He could retrace his footsteps now and continue to reason with Jamal el-Din. He could beg for forgiveness and then explain. But what was there to explain and why was it that Jamaleldin’s return was an urgent priority only for him? It was the pressure from the naibs for a high ransom that was stalling the negotiations. If it were up to Shamil, it would be a straight hostage exchange. And yet his hands were tied; the community privileged over the individual, and the People’s Council was in need of funds. ‘Be patient and fear Allah in the hope that you will flourish and He will remove the evil with which the infidels oppress you.’ Is that not what he told his men? ‘Do not lose heart and do not grieve, for you are the exalted. We are servants of Allah, all-powerful Victor over all, who resists those who oppose his Sharia. Peace be upon those who hear the word and follow its best meaning.’
He turned and started to walk home, still troubled. Fear did not usually steal into him so easily and yet here it was. It had slung itself around his neck as soon as he left Jamal el-Din’s home. If the sheikh now held off his spiritual support, would Jamaleldin not come home? Would the hostage negotiations fail? Until now there had been not been a single word from St Petersburg about the return of Jamaleldin. Shamil walked faster to shrug off the pessimism. He was driven to succeed and through Allah’s will he would succeed. He must not contemplate failure.
It was Zeidat who met him at the door. He said, ‘I will inspect the guest quarters now. Announce me.’
‘There is no one there. The Russian is visiting Chuanat. Have a bite to eat first while I heat up the water for your bath.’ She tossed the invitation out with more efficiency than concern. He knew that the usual wifely duties held no interest for her. Dishevelled more often than not, jingling her keys and bossing the servants, she was more fulfilled priming his pistols and sharpening his sabre. Nothing pleased her more than sitting with him to mull over the administration
of his troops or to assess the merits of a particular naib. She had sharp opinions on everything from battle tactics to who should be promoted and who should be punished. With time, the care of their permanently disabled child had, thankfully, mellowed and restrained her, thickening also the bond between them. He loved her best when she stirred his resolve with eloquent elegies of the martyrs; her fine eyes, the only likeness to her father, glowing and sincere. But not today.
He strode past her and walked into the guest quarters. ‘What’s this?’ he bellowed and kicked over a rusty pot of dirty onion water. ‘Is this supposed to pass for soup? Is this what you have been giving them?’
Zeidat’s protests did not have the slightest effect on him. ‘Since when did the chimney break down and why wasn’t it fixed straight away?’ Now both of them were shouting at the top of their voices; soon Zeidat was reduced to tears.
He ignored her and headed towards Chuanat’s room. In her was his comfort, in her was tranquillity and what was beautiful in this ugly world. Charged with self-doubt, restless, saddened, he felt himself pouring towards her, mother of his newborn, his pearl and gentle friend, who never thwarted his desires, never contradicted, never held back loyalty and love. But when he entered her room, it was Anna who caught his attention. Anna standing up holding the baby, the light of the fire on her hair and foreign dress. She turned and looked at him with the haughtiness of the injured, the stark knowing eyes of a parent who had lost a child. He sensed in her what she had not yet acknowledged; her need to conceive was only dormant, poised to unfurl. ‘What will happen to me if the negotiations fail?’ she had asked the first time they met and he had felt bored by her question. ‘Our rules and customs will prevail’ meant handing her over to the chief of one of the dithering mountain tribes not yet won over to the resistance. Now, seeing her turn towards him with his newborn in her arms, royal blood rising to her cheeks, he changed his mind. Anna, Princess of Georgia. If the negotiations failed, he would not give her to anyone else.
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.