Hinterland: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

at the back of Aryan’s mind. Now it rises towards the surface like a diving bird swimming upwards through the waters of a lake, and formulates itself into a question.
    How did the driver know they were brothers?
     
    A thumbnail moon hangs in the darkening sky and a pale light emanates from one of the windows in the house. It is too cold to undress. Aryan doubles one of the blankets over the straw pallet and makes Kabir crawl inside. Aryan folds the other blankets over the top of him, and spreads their anoraks over his shoulders. Then he huddles under the covers beside him and hugs his brother to keep them both warm.
    With a start he realizes Kabir is crying.
    ‘Hey, what’s wrong, Soldierboy?’ Aryan says.
    Kabir is silent.
    ‘Tell me,’ Aryan says.
    He doesn’t respond.
    ‘Is this the brother who was strong enough to cross the desert and the mountains, like Rostam in the stories Baba used to read to us back home?’ Aryan says.
    The boy sniffs wetly.
    ‘You can’t be sad for no reason. Tell me what’s wrong.’
    ‘I want to go back,’ Kabir says after a while.
    ‘Back where?’
    ‘Back to Iran. Back to our cousins’ place. Back to Zohra and Masood.’
    Aryan sighs. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘But we can’t go back now, Kabir.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Not after what we’ve spent to get this far. They’d laugh at us, and then they’d be ashamed. Everyone would say we were cowards.’
    ‘I don’t care,’ Kabir says. ‘I hate it here.’
    ‘I don’t like it either, but you were the one who insisted on coming. You knew it was going to be tough. Anyway, I thought you wanted to go to school.’
    ‘I do. But we’re in Europe now and I can’t see any schools.’
    ‘That’s why we’re going to England.’
    ‘Why don’t we go there then? Why do we have to stay here?’
    ‘It’ll be like Istanbul. First we have to work and then they will put us on a truck,’ Aryan says.
    ‘How long will we have to stay?’
    ‘I didn’t even know we were coming here, Kabir. But if it’s like in Turkey, maybe we will have to stay a few months.’
     
    Exhaustion bears down on Aryan like an edifice. He desperately wants to succumb, and let oblivion sweep his worries back across all the plains, back across all the mountains and plateaux and villages and cities and roads and checkpoints and borders and rivers and deserts that they have crossed. The frisson of elation he felt when they got to Europe has retreated under a new layer of anxiety. He supposes that it will be months before he can really relax, sleep deeply, and not awaken with worry about money or time or how far they are from their goal, or how they will manage the next step. He wishes their father were still alive, or that he could speak to Omar back there in Iran, or to some adult who would know what to do.
    He hears Kabir’s breathing steady, and soon slips over the soft cliff of unconsciousness too.
     
    Sometime in the middle of the night, Kabir whips the blankets off.
    ‘Something bit me,’ he says.
    ‘Where?’ Aryan peers at his brother’s shape in the dimness. ‘I can’t see anything.’
    Then he feels it himself. The sudden sting. The burn. The itch.
    He leaps to his feet, and tosses the blankets to the floor. Aryan pushes Kabir towards the window. He inspects his torso, sees nothing. Then he discovers an angry weal flowering on his rib.
    Then he sees two more. And then two on his own leg.
    He gives Kabir one corner of the blanket to hold.
    ‘Higher!’ he says. Kabir is too short and half of it crumples on the floor. There is an old rake leaning against the wall. Aryan grabs it and, holding the other end of the blanket, uses it to beat the cloth. They do it for all four blankets, and sweep the mattress clear with their hands.
    ‘Try not to scratch,’ Aryan says. ‘Put saliva on it where it is itchy. We will ask for different bedding in the morning.’
    They try again to sleep, jumpy with real and imagined insects every time the blanket