The Abrupt Physics of Dying by Paul E. Hardisty Read Free Book Online Page B

sleeve.
    ‘
Aysh
?’ asked Clay. What?
    The boy put aside his bicycle wheel and pointed at the steering column.
    Clay ruffled the boy’s thin black hair. ‘Cheeky monkey,’ he said, something his father used to say.
    Soon they were trundling down the narrow track away from the hamlet, Mohamed perched on Clay’s lap, bony hands clutching the Land Cruiser’s steering wheel. The boy steered with him, matching his movements. After a while, the boy directed him onto a rough stone track. The vehicle creaked and lurched past terraced flats of stubble wedged between rocky outcrops towards the cleft in the cliffs. The pitch of the track steepened. After a while Clay stopped, jumped out to lock the hubs, kept going. He thought again aboutthe woman in the Land Rover, the surprise he’d felt seeing her, the perfect symmetry of her features, her big dark eyes.
    Soon they had penetrated the opening in the cliffs where the wadi met the line of the escarpment. So blinding was the light reflected from the sheer wall of limestone that he had to look away, over to the darkness of the facing formations sheltered from the full fury of the sun. They descended into the bleached cauldron of the wadi bed and then climbed again towards the afternoon shade of the far cliffs. The track became rougher and less distinct. Clay felt his way up the hill, the tyres slipping on the loose stone.
    ‘Stop,’ said the boy. ‘Now walk.’
    They started up the slope towards the patch of green that marked the spring. After a few moments Clay stopped and looked back. Mohamed was already far behind. The boy struggled and stumbled on the loose scree, breathing heavily, his face covered in sweat. He stopped and looked up at Clay, swaying on bony legs. He opened his mouth as if he were about to call out, but then his face twisted in pain and he doubled over, his back and shoulders shaking as he spewed vomit to the ground in a series of wrenching contractions.
    Clay ran down the slope, skidding along the loose scree to where the boy stood. He put his hand on Mohamed’s back, feeling the last spasm shudder through his thin frame. The boy looked up and smiled. Vomit covered his chin and the front of his shirt. Clay crouched down and unwrapped his
keffiyeh
and wiped the boy’s face and his shirt and ran his hand through the boy’s dark hair.
    ‘
Tammam
?’ Clay asked, giving the thumbs up. ‘OK?’
    The boy nodded, managing a weak smile.
    Then Clay hoisted him onto his shoulders and carried him up the hill, skin and bones, of no weight at all. At the top of the scree slope they came to a sharp vertical bluff as high as a camel’s back. The bluff’s frayed, fractured lip ran some hundred metres or more across the wadi to meet the cliff face, as if it had been tossed carelessly from the plateau to fall draped over the edge. A footpath ran along its base in both directions. Clay turned away from the cliff and started downthe path towards the wadi bed, the bluff on his right, Mohamed’s wet hands clasped across his forehead. He could feel the boy’s pulse against his own skull, rapid, tripping, excited.
    After a few steps the boy shook his legs and tugged at Clay’s ears. ‘
La
,’ said the little voice from above.
    ‘What is it?’
    The boy pointed back to the cliffs. ‘I show you,’ he said in English. ‘
Faddar
.’ Please.
    ‘OK, little brother.’ Clay spun on his feet and started back along the bluff footpath towards the cliff, the little hamlet spread below them on the right. Soon he was threading his way through a maze of boulders, the path narrowing so that in places he had to turn side on – Mohamed still on his shoulders, urging him forward with little kicks, as though Clay was some mountain donkey and he a travelling Mullah. The rock dwarfed them on all sides, and it was as if they had been swallowed up by the lifeless, uncaring age of the place.
    Mohammed squeezed Clay’s head. ‘Stop,’ he said in English, pointing to the bluff. At