Free Hinterland: A Novel by Caroline Brothers

explorations continued.
    The first day he went too far, they had driven a long way from anywhere, and Aryan’s cries and his seven-year-old’s attempt to fight off a grown man had simply made his cousin laugh. But when Aryan managed to wriggle free, and took off across the land, the cousin roared after him and caught up with him and pinioned him and took off his belt and whipped him, and spat out at him that struggling would make things a lot worse.
    To Aryan, what happened next was unspeakable, and had no name. He had never felt pain like it. The rocks digging into his ribs and the side of his face where the man was holding him down were nothing in comparison to the tearing. But he also felt something give way in his heart. In the place where trust had been there came both shame and a sort of wordless fury; where he once felt sure of himself he felt mistaken, that he had somehow brought this upon himself, that in some major sense he had failed.
    Afterwards, Aryan bled for a week every time he relieved his bowels. ‘He slipped on the rocks by the lake,’ his cousin had told his father to explain the bruising. If he breathed a word, his cousin had said, he would receive a belting that would make the last one seem like a tickle.
    And so Aryan kept silent, and endured when avoidance failed. But he hated his cousin with the livid emotion of childhood, and was glad when the fighting made his whole family move away.
     
    Two days later Aryan is stooped over the onion furrows, digging the papery brown spheres from the earth. They have reached the far end of the field, and are working close to a stone wall. He calls to Kabir to fetch more sacks.
    It is a while before he realizes Kabir hasn’t replied.
    Aryan stands up and leans on his fork, stretching out his back. He looks around. Kabir is nowhere in sight. Nor is the truck that rolled up in the mid-afternoon.
    Aryan hurries to the edge of the field, wondering if Kabir has wandered off to the latrine. ‘Kabir!’ he shouts. The warm air reverberates with his call, but no voice answers back.
    Anxiety blinds him. Aryan leaps over the furrows to the wall, pushes himself over the top of it and tears into the next field. The farmer is wiring seedlings to stakes.
    ‘Kabir, Kabir, where is he?’ he says between gasps for breath.
    The farmer looks at him sideways and straightens till his singlet stretches taut across his paunch.
    ‘Who?’ he says.
    ‘My brother, Kabir.’
    ‘He went with the driver to get more crates,’ the farmer says. ‘They’ll be back soon.’
    Aryan turns in a circle, scans the horizon, throws his open arms to his sides.
    ‘Kabir,’ he yells with all his lungs. The scarred and empty hillsides swallow his cry.
     
    It is nearly nightfall before the truck returns.
    Kabir is belted into the front seat. His face shimmers white through the windscreen. Tear stains streak his fat cheeks.
    The driver greets the farmer with a cheery smile. ‘Here’s your working man back again,’ he says. He starts to unload the empty crates.
    Aryan is nauseous with anxiety and relief.
    Kabir undoes the seatbelt and slides stiffly out of the truck. He cannot speak and there is no light in his eyes. He refuses to meet Aryan’s gaze.
     
    In their outhouse, Kabir turns his back to his brother and doesn’t want to sleep anywhere near.
    ‘Kabir,’ Aryan says. ‘Did he hurt you?’
    Kabir is silent. But tears or the beginning of tears are smudging his charcoal eyes.
    ‘Did the driver hurt you?’ Aryan says.
    Kabir says nothing.
    ‘Come here,’ Aryan says.
    His brother doesn’t move.
    So Aryan goes to him and puts his arms around his brother’s rigid frame. Kabir’s whole body is trembling, and in that involuntary reaction, Aryan suddenly knows that his instincts were right.
    Kabir doesn’t turn to him when he speaks. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he says.
    ‘I tried to warn you,’ Aryan says. ‘I didn’t know for sure.’
    ‘You didn’t warn me. You just said