His words were meant to be reassuring, but Jamal Eddin replied bitterly, “Worry? There’s nothing to worry about.” His voice trembled with rage. “If I had something to worry about, it would be that things will turn out exactly as you wish. What else should I be worried about?”
“Be quiet,” the prince murmured, devastated.
This time it was David who tried to calm his comrade, but it was no use.
Indignant, disgusted, overwhelmed by the antipathy and repugnance this haggling stirred in the depths of his being, Jamal Eddin could no longer contain his feelings. His anger, his revulsion, his contempt, and his disappointment exploded in a bitter tirade.
“I forgot you, every single one of you. You know very well how old I was when I was taken, because you yourselves gave me away!” he continued violently. “I had forgotten this land, and I return here without joy. And if I had to go back to Russia, believe me, I would do so tomorrow, immediately and without regret!”
“Quiet!”
The prince tried to restrain him, but Jamal Eddin struggled free.
“Why should I be polite to them? Why shouldn’t I tell these liars the truth?”
“Shut up!”
“Traitors and hypocrites—they can go to hell!”
“Your words could have terrible consequences for the fate of my wife and my sister-in-law.”
The weight of David’s words finally registered in Jamal Eddin’s mind. He calmed down and remained silent for the rest of the interview.
No news from Shamil. Nor from the princesses. Chavchavadze and Jamal Eddin were under unbearable strain.
Had Anna and Varenka been sold?
A sentinel ran to tell them that the four emissaries were on their way.
Prince David jumped to his feet. He was so nervous that he paced to the doorstep, turned round and came back three times. Jamal Eddin sat in a chair watching the prince, so obviously beside himself, stride back and forth.
He knew that any excessive haste would make a bad impression and that Yunus would respect only calm and serenity.
The prince took up his pose at the fireplace mantel and waited. Milyutin and Buxhöwden stood beside him. Jamal Eddin stood at the far end of the room, in the shadows.
The envoys arrived and were greeted curtly. This time when offered a chair, they bowed and accepted the invitation. The four Russians sat facing them. No one said a word.
The silence went on for an eternity, at least several minutes. Finally Yunus spoke.
“If the prince will permit me, I will say a few words.”
“If you have come to say that Shamil accepts all my conditions and has chosen the time and the place for the exchange, then, yes, you may speak. If not, I must ask you to get up and leave my quarters immediately.”
Yunus and his three companions rose as one.
It was all over. The prince wavered, as though the blow had been physical. The princesses had been distributed to the naïbs; they had been sold or dishonored. Jamal Eddin was horrified. A wave of hatred and disgust washed over him like nausea. But beneath his dread, despite himself, an atrocious joy, a feeling of immense relief, rose instinctively from deep within. He suddenly realized he had never stopped hoping that the exchange would never happen, never ceased to deny his own will in forcing himself to do all he could to make it possible. From the outset, he had burned with the desire to leave, to get away from this country, to escape from these mountains.
Yunus bowed to the prince. David no longer had the strength to react, to speak, even to throw him out.
“In the eyes of our grand imam, money is like grass. Money grows, it dries out, and it disappears.”
This was beyond Shah-Abbas the interpreter’s talents. Neither Chavchavadze nor Jamal Eddin understood the meaning of the words he translated into bad Russian.
Unperturbed, Yunus went on.
“Shamil does not serve money. Shamil serves God. He has asked me to congratulate you; the bargain is concluded on your own terms.”
Silence. No reaction.
“You are aware that our grand imam cares for his people and hopes for their well-being. His people are poor. His people have served him; some even died for him when they captured the princesses, and they demand money in return for their liberation. Without the consent of his people and his naïbs, Shamil can do nothing, nor does he wish to. When we gave him your message, he gathered all the elders and informed them of your words. ‘If you do not accept the prince Chavchavadze’s final conditions,’ he said, ‘then you must take his family and guard them in captivity yourselves. I do not want to see these women and children in my home any longer.’ The naïbs and the elders answered unanimously, ‘How can we leave your son in the hands of the infidels? We will agree to anything, as long as your son is returned to you. Send the captives back, take the forty thousand rubles, and bring your son home.’”
Prince Chavchavadze was flooded with joy as he listened to this speech. And Jamal Eddin with dread. The exchange would take place. Both of them maintained an appearance of calm. David asked for the date and location of the encounter.
“On this point, Shamil has said he will speak with you directly,” his agent replied.
They bowed and left the prince’s quarters.
But they did not leave the camp.
They spent that night and the following days and nights counting the ransom. Khadji, the steward, soon realized he could never have counted a million rubles in pieces of silver.
Jamal avoided all contact with him and with Yunus and the others. He divorced himself from their preparations, Chechen and Russian alike, leaving them to work things out among themselves.
For all of them, he was merely a pawn. A toy. A token. A marble, to be shot back and forth. That was what he had always been, a piece on a chessboard. He refused to play anymore. He had come to the end of that road.
He even avoided David and his boyhood friends. Buxhöwden and Milyutin watched as he widened the distance between them, keeping to himself, silent and solitary. They were at a loss. What could they do or say to bring him back?
The counting was finished by Tuesday evening.
The imam’s emissaries left Khassav-Yurt, accompanied by the prince’s interpreter, who had conducted the negotiations since the kidnapping. Shamil would instruct him on the practical details of the exchange in person.
The imam received the interpreter beneath his canopy, shortly before dawn on Wednesday, without waiting for the first light of day. Shamil and his entire army were camping a day away on foot from the Mitchik River, the location he had chosen for the rendezvous.
In the nine months since they had first met, Shamil and the interpreter had come to know each other well.
The imam welcomed him, reclining on the cushions splayed over the carpet before the fire in his tent. His impeccably trimmed beard was still red, dyed with henna. He wore the same high, black papakha crowned with a white turban, the trail of one of its folds falling down his back, and the same green robe, with kinjals crossed at the belt.
Despite sorrow, fatigue, battles, and cavalcades, time had left no mark on him. In war and peace, prayer, solitude, and waiting, he remained very much the man he had always been. A sober, towering figure, he seemed much younger than his fifty-eight years.
Deep in thought, he fingered his string of amber prayer beads.
After their usual greetings, the imam cut to the heart of the matter, speaking in a low voice.