Green on Blue Read Online Free Page A

were two ambulances. A few of the paramedics I’d seen last night stood around them, their stares full of sympathy. They understood my situation. I tensed my face into a blank mask.
    Taqbir parted the green canvas flap with his arm and warm fumes of sweat, smoke, and blood pulled us inside. In the tent’s center two stoves burned and the sap of the wood crackled and spit. The chimneys consistedof hollowed cooking-oilcans stacked and nailed together. They leaked. Cots lined the tent so closely that there was no room between them. Doctors climbed onto the ends of the cots, hovering above their patients.
    I walked the rows, searching for my brother. Many of the men had bandaged faces. I looked for a missing leg. I could only identify Ali by his loss. And soon I saw it. A white sheet rested flatly where something was gone. Gauze covered the hollow of Ali’s left eye. At his waist, a sopping red wound was dressed with an adult diaper.
    His head was turned away from me. From beneath his gown and bedsheet, his knee and shoulders poked up like the three poles of the tent. My tears came silently. I had nothing to say to my brother, no strength to offer him. To be crippled as he was takes all of a man. It takes his nang.
    An orderly passed by. I grabbed his arm. He looked back at me with flat eyes that showed nothing. Why is my brother here instead of in the hospital? I asked.
    This is the outpatient ward, he said.
    From my mouth words came in a shout, surprising me: These men are not ready to be discharged!
    Not all patients get well, he said. We will keep him here for a couple of days. A longer stay can only be arranged through the hospital supervisor.
    Taqbir watched me from the tent’s flap. He picked the dirt from his fingernails with a long commando knife he’d pulled from his belt. I rushed toward him, pleading: Unless something is arranged my brother cannot stay here.
    Taqbir kissed his teeth and patted my shoulder. I’ll check, he said, wait here.
    He walked past me and down the rows of cots toward Ali. I stood by the tent flap. Taqbir leaned over my brother. He kissed his teeth again and shook his head. At the foot of Ali’s cot was a stool. On it sat his cell phone, prayer beads, and my father’s ring. Taqbir picked up the ring,but left the rest. He whistled and waved his hand to the expressionless orderly. I couldn’t hear the words spoken between them, but the orderly knowingly pointed at each of my brother’s wounds. Taqbir listened and continued to shake his head solemnly.
    Taking his time, Taqbir walked back up the rows of cots, inspecting the broken bodies on either side of him as a commander reviews his troops. Every few steps he stopped and looked down his nose, considering one of the heaps that lined the tent. His inspection complete, Taqbir planted himself at my shoulder. Come, he said, we must see if something can be arranged. Ali is in a dangerous condition. As we turned to leave, Taqbir placed the ring in my palm.
    You should care for this until your brother is better.
    I’d lacked even the courage to speak to my brother, but now I slid his ring, the ring of my father, on my finger.
    Taqbir smiled at me. Good, he said. And I noticed his many gold teeth.
    –
    From his black leather chair, the hospital supervisor waved us into his office. He turned off the flat-screen Hitachi that hung from a ceiling mount by the door and removed his feet from his wood-paneled desk. On its top was an empty in-box. He tossed the remote control into it. Carved across the front of the desk, in an elaborate script, was an aayaath I’d learned in the madrassa: There comes forth from their bellies a drink of diverse hues wherein is healing for all mankind.
    Two brown leather sofas, stained with watermarks, sat on either side of a glass table. Spread across the table were steel dishes, the rims pressed with a floral print, each one filled with pine nuts, raisins, and pistachios. The office was arranged to impress, but it did