When those damned heathens arrested Zokhor Alam, Garang saw the way things were going and decided to stop practising all religious rites except that of circumcision, which he continued to carry out in and around Gilas in order to provide for his family. He was as competent at this as one of today's surgeons; ever since he was a child, after all, he had been pruning vines for Mahmud-Hodja, who was a friend of his father. Yes, Garang-Deafmullah was a true professional; wrapped in singed cotton wool, the circumcised members of the local boys were fully healed within a couple of weeks.
Large numbers of baby boys were born in the years before the War, as if people foresaw the need to provide themselves with plenty of male descendants, and Garang enjoyed a stable income. Drying in the sun among his apricots and tomatoes were whole garlands of rings of skin, waiting to serve as charms during the long childless years when the men were all serving as soldiers.