by Neamat Imam
My heart beats, fast and faster, and then becomes normal again, when I stand before the station gate, and when I feel I am there, finally there, very close to the moment when I won’t need to be anxiously thinking about my salvation any more. I do not have any weight now but the weight of tears rolling up my throat, looking for a way to come out. My life has been a waste. By destroying Nur Hussain, I have only destroyed myself.
‘Good luck, my country,’ I whisper, as I proceed through the gate. ‘Good luck, and goodbye, my misery; a very happy goodbye.’
THE BEGINNING
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HAMISH HAMILTON
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published in India in Hamish Hamilton by Penguin Books India 2013
Copyright © Neamat Imam 2013
Cover design by Pallavi Agarwala
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-06-7008-665-8
This digital edition published in 2013.
e-ISBN: 978-81-8475-950-1