Read On the Hills of God for Free Online Page B

corner. A large mirror was hung at an angle facing the front door. It magnified the size of the room and made the shadows twice as ominous.
    Amin’s mother brought a mattress and laid it on the floor next to the window. There he sat, propped by a couple of pillows, apologizing all the time for the trouble he had caused his friends.
    Within minutes, Abu Khalil was at the door. Yousif glimpsed him in the mirror and watched him walk up the six or seven steps. Yousif and Isaac rose and made room for the sprightly old man who was dressed in plain, ankle-length, black dimaya . What impressed Yousif most was the matching rust color of the turban, the sash, and the ankle-length ‘aba . It contrasted well with black. For a few seconds, the tidiness of the diminutive old man seemed promising.
    Having removed his outer garment, Abu Khalil was even smaller than he looked. He knelt by Amin’s side and began inspecting the injured arm. It was broken in three places, he grimly announced: once above the elbow and twice below. Amin groaned.
    “It’s a bad accident,” Abu Khalil muttered, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette down to a butt he could hardly hold, “but I’ve seen a lot worse.”
    There was no ashtray around, so Abu Khalil ended up giving the butt to Yousif, who passed it on in turn to one of Amin’s little brothers. Yousif laughed as the little boy took a drag on the cigarette before pitching it outside through the open window.
    “Where’s that old mother of yours,” Abu Khalil complained, scratching his white beard.
    “Don’t you call me an old woman, you old goat,” Amin’s mother rebutted from one of the shadowy corners.
    “Hurry up and bring me what I need then,” he told her, blowing his nose boisterously, wiping his whiskers with a flourish, and then unwrapping Amin’s arm. The unsanitary way Abu Khalil went about doing things belied his tidiness and disturbed Yousif.
    “Aren’t you going to wash your hands?” Yousif asked.
    The old man glared at him, his small blue eyes clear as crystal. “Young man, I was mending bones long before you were born. You dare tell me what to do?”
    “I’m sorry, but—”
    “Aren’t you Dr. Safi’s son?”
    “Well, yes.”
    “I even mended his bones when he was knee-high.”
    “Medicine has changed.”
    The old man shook his head and, under his breath, cursed the new generation. But the exchange soon ended, for when Aunt Tamam came up with the ingredients and utensils, the old man rolled up his sleeves and went to work. He cracked a dozen eggs in a large wooden bowl and began to whip them with a large wooden spoon. Then he reached for a dish covered with white hair from a horse’s tail, took out a bunch, and placed them over the whipped eggs. Over this he sprinkled a cup of pulverized fenugreek they called hilbeh . Then he proceeded to mix and batter everything with the same spoon.
    Yousif was fascinated. “What’s that for?” He looked at Isaac and Amin; both shrugged their shoulders.
    “That’s how we make our plaster cast,” the old man grunted, without looking up. “It will soon get hard as a piece of wood.”
    Within minutes everything was ready for the old man to begin. He removed Amin’s shirt and untied the bloodied handkerchief over the broken skin. The mother tore a bed sheet and handed rectangular pieces to Abu Khalil. The old man spread the pieces of cloth on the floor, covered them with a thick layer of horse and black sheep hair, then poured on it the mix of eggs and fenugreek. Then he applied the plaster to the arm.
    In his own primitive way the old man was an expert, Yousif begrudgingly admitted. He worked deftly and without wasted motion. His bony and yellowed fingertips were sensitive to the slightest imperfection. He massaged the arm and pulled at it from the wrist and tried to set the shattered bones in place—one at a time.
    “Aaaah . . .” Amin screamed, closing his eyes and gnashing his teeth.
    The scream jolted Yousif and made