The Mountain and the Wall

by Alisa Ganieva

  They passed several houses and then made their way, slipping and sliding through thick, almost impassible mud, to some place that used to be a club. From there, skipping from stone to stone, they passed abandoned houses, decrepit and overrun by weeds. Shamil’s white boots turned black from the mud. Ducking, still gripping Shamil’s hand in hers, Madina’s mother led him through a beautifully chiseled stone arch into a dark passageway. Watery cow manure squelched under his feet. To his right a young bull bellowed, then fell silent.

  The crowd had settled down and was now only whispering its jokes, as though sensing the gravity of the moment. “How are they all going to get in here?” wondered Shamil, taking care to step in his never-to-be mother-in-law’s footsteps. At last, a strip of daylight gleamed through a crack in the wall, and soon they emerged from the dark passage and found themselves on the other side of the abandoned building. It looked out over the edge of a terrifying abyss, with the mother-of-pearl thread of a river glinting far below.

  Madina’s mother turned her laughing, youthful face toward him, and gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. The crowd tumbled out through the narrow archway and gradually filled the tiny scrap of land at the edge of the ravine. “We can’t be in Ebekh,” thought Shamil, disoriented. “There’s no ravine there.” The patch of ground at the cliff edge was overgrown with weeds, and the people in the crowd that had gathered there were beating on calfskin drums and laughing. Old Mukhuk was dancing with precise steps, at the head of an entire line of laughing women. “Patti, raise your hand up higher, you look like a sick heron, and Zahra, you’re lurching like a chicken,” he kidded the other dancers.

  Shamil stood with the toe of his boot braced against a large stone at the cliff edge, afraid he might lose his balance and tumble into the ravine. At this point the crowd began to poke and pinch him, tousle his hair, and whirl him around in circles. He had almost managed to free himself from the frenzied mob when with an ecstatic whoop Madina’s mother threw herself off the cliff and plunged into the abyss. Then the others hurled themselves down after her, beating on their drums and urging Shamil to join them as they passed. From below there came the sound of women’s joyful shrieks and men’s laughter.

  Shamil couldn’t move, couldn’t look over the cliff edge, couldn’t think. He stood for a moment, then turned and rushed back the way he had come, but the archway was gone; there was only a blank wall, warmed by the sun. He pulled off his boots, which were plastered with mud and manure, and tossed them into the abyss. There came a great crashing sound, and a fine hail of pellets, the size of sugar lumps, rained down onto the earth. Shamil woke up.

  He fell asleep and awoke several more times until he finally woke up for good. His mother had slipped a note under the door. She wrote that she was going to the gas station with one of his cousins, Mashidat, and after that they would go to their home village, and that he should come too, whenever he was ready. Shamil cursorily washed his face and hands and, unshaven, headed off to Mashidat’s place.

  6

  At Mashidat’s door he ran into Asya, her daughter, who had been at the family apartment the day he’d had his fateful conversation with Madina. Asya looked bedraggled, diffident. It turns out that her parents had left early that morning, and Shamil’s mother had gone with them. Asya had refused to leave, had insisted on staying behind in the city with her brother.

  She caught Shamil up on the news, and they walked side by side along the uneven, muddy road, barely making progress, as though their feet were sinking into deep sand. To their right was a fence running alongside the road with a kindergarten behind it. When he saw that the metal bars of the fence had been bent, leaving an opening, Shamil ducked through. Asya followed.

  He kept running into her, Asya, on the streets. He had even begun to suspect that she was seeking him out, and he’d had the urge to poke fun at her, taunt her, hurt her feelings, so that she would back off. But, honestly, it just kept slipping his mind.

  Now he took a closer look at her. She was pale and had clearly not put any attention into grooming herself, though she was pretty in a childlike sort of way. Dark blue circles were coming out under her eyes, however, casting an anxious, wasted pall over her young face.

  “They’ve come clean about the Wall,” she said abruptly.

  “Who has?”

  “It was on TV today, on the local news.”

  “I spent all last night flipping the channels, I didn’t see a thing!” Shamil snapped.

  They came up to a creaking iron wheel, the skeleton of a merry-go-round. Asya sat on it and adjusted her hair.

  “I want to get out of here,” she said, and strands of hair streaked across her lips.

  “Where would you go?”

  “Moscow, maybe.”

  Shamil chuckled. “What do you suppose you’d do there? Just smell the roses?”

  “No, I wouldn’t stay anyway, I’d leave there too,” she said solemnly, without looking at Shamil.

  “Are you off your rocker, or what?”

  “Of course I am,” she blurted. “I can’t dance, I never know what to wear, I don’t know what to say to people, I don’t know how to smile. Of course I’m off my rocker. There’s only one option for me: the Buinaksk psych ward.”

  Shamil gave a nervous laugh. “You’ve got a point there. It’s not going to be easy for you to find a husband.”

  “I don’t need one anyway,” snapped Asya.

  “You should have gone with your parents, then…”

  “I have to finish my coursework.”

  “I have a feeling there won’t be any more courses,” said Shamil. “We’re done for.”

  They sat without talking, just watched the squeaking iron wheel as it turned.

  “Madina got married, she did a nikiakh,” said Asya abruptly.

  Shamil tensed up. “How do you know?”

  “She didn’t even tell her parents,” continued Asya. “You can guess who she married. A zealot and murderer just like all the others. And they were always holding her up to me as an example, Madina this, Madina that…”

  “Who told you that?” roared Shamil.

  Asya shuddered and stammered: “Everyone’s talking about it, Mama told me. And your mother knows about it too. Everyone knows. Go ask them yourself.”

  She tucked her light-colored hair back behind her ears and looked into Shamil’s eyes. Hers were red.

  “It was all over with me and Madina anyway,” said Shamil for some reason. “Where were you going just now?”

  Asya blushed. “Me? Just to a friend’s.”

  Well, that can’t be true, thought Shamil: she doesn’t have any friends.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  But Asya looked quite frightened now; she hopped down off of the wheel, quickly said good-bye, and darted out of the playground.

  Shamil stroked his unshaven chin and stood there another minute. Then he headed off toward Madina’s house. This time the bench at the entrance was empty, and the steps up to her floor gave out a hollow, dull echo. Madina’s mother, wearing a striped velour housecoat, opened the door and recoiled. Then she collected herself and politely invited Shamil in. The apartment was bustling with activity; someone was dashing from one room to the other. Though Shamil couldn’t see who it was, he felt, and knew, that it was Madina.

  Her father came out. He was wearing a faded shirt and looked even older and grayer than before. After saying their salams they went into the spacious formal room with its crystal chandelier and portraits of their ancestors lining the walls. The TV was blaring. Some religious program.

  “They say we’ve been walled off,” rasped Madina’s father, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the TV. “Next they’ll be taking over and dividing everything up.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “Is it true that Madina has had a secret religious marriage?” Shamil got straight to the point.

  “It’s a great dishonor for our family, Shamil,” Madina’s father began quietly, without
looking at him. “We will return all your gifts, but we ask you not to break ties with us, you are near and dear to us, and…”

  He cleared his throat again.

  “How did it happen?”

  Madina’s mother appeared in the doorway, having changed into a long frilly dress.

  “Here’s what I can tell you,” she began. She came over, sat down next to him, and placed her palm on his wrist. “You can see what things are like these days. It happened so fast—before we knew what was going on, they had stuffed her head with all kinds of khapur-chapur. The boy is one of ours, you know, he was in her class, then dropped out, they say his brother is one of those men hiding out in the woods…”

  “He’s all right, though—he hasn’t killed anyone!” interjected Madina’s father.

  “He’s all right, but he’s in a tough spot because of his brother…anyway, Madina got carried away…” her mother hesitated and wiped away a tear, “and I noticed that she was reading these new books, all of a sudden…she got all serious, stopped going to weddings. She didn’t go to Bashir’s wedding either, remember? Then she was trying to tell me how to pray properly, and was also trying to indoctrinate her father…We told her, va-a-a-a, Madina, if you say one more word to us about religion, we’re going to stop letting you leave the house. So we thought she’d given it up…”

  “She always used to obey her father, always, she had iakh’namus.”

  “Maybe we can start over, Shamil?” Madina’s mother asked then, plaintively. “Nothing happened between them, they went to the mosque out of sheer stupidity, and it can be undone, you know.”

  Shamil frowned. “What do you mean, nothing happened? You know what she told me? She said that I work for thieves, and all kinds of other insulting stuff. Why should I put up with that? Who does she think I am? Why should I crawl out of here like a whipped dog?”

  He was becoming incoherent. The floorboards creaked and Madina was there, pale, wearing a beige hijab.

  “Mama, why are you disgracing yourself, selling me to a murtad?” she asked in a grim, hard voice. “I already have a husband.”

  “You don’t have a husband, k’akh’ba!” roared her father “These religious marriages have no weight without the parents’ approval!”

  “And what if my parents live in kufr? If they’re infidels? In that case the law permits me to turn to more appropriate guardians. I’m sorry to make things so inconvenient for you all, but how much longer can I go on hiding? Shamil, you have to listen—not to me…I’m a woman and must not try to teach a man…Inshallah, but perhaps others can remove the scales from your eyes.”

  “Shamil, please don’t tell anyone about all this,” intervened her mother, “or they’ll inform the officials about those connections she has, take down her name.”

  “They will not, Mama,” objected Madina. “Now those murtads, subhanallah, are afraid even to show themselves on the street, Allah has heard our prayers at last. And our brothers aren’t terrorists, they are Muslims who want to live like Muslims. And soon everyone will live that same way.”

  Shamil was aghast. He looked at Madina’s father, who was uncharacteristically silent. He sat hunched over, crushed, with his eyes fixed on the folds in his trousers.

  “I understand,” said Shamil, not sure why, and made his way in silence to the door.

  In the corridor Madina’s mother could no longer restrain herself, and burst into uncontrollable sobs.

  “Vai, Shamil, we’re ruined, disgraced. There’s nothing we can do with her—they’re out of their minds.”

  Shamil ignored her and walked out the door. He felt so bad for them, he couldn’t face them another moment. He felt worse for them than he did for himself, in fact. He couldn’t grasp how this catastrophe had come about. As recently as a few days ago, he hadn’t suspected a thing. They hadn’t been seeing each other much, it’s true, but it would have been improper for Madina and himself to get together more often. And she hadn’t given Shamil a single hint before that last conversation of theirs…

  He imagined what people would say. They would be so eager to spread the terrible news; gray-haired Nurizhat, licking her lips, would pick over both families’ bones—Shamil’s as well as Madina’s. He blamed himself; why hadn’t he tried to find out whom she was associating with? Chances are it had been some relative of hers who’d done the damage—someone who attends a particular mosque, someone who recognizes no governmental authority, including his village chief—only his mullah. Shamil began to sort back through the men in his own family who had begun to observe the strictest religious rituals, who had begun condemning alcohol, who’d shown an aversion to sheikhs, ustads, and miracles. All of them were disaffected with the powers that be, of course, and with the officials who had subjected them to such cruel interrogations. But all of them had also claimed to be nonviolent, and to only want to be left in peace.

  Here Shamil recalled that something had been said about the rise of the Salafis. But of course now, with the Wall, a lot could change.

  He was still in the courtyard of Madina’s building when he heard someone shouting his name. Her father had come out of the house and was hurrying to catch up with Shamil. As he walked, he took out a pack of cigarettes and some matches.

  “I didn’t want to talk in there,” he said without preamble. “Here’s what I think, Shamil. They’re taking over, no doubt about it. And you know, sometimes I think to myself, maybe they’re not so bad…”

  He stopped, seemingly lost for words. Shamil recoiled: “Now don’t you go losing your mind too. They’re flat-out insane!”

  “What about my nephew? He’s not at all crazy, just a normal guy. He might have gotten a little carried away, sure, but he’s no criminal. Last Friday, he and the others were in the mosque, and all of them got dragged out and beaten in the street. They hadn’t done a thing. And it’s not the first time…”

  “They must have done something.”

  “But they didn’t,” repeated Madina’s father, curtly, flicking away some ash. “All they want is to live according to the Koran, and that’s their right.”

  “They’re not the only ones with rights—other folks have rights too.”

  “But they happen to think that those other folks are living in sin.”

  “You’ve been listening to your daughter too much. I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but you should have given her some good knocks on the head instead of lapping up her nonsense. They’ve ruined her life.”

  “Calm down, Shamil. Have sabur.” Madina’s father lifted his hands into the air and declaimed:

  Try to tempt her, try in vain!

  My guilt, my shame, eternal pain—

  “Forget me for all time, forever

  Will I forget you? Never…”

  Shamil’s non-father-in-law’s voice had become shrill.

  Shamil couldn’t understand the point of this little performance—neither could he understand the rest of their conversation, for that matter. They shook hands sadly, and Shamil headed off to find Uncle Alikhan at work. Madina’s father remained standing in the yard, holding his half-smoked cigarette.

  At the office Shamil learned that neither Alikhan nor any of the other higher-ups had showed up to work. Shamil remembered the closed airport, the eerie absence of airplanes. Could they have skipped town?

  He sat down on the low cement wall outside the building and surveyed the street. There were practically no women out; now and then, excited children ran past. Clusters of men were standing around on the sidewalks arguing energetically. Cars hurtled by along the rough, pitted streets like metal meteors.

  Shamil closed his eyes and remembered his trip to the goldsmiths’ settlement. Maybe he should go to his family’s village, get as far away as he could from these problems, from all this confusion, from the evil thoughts that were plaguing him. Then some increased activity among the various clusters of men caught his eye. They had gradually abandoned their individual conversations and had started movi
ng, in groups of two or three, toward the square. Shamil stood up listlessly and followed.

  7

  Seeing a group of men and women on the square holding big posters with photographs on them, Shamil thought, “Not again,” and decided not to stick around. But something held him back; this was different from the usual demonstrations. There were more posters than before, and the people holding them seemed more aggressive. An unruly crowd had gathered around the poster-bearers, everyone was nodding, waving their hands, yelling. The women, practically all of them veiled, were holding photographs of naively smiling young men and shouting: “Bring back our brother!” or “Bring back our son!” There wasn’t a single policeman in sight, which was especially strange.

  A man in a warm-up jacket, gesticulating, was talking into several video cameras: “My cousin’s name was Nazhib Isaev. He was killed in March of this year, right in front of my eyes. We were walking down Lenin Street toward the computer center, and suddenly this blue sedan with tinted windows pulls up next to us. Some guys in ordinary sweat suits get out and head our way, and as they’re walking they pull on masks and just start shooting, basically.”

  “What were they shooting at?”

  “Straight at us! So Nazhib jumps one way, and I jump the other. And he just falls over, basically. And with me right there watching, they shoot Nazhib in the head, to finish him off. And then they toss something down next to him…”

  “What was it?”

  “An automatic rifle, this and that, ‘evidence’ to make him look guilty. Then they went into the store there, got a bag, came back, collected the empty shells in it, and took off…and that was it.”

  Shamil walked on. In another group a man in a light linen jacket was giving a speech: “Murad was abducted this past winter when he was on his way home from the gym. They dragged him into a car and took him who knows where. They were wearing Special Forces uniforms. His parents have been trying to get him back for over six months…”