Prince David, who stood up to propose a toast. He cleared his throat and said, ‘My joy at the prospect of regaining my family is only matched by the anguish I feel on behalf of my deliverer, our guest tonight. I have only known him a very short time but I can confirm to you all that I have never seen a Muslim with so little of the Tartar about him. A young man whose opinions and manners are completely and truly Russian!’

While the toast was being drunk, Jamaleldin felt queasy at the praise that was not praise, the compliments that were intended as compliments but settled inside him like stones. What a freak he was! Better to focus on the luscious lady whose hair was the colour of autumn and whose loneliness, her lieutenant husband being away on duty, was a distracting temptation. Coffee in the drawing room, a seat at the card table. Jamaleldin added a pack of cards to his list of things that must accompany him to Dargo. He sucked on a cigar, knowing his father had outlawed smoking in all of his territories.

There were more of such dinners as he continued on his journey south accompanied by David. The garrisons on the Georgian Military Highway all the way to Tiflis threw parties in his honour. It was as if every officer stationed in the Caucasus wanted to meet him, every young woman wanted to dance with him, and every matron wanted to indulge in sentimental tears over his ‘sacrifice’. Jamaleldin, the deliverer, the hero, worthy of toasts and curiosity. And always by his side the watchful and grateful David Chavchavadze, too cautious to indulge in premature celebration, patiently tolerating and certainly not impeding what had turned into a spectacle, the procession of a champion, the last free frolics of the sacrificial lamb.

In Khasavyurt, at the frontier of Shamil’s territory, a ball was held in Jamaleldin’s honour. The opportunity to show off his dancing skills, his manly elegance and his natural handsomeness inherited from ‘he who must not be named’. By that time he had perfected his lines with young debutantes and bored army wives, with blondes and dark-haired Georgians, with seasoned beauties and those hovering on the edges of style. ‘Would you deny a condemned man a drink of water?’ He spun around the room with a Marta or a Maia or was she a Vardo? Marta, Maia or Vardo had full rosy cheeks, so large and firm that he wondered if they obscured her vision. Another turn and he noticed a movement in the window, the sway of the bushes and what could be a flash of cloth.

At the end of the dance, he excused himself and went to investigate. In the cold moonlit February evening, the sound of music and conversation followed him. He felt heady with a sense that he had done this before, he had seen something through a window, someone who beckoned to him, someone who wanted him. He moved around the building, approached the same twitching bushes he had seen from inside, wished that his progress was not so noisy. Spurs on the path, the swish sound made by moving his arm, the thud of his boots. A movement ahead of him. There was definitely someone there. In the splash of moonlight he could see that there were even two. They speeded up and he surged forward in pursuit, circling them so that instead of the forest, they were forced to head to the garrison wall.

No sounds from them, not a whisper. Their soft, soft steps in the leather slip-ons. He could see them clearly now and his heart skipped a beat. The two men of his dreams, their turbans, the folds of their cherkesskas, their sabres hung in a halter-neck. Before they reached the wall, before, as he knew, they would deftly climb up and over it, he called out. ‘Younis!’ The word was heavy in his mouth. He had said this before and now it was time to say it louder again, summon the old language and give painful birth to it. ‘Younis. Is it you?’

The older of the men stopped and turned around. The other one stayed by the wall. The older man came forward. His breath was heaving, beads of sweat between the bushy eyebrows, eyes scanning the background to check that there was no one else. ‘Jamaleldin?’

They had come for him at last. His father had sent them and here they were. A flood of Avar but he could understand this hug from Younis, this kissing of his shoulder. Embraces that pressed his body and hurt as if he were fragile. The other man, a youth, approached open-mouthed, then kept his distance.

‘Your father sent us to check that it was really you. That the Russians weren’t tricking us.’ Younis had hardly changed over the years. Only more white in his beard, more fatigue in the lines of his face, a thickness in his bearing, but the same voice, the same manners. More kisses. ‘Oh, he would be happy. Oh, I would say that I touched you too!’ He was talking to himself, ‘It’s him, it’s him. Subhan Allah. I was sure of it as soon as I saw him.’ More squeezing of his arms, tugging of his hair, pinching of his cheeks. ‘Look at you! Look at you all grown up. Praise be to the Almighty. Subhan Allah.’

Jamaleldin was floating, he felt drunk. With wine, yes, but also with this apparition, this dream come true. Was he speaking Avar or just understanding or both? Or laughing like a simpleton? The youth, Younis explained, was his nephew Mikail. ‘I taught him the Qur’an like I taught you.’ He gestured for Mikail to come forward. The youth obeyed but his expression was sullen. He was held back by the Russian uniform, repulsed by the imam’s son they had just seen dancing with a woman in his arms. He did not utter a single word of greeting.

For an instant, Jamaleldin’s sense of superiority flared. Who was this boorish highlander to disrespect him? An air of forest and swamp came from Mikail, the smear of mud where he had pressed his forehead on the ground, those nostrils flaring like an animal.

‘We must go now,’ Younis said. ‘There are others. You will see them soon. They are in charge of the negotiations. I am here tonight only because Shamil Imam specifically wanted someone who knew you from when you were young.’

He embraced Jamaleldin one last time and the magic returned, the dream come true. ‘We must go. Our work is done.’

The two stole back into the night. Unlike in the dream, they must leave him behind. He stood watching them leave; he kept standing even after he couldn’t see them any more. The moon disappeared behind a cloud, the shadows shifted. He could hear frogs and from further away the howl of a wolf. A powder puff of snow blew from the mountains. The cold seeped through his uniform. Unbearable to return to the ball; this starlight was enough.

His father had sent spies who watched him through the window. What were they saying about him now?

‘Do we report, Uncle, the wine drinking and the dancing?’

‘We report.’

‘And Shamil Imam cuts our tongues off?’

‘Fool. He will order us to pray for his soul.’

‘He’s not one of us. Russian, I swear. Can’t see any difference between him and an infidel.’

‘Mikhail, I will be the one to cut your tongue out if you say this again.’