In the grotto where the council met, a heated discussion was taking place among the eight remaining members. The seventy days of siege had reduced these most faithful among the faithful to a state of skeletal emaciation. Sitting cross-legged, they kept their hats on and each rested a hand on the handle of one of the two kinjals crossed at his belt. Their eyes burned with fever above their black beards. Next to each sat a young boy, a son or nephew, who acted as aide-de-camp. This evening, there were only three child soldiers still fit enough to serve them, among them Jamal Eddin. He waited for his orders, standing a few steps behind his seated father. Shamil presided over the circle, with Yunus on his right and Akbirdil on his left. Neither said a word, but the others still had the strength to argue. Their guttural voices rang out beneath the vault of the grotto.
Shamil, impassive, let them say what he had heard whispered for days now, “What good does it do for all of us to disappear?”
Wasn’t it precisely the giaours’ mission to empty the Caucasus of all Muslims, wipe them off the face of the earth, annihilate them so that not one would remain? The imam should not give them this satisfaction. He should negotiate, not to surrender, but to survive, to go on. So that one day they could again resume the holy war and conquer the infidels.
Shamil tried hard to hide his indignation. How could the men of his own clan speak of such a thing? Even old Barti Khan, Bahou-Messadou’s twin brother, brought up the idea of opening negotiations. Even cousin Hadj Ibrahim, the muezzin of Akulgo, was in favor of speaking with the enemy.
Observing his father’s trembling shoulders, Jamal Eddin could sense Shamil’s efforts at self-control. Sheer exhaustion might cause him to burst into anger too soon. He must choose the right moment.
Though narrow-shouldered, with spindly legs that scarcely made him the ideal fighter, Hadj Ibrahim had the right to speak first. His green turban, proof of his pilgrimage to Mecca, indicated that his status was higher than the others’.
“With the tower, they’ve taken the left bank of the river. We’re completely surrounded,” cousin Ibrahim pointed out.
“There’s not a single drop of water left in the wells, not even for ablutions,” Uncle Barti added.
“I went down to the river last night,” Shamil interrupted, tight-lipped, as though saving his breath. “I brought up two goatskins.”
“That’s not enough to quench the thirst of five hundred people.”
“It will have to be.”
“Five hundred,” Shamil’s uncle said soberly, “out of four thousand in June. There are too many infidels, and they are too well armed and equipped. We know how this is going to end.”
Coming from anyone else, this kind of talk would have cost the upstart his life.
“Shut up or I’ll cut out your tongue, like all the others who spoke of capitulation.”
Shamil had once respected the courage of Barti Khan, but the hardships of the siege had transformed the old man into someone he no longer knew. The thin, white, unruly beard that covered the tip of his chin gave his face a vindictive expression. Beneath his eyelids, which were half-glued together by an infection, his gummy eyes, clear gray like Bahou-Messadou’s, shone with spiteful bitterness. His gaze was direct, but void of affability or wisdom.
This disagreement with the last of his forebears troubled Shamil.
“Nothing is written in the book of destiny that Allah has not decided,” he said with restraint. “We must play for time and wait for Chechen reinforcements to come.”
“But the Chechens are blocked on the plain, by that dog of a Klugenau that you spared!”
The memory of this missed opportunity caused a rumble of discontent and more than one bitter remark. They should have slit his throat, against Shamil’s will, they should have slit that pig’s throat at Chirquata. It would have been so easy.
“Once, you were willing to talk to the Russians, Imam. Let us open negotiations.”
“That’s useless. They will not give us peace and freedom.”
“If you don’t negotiate with them now, when they want to talk too, they will kill all our men, dishonor our women, and turn our children into slaves.”
“If we negotiate with them now, they will bring every Caucasian Muslim to his knees, you said so yourself, Barti Khan. They’ll make all of us, you and him and me, their serfs. They will throw the servants of God in the dust and keep them bent under their yoke. I’d rather kill my three sons, slit their throats with my own hand, down to the very last, than let them live in slavery. Purify yourselves. Burn the spirit of servitude that has shackled you from your souls.”
He leaped to his feet and stared down at them all.
“He who serves Allah cannot serve the Russians at the same time,” he said severely. “Will you renounce the promises of heaven for these dogs? Here, our hours are measured by the day. But up there, our lives will be eternal. Our native land is in paradise, and each of us has a home prepared for him there. But listening to your words, I’m sure none of them will be inhabited!”
He turned on his heel and left the grotto abruptly.
The waning moon had swept away the cloud of heat. Shamil felt so tired, so fatigued and so alone that the trials of this world left him close to despair. Was he mistaken? Had God ordered him to make peace? Should he dispatch an intermediary to the camp below? Should he send Yunus to negotiate in his name?
His sorrow mingling with envy, Shamil thought of his dead friends who had already entered the Gardens of Allah. Water as pure as diamonds flowed from the fountains where they had all of eternity to slake their thirst and rest in the shade of the cypress trees. Beautiful virgins with shining eyes and arms as round as swans’ necks waited for them in their homes. And he was here, watching the birds of prey hop between the stones to peck at the cadavers of his people. Was it he, Shamil, the shadow of God on earth? Or these black birds that hovered like a cloud over Akulgo that Jamal Eddin chased with stones?
The child had not left his side for nearly a week. He followed him everywhere, walking a few steps behind, alert to his every need, aware of his doubt and dismay. The boy relieved him of his weapons, took his messages to other survivors in the grottos, and cared for his horse when he returned from combat. Shamil let him do all this without a look, without a word, accepting his presence as a gift from God. This evening, for the first time, he looked at the rags hanging from the boy’s emaciated frame. The oval of the small face was so thin that it seemed to have changed shape, and the high cheekbones and once almond-shaped eyes had turned to slits beneath his puffy eyelids. He noted the boy’s fixed stare, the long lashes no longer able to hide his feverish look. His son, his disciple, his comfort.
The stifling night weighed upon his shoulders.
Continue the war and perish tomorrow? Capitulate tomorrow and save the children of Akulgo? He could find no answer within himself. Had Allah abandoned him? What did he ordain? Shamil no longer heard the voice of God.
He walked down across the roofs to the entrance of the village, passing slowly from terrace to terrace, striding across the interstices of the narrow alleyways, avoiding the holes in the structures. He walked from one end of New Akulgo to the other, all the way to the terrace of his former fort. He walked up the ruined crenels and sat down on the parapet overlooking the chasm. Jamal Eddin sat down on his lap, one leg dangling over the abyss. There they sat, immobile, as exposed to enemy fire as possible. From down below, they must be all the Russians could see, the imam with his white turban gleaming in the moonlight and the bare-headed boy. Why were they waiting to shoot? From here or in the back if they liked, from the distant tower above.