The Happy Marriage (21 page)

She was ready to do anything so long as it accomplished her aims.

One morning, after a sleepless night, the painter finally managed to doze off and had an erotic dream, something that hadn’t happened to him in a long time. He found himself at a party, where he met a young, sexy woman, with laughter in her eyes, and a slender, well-proportioned body, who was married with two children. She had
come to the party without her husband. She worked as an official at the Ministry of Sports, and was away from home for work. As he’d been about to leave the party, she’d caught up to him and said: “Are you driving home? No? In a taxi or on foot? I have a car, why don’t you let me give you a lift?” To thank her, he’d placed his fedora on her head. It suited her really well. “Keep it!” In the elevator, she unbuttoned her blouse and pounced on him. When they got to the ground floor, she dragged him to a dark corner and pulled her skirt down. She wasn’t wearing any panties. Their excitement had reached its zenith, and they made love right there on the spot, standing up, the fedora fell off her head and tumbled onto the floor, then a rat passed by below. On seeing the rat, the painter had screamed and woken up with a start. “Damned rat!” he’d exclaimed.

Who was that young woman, where had he seen her? Where do the faces we see in our dreams come from? She resembled a French actress whose name he’d forgotten. Perhaps he’d watched one of her films on television or somewhere else. The painter smiled, but it turned into a grimace when he saw the lawyer’s crumpled-up letter in regards to the uncontested divorce lying on the bedside table amidst a jumble of medicine bottles. Without wasting a moment, he called his lawyer to check in with him and ask him to speed up the proceedings.

When the painter was ready and had washed and dressed, he called the Twins so he could start his physical therapy session. It now consisted of a series of gymnastics exercises and little walks. His assistants took him to a gym and helped him with his exercises. As he wanted to chat a little, he asked one of them:

“Are you married?”

“I am, sir.”

“Are you happy?”

“Let’s say it’s fine.”

Then he turned to the other.

“What about you, are you married?”

“No, sir.”

“And why not?”

“Have you seen what Moroccan women are like these days? Freedom, equality, they’re the ones in charge now. I see how much my poor brothers suffer …”

“But a lot of Moroccan women aren’t liberated, besides, that’s a good thing, they work, they can contribute to the family budget …”

“One day, my mother got tired of my father never talking to her and so she asked him if they could have a conversation—she was bored. Without taking his eyes off the television, my father told her, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll talk to you.’ The next day, my mother was very happy and impatient to have that conversation with him. But my father remained silent. ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked him. After a long silence, my father told her: ‘This is what I’m thinking about: if I’d killed you eighteen years ago, I’d only have two years left of my jail sentence right now!’ ”

“But that’s horrible.”

The painter had always been horrified by crimes of passion. He simply couldn’t understand why killing one’s partner could ever be seen as a solution. He’d never entertained such notions. He worried every time his wife was late in coming home, or when she was out driving. He couldn’t bear to see her ill and would look after her and counsel her. Truth be told, even though he didn’t love her anymore, he still felt somewhat devoted to her, a kind of affection he couldn’t explain. One day, she’d broken her arm when she’d slipped on some snow. They’d been in Switzerland at the time. He’d run around like a madman to look for help, and needless to say he’d taken her to the hospital and had slept on a cot in the same room as her. However, the next morning they’d had another argument and she’d nearly thrown a cup of steaming coffee in his face. No, he’d never wanted to harm her, or prevent her from fulfilling herself and accomplishing whatever she wanted. He’d helped her put on a showcase of musicians
from her village, even though he hated that kind of music. He’d also found her a producer and a venue. His wife had then spent a year promoting a troupe of Berber musicians in France, Belgium, and Switzerland. He’d made all his contacts available to her and had called on his friends to help and ensure that her project was a success. When she’d been busy working, she’d left him alone. So he’d told himself: “She must always have something to keep her busy!” After her musical project had come to an end, he’d suggested she put on an exhibition of handicrafts from her region. This new project hadn’t gone as well as her previous effort. Once again, she’d heaped endless reproaches on him. So he redoubled his efforts and put together a charity auction, asking his friends to donate paintings. It took some effort because he would have had to set up a foundation, but someone else hosted the event under the aegis of their foundation instead. Thanks to that auction, his wife raised enough money to brighten up the village, build a school, and above all improve the inhabitants’ living conditions.

Her chief virtue was that she was willful and direct; her worst trait was that she never saw what she started through to its end. So he got tired of helping her and gave up. Perhaps it was a mistake. One day he’d told her: “You see, darling, if you’d married a boy from your village, someone who spoke your language and understood your silences, then you would have been a lot happier.”

He was profoundly certain that this was the case. As a result of his experiences, he’d stopped praising the concept of multiculturalism; he stopped believing that the confluence of cultures was enriching, and without being seduced by the stupid notion of endogamy, he’d reached the conclusion that leaving one’s tribe was no guarantee of success.

As he so often said, there was no such thing as a clash of civilizations, only a clash of ignorances. He’d admittedly ignored every aspect of
his wife’s Berber heritage. It had just never interested him. His wife knew nothing about the Morocco that lay beyond her ancestral village. Thus, it was no surprise that the resulting clash turned out to be violent, and that it inflicted a lot of damage on both their married life and their families. But he’d fallen in love with her—and love, whether blind or levelheaded, couldn’t be held accountable for people’s actions.

The painter thought about Imane and was looking for a way to keep her close to him for good, despite her having admitted she was fond of him. Her presence always dispelled the fog that occasionally brooded in his mind. He looked at her as though she were a painting, or at a push a model who didn’t want to leave his studio. This had actually happened to him once, at a time when he’d still devoted himself to portraits. The woman in question had been a young student who posed in order to pay her way through school. She was graceful, professional, and knew how to sit still and didn’t talk. One evening, after she’d finished sitting for him, she’d asked him for a glass of wine. He’d offered her a choice of red or white. Once she’d drained her glass, she’d drawn close to him and kissed him. He’d gently pushed her away. He had a rule about never sleeping with his models. But the young woman insisted. He rejected her a second time, explaining that the painting wasn’t finished yet and that it would ruin everything if they slept together, that it was a matter of principle. She’d then left and slammed the door behind her. He’d never seen her again. A year later, he’d run into her at the market on Rue Daguerre in the company of an older man: her husband. He’d told her, “You should come by the studio, you never picked up your check, and besides it would be a good opportunity to finish the painting.”

“It would be my pleasure, but I’ll call ahead.”

She came by the next day.

“I’m not your model anymore.”

“Yes, you are, because we never finished the painting, so let’s try to complete it, and if we do, we’ll celebrate.”

The painter eventually finished that piece and the model became his mistress. Their affair lasted for a season. She didn’t talk much and didn’t ask him any questions. They quickly, and very naturally, established a ritual. She would come by once a week in the afternoon, kiss him, and undress. Sometimes he would be completely focused on his work, and so she would wait for him in bed, and if he took too long, she would say: “I’m going to start on my own.” He would join her as soon as he’d finished, and they would spend a very gratifying hour together that was unmarked by any sentimentality or conversation, just pleasure for pleasure’s sake. She would never wash at his place, she would simply hurriedly put her clothes on again, give him a little kiss behind his ear, and leave. He, on the other hand, would linger there, exhausted but satisfied. The sun would have already set. He then took a shower and went home. Nobody could have suspected anything. So long as he still made love to his wife, she didn’t have any doubts, or at least never showed it.

One day, the painter received a visitor: the man whom his model had introduced as her husband when they’d met at the market. A weary-looking man who’d aged before his time. He apologized for arriving unannounced, lowered his sad gaze to the floor, and said:

“She’s left us. I know she used to come see you, she told me all about your little naps. I was jealous, but I tried not to let it show. There were thirty years between us. That’s a lot. She left us for an Italian actress, an ugly woman, thin as a stick, completely charmless and humorless. Well, that’s what I came here to tell you, hoping I could share a little of my misery with you.”

The painter offered him a drink and told him he shouldn’t beat himself up about it.

“She’s a free spirit and only does what she feels like, let’s hope she’s happy with that woman!”

XXV

Casablanca

January 25, 2003

In marriage, where one is wise, two are happy.

—Paquita, Celia’s chambermaid

FRITZ LANG
,
Secret Beyond the Door

He’d always been afraid of what people referred to as “hell.” He’d heard others refer to their married life as hell, that divorce was a catastrophe, that falling out of love with someone was a violent act perpetrated on that person …

Over the course of a dinner, he’d learned by chance that one of his friends who lived in the south of France, and whom he rarely saw as he didn’t like leaving his farm—he was a musician—had gotten divorced. The painter called him to find out more about what had happened.

“Yes, I got divorced, I lost everything, I gave her everything, I’m completely penniless, but in return I’ve gained something priceless:
my freedom. I’m broke, but I can breathe. Besides, I’ve asked some friends of mine to help me find a studio in Paris. I’ll make some money eventually. I’ve got a few concerts lined up for next year, but I lost my house, my boat, and my car. She even asked for something on top of alimony, which I didn’t know existed, I had to pay her a sum to compensate her for her loss of standing, for the damage done to her reputation after I left her. What about me? What about my standing?

“But it’s finally over, I see my kid every other weekend and I can start a new life. As for hell, I can talk to you about that for hours, it’s better to lose everything and to be able to leave that hell behind instead of clinging on and keeping fighting. I’ve been defeated. But nobody takes me seriously. I’ve been beaten up both physically and psychologically but I don’t even have the right to complain. There we have it, my friend, since you’re a painter, why don’t you paint a fresco that depicts battered men, that would be original! Well, come to think of it, I’ve never seen a film about battered men. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to give people a window onto a reality that nobody talks about. What about you, how are things going with that beautiful rebel of yours?”

He told his friend he’d decided to leave his wife. They were going to get divorced too, but their lawyers hadn’t yet reached an agreement. As he told his friend his story, the painter was suddenly overcome with a panic attack and felt an intense tightness in the middle of his chest. After hanging up the phone, he swallowed a Valium, then called his lawyer. The latter reassured him and asked him to be patient. He said that the situation was under control.

Nevertheless, a few days later some bailiffs burst into his studio completely unannounced.

“We’ve come to do an inventory of your work. We have to appraise
and catalogue all the paintings you have here in your studio and elsewhere. We’ve been commissioned by your wife. Though you should know that we admire you a great deal, you do us proud. Please forgive us, we’re only doing our job.”

He let them carry on with their work. Most of the paintings in his studio were incomplete or had been left unfinished. He led them to the basement where he kept some paintings that friends of his had given him. They took note of everything and said they would come back in case …

Later that evening, he tried to talk to his wife about their visit. As he was in a hurry to finish some work for an exhibition scheduled to open at his gallery in Monaco, he contented himself with pretending to be offended and asked his wife to calm down. He couldn’t bear the idea of having another fight with her.

“I don’t trust you, and so I must take precautionary measures. If you run off with someone else tomorrow, then I’ll be left completely destitute and out on the street. I won’t let that happen. The other day I saw you drooling after that peroxide blonde who’s married to one of your dear friends even though she’s almost half a century younger than him! Anything’s possible, so I’m taking the initiative …”

“Don’t worry, just let me paint. I just need some peace and quiet so I can finish a big commission. I’m working a lot at the moment.”

“You’ll never have peace and quiet!”