The snows in the distant Balkans have melted early, swelling the rivulets and the mountain streams that feed the wide border river with its annual harvest of silt. The rising waters nuzzle the tree-trunks and steal into the rice paddies that stretch across no-man’s-land, turning the fields into opalescent reproductions of sky. Even during the day there are no birds, nor any stirring of life. Aryan pushes his dripping hair out of his eyes. Beyond the bridge he can just make out the naked trees and in the distance, the steep rise of the far bank that leads to the motorway in Europe. ‘Follow me,’ says the boy with the withered arm. The men fall into line, fifteen of them, stumbling through the waterlogged land. They stick to the small ridges between the fields, hopping between islands of grass and earth. Aryan can feel the water seeping into his trainers, into socks slowly corrugating under the soles of his feet. His shoes suck and slide with every step; he winces at the sound his fraught mind amplifies for miles across the gloomy landscape.
