We would by now still be sitting on the floor in the sitting room, playing cards, drinking tea. Moosa would take the newspapers and read out loud his favourite articles of the day. Mama would comment and tell him off every time he skipped or added in his own words, and I would roll on the floor laughing as they argued. Baba would arrive, take off" his tie and shoes and talk to us for a few minutes before going in to shower and pray. He would reappear comfortable in his white jallabia, smelling of French cologne. Moosa would reread the day's articles to him and Baba never minded Moosa's skipping or adding. Baba listened to him in a way that always pleased Moosa, and so he read louder and for longer stretches of time.

Baba never spoke about it, but Moosa had told me how special their friendship was, and when he talked about it you could hear in his voice how much he loved Baba. He looked up to him like an older brother, you could see it in his eyes when they were together.

When Moosa's father, Judge Yaseen, tried to force his eldest son to complete his law degree, Baba stepped in in Moosa's defence. A prominent Egyptian judge who was invited personally by King Idris to help reform Libya 's courts, Judge Yaseen wasn't a man who was easily crossed. He was tall and solemn, always dressed formally in jacket and tie even on Fridays. His hair was always slicked back and gave off a weak shine. I had never met anyone like him before. For a long time I believed he knew everything there was to know in the world. It was his reserve, the stubborn cloud of earnestness that seemed to follow him wherever he went, that intimidated me. Later, when I discovered that reserve and earnestness weren't necessarily traits of wisdom, I feared him less and began to see his manner as affected and later still came to forgive him for it and only then did I love him. Because, as fate would have it, Judge Yaseen was to become my guardian. If I had known this as an intimidated child, I might have run away into the sea to escape my fate.

Whenever the judge was present people talked less. He almost never asked a question. His eyes were brown and deeply set and a little too small for his head; when they fixed on you they made your skin itch. Every time we met he would simply declare, 'You are well,' or, 'You will pass your exams,' and, when it was time to part, 'You will be careful.' And although I felt the urge to say, 'No I am not well, and no I won't pass my exams or be careful,' my head always betrayed me and I would nod. His whole demeanour was hypnotic.

After Qaddafi's September Revolution overthrew King Idris, Judge Yaseen didn't return to Cairo. He opened his own practice in Tripoli and dreamed of the day his eldest son, Moosa, would join it.

Moosa fulfilled all of what was required of him. He accompanied his father to funerals and on formal visits, and when the judge couldn't attend Moosa put on a j acket and tie and bore his father's condolences or compliments. But when he was one year short of completing his law degree – it took him five years to pass the first three – Moosa decided to quit. Judge Yaseen refused even to discuss it.

The judge was Baba's friend and lawyer. They met after a shipment of oak that Baba had purchased 'in good faith' never arrived. Out of all the men in the judge's domino circle, Baba was the youngest and the only one who wasn't a judge. They gathered every Thursday afternoon, just when the sun was softening, to play dominoes and enjoy the uninterrupted view of the sea from Judge Yaseen's second-floor balcony. The judge and his family, including Moosa, also lived in Gergarish, but of course the judge didn't call it that; he called it by its other, fancier name that made you think it was a place in Italy, not Tripoli: Gorgi Populi. This is what it was called when Libya was an Italian colony. 'We reside in Gorgi Populi,' he used to say. Moosa always looked embarrassed.

When I used to cycle by with the boys, happy the school week had ended, I would see the old men and Baba sitting around their dominoes. Baba would ask urgently, 'What? Is anything the matter?' leaning over the railing. After I had reassured him, waving at him as if to say, 'I don't know what you are talking about,' or, 'It's not me, I swear, it's not me,' he would ask me to come up and say hello. The urgency with which he greeted me then whenever we met outside our home makes me wonder now, as I reflect on those distant days, whether he was totally ignorant of his wife's 'illness'.

I always went to him first and kissed his hand in the way he taught me – I only had to kiss it once in the morning and once at night, but it pleased him when I did it in front of his friends. I preferred to shake hands with the old judges, but there were always one or two who pulled me and kissed me on both cheeks. Because they were old, their lips were soft and wet. It took a lot to stop myself wiping my face in disgust. They always said the same things: 'Mashaa Allah. A man now, our young Suleiman. How old is he today? What year at school?' This attention brought a big smile to Baba's face. Then, in a very earnest voice, he would ask, 'What have you been up to, young man?' He only called me 'young man' at such occasions. Something about this strange way he spoke made some of the old judges smile, and so I believed he did it to amuse them. 'OK, enough playing now,' he would finally say, even though I wasn't playing, I had come up on his request to say hello to his friends. 'It's time you were home, young man.' As soon as I left the balcony I would wipe my cheeks clean. Once, when I was running down the staircase, Baba called me back. I found him standing outside the front door. 'What?' I said. He kissed me on the head and gave me ten dinars, the same amount of money I found beneath my pillow on birthday mornings.

Out of all of his father's friends, Moosa picked Baba to convince the judge of his plan to quit university. They met several times in our house, closing the door to Baba's study behind them as if they were planning a revolt, and talked for hours.

Baba convinced the judge to allow Moosa to take a year out by offering to employ him. But before the year ended Moosa was confident that he wasn't going to resume his law degree at Garyounis University, which was in Benghazi, twelve hours' drive from Tripoli. Judge Yaseen was furious when he heard of his son's decision, Baba was responsible, and Moosa was independent.

This history had brought Moosa closer to our family and allowed the judge to blame Baba for every misfortune that Moosa encountered. 'You have ruined my son, Bu Suleiman,' the judge would loudly let slip to Baba in front of the others during a domino game. 'Don't add salt to the wound by beating me in the game I love in my own house.' And I once heard Baba tell Mama, 'He can't be upset at me for ever. At least in his house I am guaranteed his wrath will be limited.'

Relations between the three men didn't get easier after all of Moosa's business projects failed. He had a chicken farm, but the chickens got too hot by day, too cold by night and so died one after the other. It was a catastrophe: one thousand chickens in less than one week! But even though he had lost all of his money -which he had borrowed from Baba – Moosa insisted on giving them a proper burial. 'Why punish them in life and in death?' were his words. He hired a big yellow tractor with the letters 'JCB' written on its sides. He carved a big mass grave for his one thousand dead chickens, buried them, then got me to sit on his lap and drive the tractor several times over the earth. It was a kind of ceremony for his dead chickens. I remember, after we were done, a few feathers that had survived the burial clinging to the yellow metal of the tractor.

Another time he imported tyres from Poland. For days all he spoke about was how Polish car tyres were destined to be world-famous. 'Mark my words, as we now know China for silk, Japan for televisions, New Zealand for sheep, Poland too will become known for car tyres. You will see, this will be the most successful import into Libya since JCBs.'