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The grocery store is called Hathal’s Shop. That is the name of the man who owns it. Now Raheem turns his eyes away because he can’t stand to look at it.

Raheem was reporting in the southern port city of Basra when his son died. Basra was under the control of Shiite militias at that time, and it was a lethal assignment. He had called home and chatted with Mohammed half an hour before what Raheem now refers to as “the incident.”

Raheem asked his son how he slept. Mohammed said that he had slept well, and that he had seen a television program about Iraqi poetry. They both loved poetry. Raheem reminded him to study, not to waste too much time watching TV. Then they said good-bye.

When they phoned Raheem from the hospital, he was working on a computer in the hotel. A relative of his, a young woman who worked at the Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad, was on the phone. Her father had driven Mohammed to the hospital when the roads opened.

“Mohammed was shot by the soldiers,” she said. “He is injured.”

This happens a lot in Arab countries. People lie to soften the blow. It’s considered socially acceptable; it’s considered necessary. Doctors don’t tell terminal patients they are dying. But Raheem is a good reporter. He could smell the lie.

“Please tell me the truth,” he said.

So she did.

Raheem yelled at the driver to pay for the rooms, and ran to collect his things. They reached Baghdad at nine that night. The next day they buried Mohammed in Najaf, and soon Raheem was back at work.

Raheem was supposed to be the one in danger, working as a journalist. Mohammed didn’t like it. He had pestered his brothers, reminding them not to mention their father’s job outside the house. Sometimes he asked Raheem to cancel his reporting trips out into the provinces. Raheem never did.

As for Mohammed, he was as safe as anybody in Baghdad. He rarely left the neighborhood. His school was a stone’s throw from the house.

Nobody in the family goes into Mohammed’s bedroom anymore. They gave his clothes to the poor. Raheem guesses the rest of his things are still in the room, but he doesn’t know because he can’t stand to look. Only Bashar, the younger brother, is able to cross the threshold. The only time Raheem dreamed about Mohammed, it was about the room. It was a simple dream. Mohammed was looking out of his room, smiling at his father.

More than a year later, I asked Raheem if he thought he was beginning to heal.

“Whenever I am alone, I can’t control my tears,” he said. “Even when I am walking in the street. Alone in the house, and even when I am sitting on my computer during the working hours. But I am always trying to be strong in front of my family.”

Raheem’s wife can’t stand the house anymore.

“Everything in it reminds her,” he says.

I was in Cairo when I heard about Raheem’s son. By then, I had already packed up my apartment. I was staying in a hotel, waiting for a Russian visa. I had asked for another job, and I was going to Moscow, in large measure because I didn’t expect to find any war there. When I got the note about Raheem’s son I was sitting among boxes and dust-streaked notebooks in the Los Angeles Times bureau, packing up all the things I’d written down during six years of chasing war. When I read the news I dropped my head into my hands and cried for a while, sitting there at the computer. I thought about quiet Raheem and the careful, proud way he spoke of his children. Then I wrote him a note. There is nothing you can say. Even if I were there I wouldn’t hug him. We have never touched. And he wrote back, sounding hollow and gracious, saying thank you. And then I cried some more, even though if there’s one thing I learned at Raheem’s side, it’s that crying doesn’t do any good at all.

For a while Raheem was trying to get a visa to live in the United States. He worked with an immigration lawyer. He fretted over how he would find a job. What kind of job do you want? I asked him. Anything, he said, so that I can offer something to my family. He