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# Between Grief and Grief
- URL: https://www.malektakieddine.com/between-grief-and-grief/
- Published: 2026-11-02T22:06:05.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-02T22:06:05.000Z
- Author: Malek Takieddine
- Tags: #literary-fiction

The iron gate opens onto a small courtyard in Douma, in the mountains of Lebanon. It is August 1943.

Beneath a low grapevine, a family is having lunch.

An old man is speaking, although nobody is listening particularly carefully. A young woman carries a pot from the kitchen. Two children are quarrelling over something that will be forgotten before the afternoon is over. A chair scrapes against the stone floor. Someone calls for more bread.

The house is crowded, the afternoon warm, the future entirely unknown.

Among them sits Emile, twenty-one years old, with dark hair and an impatient manner. His father is telling him something about the house. Emile nods without listening. He is thinking about a young woman he hopes to marry.

He cannot possibly know that one day he will own this house, grow old beneath this vine, and become a photograph on a wall.

[Read the full piece on Substack.](https://malektakieddine.substack.com/p/between-grief-and-grief)