PALESTINE Memories of 1948 - Photographs of Jerusalem | Page 193
always envied them. Even after the coup d’état in 1973,
even when things changed with General Pinochet 30 in
power, the thoughts of the Chileans remained uncon-
trollable. I remember a scene in the early 1980s, during
a football match, when General Pinochet was in power:
the stadium was full and people started shouting with
one voice : Y va a caer, y va a caer! (And he will fall, and
he will fall!). I envied them for being so daring. I was jeal-
ous of their insolence, even if it often cost them dearly.
It has long been my dream to return to Palestine. 31 I
myself have never taken that step, but my brother, who
came to join me in Chile in 1962 with my mother, took
the plane home a few years ago. At the airport some
young Israelis of Russian and Iraqi origin made his
life impossible for six hours: they searched everything,
down to the hems of his clothes, they questioned him
as if he were a delinquent whereas he was simply return-
ing home to Palestine. What they want is to sicken us
to the point that we no longer wish to come back. To
force us to give up everything.
In 1978, my mother begged to go back to Palestine.
She went to Jerusalem. She knocked on the door of her
house in Qatamun and a Polish woman, tall, beauti-
ful, blonde, opened the door. Thinking that she could
awaken some empathy in this stranger, she explained to
her that the house belonged to her family, but the other
woman became aggressive: it was “her” house, because
the Israeli government had given it to her! In other
words: the authorities had appropriated our house and
had given it to a family of immigrants! My mother was
so emotional that she lost her balance. The woman
offered her a glass of water and made her come inside.
A shock awaited her there: nothing, absolutely nothing
had been moved! The furniture was in its place; a few
family photographs had been taken down from the
walls. It was as if these people had moved into a rented
house for the holidays. As if they knew, in the bottom
of their hearts, that it did not belong to them, that they
had stolen it. One has to be hard-hearted to be able to
live among someone else’s things for so long.
Our house in Santiago is completely filled with Pales-
tine: objects, paintings, embroideries, a map of Palestine
and photos of Beit Jala, Bethlehem and Jerusalem above
my desk. It is in the food I prepare, in the language that I
teach my children. 32 They know that they have Palestin-
ian roots, but that they are Chilean; like me, who is one
more Chilean. But they do not want to live in Palestine
whereas I dream of it because I was thrown out, I had no
choice. But be careful not to generalize: there are more
and more Palestinians, everywhere in the world, who
are concerned about the right of return to Palestine. 33 It
is a feeling that is growing, which is becoming interna-
tional. Young people do not forget. They build their lives
elsewhere, and will perhaps stay there as long as there
is no safe place for them to settle. But Palestine is part
of them. Even though it is in a different way from the
old generation: I am a Palestinian who became Chilean,
whereas my children are Chilean of Palestinian descent.
Women and men everywhere like to live where their
roots and those of their family are! I am no exception:
I, too, would like to open the windows of my house,
the one my great-grandfather built, and to breathe the
soft air of Beit Jala. I, too, would like to spend my old
age there where I was born, to hear the cooing of the
doves, to taste the sweet juice of the oranges and to eat
bread with thyme dipped in olive oil.
Nakhle
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