Hinterland: A Novel by Caroline Brothers

his bearings; the weight of earth and concrete oppress him; he just wants to go onwards, or up.
    In the carriage he has shown Kabir the piece of paper where Ahmed wrote ‘Victoria Park’. There were pictures of a ship and a temple and the Olympic rings on the diagram above the doors, but no sign of any parks. On the platform he cannot decipher the maps in frames on the walls.
    He stops an old man in too-long shoes clutching the arm of his wife. A transparent pyramid of plastic dangles from her finger; Kabir peers at the biscuits arranged inside. They argue, they point and gesticulate, but Aryan cannot make out their Greek.
    All bra straps and flashing jewellery, a woman clatters past too hurried to notice Aryan’s appeal. A man with a white cane tap-taps along the platform as if sweeping it for mines. Finally they intercept a young man who looks like a student, with holes in his jeans and hair glued into a miraculous point.
    ‘There is no Victoria Park in Athens,’ the student says, when at last he understands where they want to go.
    Ahmed had been so definite. Aryan insists.
    ‘There is Victoria metro station and that is not far from a big park in Alexandras Street,’ the student says. ‘Maybe that’s the one you want.’
    Aryan hesitates. Maybe he is right. If there is no Victoria Park, perhaps Ahmed meant the park that’s near the station.
    ‘Yes,’ Aryan says. ‘I think it’s OK.’
    The student leads them up escalators and through passageways of gleaming stone.
    Kabir gazes with amazement at the moving staircases. He pauses a second before jumping on, loses his balance, and steadies himself on the handrail that goes at a different speed from the stairs.
    ‘Two stops only,’ the student says, illustrating the information with his fingers when they reach the platform. ‘Omonia, Victoria. There you get out. The park is very close. Just ask for a street called Alexandras if you get lost.’
    He makes Aryan repeat the name.
    Aryan touches his heart and shakes his hand, and Kabir solemnly follows suit. The student is surprised, then smiles. In moments he is enclosed by the crowd; it is like he never existed, or did so, ephemeral as a firefly, only to light their way.
     
    Almost immediately they run into a group of Afghans sitting under the trees. They are Hazaras from the south. One of them leads Aryan and Kabir across the park and through the streets to a hotel where the rooms are €3.50 a night.
    ‘You need a travel agent?’ asks the man behind the desk. Aryan stares at the shiny scar that links his right nostril to his eye.
    He hadn’t imagined it would be so simple.
    They take a room for one night. Kabir drags his feet up the interminable staircase, pushing himself from wall to wall. The number on the key leads them to a room, little bigger than the two narrow beds inside it, pungent with stale cigarettes. There is one small window almost at the level of the ceiling. Aryan works its wooden shutter open by pulling on a dirty string; the light it lets in is grey, reflected off an outside wall.
    The twin beds sag even before they collapse on to chenille bedspreads rubbed thin by the countless bodies that have lain there before them.
    Aryan pulls from his inside pocket the pieces of bread that he has saved from the farm, and hands one to Kabir. The crusts are so hard their gums bleed.
    Later, Aryan shows Kabir how to work the shower, and waits for him in the room. When he comes back, pink-skinned and dripping-haired, Aryan takes his turn.
     
    Aryan stands under the running water a long time. The tiles are cracked, and some are missing, and when he turns the hot tap a rusted pipe swings out from the wall. Brown veins marble a decaying cake of soap. But the lukewarm water washes the dust from his hair, prises the stiffness from his shoulders, and slowly eases the tiredness from his mind.
    Pictures flash up and disintegrate like slides on a crumbling wall – the puppies batting potatoes between Kabir’s