Khairy Alqam… A Tale of Bitterness

This Book

I do not remember the first time I was told that I had been named for him. Such things are repeated so often in a family that they lose their beginning. One day you simply know them, the way you know which cupboard holds the tea glasses, or which step outside the house is cracked, or which neighbor should not be greeted too loudly in the morning because he works nights.

I knew my grandfather had been a father of nine. I knew he had worked with his hands. I knew he had been fifty-one when he died. I knew he had gone out one morning in Jerusalem and did not return.

Only later did I understand that “did not return” was the gentlest version. Adults have many gentle versions. They use them around children the way they place cushions around sharp furniture. But children grow, and the furniture remains sharp.

My grandfather had been walking to work on May 13, 1998. That was what everyone agreed on first. He had been walking to work. Not to a protest, not to a fight, not toward any grand gesture that could later be argued over by men who enjoy turning the dead into proof. He was going to earn his wages. There were children in his house. There was bread to buy. There were bills, shoes, school things, medicines, all the small ordinary demands that make a father’s life both heavy and holy.

I used to picture him carrying tools, though I do not know if he was. In my imagination, he always had dust on his sleeves. I gave him the face from the photograph and the body of the men I saw returning from work in the evenings, tired but still able to smile when a child ran toward them.

He was killed on the way.