‘They’ll think I’m a jihadist.’ His voice was deliberately loud, deliberately provocative. Then he changed his tone so that it was theatrical, bordering on comic. ‘They’ll think we’ve set up a jihadist training camp out in the countryside, aye, that’s what they’ll ken.’ He added the accent, a thread for her to catch on.
She softened and cuffed him on the shoulder. The three of us walked towards the house laughing. We stood at the door in the blue cold dusk, stamping our feet to get rid of the snow. But the next day when the men made their way to the house, it didn’t seem funny after all. They rang the bell, they came in and they asked not for Oz and not for Ossie. They said the other name.
Eight-year-old Jamaleldin, clambering with his friends, followed by his toddling brother, could see a cloud approaching. Then he was in a white mist, the highest snowy summits invisible, the neighbouring peaks and gullies fading to a blur of reddish browns and greens. He crouched down, waiting for clarity, for the sight of the Russian battalions stationed far below. The word Akhulgo meant ‘a meeting place in time of danger’ and now the Russians had laid it under siege. It was a natural fortress, high on one of the peaks of the Caucasus, six hundred feet above the river Andi-Koisu. The river looped around its base on three sides; only horses trained for such a twisted, vertical ascent could reach Shamil’s aoul. This made Jamaleldin feel safe. The Russians’ horses were not trained; if they ever came up here they would have to come on foot.
He turned and held his brother in his arms, leaving the older boys to collect more stones. Ghazi was still plump but he could talk fluently. ‘Don’t take me back to mother. I am old enough to fight too.’
Jamaleldin laughed. ‘A murid would have to carry you on his shoulder if you want to even toss a pebble.’
‘I’m not afraid.’ Ghazi wrenched himself free and scampered away.
Jamaleldin admired his daring. He himself was an able rider and a fair marksman. He could use a dagger and had ridden with his father in several raids but he was cautious by nature, reliant on practice rather than aggression. Watching Ghazi leap away from him, he could sense that his sturdy younger brother was of a different nature, living up to his Arabic name of ‘Conqueror’.
Jamaleldin had been named after his father’s teacher, Sheikh Jamal el-Din al Husayni, the gentle Sufi scholar who preferred books to war. Everyone knew that Sheikh Jamal el-Din was special because he was a friend of Allah. Whenever he prayed for something, it happened. Shamil’s strength came through him. That was how he had become Imam of Dagestan and was now leading the tribes of the Caucasus to fight the armies of the Russian tsar.
When Jamaleldin thought of his father, the feeling of pride made his chest big. Every cell in his body strained for his father’s approval. It was as if Shamil’s love was his nourishment and Shamil’s admonishments his understanding of Hell. It was incredible to Jamaleldin that some men disobeyed his father. The wars against the Russians went on and on and some of the tribal chiefs were weakening; they were trading with the Russians, paying taxes and even spying on Shamil himself. Jamaleldin wanted to trust everyone around him. Sometimes, though, he would notice a villager with shifty eyes, an elder with a haughty look and he would wonder if they were the hypocrites. If they were the traitors who had sold their souls to the White Tsar.
‘The world is a carcass and the one who goes after it is a dog.’ This was what Sheikh Jamal el-Din taught, and his young namesake repeated it to himself though he was not quite sure what it meant. Long ago, Shamil swore an allegiance to Sheikh Jamal el-Din and became his follower. For years he lived the austere life of a student, learning the Qur’an and how to bow his will, through his spiritual teacher, to the will of Allah. Today after the dawn prayer, the men
of Akhulgo and sleepy Jamaleldin too, renewed their oath of allegiance to Imam Shamil. But Shamil himself would remain obedient to Sheikh Jamal el-Din. When father and son had last visited him in his aoul, Jamaleldin had seen his towering father – who could make grown men tremble at the sound of his voice – bow down and kiss the feet of his teacher.
Jamaleldin continued to fill his basket with stones for the coming battle. He could hear the murids chanting, churning in themselves the spirit to fight: ‘Under the infidel’s supremacy, we would be covered in shame.’ ‘Brother, how can you serve Allah, if you are serving the Russians?’ Then the prayers rising up: ‘Preserve us from regression. Bring us the longed-for end.’
Preserve us from regression.
Jamaleldin looked up to see his father’s younger wife Djawarat, carrying his sleeping half-brother on her back and stuffing her pockets with rocks. He liked Djawarat because her face reminded him of a rabbit and because she often gave him tasty fried grain sprinkled with salt. ‘Do you think the Russians will be able to come up here?’ he asked her.
She looked down at the ground. ‘If only it was winter and the mountains covered in snow. If only, like long, long ago, they fought with swords and not gunfire.’
But it was June and the Russians had more artillery than they did. Jamaleldin regretted his question.
‘It is Allah’s will that we fight,’ continued Djawarat. She straightened up and put her hand on his shoulder. He gazed at her big, attractive teeth, her eyebrows that were high and thick. ‘Jamaleldin, when the Merciful honours a slave with His power, then no other creature can ever humiliate him. This is how it is with your father.’
They both knew that Shamil was backed by mystical powers – the kind that could make him tame a jackal or bless a handful of millet so that it would feed five men instead of one. Djawarat sat down on the rocks and put her baby on her lap. ‘Remember when he leapt over a line of soldiers who surrounded him …’
‘They were just about to fire on him …’ The story was in Jamaleldin’s mind as if he had been present.
‘He whirled round and struck two with his sword.’
‘Three,’ Jamaleldin corrected her.
‘The fourth one hit him but he pulled the bayonet blade from his own shoulder …’
‘Jumped over a five-foot wall.’
‘Seven,’ Djawarat corrected him.
‘In one leap.’
Djawarat was smiling. She bent down and gave her baby a kiss. ‘No one is like your father, little one.’
And there was Shamil now, tall and still, as if he had willed himself into this particular place and time. He was dressed for battle in a long cherkesska and a large white turban, the end of which hung down his neck. Two black cartridge pouches crisscrossed his torso and a leather halter held his scimitar. Jamaleldin moved forward to kiss his hand. The familiar warmth emitted from his father, an energy that surfaced in his dark eyes. He lifted Jamaleldin up; it had been a long time since his father had carried him. He was a big boy now, not a baby, not like Ghazi. He heard Djawarat laugh but he was too full to make any sound. His father’s beard, his smell, the groove under his cheek. Jamaleldin felt a slight pressure on his stomach; it was his father’s cartridge pouch digging into his own skin. ‘If only they would leave us in peace,’ his father whispered and then he started to pray, ‘Lord, this is my son and he is under Your protection. Oh Lord, shake up our enemy …’
The attack started almost gently. The Russian soldiers would try to scale the bluffs and slip. They climbed on each other’s shoulders to reach ledges and any rocks that protruded as footholds. Shamil and his murids bided their time and held their fire. When the soldiers came close, they drove them back with rocks and burning logs, javelins and daggers. A soldier only needed to lose his balance once. By nightfall three-hundred and fifty Russians were killed. Akhulgo had stood firm but, after a lull of four days, the Russians
changed their tactics. Batteries were manoeuvred into better positions out of reach of the murids’ range. Cannons started to blast the walls of Akhulgo and bury the murids one by one under the rubble.
Day after day Jamaleldin woke up to the stifled sobs of women mourning their men, to the clap of gunfire, to the ugly moans of the wounded. Shamil and his murids fought on, charged with energy, flooded with a strength that seeped too into Jamaleldin. He pitted rocks at the climbing soldiers, large heavy ones he would not normally be capable of raising high. He threw daggers and didn’t miss. He heaved burning pieces of timber and didn’t wince when his palms got scorched. Yet there was no time or occasion to exult; the mere pressure of his father’s hand on his head or his mother, Fatima, saying, ‘Eat now,’ gave way to the sudden submersion of sleep. Days punctuated by prayers taken in turn, a rawness in the chest, a cleaving to everyone who was around him; men, women and children in stress.
Week after week, with less food and more wounded, a jagged airy sensation was felt all around when their outer defences came down and left them exposed. The Russians were looming nearer. But Shamil still resisted with a firmness his enemy had not been prepared for. The tsar’s army had not counted on losing so many officers. Reinforcements were brought in, a forced march of troops from the north. They divided into columns and approached Akhulgo from different directions.
In desperation, women and children joined in an ambush. To fool the Russians that they had more fighters, Djawarat and a group of women dressed like men. Reluctantly their husbands, fathers and brothers shared battle tactics and turbans, lent them swords and sharpened daggers, whispered advice. These were dark times, indeed (but temporary, they reassured themselves), when even the prettiest could not be spared the proximity of the enemy. Yet, these wives and daughters were as eager as any man to pitch themselves at the enemy, to help protect their homes, to win the day. And if they died in battle, they too would become martyrs, granted everlasting life. A ferocity was rising up in them, like mothers in
the animal kingdom baring their teeth and hissing to protect their young. Jamaleldin’s mother, Fatima, was pregnant and she stayed behind with the younger children. Djawarat called for Jamaleldin and they lay in wait on a ledge overhanging a precipice. Djawarat crouched next to him, praying softly to herself. If she died, her baby would scream with hunger. Jamaleldin could feel his heart beating; he held a dagger in each sweaty hand. ‘Bend down below their bayonets and aim at their bellies,’ Djawarat said. ‘Wait, wait till they come close, take them by surprise. This is your advantage; they tread unknown territory while you stand on higher ground, your own higher ground, your home.’
He heard them approaching, voices in another language, a thud of boots, the lethal metal clank of their weapons. Bend down below their bayonets. Spring together. The blinding gleam of the sun on a bayonet. Shock in the wide eyes of an enemy. A roar in Jamaleldin’s ears. A gun had gone off and the smoke choked him. Where was the bayonet he must bend under? All his strength and that terrible sound of his dagger ripping flesh. But it was either them or us. Them or Ghazi. The women around him brandished swords; one threw hers aside and, grabbing a soldier’s bayonet, used the weight of her body to pitch him headlong over the cliffs.
The Russian column retreated and Djawarat burst into tears. Dazed and shaking, Jamaleldin stumbled back to his mother talking gibberish. He had wet his pants as if he was little, but she did not scold him. There was not enough time to rest and forget, not enough time to heal properly. Hungry and feverish, the nightmare weeks blurred. His father and his naibs deep in discussion, changing tactics, arranging for the wounded to be smuggled out of Akhulgo, arranging for reinforcements to sneak past the Russians. Already two months – for how long could they hold out? The summer sun was merciless, the well was drying up, there was hardly any food left and no timber to reconstruct. Typhoid swept through the Russian forces while in Akhulgo men, women and children were slowly starving. Death below and with them – carrion birds circled above.
Preserve us from regression,
was the desperate prayer.
Grant us an honourable death.
Then a lull in the fighting. The Russians were willing to open negotiations. At last, at long last, peace was near. But as proof of Shamil’s good intentions, the Russians wanted Jamaleldin as a hostage.
‘No,’ was Shamil’s reply. ‘Not my son.’
Jamaleldin heard his name mentioned in the naibs’ council and sensed the concern in his father’s voice. Soon the whole of Akhulgo bristled with the news. The women held their breath. The children stared at Jamaleldin in a way that made him feel important. Pleas were sent to the Russians to accept another child, a nephew or a cousin, but they would accept only Shamil’s eldest son. Jamaleldin wanted to talk to Djawarat but it was as if she was avoiding him. At home, the naibs came over to argue with Shamil. He refused again and this time angry voices were raised. When the naibs left, Fatima started to cry. His parents talked in whispers until his father got up and left the house.
Because he couldn’t sleep, Jamaleldin sat outdoors. The summer sky was clear but there was a bad smell, the stench of war and waste, of fire and his own unwashed body. He knew the custom of hostage-taking during negotiations. Hostages were treated well; they were given clean clothes and food. At the thought of food, his stomach rumbled and there was moisture in his mouth. Pancakes in butter, rolled-out bread with honey. The Russians would give him cheese. But he could not imagine being away from his father, living in a place where Shamil did not command and forbid. Jamaleldin did not want to leave Ghazi, he did not want to leave his mother or Akhulgo or Djawarat.
He dozed, his head lolling on his chest, and found his father sitting beside him, propping him. It was all he wanted, to be in his father’s arms, to be approved of, to be safe.
‘I lost my finest men,’ Shamil said and there was a catch in his voice. ‘When I think of each of them, when I think of his qualities,
I know that he cannot be replaced. He was worth ten or more, a hundred even. Now the others are becoming too feeble to fight. I can see it coming. In days, in a week or so they will no longer gather for battle. They might not even show up at their posts.’