That’s it. I’ll start. No g⭕enuine excuse for hesitation. I approached the window of the small metal shack at the private parking lot’s entrance, next to the Al-Manara lion moܫnument in downtown Ramallah. Mustering the best of my manners, I tried to disguise my hesitation, saying to the young man selling tickets, ‘I’d like to sit over there, right between the two yellow lines drawn on the parking lot asphalt, that spot specifically.’ I gestured to the very place. ‘I want to sit there, and I’ll pay you like any other driver, one dollar, meaning I want to park. I’m ready to sit on the ground, or at most I’ll bring a plastic chair along.’
The parking attendant didn’t attend to what I had said. Baffled, he soon assumed an aggressive demeanour; maybe as a defence mechanism to behaviour he found insulting. ‘A respectable parking lot is what this is! How do you want to park when you don’t even have a car and you’re not a car?’
‘Just think of me as a car,’ I said✅, tryꦿing to lighten the mood to gain some time to win him over.
‘Not until you’ve convinced me.𝐆 What if someone thinks you’re a spy, watching people? What would I tell my boss? What do I say to the customer if the parking lot says full and there’s still an empty spot with someone sitting in it like that, out in the open?’
(The lot was actually uncovered, visible🌠 to the inner lively roads next to Al-Manara Square.)&♔nbsp;
‘You wouldn’t comprehend if I told you. What would you think if I told you that I’m trying to be a mirror, for example? What would you make o𝐆f that?’
‘What do🐲 I care if you want to 🔯be a mirror or a pile of mirrors, if I don’t get why?’
The young man’s offhand response caught me off guard and, after a pointless discussion, we agreed that he’d call his supervisor, the man who manages the lot, workin🔯g nights, guarding it, sleeping in the small metal shack painted bloodred.
He came, round-shaped head, sturdy frame, his serious featuꦰres rough—must be forty-som🌼ething. I saw him and wasn’t encouraged.
‘What’s the problem?’ he po🍎sed the🍃 question directly at me.
‘No problem. I want to rent out a spot like any car owner, but I want to sit the꧂re instead, to contemplate, just to have a think, and maybe write something, a novel maybe. I’ll pay you.’
The man’s features relaxed, ൩his su𝔉rliness melting into a gentle grin.
‘You? A writer? Come, have some tea and let’s talk it over. Come on. Me, I claim without much proof, that I’m a formidable reader! Do you know the meaning of formidable?’ he asked his eyes fixe🍰d on mine like two nails in a plank of wood. (Nails and wood? What kind of simile is that?) ‘A formidable reader, even though I’m a mule.’
He shook with laughter. ‘Come on, let🦹’s have a drink in the shack.’
‘A for𒊎midable reade✱r . . . and a mule . . . how?’
‘Before, I was a determined mule of thꦆe revolution, but when thaꦐt ended, I consciously and voluntarily remained a mule. Simple.’
(I shied away from getting into political, philosophical or historical discussions about the revolutions, their geneses or endings. As usual, I wasn’t moved by any idealist assertion. My experience with masks is a long one, and I don’t automatically side with the margin simply because it’s the margin. Marginality for me isn’t in i☂tself valuable, and those who boast of it fail to gain my trust. Rather, my musings have revealed to me that t💜he margin is no less cruel to the margin, no less cruel to the margin of the margin than the centre itself is to the margin.)
‘No one else dares to call me a mule. You could say such a label is out of protest, or educational, or an outlet. I’ll spell it out: I’m an old fighter, a l💧iberated prisoner, freed in ’95. I chose to live my own way, so I work as a guard, gateman and supervisor of this parking lot here instead of relying on any job benefit, which my past entitles me to. But what’s your story? Why don’t you write at home? Does inspiration only strike you here?’ he asked jokingly.
(Excerpted from ‘The Dance of the Deep-Blue Scorpion’ by Akram Musallam, translated by Sawad Hussain; with permission from Seagull Books)
