If it was poetry he would hold the book with one hand and with the other join index finger to thumb and speak – each – word – as – if – it – was – a – building -standing – alone, and when he found something he liked he didn't clap or shout praise for the author or the author's family – no – he would pick up his smoking cigarette and take a deep, slow drag while his eyes reread the lines, his leg rocking nervously, then say, with his eyes still on the page, 'Do you hear it, Suleiman, the action? The action is always in the words.' Then he would repeat the poem and ask me to notice the action this time because poetry, he used to always repeat, is words in action. I tried to understand this when he read from his favourite poet: his compatriot Salah Abd al-Sabur:

The sky reflects the earth;

the windows of the sick the bridge lights;

the eyes of the gendarme the blinking minarets.

I wasn't surprised when I didn't understand such passages. But I was unsettled whenever I recognized something familiar in a poem, something I thought I had experienced:

Noon, you fill my heart with fear and dread, showing me more than I want to see.

Or:

Now dusk, now a parting glance, from the sun leaning fatigued against the hills.

Now, blackness.

And sometimes what unsettled me was the fervour in Moosa's voice when he read lines like:

The precious robes we wear have been loaned to us by the Sultan with whom we have a friendship as deep and vast as an abyss.

Moosa was very fond of Salah Abd al-Sabur, and when, in 1981, the poet tragically died at the age of fifty, Moosa wore a black necktie every day for forty days.

Moosa infected me with his love of language. He did annoy me, though, when, reading prose, he skipped big chunks or added in his own bits. I could tell when he started adding because his eyes would leave the page and stare at me. If he wasn't inventing then where was he getting it from?

'The person who wrote this big fat book, Moosa, didn't write these words,' I would tell him. 'He didn't want them there or else he would have put them in himself. You can't put words in his mouth!'

He would smile to himself, jiggle his leg, then slap the book with the back of his hand. 'But he's going in circles.'

'Just read it as it is on the page,' I would plead.

'But he's fumbling all over the place. He crawls to say what he wants to say. I know what he's getting at, so let me bring it to you from the end.' Then, in a military fashion, he would say, 'Silence! Full attention!' and resume reading as soon as he was able to erase the smile from his face.

I was hoping now he would take me to Baba's study and read to me about mulberries. But when I told him that mulberries were from Heaven his response wasn't good. He simply said, 'They're a small, soft, stoneless fruit like any other fruit.'

'No they aren't. They are the angels' gift. They are a heavenly fruit never intended for this earth, but the angels went behind God's back even though they knew He's the Allknowing and they knew He's the Allseeing because they love us. They risked everything, Moosa, everything, to give us a taste of Heaven in this life. I thought you would know this.'

He rubbed his big hands together and raised his eyebrows and stared blankly at me. This was how he reacted when I had asked how babies were made. Then he said, 'It's an idea.'

Mama came in carrying a large tray which Moosa bounced up and took from her then placed on the floor. The three of us sat round the food in the centre of the room and ate. The bread was hot, and when I tore it steam billowed out in small clouds. The tea felt good going down my throat, warming my chest.

'Now, Suleiman,' Mama said, 'you must be careful of the sun. It's OK in the garden, under the trees, but on the naked roof it can kill you, habibi.'

My mouth was full so I nodded.

Moosa broke a big piece of bread, held it in between three fingers and scooped up a chunk of tuna; he then dipped it in the harisa and, before a drop could fall, threw it all into his mouth. He too nodded at what Mama had said then sipped noisily at his tea. 'The sun!' he finally said. 'Oh, the sun my boy could kill you.' His head swayed with his words and his finger, made red by the harisa, pointed towards the sky, and his big eyes stuck on me like two magnets until I could do nothing but look back into them. He suddenly picked up the small plate of olives and offered it to me. I took one. Then the doorbell rang. It was like a small explosion, for a moment it silenced everything.

Mama looked at Moosa. 'God willing it's him,' she said, stood up and ran to the door.

'Didn't I tell you, Um Suleiman?' Moosa yelled after her, 'God never forgets the faithful.'

My ears followed Mama. The doorbell rang repeatedly and in senseless spasms. Still, a mild hope flickered in my chest that it might be Baba. I imagined him leaning with one arm against the door, sweating, bleeding beautifully from one eyebrow and panting – exactly like the heroes I saw in films – waiting for the door to open, to fall into the arms of his wife.

'Coming,' Mama said, her voice breathless.

I heard the door open, then a strange man's voice. I was sure he wasn't Baba, but still I asked Moosa, 'Is that Baba?'

'Shush,' he snapped, straining to hear.

'Yes. Yes,' Mama said formally. 'This is his home. He's not here… But I tell you he's not home.'

The man seemed to read his words to her now, delivering them as if they were a line of marching tanks on Revolution Day. Moosa was looking up into nothing, the way people do when they are trying to hear something barely audible, something not meant for their ears.

'You are not coming in,' Mama shouted.

Moosa stood up. 'Don't leave the room,' he whispered and left. I felt a cold shiver pass through me.

Now there was a flurry of voices. I could barely hear Mama. A man shouted, 'Get out of my way.' How many of them were there, hundreds, thousands? Then amid the noise and the shouting I heard Mama's voice. She

sounded like a small nervous fish alone in the deep. 'I saw you following me yesterday,' she said. 'Shame on you following a woman and her son like that. Don't you have anything better to do?'

So they were the same men who had followed us yesterday from Martyrs' Square. The same ones who beat Ustath Rashid and made him vanish. 'Vanished like a grain of salt in water,' was how Auntie Salma put it, when, after running between police stations and Revolutionary Committee offices, she returned slapping one hand over the other and murmuring, 'Vanished like a grain of salt in water.' Who have they come to take this time, I wondered: Mama, Moosa, me? How can any one of us prove that he or she is not, and never was, a traitor? How can you prove something that hasn't happened? I bit on my lip to keep my teeth from chattering. I remembered Baba's words, what he whispered in my ear every time he left us: 'Take care of your mother, you are the man of the house now.' I buried my hands in my armpits, trying to stop trembling.

Moosa attempted to speak in a calm tone, trying to pierce through the chaos. I never felt more grateful for him. But then one of the strangers yelled at him. His voice sounded like an old woman's voice, but you knew he was a young man.

'Who are you?' he shouted.

Moosa tried to reply in the same gentle voice.

'Do you know who we are?' the man shouted again. 'Do you? Answer me!'

Everyone else was quiet now.

'Before you speak you must know first who you are addressing,' the man shouted.

'He doesn't live here,' Mama said.

'Write his name down,' the stranger ordered one of his men.

I heard Moosa say his own name with such regret, it reminded me of times when I had no other choice but to admit to my teacher, in front of the whole class, that I hadn't done my homework.