The Mountain and the Wall

by Alisa Ganieva

  Flip, flip, flip: “Twice a widow,” he read, “Khandulai…”

  He smirked. “Really, it’s getting to be a bit much,” he said to himself. “This Khandulai woman is a regular Black Widow.”

  The booth was finally just ahead. Shamil took a quick look around, then turned all the way to the last page:

  I was taught from childhood that there is no God on earth. But now that I, Makhmud, have lived my life, I can state absolutely that He exists. And I can even tell you, dear readers, where souls end up after death.

  Our souls end up at the top of Rokhel-Meer, the Mountain of Celebrations. And there, on Meer, will be a place of purity, where there is no poverty, no scarcity, no want. There will be a great village there with tanneries, armories, and stone workshops. Its dwellings are part of the very cliffs; there, benign white spirits will feast together with the people, and the celebration will never end. There too, I hope, will dwell your Makhmud, he will drink fresh buza and watch as the dove-gray steam rises above the green-white-blue peaks…

  “Break it up, go on home! There’s no more bread!” howled someone in a crude bass.

  The line fidgeted and dispersed.

  5

  So Shamil didn’t get any bread. He headed morosely off, but noticed a chartreuse-colored cloud, a light expanse of cloth billowing in the wind amid the hushed crowd, barely touching the earth.

  “Asya!” exclaimed Shamil, discerning her familiar little nose in the waves of undulating cloth.

  She smiled and floated toward him.

  “What is that thing you’re wearing?” Shamil snickered, looking over Asya’s turban with its strangely flowing sail, and at all the gauzy material lightly enveloping her figure.

  “I’m covering my avrat.”

  “That may very well be, but you’re actually attracting attention.”

  “You’re not the first to tell me that. They said that your external hijab needs to reflect your inner hijab.” Asya looked around guiltily. “I simply wanted to cheer myself up,” she said. “With everything that’s going on around here…you can’t make any sense of it.”

  “Why aren’t you in Georgia?” Shamil got in a little jab. “Bearing in mind that I have no intention of leaving town.”

  “Forget the letter,” Asya snapped, and then asked, “You’re not going to make fun of me just because of that, are you?”

  “Anyone in my position would.”

  “But you’re not just anyone,” objected Asya with uncustomary haste.

  “Where did you get the nerve?”

  “You try to live in a house without water or light for a whole week! What’s it going to be like in the winter? We’re going to have to get ahold of some kerosene lamps.”

  Asya had spent the last few days hauling buckets to the neighboring quarter to get water from the people there, who still had some utilities running. In the evenings people locked themselves inside their homes, lit stearin candles and huddled there quaking at the slightest sound. The women covered themselves completely from head to toe, cowering from the ferocious guardians of morality patrolling the streets, while the older men glowered, fiddled around with the felled telephone lines and their mute televisions, grumbling under their breath.

  “Can you imagine, Asya? Some Jordanian guy broke into Umukusum’s apartment and nearly shot her. She’d covered her arms, but her skirt only came down to here, just below the knees, you know,” babbled Asya’s neighbor, whose big, strong, gray-eyed son had disappeared during the winter, but who had quickly seen the error of his ways and had been pardoned by a special commission. Now the neighbor was afraid that her wayward son’s former comrades would take revenge on him, so she had sent him away to a distant kutan.

  “And Sultanov, the one who lived in that red mansion, he’s from the same village as the mayor…he couldn’t get away in time. He pasted on a fake mustache, changed his clothes, abandoned the house, tied a green sling across his chest, and went into hiding at a fish-canning plant. They found him there and put a lit match to his mustache. Without thinking, he immediately tried to peel it off, that’s how they got him…”

  There were a lot of stories like that making the rounds. People told about soldiers, policemen, government workers, judges, prostitutes, and bribe-takers who had tried to hide, but had been caught and executed.

  Ultimately Asya and her brother had moved in with relatives in a cramped but clean little house in a neighborhood where there was still electricity. They turned on the only working channel, listened to the gray-haired emir in military uniform making promises on the screen, and in hushed voices discussed the video clips showing people in Dagestan and neighboring republics ecstatically celebrating the new emirate and hurling cobblestones at the abandoned police departments and government offices.

  Shamil accompanied Asya to that little house. They walked down empty streets, plastered with triumphant proclamations, summons, and direct threats aimed at the infidels.

  “Come along on Thursday, Shamil,” said Asya. “It’s dangerous to be out driving alone. There’s unrest everywhere, and there are a lot of checkpoints on the highways. We’re getting together a big group, there will be twenty cars. We’ll go to Ebekh, where our parents are. And from there we can go to Cher, it’s very close. We can think, decide what to do next. The people won’t just sit by and let this happen…”

  “There are people on the other side as well,” answered Shamil.

  “Yes, including Madina, but our people outnumber them…I’m sorry to be so direct, but I know why you stayed here and why you didn’t go with your mother.”

  “I had things to do. I was looking for Uncle Alikhan.”

  “Uncle Alikhan is long gone! He’s undoubtedly been killed!” exclaimed Asya so loudly that a figure lurking under a tree emerged and began following them, carrying an automatic rifle.

  Shamil frowned. “Wait, what are you implying?”

  “That you want to kill Otsok, Madina’s husband. Everyone’s expecting you to do it. Not me, of course,” Asya broke off. “Well, not expecting, exactly, but everyone thinks you’re capable of doing something like that.”

  “Everyone who?”

  “They were talking about it yesterday at Uncle Eldar’s, I heard them.”

  Nearby in the road a pile of trash smoldered, sending up caustic smoke. The windows of gutted stores gaped, their glass shattered, and in the place where the café had flourished, a dark sign now read: ADVANCED TRAINING CLUB FOR TRUE MUSLIMS.

  “Why do they think I would?”

  “What do you mean?” Asya’s eyes grew big and round. “To take revenge! I’m opposed to murder, naturally, but honestly I assumed that you were simply waiting for the right moment. They say that you’ve figured out where Madina is living.”

  “That’s…” Shamil sputtered, “that’s ridiculous! Why…”

  They were standing outside the neatly whitewashed gate of the house where Asya had been staying. Her relatives had noticed she was gone, and had sent people out to look for her. They stood on the terrace muttering to one another: “Vakh, vakh, where did she run off to, all by herself?”

  “I’m sorry, I seem to have said some khapur-chapur,” said Asya, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “Come in with me and get some bread for yourself.”

  She pulled out a loaf of bread and handed it to Shamil. Her fingers were cold, in spite of the hot, humid air.

  “You there!” The voice, rude and self-righteous, came out of nowhere, right next to them: “Why are you out alone together? Did you just touch each other?”

  They turned and saw the figure with his automatic rifle.

  “She’s my wife,” Shamil answered curtly, with a sense of burning irritation. Asya gave him a surprised look, waved her hand, and disappeared through the gate. The meddler looked at Shamil silently for a second, then growled, “You better look out, we can check,” and turned away.

  Shamil didn’t follow Asya in, but continued on down the demolished street.

&nbs
p; His thoughts were disjointed. “They’re all waiting for me to…well, perhaps…or maybe not…”

  Then he stopped in the middle of the road. “To hell with her, the bitch,” he said to himself. “See if I ever get my hands dirty with the likes of her again!”

  The disgust that he had felt toward Madina had cooled; he had become almost indifferent to her. And then he realized that he had just now called Asya his wife.

  “Shamil! Le, you with the folder!” someone shouted.

  This voice belonged to a young man of average height, dressed in loose trousers and a strange, faded T-shirt with a half-moon on the front. Shamil didn’t recognize his friend right away. The last time he had seen him was that night when they’d gone to the Padishakh nightclub with those two girls.

  “Arsenchik, what’s up, how are things?”

  “No worries. Though we’re in deep shit, let me tell you. The old man sold the flat, he bailed, wanted to take me along…”

  Shamil cast a skeptical look at the halfmoon and nodded vaguely. “So why didn’t you go?”

  Arsen grinned: “What, get in with those wackos from the woods? No way. This guy I know, he says come to Chirkei. I’m out of here tomorrow morning. My mom’s losing it, but I’m going no matter what. They have a bunker, they’re digging trenches and what-all, they’re getting down with some major firepower, let me tell you.”

  “To use against who?”

  “Against those guys, the mujahideen, I mean. Serious shit, the sheikh is right in the thick of it.”

  “You didn’t use to have anything to do with the sheikhs, as I recall,” smiled Shamil.

  “Le, bro, good luck handling it some other way. The sheikh is where the power is! He’ll give those Wahhabis a real kick in the ass. How about you come along? Everyone’s going to get grenades and a sidearm. Their guys had some heat left over from ’99.”§

  “I already agreed to go home with my relatives, to our village. We have our own sheikh up there, if he hasn’t been rubbed out yet.”

  “Ai saul, bro!”

  “Listen, where’s Nariman?”

  Arsen frowned. “Rashik said that they offed him. Him and his folks, and his sister too. Burned their house down.”

  “Who, the beards?”

  “Who else? His old man worked in the tax office, ripped everyone off right and left. You know yourself the kind of dough he was slinging around.”

  Arsen spat on the street without listening to Shamil’s muttered complaints.

  “Right, then, bro! Don’t take it wrong, they’re waiting for me.”

  “Good luck! Don’t worry. With luck we’ll see each other again,” said Shamil, slapping him on the shoulders.

  “Saul to you! Here, take this rag, I don’t need it. It’s from the Emirate.”

  Shamil tucked both Asya’s loaf of bread and the folder with Makhmud Tagirovish’s novel under his arm, and took the tabloid with his free hand. It was covered with Arabic script and had a black flag with a white saber and the shahada on the masthead.

  Shamil crossed the railroad tracks directly over the ties, then descended the sandy steps and sprang down onto the beach, which was deserted and seemed unusually broad in the evening light. He took off his shoes and breathed deeply, filling his chest with air, then started walking across the warm sand alongside the thundering, restless sea, past the orphaned lifeguard tower.

  Shamil tucked the things he was carrying under one arm and opened the newspaper. The wind wouldn’t let him open it out flat, but he persisted. By the booth where they’d been selling cotton candy just a month ago, some big hulking guy was standing on guard, his chest lined with bands of automatic rifle shells. He scrutinized Shamil, but did not budge from his spot.

  6

  The waves choked in their own foam. Gagging on fragments of sea-shells, they hissed and dissolved in the swelling sand. Shamil unfolded the Emirate’s tabloid. The front page featured an address by the emir, framed in a graphic of unsheathed sword blades:

  Praise be to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, Who created us Muslims and Who blessed us with jihad, giving us the opportunity to earn Paradise. I praise Allah for the events that are taking place among us. A new independent state has come into being in the Islamic world. It has overthrown the Russian tagut, who was wallowing in vice. Guided only by the law of sharia, it will overcome the troubles of our time!

  The path to the Emirate was long, hard, and bloody. I recall the beginning of negotiations with those who are no longer with us and who, inshallah, have been martyred. It was a difficult time. People came to us bearing banners of Islam, but this was only a disguise. They masked themselves with the letter of Islam, while in fact they were struggling for Ichkerian independence, taking revenge for a murdered brother, or were simply out to make a profit…

  A new day is dawning. We will purge our ranks of casual warriors who lack aqeedah. We have no need for young romantics or men who only want to swagger and show how brave they are. We need only true servants of Allah, prepared to die at any moment. Mujahideen who love the Messenger and Paradise.

  Alhamdulillah, now we see how our umma is coming together, is becoming firm; now the munafiqs and kafirs face retribution; they will be hunted like rats. But that does not mean that we can lay down our weapons or can loll about in the palaces confiscated from the thieves! Gazavat will continue so long as we face an external and internal threat.

  Forget about filial or family attachments. If your brother, friend, or dear one does not believe in Allah as he should, if he indulges his nafs and refuses to accept your teaching, let nothing and no one hinder your way forward on the correct path…

  Shamil set the newspaper aside. Darkness was settling in. He stood listening to the roar of the surf. A huge, gray mass, it rushed clumsily toward the shore, tumbled, fell, seeped into the sand, then swelled again. The sea heaved and devoured the last sliver of the scarlet sun. Shamil recalled Asya’s chartreuse robe and smiled to himself: “Vababai, Shamil, fallen in love, have you?”

  He tried to chase away thoughts of Asya. Then, he lifted the fragrant, crusty bread and sank his teeth into it.

  “Salam, Shamil!”

  Shamil started, turned, and saw a kind of shadow under a pile of boulders. A man was sitting literally two paces behind him.

  “Well, young man, what are you doing sitting all alone out here after sunset? It’s not safe.”

  “Vaaleikum salam,” murmured Shamil, standing up and extending his hand.

  “I must have said my name out loud, somehow?” the thought flashed through his mind.

  Shamil felt awkward holding the bread with the piece bitten out of it, and he settled down on the sand again and sat half-turned toward the stranger. The man gave a friendly smile and took a folded plastic bag out of his pocket.

  “Come on, put your things in here, why carry them in your bare hands? It could be dangerous to show people that you’ve got a loaf of bread. The times we’re living in…”

  Shamil took the bag gratefully and tucked the folder, the bread, and, after some hesitation, the half-read newspaper inside. Meanwhile the stranger leaned his head back and started chanting the constellations as they appeared in the sky: “Ursa Minor, the Dragon, Hercules, The Big Dipper, Boötes…Are you planning to stay in the city much longer? Aries, the Triangulum, Perseus, Cassiopeia, Anvar, Yusup, Kerim, Makhmud…”

  Shamil listened in amazement. “I don’t know, we’ll see how things work out,” he answered at last.

  “The things they’ve gotten up to!” the man chortled. “No light, no water…like during wartime! But remember, you never know how things will turn out. Say a man goes up a mountain, thinks there’s a village with people there at the top, and it turns out there’s nothing but ruins. Or he goes up again and thinks, it’s ruins, but all he sees are bare cliffs. Someone rushes to see Pakhriman but ends up at Khalilbek’s. Someone wants to get married and dies instead, and someone dies and…gets married.”

  They could hear shots in the d
istance. The sea groaned and heaved.

  §The year of the invasion of Dagestan by Chechen militants.

  PART IV

  1

  The thing that bothered Madina the most was that the blessed world of truth and justice that had been promised to her never came into being; instead, every night she was awakened by the sound of shots and screams, and by the red glow rising from burning homes. Once they had destroyed the bankers and policemen, the imams of mosques and the teachers at the new theological academies, the mujahideen started in on their former neighbors, relatives, and classmates.

  “Brother Muslims!” she read on leaflets that fell out of Otsok-Al-Jabbar’s pockets, “collect zakat from everyone who is obliged to pay! If a man refuses, take it by force! And if he denies zakat, then take dzhizia from him, and fight him mightily, as with a kafir! Burn his property! Destroy his fields! Kill him in the name of Allah, and let not your hands falter!”

  So long as the cause was taking revenge on murderers in the security forces, corrupt officials, and thieves, Madina passionately supported the calls for violent action; she knitted warm socks and sweaters for jihadists and was prepared to share everything she had with the umma. But then things changed. First the mujahideen murdered her uncle, her father’s brother, for some incautious remark. Her mother ran to Madina cursing, hurled the bag with their rations from the Emirate at her, and grain had spilled out and scattered on the floor.

  “It’s all because of you!” screamed her mother in her native language. “Because of you and your abrek we’ve become nothing but rotten meat! Our whole family has turned against us! We shouldn’t have supported you, you bitch. I should given you a good beating and thrown you out on the street the day you put on that veil!”

  Madina bit her lips wrathfully and said, “Go away, then, leave!”

  Her mother left, but rumors kept coming; more and more friends and family members were being killed by the mujahideen, and Madina couldn’t sleep or focus on her Koran and hadiths readings or her Arabic studies.