Hinterland: A Novel Read Online Free

bread and the last crumbs of the sour-tasting cheese. The liquid warms them, but when they have finished their hunger hasn’t gone away.
    Aryan leans back on the pallet. Lying down stretches his stomach flat, he tells himself; that way he won’t feel so empty.
     
    ‘I don’t like it here,’ Kabir says after a while.
    ‘Well it’s not my idea of paradise either,’ Aryan says.
    ‘Where do you think we are?’
    ‘Somewhere in Greece, I suppose. We could be anywhere.’
    ‘Why did they bring us here?’
    ‘I don’t know, Kabir. I guess it’s to work.’
    ‘Doing what?’
    ‘Probably farm work.’
    ‘Why didn’t Hamid come too?’
    ‘Maybe they only need two people.’
    ‘How long do we have to stay?’
    ‘Kabir, I have no idea. Probably till we’ve earned our passage and they are ready to move us on.’
    Aryan is suddenly tired of his little brother. He is tired of having to think for the two of them. Tired of being held back by his brother’s short legs. Tired of having to be reassuring when he is riddled with foreboding. Tired of having to provide answers to things he doesn’t understand.
    Then immediately he feels guilty. On the long walk over the mountains between Iran and Turkey Kabir had hardly complained, though his jeans were chafing and their feet were on fire in the rocky terrain and their mouths were sandpaper dry. Aryan was amazed that he didn’t protest and just kept walking as fast as he could so the smugglers wouldn’t hit him with their guns. It was only later that Aryan saw how thin his sneakers had become after all that shredding on the rocks. Kabir can’t help asking questions – he’s always been like that – and with Hamid gone, he will have no one but Aryan to ask.
    ‘What about Hamid?’ Kabir says as if on cue. ‘Do you think he’s got any injuries?’
    Aryan sighs. ‘He might be a bit sore,’ he says. ‘You heard him hollering in the back of the truck.’
    ‘He might have a good black bruise,’ Kabir says.
    ‘Or a big black eye.’
    ‘Or two black eyes and a bruise.’
    ‘Well maybe not all of them,’ Aryan says.
    Hamid is tough, Aryan knows. Tougher than he is. He is impetuous and his temper gets him into trouble but he is also fearless, and quick to seize an opportunity. A Tajik, he made it all the way to Istanbul on his own after fleeing the Taliban; Aryan has always been a little in awe. He also felt they made a team, he and Hamid and Kabir. It was Hamid who led them through the steep streets of Istanbul to watch the tankers gliding past the minarets along the Bosporus, and used them as decoys while he filched pastries from café tables so they could devour them, out of sight, in the twisting alleys. With a rush Aryan misses him, and feels unsteady without him, aware that all the decisions he will have to make for him and Kabir he will now have to take on his own.
    ‘Why didn’t they let Hamid stay with us?’ Kabir says.
    ‘Why do you keep asking questions I cannot answer?’ says Aryan.
    There are times when Aryan wonders if he shouldn’t have left Kabir behind. He could have stayed with their cousins in Iran and Aryan would have sent for him once he made it to Europe. But after everything that had happened Kabir was distraught at the idea of separation. And Aryan hadn’t known how long it would be before Kabir could join him, and in the end he had put together the money from all the things he had sold, and relented.
    But now he wishes he could be alone to think. He doesn’t understand why they were thrown off the truck, or why they were separated from the others. He is starting to wonder whether some arrangement hasn’t been made concerning them – in Istanbul, maybe, or by the people who took them across the river to Greece.
    Kabir turns his back. His frustration ripples through the silence in invisible waves. Aryan knows he has hurt his feelings, but for the moment he doesn’t care.
    Since they arrived, something unexplained has been flickering