Obituary: Qusai Abtini was killed on July 8th

WHEN you saw Qusai Abtini on his TV sit-com, “Umm Abdou the Aleppan”, he appeared as the typical father-figure of a struggling Syrian household. Dressed in greasy blue overalls, he would trudge home from his workshop and throw a bag of shopping at his wife, Umm Abdou, ordering her to cook supper. More mellow afterwards, he would lounge in his white cap and dishdasha on the sofa, picking his teeth and patting his stomach while his wife served up his glass of coffee. As she carried on (for Umm Abdou, played by his 11-year-old schoolfriend Rasha, was wilful, beautiful, full of half-crazed ideas, and never stopped talking), he would keep a lordly silence, occasionally stroking an imaginary beard. Then, after an affectionate put-down, he would waddle off. Everything was exactly observed; and only the occasional too-broad bucktooth grin, or an unprofessional glance to camera, would betray the fact that patriarch Abu Abdou was a child.