PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 134

we should go back to where our families were to settle
down; all the more so since I felt saudade, nostalgia, for
Gaza, when I thought of its spring flowers, its beaches,
my friends… Gaza was tugging at my heart.
But conflict caught us short. Gaza became one of the
pawns in the Six-Day War and was occupied by Israel. 18
Changing our plans from one day to the next, I decided
to return to Brazil with my wife and son, but the Israelis
did not agree with this. Luckily, I was in contact with
the Red Cross, and asked them to get in touch with
Colonel Schilling. The telex said: ‘Colonel Schilling –
STOP – I am still alive – STOP – Ready to leave Gaza
with wife and son – STOP – Please contact Brazilian
Embassy to help me leave – STOP.’ A few days later we
were on an Egyptian plane that was carrying wounded
people from Tel Aviv to Cairo. I took the opportunity
to help one of my sisters to leave Gaza; she has stayed in
Egypt ever since.
Returning to Brazil, which I had left a few months ear-
lier and having sold everything I had, meant that I had to
start again from scratch. But, over there, it is a habit. And
solidarity is not an empty word: a friend lent us his flat
and found me work as a chauffeur for the World Bank for
a month. One of the cars I was driving was a Willys and
I had to take it to the dealership one day. 19 As luck would
have it, the owner wanted to sell his concession. It was a
good opportunity, but having no money, I proposed to
José, a wealthy Portuguese friend who worked in cars,
that we become associates. He would put in the money,
and I would reimburse him monthly with 5% interest,
which made 60% interest per year. José knew me and
knew that I was a hard worker. The Willys dealership
worked well, until the day we were visited by two guys,
one American and his Brazilian right-hand man:
‘Who owns this concession?’ asked the American.
‘Me,’ I replied.
And the bad news hit us – the garage was going
to close because Ford had just bought out Willys. I
reacted like a real Brazilian:
‘Just a minute, that is not how we discuss things in
Brazil!’
And I invited them for lunch.
While they were eating some of the juicy fruit for
which Rio de Janeiro is famous, one of them asked me
if I was an Arab.
‘Of course I am Arab.’
He then told me how he thought the Arabs were
smart people, and let me know that if I had sufficient
132
Memories of 1948
money, I could become the owner of the Ford conces-
sion as I had been for Willys. I approved like a good
Brazilian:
‘Tá bom (that’s good).’
For me this was far from being a definitive yes, but
really meant: Insh Allah!
Before leaving the table, he asked me if I knew King
Hussein of Jordan. I nodded, even if it was not true: I
came from Gaza, which had been ruled by Egypt since
1948, not from the West Bank! Suddenly he became
melancholy, and he revealed that he had been the
Ford representative in Lebanon and the king of Jor-
dan would often go there to buy cars for his collection.
Then he took on a complicit tone and said:
‘Find yourself a big piece of land and I will make
you a representative of Ford.’
We were passing in front of a large closed warehouse.
I pointed at it and said:
‘That… that belongs to me!’
I still laugh when I think about it… because he
believed me!
‘Put it all in writing and send it to me. If you do as I
tell you, it will work!’
‘Tá bom,’ I repeated.
Barely had he gone away that I began searching
everywhere to find out to whom that land belonged.
Finally, I learned that its owner had run away to Leba-
non after going bankrupt. I called his lawyer:
‘Could you rent me that warehouse?’
They were not interested in renting, they were sell-
ing. So I bought it with a five-year loan. At the inau-
guration of the Ford dealership, there were all the local
Arabs, comprising mainly Lebanese and Syrians. Car
sales were booming, so work was forthcoming. I took
the opportunity to call my brother Hassan and to res-
cue a nephew, filling out the visa applications and all
the papers guaranteeing that I was responsible for him.
And so we worked together in the garage.
Then, one day, around 1974, the director of Ford
came to Brazil and asked to see me. He and three of his
friends wanted to import to the US a large quantity of
a sort of nut, the babaçu, 20 the fruit of a palm tree that
grew in rural north-eastern Brazil. What they wanted
was to extract the oil from this fruit, a biofuel, in the
early days of research into alternatives for petrol follow-
ing the petrol crisis of 1973.
The American asked me to find someone reliable,
capable of fetching the nuts from a remote region of