Their eyes locked, each finding in the other the reflection of himself. Nothing in their exchange betrayed their feelings; nothing in their respective expressions revealed the storm of conflicting emotions both felt.

They saluted each other with a simple nod of the head, and then they embraced.

The murids lowered their rifles and cried, “La ilaha illa Allah”—there is no god but Allah.

In the eyes of the Russians, the brothers’ embrace was glacial.


It was time to leave.

Jamal Eddin turned toward Baron Nicholas, Prince Bagration, and the other officers.

All of them removed their caps to salute him.

He turned to Prince Chavchavadze.

David stood there, surrounded by his children. He still had not seen his wife. But judging from Jamal Eddin’s body language when he looked inside the wagons, he had guessed that she was there and that she was alive.

The prince shook his hand warmly, assuring him that if he should ever need anything, there in the mountains, a book, or anything—

Chavchavadze paused. What could he add except the most obvious of words.

“Thank you.”

The two men embraced.

The farewell of these two brothers in no way resembled the icy greeting of the previous pair.

Jamal Eddin leaped into the saddle.

Milyutin and Buxhöwden, who had been ordered by the late czar to accompany their friend all the way to his father, came forward and spurred their horses toward the murid ranks. The naïb Khadji, who had given the signal for the exchange, approached the Russian lines.

He held out the package he carried to Jamal Eddin, who turned to the interpreter, puzzled.

“The imam wishes to receive his son in the dress of his country.”

Jamal Eddin recoiled involuntarily.

“How can I change here, in front of all these people?”

“The wishes of the imam are law. You will learn that no one disobeys your father. No one.”

“We’re in plain view of everyone, even from the other bank,” Jamal Eddin protested.

“That presents no problem. We’ll go behind the dead tree.”

Jamal Eddin paled. This demand—a change of costume in public, before his peers, before the Russian officers, even before the princesses—was the ultimate humiliation.

“Let’s go behind the dead tree,” the interpreter insisted.

His tone was anxious. He dreaded the thought of an “incident,” any little slip that both the Russians and murids had worried about since the beginning of the exchange.

Jamal Eddin read the dismay in the eyes of everyone around him.

What would happen if, in the middle of this plain, he refused to go through with it? He had no choice but to swallow his disgust and comply.

He rode toward the branches and dismounted. Khadji, Buxhöwden, Milyutin, and the thirty-five murids followed and dismounted too. They formed a circle around him, hiding him from view.

Jamal Eddin unbuttoned his tunic.

In his short life, he thought bitterly, all he had done was change from one costume to another. From the cherkeska to the uniform, from the uniform to the cherkeska. How many times had he done this?

How many times during his youth had he been forced to deny the symbols of his heritage?

And now, with a lump in his throat, he was giving them up, one final time.

He was renouncing his officer’s stripes, his epaulets, and his decorative silk cords, his Russian cap, his Russian tunic, and his Russian arms.

He was stripped of his past, of his future, of Lisa, of all he held dear.

He emerged from the circle.

In other circumstances, Sacha would have let out a whistle and shouted, “Splendid, old man!” And Bux, making some choice comments, would have enjoyed the show.

Dressed in black, with a high papakha crowned with his father’s immaculate white turban on his head, a whip at his wrist, and his waist cinched by the straps that held his daggers, Jamal Eddin was a djighit who had stepped straight out of Russian literature, a lyric hero of Pushkin.

He was truly splendid.

But Buxhöwden was too sensitive to the tragedy beneath the perfection of his appearance to laugh.

Undoing his baldric, Bux handed his own saber to his friend.

“Take it, as a remembrance. But please,” he tried hard to make light of the situation with irony, “don’t kill any of ours with it!”

Jamal Eddin accepted the gift.

“Not ours,” he replied, his eyes brimming with tears, “nor theirs.”

He quickly tied the baldric around his cherkeska. Buxhöwden’s saber clinked against Shamil’s kinjals.

At that moment, an adolescent boy broke through the crowd of murids and ran into his arms. It was his little brother, Mohammed Sheffi. Surprised and touched, Jamal Eddin hugged him close in an embrace quite different from the one he had shared with their brother.

Jamal Eddin jumped on the white horse, the fine stallion with the scarlet saddle blanket that someone had led over for his new master.

The horseman in black passed next to the wagons.

The women had not dared to remove their veils in front of the murids, but they had pulled back the canvas and stood there, all of them, in the sunlight.

He nodded to them in farewell and rode off.

One of them watched, the tears trickling down her cheeks beneath her veil. She was crying with relief and gratitude, regret and pity. She cried for him, and for herself.

Varenka knew what awaited Jamal Eddin and all the difficulties he would face trying to adapt to this world that was so new and so different, that she had discovered and was now leaving.


The imam’s three sons crossed the river side by side.

Followed by the interpreter, the two Vladimirsky Lancers, the thirty-five murids, the wagons, and the baggage of Jamal Eddin, they made it unhindered to the other bank of the river.

No sooner had they reached the strand than they were surrounded by a horde of deliriously joyful Montagnards. All of them wanted to see, to touch, to feel, to kiss the hand, the leg, the boots of the eldest son of the imam, their guide.

Jamal Eddin, the beloved.

Nearly swept away by the jubilant crowd, Buxhöwden and Milyutin were suddenly cut off from their comrade and the rest of the troop. The crowd’s welcome did not extend to the two Russians, the infidels, the giaours. Threats and insults rained down on them from all sides.

Jamal Eddin tried with difficulty to advance toward his father. He too was isolated as the crowd separated him from Mohammed Ghazi and Mohammed Sheffi.

All around him—men on foot, simple villagers from the auls in ragged cherkeskas and shaggy papakhas—shouted with joy at the sight of him.

But to Jamal Eddin, their elation sounded menacing.

On the narrow mountain path that led to the black parasol, the crowd became increasingly dense and excited. It was impossible to move forward.

Jamal Eddin stopped and turned around.

He saw that the Montagnards had grabbed the bridles of Buxhöwden’s and Milyutin’s mounts, and were shoving and jostling the horses in an attempt to make them fall off the path. The two lancers saw that they were about to be knocked down, but they were defenseless against the hostile crowd.

Suddenly afraid they would be lynched, Jamal Eddin yelled at them, demanding that they clear the path for Buxhöwden and Milyutin to join him and remain by his side. No one understood his orders.

His stallion reared.

The interpreter, too far away, could not translate his words.

Jamal Eddin conveyed through gestures that he would not take one more step forward if the crowd did not let his escort pass. With a good deal of pushing and shoving, Bux and Milyutin finally reached him. He caught each one by the sleeve and hung on so that they would not be swept away again. With a light kick, his horse continued up the path, and the three men went forward, Jamal Eddin still hanging on to both of his friends.

A few steps from the canopy where the enthroned Shamil awaited him, a murid dismounted and started toward Jamal Eddin, clearing the crowd in front of him with his crop. Yunus.

He walked up to Jamal Eddin. But Jamal Eddin, still encumbered by the crowd hastening to touch him, kiss him, catch his leg, all the while yelping and shouting, did not greet him.

Once again he demanded that the crowd step back, yelling at those near him in Russian. His voice carried over the tumult.

His composure and tolerance were stretched perilously thin.

Without comprehending the reason for his anger, the crowd stepped back, amassing a little way away, kept in line by Yunus.

Jamal Eddin began riding forward again toward the imam, once again joined by his brothers on either side. Bux and Milyutin followed close by.

A dozen or so steps before reaching Shamil, Jamal Eddin and the others dismounted.

Jamal Eddin trembled with emotion. He could not even look at his father.

After all these years of waiting, he was no longer able to see him.

He approached with halting steps and bowed.

Shamil grabbed him with open arms, drawing his child against him. Tears ran down the imam’s cheeks onto his beard. He could not stop weeping.

Father and son remained locked in each other’s arms for a long moment, both conscious of the beating of the other’s heart.

Not a sound broke their silence; it was respected by all around them.

Then the imam lifted his eyes to those around them and said fervently, “I thank God for having kept my son safe. I thank the czar for having permitted his return, and I thank the princes for having contributed to it.”