Read Online The Kindness of Enemies: A Novel by Leila Aboulela - Free Book Online Page A

armchair, with Lydia swallowing rich, early-morning milk, Anna gazed down at the big courtyard, the garden where David had played as a child and where Alexander now picked a pear from the tree and walked, eating it. She could see the whole estate spread out before her. Greenery on one side and the dark mountains on the other, the ravine that marked the limit of her afternoon walk. There she would lean forward to look at the running stream, a small tributary of the Alazani, the water washing the rocks, pushing away at the mountain sides. As a child David had learnt to swim in this river and years later on their honeymoon (yet another reason that Anna was fond of Tsinondali) they had spent many laughing hours in the water. Easy days when it was just the two of them, enamoured and young, before the responsibilities of children and households.
    At Tsinondali they were seven miles from the nearest town and the house was self-supporting. They raised their own cattle and made their own bread and wine. There was much to supervise including the staff of head cook, under-cooks, grooms, dairy maids, farm-hands, gardeners, carpenters and scullions. Yet all this was preferable to the social rounds of St Petersburg, the predictability of court gossip, the formality of being ‘at home’ on Thursdays or Mondays. She was, it seemed, the only Georgian princess who had not enjoyed being a lady-in-waiting to the tsarina. Anna was often homesick and had no patience with the games and side-stepping needed to catch the eye of an eligible bachelor. She wanted to marry a Georgian prince and did not understand the need to go all the way to Petersburg to find him. Now gazing into baby Lydia’s eyes, she knew that she would rather be here than anywhere else. ‘Wake up, don’t doze again. I’ll change you and take you out in the sunshine.’ This was the best feed of the day when her breasts were full and she could revel in this natural, maternal generosity, this abundance that was making her daughter content and languorous, this nourishmentthat would make her tiny limbs strong. When she changed Lydia’s nappy, Anna bent down and took deep breaths of the yoghurt smell that came from a baby who had not yet tasted solid food. It was as exhilarating as a perfume, a sweetness that locked them together, that sealed them as mother and child.
    In the evening, after Anna had made the sign of the cross over Alexander and kissed him goodnight, she stayed up playing the piano, but Madame Drancy was restless. The governess kept getting up to walk to the window and peer out from behind the curtains. It made Anna lose her concentration. She stumbled twice on the same note and gave up. ‘What can you see out there?’
    ‘There is a light; it might be a Chechen campfire.’ Drancy’s fair hair was held firmly away from her face and she dressed in sombre colours as if she was always conscious of being a widow.
    Anna moved over to the window. The moon was covered by clouds but she could see a cluster of orange flames up on the mountains. ‘They are on the other side of the river.’
    ‘They can cross it.’
    ‘Cross the Alazani!’ Anna pulled the curtains closer together and walked back to the piano seat. ‘It’s the deepest of rivers. Besides, with all the rain we’ve been having, it’s swollen.’
    Madame Drancy followed her. ‘There is talk that Shamil and his men are descending from the mountains to take Georgia.’
    Anna tidied her music sheets. ‘It’s just servants’ gossip. You mustn’t pay attention to it.’ She looked up at the clock. It seemed a little slow; it needed winding. ‘I must remember tomorrow to send for the clockmaker.’
    But Madame Drancy was not to be distracted. ‘They say Shamil is a monster who eats Russian flesh.’
    Anna laughed. ‘An educated woman like you believing such nonsense!’
    ‘But how else can one explain the uncanny way he escaped death and capture! Time and again. It must be that he has made a pact