The ground floor consisted of only one room, which was divided by a central pillar. A long dining table stood in the light from the only window. A pedestal table with a reading lamp had been arranged at the back of the room, where the light was dim.
Two fires were barely enough to warm the place during the glacial winter of Khassav-Yurt. Four chairs were placed between the fireplace and the stove. Then Chavchavadze instructed his subordinates.
“All of you leave, except the Uhlans, the interpreter, and the two orderlies. You,” he addressed the Vladimirsky Lancers, “each of you stand against a wall, and do not sit down, even if I invite the Chechens to do so. You too, Lieutenant Shamil. Remain standing, no matter what happens. Draw your weapons if the Montagnards try to use theirs.”
David stood majestically, nonchalantly leaning an elbow on the mantelpiece of the fireplace.
He turned slightly to inspect his reflection in the mirror. He smoothed his moustache and adjusted his jacket, straightening his decorations and his officer’s cap. He knew how much elegance, dignity, and an aura of calm impressed the Montagnards.
The color drained from his face, and his heart beat wildly. He glanced at the reflection of Shamil’s son and saw that he too was pale.
Jamal Eddin stood opposite him, leaning on the mantel of the stove with one arm. His head uncovered, his face inscrutable, he gazed intently before him. He wore the indigo uniform of the Vladimirsky Lancers, with the waist tightly cinched into his silver belt and his saber at his side. His appearance was impressive, but his efforts to breathe normally were transparent proof of his struggle to control his emotions.
They exchanged a look, and Jamal Eddin nodded slightly to him. He was ready.
“Send in the emissaries,” David ordered.
The four murids, lean and gaunt in their dark cherkeskas, walked into the room in single file. Their medals—silver discs that Shamil conferred upon his naïbs in recognition of courageous or murderous acts—gleamed beneath their rows of cartridges.
All had almond eyes, hooked noses, and high cheekbones. All of them wore the same headdress of black lambskin crowned with a white turban, pushed back slightly from their foreheads, Chechen style. Their muskets and sabers were slung across their shoulders as bandoliers, and each wore pistols tucked in his belt and two kinjals crossed at the waist. Though all of them were at least twenty years older than any of the soldiers in the room, not a single white hair was visible in their long beards.
Jamal Eddin didn’t recognize any of them.
They did not look around and showed no curiosity as to which of the Russians was the son of the imam.
Their backs to Jamal Eddin, they bowed before Chavchavadze. He responded with an even more ceremonious salute. The guests introduced themselves, one by one. The interpreter translated.
The first was Khadji, Shamil’s steward. The naïb of Dargo and the brother of the imam’s first wife, who was deceased, he was the maternal uncle of Jamal Eddin.
He was followed by Shamil’s brother-in-law, the naïb Akbirdil, spouse of the late Aunt Patimat.
Then came the interpreter, Shah-Abbas, who had negotiated the surrender of the amanats at Akulgo with General Grabbe.
Finally there was Yunus, the naïb of Chirquata, the atalik of the imam’s son, his former tutor. This was the man who had accompanied Jamal Eddin to the Russian camp so long ago.
Yunus. Jamal Eddin could not help but react at the sound of the name, which he had not heard uttered for sixteen years. He leaned forward to look at him. He could only see the man’s craggy profile, the nose like an eagle’s beak, the beard shaped to a point.
When the interpreter had finished the introductions and Chavchavadze’s guests had declined his offer to be seated, all of them moved to the center of the room.
Then Yunus took a bunch of grapes from his haversack and turned to the three young Vladimirsky Lancers standing together. He offered them to Sacha, the short redhead, to colossal, blond Bux, and—not hesitating for a moment—to Jamal Eddin. Had Yunus recognized him from the start? But how? Jamal Eddin could scarcely hide his surprise.
The grapes were dirty and withered. Jamal Eddin took them politely, but—his first faux pas—he did not understand a word of the speech that accompanied the gift.
He had tried not to forget his native tongue, but he had not spoken it for a long time. None of the Cherkesses in the Cadet Corps had spoken Avar, and Yunus’s accent in no way resembled Shibshiev’s. He turned to the interpreter.
Yunus had explained that this was a gift from his stepmother, Zaïdet, the daughter of Shamil’s old mentor, Sheik Jamaluddin. She was now the first wife of the imam and wished to welcome him.
Jamal Eddin thanked Yunus in Russian, asking him to express his gratitude to his father’s wife for this kind gesture. But he seemed encumbered rather than impressed by the bunch of grapes. What should he do with them? This was his second mistake. The emissaries were disappointed by his lack of grace. Their offering had been subtle and carefully conceived, a generous concession to Jamal Eddin’s Russian customs. Hadn’t the imam forbidden wine, hadn’t he had all the grape vines torn out and destroyed?
And finally, he made the ultimate gaffe. Instead of sharing the bunch of grapes with his guests and tasting them then and there, he gave them to one of his orderlies to be rinsed. This gesture was taken not as ignorance of custom or a hygienic measure, but as a gross insult. The imam’s son mistrusted his naïbs and was afraid of being poisoned by his own people.
Yunus made mental notes of all these faults but expressed no disapproval. He did not even look askance.
Turning back to the prince, he said, with great dignity, “The purpose of my visit is to make sure that this young man is the son of the imam. My mission does not extend beyond that.”
David nodded in agreement. He moved to the back of the room, motioning to Buxhöwden, Milyutin, and the other Russians to follow him and gather around the pedestal table.
Jamal Eddin remained alone with the Montagnards. Still leaning on the mantel of the stove, he did not move as they scrutinized him.
His uncles, his tutor, his peers—the men of his family—consulted each other as they studied him closely. He felt no affection or even liking for these strangers, who felt entitled to do what he would not have tolerated under normal circumstances. Their wary and expectant stares made him feel as though he had been stripped naked.
He caught a few words of the emissaries’ conversation. They remarked on how tall he was and commented on his striking resemblance to his younger brother, Mohammed Ghazi; how he had the same stature, the same powerful build, the same expression.
Yunus asked him a direct question.
Again he did not understand. Again the interpreter had to translate for him.
Yunus asked if he remembered his childhood, the names of the defenders of Akulgo, of his father’s naïbs.
Jamal Eddin hesitated. Yes, he remembered one name.
“Which one?”
“Bahou-Messadou.”
“That’s all?”
“My grandmother. That’s a lot,” he said brusquely and bitterly. “The khanum Bahou-Messadou, who was punished by the imam.”
“No one, nothing else?” Yunus insisted.
He made an effort to remember, sifting through the vague images that flashed through his mind. He had a vision of sabers swallowed up in the rushing mountain stream, the silver kinjals and plates of gold bobbing up from the depths and whirling in the river’s strong current. He hadn’t had this dream, he hadn’t thought of these images since—since he had met Varenka. They had faded as his life had become busy with balls with Anna and Varenka.