1932: Ever Since I Can Remember

It all began on the day that my brother Kamil and I chased after  Father, with Mother's curses ringing in our ears. I hoped and prayed  God would take vengeance on him. He'd fallen in love with another  woman, deserted us, and married her.

Mother had been to court in Nabatiyeh to seek child-support  payments, but it did no good. Kamil and I were hunting for him so  that he would buy us food. We ran over the rocky ground to the next  village where he lived. We searched in the market at Nabatiyeh,  asking people where we might find him. The sound of his voice and his  loud laugh finally led us to him; he was too short to spot in a  crowd, much shorter than Mother. Following her instructions, we asked  him to buy us sugar and meat. He agreed immediately, telling us to  follow him. We tagged along, our eyes glued to his back, terrified of  losing him among the piled-up sacks of burghul and lentils, camels,  donkeys, sheep and chickens, hawkers and vendors peddling their  wares. At times he disappeared and we'd panic, thinking we had lost  him for ever; then he'd reappear and our spirits would soar. Finally  he gave up trying to lose us. He told us that he had no money and  could buy us nothing. He described how to find our uncle's cobbler's  stall near by and then he vanished.

Kamil yelled Father's name as loudly as he could above the vendors'  cries and the bleating of the animals.

'Listen, boy,' said a man selling sheepskins. 'That voice of yours is  about as much use as a fart in a workshop full of metal beaters!'

We made our way back to Mother. She was wa...