These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started…. but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers – who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained. Who would want to stay? But you have made a devil's pact…. it drags you in and suddenly you are unsuitable to return, your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere.'
'Oh, that's not true, surely.'
'And then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging, it seems like some long, dirty lie…. and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is an accident. But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does anything matter?
'Oh, that's not true, surely.'
'And then you begin to give up the very idea of belonging. Suddenly this thing, this belonging, it seems like some long, dirty lie…. and I begin to believe that birthplaces are accidents, that everything is an accident. But if you believe that, where do you go? What do you do? What does anything matter?
( Zadie Smith )
[ White Teeth ]
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