Our Game (44 page)

"Will you tell her?" I asked.

"Who?"

He seemed genuinely to have forgotten her.

"Emma. Sally. His girl. She's in Paris, waiting for him.”

“She will be told."

"What are they saying now?"

"They're discussing the virtues of the late Bashir. Calling him a great teacher, a real man."

"Was he?"

"When men die here, we clean our minds of bad thoughts about them. I would advise you to do the same."

An old man's voice was coming up to us. Checheyev translated it. " 'Revenge is holy and cannot be touched. But it won't be enough to kill a couple of Ossetians or a couple of Russians. What we need is a new leader who will save us from being enslaved like animals.' "

"Do they have someone in mind?" I asked.

"That's what he's asking."

"You?"

"You want a whore to run a convent?" We listened and he again translated. " 'Who do we have who is great enough, clever enough, brave enough, devout enough, modest enough—' Why don't they say crazy enough and be done with it?"

"So who?" I insisted.

"It's called tauba. The ceremony is tauba. It means repentance."

"Who's repenting? What have they done wrong? What's to repent?"

For a while he ignored my question. I had the feeling I was irritating him. Or perhaps, like mine, his thoughts were elsewhere. He took a pull from his flask.

"They need a Murid who has the Sufi knowledge and is trained," he replied at last, still staring down the hills. "That's ten years' work. Could be twenty. You don't pick it up in KGB residences. A master of meditation. A big shot. A classy warrior."

A growl started and became a call. Issa was standing close to the centre of the circle. The glow of the fire lit his bearded cheeks as he turned and signalled up the hill. A few steps below us, Magomed was gazing down at him, the folds of his cherkesska gathered round his great back.

Other voices joined Issa's, lending their support. Suddenly it was as if everyone was calling to us. The two Murids burst from the courtyard and ran towards us. I heard Magomed's name repeated till everyone was chanting it. Leaving Checheyev and myself alone, Magomed started slowly down the hill towards the Murids.

A new ceremony began. Magomed sat at the centre of the circle, where a rug had been laid for him. The men, old and young, formed a circle round him, eyes closed while they chanted the same word over and over again in unison. A ring of men clasped hands and began a slow, rotating dance to the rhythm of the chant.

"Is that Magomed speaking?" I asked, for I could have sworn I heard his voice calling above the handclapping and praying and stamping feet.

"He's calling down God's blessing on the martyrs," Checheyev said. "He's telling them there are many battles still to be fought against the Russians. He's damned right."

At which, without another word, he turned his back on me and, as if sick of my Western uselessness or his own, started down the hill.

"Wait!" I shouted.

But either he didn't hear me or he didn't want to, for he continued his descent without turning his head.

With the dark, the wind had fallen. Great white stars were appearing above the mountain crags, answering the fires in the compound. I cupped my hands to my mouth and shouted again: "Wait!"

But the chanting was by now too loud, and he couldn't hear me even if he wanted to. For a moment longer I stood alone, converted to nothing, believing in nothing. I had no world to go back to and nobody left to run except myself. A Kalashnikov lay beside me. Slinging it across my shoulder, I hastened after him down the slope.

The End