The Mountain and the Wall (5 page)

Zumrud sipped strong tea from a hot glass, straining it through a lump of sugar held between her teeth. The others were using gilt teacups. Dibir recalled that he’d seen cups like them in Mecca when he had been there on his first
hajj.
There had been a stampede at the Hajar al-Aswad. Dibir had tried to get close enough to kiss the black stone, but he got a rib broken in the crush. Before his second
hajj,
he went to visit the elder Said Chirkeisky for some words of wisdom. The elder instructed him and the other pilgrims on how to behave in Mecca. Then they all said a
dua
together, kissed the elder’s hand, and left…

Anvar found the TV remote and clicked the power button. A local talk show was on.

“Khalid, two hundred inventions, is that a lot for our republic, or not so much?” an imposing-looking hostess in a taffeta skirt was asking a fat, round-faced guest. The guest’s mouth was watering and he had to keep swallowing; he was short of breath too.

“None of my inventions are really being used in Dagestan yet, so it’s not all that many,” answered the man, swallowing. “I invented a mail-phone, a device that you can use to send a letter anywhere in the world. You send the letter, and a minute later the device provides it to the addressee in printed form, in an addressed envelope. The cost is a mere three or four rubles, total, can you imagine? In a regular post office the envelope alone would set you back fifteen rubles! We’ve got everything ready, patents, everything.”

“That’s just fabulous. Now what can you tell us, Khalid, about your theory of gravity?” asked the hostess, smiling.

The studio audience was getting restless. Some guy in an expensive jacket had his legs stretched out and was tapping his cellphone with a stylus.
A middle-aged woman was inspecting her shoes, which had big ribbons glued on them. The guest swallowed again and said:

“Well, Newton thought that gravity depends on mass, that space is full of ether. Einstein said that the curvature of space determines gravitational pull. I don’t agree with them. Space is not empty. What generates the so-called force of gravity is the struggle between two kinds of matter—I won’t go into the details now. But here’s what’s interesting: my son has found confirmation of my theory in the Koran. I had been skeptical about the divine nature of the Koran, but when I saw that
sura,
I was blown away. Overjoyed! So during the holy month of Ramadan my son and I started working on this hypothesis, we studied the
ayats.
And we proved that what we see in space isn’t emptiness but a primeval field that exerts pressure on a body, which is agitated by this imposition, and seeks to return to its original state of rest. This is the origin of the forces of attraction and of inertia, this is why everything in this world is in constant motion! Since our treatise was published, no one has been able to refute our theory. Not a single person! And, you know, we went back to the Koran and discovered all the foundations of Creation there, everything: protons, neutrons, the structure of the electron…”

“So you’ve refuted Einstein—but why then is your discovery still considered a fringe theory, peripheral to mainstream science?” asked the hostess.

“What people say is that it’s all just a hypothesis, that there’s no proof. My answer is that the proof is there already in the Koran. I’m not one of them, see—I’m not a member of the scientific establishment, so no one wants to promote my work—no surprises there of course. First the Almighty bestowed a hundred inventions on me in the course of a single year, and only then did He give me the
inspiration for our book, so that no one could say that I’m just some kind of charlatan…”

“Thank you, Khalid Gamidovich, we hope that your discovery of the scientific potential of the Koran, and your book
The Scientific Potential of the Koran,
will be taken to heart by readers around the world. And that’s our program for today, thank you, viewers.”

Applause was heard in the studio, followed by saxophone music and the credits. Dibir chuckled approvingly: “Good for him!”

“What a smart guy!” declared Maga.

Kerim shook his head darkly. “Why do you listen to that stuff?”

“What do you mean? You prefer Einstein to the word of Allah?” Anvar asked, not entirely serious.

“What I prefer is meat with
khinkal
,” replied Kerim.

The logo for the next program appeared on the screen. Two men in skullcaps were sitting at a table in the studio, one stouter and somewhat older, the other a young man. They began with Muslim greetings. Anvar turned down the volume. Zumrud asked Yusup:

“That Nurik who was here, who is he, Abdul-Malik’s nephew?”

“Yes,” answered Yusup. His mind was elsewhere.

“Whose son is he, Leila’s?”

“I suppose.”

Yusup was thinking about how Abdul-Malik might be able to help Anvar get a job. Of course he’d already been asking around, checking out various agencies. Wherever he went, the going rate for bribes was different. Zubairu was asking 300,000 for a position in the prosecutor’s office, but Zubairu was a friend, so they’d be able to work something out. Plus, he needed to save money so he could finish the addition. The ideal thing, of course, would be to call Khalilbek himself, but Khalilbek was flying so high these days, it wasn’t that easy to get his attention…

The younger man on the screen was looking down at a piece of paper. “Here’s a question from Khasavyurt: Alzhana asks, ‘Can you pray with your eyes closed?’ No, Alzhana, that is not recommended. Muzalipat from Kaspiisk writes: ‘I have been married several times. Which of my husbands will I be with in Paradise?’ Here’s your answer, Muzalipat. If you’re married when you die, then you will be in Paradise with your last husband. If your last husband dies and you do not remarry, then you will also end up in Paradise with your last husband. If all of your husbands divorced you, then on Judgment Day you will have the right to choose any one of them, and according to the hadiths, you will choose the one with the best character. And may the Almighty Allah aid you! And now we have a call in the studio. Hello, you’re on the air.”

“Hello, my name is Eldar, I’m from Babayurt.” The voice on the line sounded uneven. “Here’s my question: I got some of my baby’s urine on my clothes. How should I wash it out?”

“What is your advice for Eldar?” The younger man turned to his senior colleague, who had been silent up to that point. “It all depends on whose urine it is,” said the man, with great dignity. “If it’s a boy’s, under the age of two, then you can use plain water. If it’s a girl’s urine, however, then you need to wash it with great care…”

Anvar couldn’t take any more, and clicked the TV off.

They drank their tea in silence. Anvar slurped from his saucer. Maga sat on the sofa with his legs crossed Turkish style, scratching his head. Kerim inspected the faded tapestry on the wall: a herd of deer drinking from a stream; behind them rose the tree-covered slope of a mountain. Kerim looked at the mountain’s rocky crest and noticed for the first time that the rocks looked like an abandoned village. He had the feeling that he had been there before.

“No, he’s not Leila’s son,” said Zumrud suddenly. Evidently she
was still thinking about Nurik. “Leila has a daughter who’s a student in Rostov, but her son is still very small. He’s just had his
sunnat.
So Nurik is probably, what’s her name, Zharadatka’s son.”

“How old is Zharadat?” Kerim was surprised. “She’s not all that much older than I am, how could she have a son that big? Their mother was a teacher in my school—she used to ask me all the time, ‘Are you going to marry Zharadatka? Are you going to marry Zharadatka?’”

Gulya laughed.

“What do you mean, a teacher? Are you talking about Aminat Pakhrimanovna?”

“Yes, the one who died.”

“Really?”

“That’s right,” Zumrud agreed. “Aminat Pakhrimanovna’s mother was from Gidatl, from a good family. One day she was out working in the field, and a man from the Urmin foothills came by on horseback. No match for anyone from Gidatl. He liked what he saw and grabbed her arm—was going to take her away with him. She wasn’t too happy about it, so she reached for the knife that she kept stashed in a pouch in her
chokhto
…”

“On her head, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s where they used to carry their knives, I think. Anyway, she stabbed this Urmin, and if he had died, then according to the
adats
she could have been exiled from her home village. But the Urmin survived and went back to his foothills. That wasn’t the end of it, though. He sent a gang of his friends, and they managed to abduct her from that same field. She lost all of her rights, started having babies and weaving mats from swamp sedge. What are those things called?
Chibta,
is it?”

“You’re getting it all mixed up, Zumrud,” Kerim objected. “That’s not what happened.”

Yusup raised his head and interrupted: “That Nurik is probably Adik’s son. Adik, the scholar, the one who died. I have some of his books in the other room…”

“Do you mean Adilkhan?” Dibir corrected him, flexing his hand—the one with the bandaged finger. “No-o-o, I know Adilkhan’s sons. One of them,
alhamdulillah,
is the imam of the Urmin mosque. He and I went to the
madzhlis
at Buinaksk together. The other one, I think his name is Abdullah, is a lot younger: He’s still doing his military service.”

“Is there a third son?” asked Maga.

“Not that I know of.”

There was another pause. The
pandur,
neglected on the sofa, tumbled to the floor with a hollow, stringy thud. Kerim picked it up and, bending over and showing his bald spot, strummed the strings a few times with his hairy hand. Then he tossed his head back, a blob of light flashing across his glasses, and said:

“Wait, Abdul-Malik doesn’t have a nephew named Nurik!”

Before anyone could say anything, there was a rumbling outside on the street, and they heard a voice booming through a megaphone:

“Attention, your house is surrounded! Everyone inside, come out with your hands up! There are armed terrorists with you! You have three minutes! Three minutes. Come out one by one, single file!”

Yusup sat frozen in place. Zumrud’s hands rose to her mouth. Dibir looked over at Maga. Maga bounded to the window and peered out from behind the curtain, trying to see through the gloom. Gulya’s teacup slipped out of her hand; tea spilled onto her shimmery skirt,
and from there trickled onto the floor, making a thin, watery sound. Kerim’s face went white, and his hands fumbled with the
pandur.

The light went out.

Anvar turned toward the wall and slipped his hand under his shirt.

PART I

1

Shamil had arrived in the goldsmiths’ village several days before. It was already scorching hot on the Caspian but here in the foothills the evenings were cool. Shamil would throw on a parka that Mirza, his host, had lent him, and would go out walking along the crooked, winding streets of the village, peering into its inner courtyards, archways, tunnels, and under its stone stairways. Occasionally he would encounter a person whose features would be indistinguishable in the darkness and they would clasp hands and exchange a quiet greeting. Now and then he would come upon an old round fortress tower, which had been shortened many years ago and now served as a dwelling, but more often he would leave the settlement behind, descend the hill, and stare up at the houses clustered on top of one another like a beehive on the mountainside.

Shamil told no one about the rumors that were swarming through the city. Here they seemed like the ravings of a madman. Still, at night he would toss and turn in his bed in the hospitable goldsmith’s home, alternatively worrying about when he would have to go back to Makhachkala, and wondering why he was even here.

After he lost his job at the committee where his uncle Alikhan worked, Shamil had eagerly seized this opportunity to visit the Kubachi
armorers and write about their art. He had never tried his hand at serious writing, but his brother-in-law, who worked at one of the Dagestani newspapers, had entrusted the assignment to him without a moment’s hesitation. Everyone from Shamil’s
tukhum
was a good writer, so he figured he’d be able to handle it, the interviews at least.

Every house in the settlement turned out to be a treasure trove, stuffed with antique minted plates, inlaid weapons, gold and silver engraved dishes, fantastical
kumgan
water jugs, filigreed knickknacks, and domed copper kettle lids in the shape of helmets. Wherever Shamil went, he stumbled onto carved stone fireplaces, precious ornamented tableware, pistols with gold crosshatched designs of interwoven stems and leaves, and mother-of-pearl horns bearing metallic patterns. The families had kept the most valuable heirlooms in their private collections. What they sold were souvenir daggers, simple silver earrings, and jangly bracelets.