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 191