“It was my own brother, Alyosha, then stationed at the garrison at Stavropol, who transmitted the messages that Jamal Eddin had managed to pass through his father’s lines.
“At the beginning, we had news from him fairly regularly through Alyosha, and he passed on what was being said in the forts of the Caucasus about what was happening to my fiancé.”
Rumor had it that Jamal Eddin had set about his task the very day after his return. He explored the mountains of Dagestan and the forests of Chechnya, visited all of his father’s mountain eyries, studied the state of his fortifications, passed his troops in review, and methodically examined arms and equipment.
The conclusions of his investigation were scarcely surprising and confirmed what he had feared. The Montagnards were too few in number. Their weapons were old, worn out, and defective. The population was splintered by interclan squabbles, and the villages were ready to betray Shamil at the least sign of weakness.
Over the long term, the murid resistance was doomed to fail.
He sat down with his father for a serious discussion about all this. He tried to describe the immense wealth of the new czar, the power of his armies, and the sheer size of his empire.
The current succession of Russian defeats in the Crimea, however, did not help his cause.
Jamal Eddin’s argument only reinforced Shamil’s conviction that victory was imminent and that, more than ever, he should continue to harass the infidels. The holy war must go on.
The young man tried again, leaving aside the power of the Russians and concentrating on the unfortunate state of the Montagnards. Soon there would not be a single fighter left in the Caucasus—no more men, young or old. No more men at all.
Years of bloodbaths had decimated the population, and every new massacre weakened them further. The ranks of cavalry were too sparse, and their muskets were not powerful enough. If Shamil wanted his people to survive, he must seek peace with the enemy.
It was exactly the same thing that the imam had heard so long ago, at Akulgo: “If we don’t negotiate with them now, when this is what they want, they will kill all our men, abuse our women, and enslave our children. Give your son to the Russians, since that is what they ask. And play for time.”
Negotiate now. Jamal Eddin’s words echoed the past. Negotiate now, right away, when the invaders are busy elsewhere and in a difficult position themselves. Negotiate with them now, when they’re still clamoring for negotiations.
Afterward, it will be too late.
The siege of Sebastopol was over. Yes, the Russians had lost the war against the Europeans. But they had learned a great deal from their contact with modern and powerful troops. And now they would be free to concentrate on another front.
Prince Bariatinsky, the new commander-in-chief of the Armies of the Caucasus, was a personal friend of Alexander II. He would have every means at his disposal to bring this conflict to a positive end. And he was of an entirely different mettle than Grabbe and most of his predecessors.
Jamal Eddin emphasized that the situation was urgent. If he negotiated today, his father could still obtain the essential conditions he desired: religious freedom and possession of the land. As for the rest, he should let it go.
It was said that his words broke Shamil’s heart.
They wounded him to the core, and then they sent him into a mad rage.
His son was an agent, in the pay of the infidels!
The giaours’ henchman!
This is what his son had become? A hypocrite? A traitor?
This was probably the only reason the Russians had agreed to send him back to the Caucasus—to spy, to lead them astray, to corrupt his own people!
Wasn’t that the objective of the Great White Czar’s entire plan? Wasn’t that why he had kidnapped his son, kept him, and educated him?
He had succeeded in turning the son against the father, in alienating his child and defiling him.
Profoundly hurt, disappointed by his efforts, his love betrayed, Shamil suffered anew because of Jamal Eddin.
He began to avoid spending time with his son and soon became suspicious of his influence.
When young Mohammed Sheffi, fascinated by his older brother, also began to speak of the necessity of peace, their father’s wrath knew no limits.
Fearing contagion, the imam took away every vestige of Jamal Eddin’s Russian past, every impure object he had brought with him from the land of the infidels. He had thought it would be possible to let his son live as he liked here in the mountains. He had been wrong.
Shamil burned his books, his novels, his poetry, his maps, and his works of grammar. He burned the instruments he used to study physics, his sheet music, and his painting supplies.
The imam invited his son to concentrate on reading the Koran, exploring Sheik al-Buhari’s Book of Hadiths, and learning Arabic. He asked him to take instruction with the mullahs Shamil had chosen and not to leave the madrassa until his masters deemed him worthy and ready. He gave his son extensive access to his own library, which was replete with the knowledgeable works of his own masters and precious manuscripts that he himself had collected.
In Tiflis, it was rumored that Shamil wanted Jamal Eddin to marry. He had chosen for him the daughter of the naïb Talguike. She was said to be young, beautiful, and submissive. His purpose, no doubt, was to make his son an integral part of the life of his people and the future of Dagestan.
But Jamal Eddin said that he did not love the woman who had been chosen for him and that he would not live with her. He publicly refused to live under the same roof with his wife or even to touch her.
Infuriated at his son’s recalcitrance, which not only insulted the young woman’s family but humiliated him by flatly disobeying his orders, Shamil turned cruel.
His heart was already broken. Now it filled with hatred.
He had Jamal Eddin arrested and exiled to the fief of Mohammed Ghazi, at Karata.
So the eldest son became the captive of his younger brother.
Mohammed Ghazi was no torturer. He did not throw his prisoner into the bottom of a pit or mistreat him.
But he professed thorough contempt for what Jamal Eddin had become—a Russian.
Mohammed Ghazi, the horseman in white, was pure and sincere.
He was appalled by everything about Jamal Eddin—his tastes, his instincts, and his habits.
Jamal Eddin’s discourse was identical to that of the sellouts of Ghimri, Untsukul, and Arakhanee. Because of their cowardice or their own interests or for money, they let themselves be corrupted by the infidels and allowed their own brothers to be massacred.
He hated Jamal Eddin.
How could he not?
Other things contributed to Mohammed Ghazi’s insurmountable antipathy for his brother.
Hadn’t Jamal Eddin deserted their camp for sixteen years? And yet, because he was the eldest, he remained the true successor to the imam, the legitimate heir.
At least, that’s what the hypocrites and those who favored peace negotiations began to think—and to say.
After Jamal Eddin tried to escape from Karata a third time, Shamil exiled him to an even more remote place, farther up the mountain.
Farther from the inhabited auls.
And farther, most importantly, from the Russian lines.
Robbed of his books, completely helpless and isolated, Jamal Eddin fell ill. At least that was the rumor that was going around Tiflis.
In the forts along the line, it was said that he had caught cold in the glacial solitude of the high mountains where he had been banished and that the cold had rapidly degenerated into pneumonia. But no one really knew the actual causes of his illness nor its symptoms.