The Happy Marriage (9 page)

He asked to speak to Angèle the next day at the hotel, but it was Maria who answered. He thanked her for the book and suggested taking them to visit a village in the South, which they didn’t know about, but would surely like. However, they had to catch a plane the following day. They exchanged addresses and promised to meet up the next time they passed through Paris.

That evening, he’d tried once again to reach Angèle, who seemed embarrassed by his approaches and had answered the phone rather tersely. He cut the conversation short and regretted calling her in the first place. Ten minutes later, she’d called him back: “I’m out on the street and can speak freely. We’ll write to one another as soon as I’m back, all right? I understand French but I can’t speak it that well!” He’d replied: “My written Spanish isn’t great, but I can try to speak it!”

His instinct hadn’t been wrong. There was a chance something might happen between them. A fling, an adventure, an affair, what did he know?… He felt available, open to any propositions, even the most extravagant. He was trying to free himself from his wife’s clutches. They hadn’t slept together for several months. He felt as though he’d already left her spiritually, even though things were just as
they’d always been. He rented a car, abandoned his idea of following Delacroix’s footsteps and headed toward his wife’s ancestral village. He’d kept his room at the hotel in Marrakech in case he changed his mind again. He still nursed both terrible and wonderful memories of that little village in the middle of nowhere.

He got lost several times before coming across the sign that read “Khamsa.” The village was called that because it had five trees, five mosques, and five thousand inhabitants.

A horde of happy children greeted him on his arrival at the entrance of the village, crying, “M’ssiou! M’ssiou!” Some of them were barefoot, while others had a wounded look in their eyes. They answered him in Arabic and made fun of his Northern accent. But he’d thought about them. He pulled notebooks, pencils, and neon pens out of his bag and handed them out. He asked them to show him what they’d drawn the following day.

His wife’s aunts and uncles welcomed him, but they looked very intimidated. They didn’t know what to do in order to please him. Recalling his last visit there with his wife, he’d purchased some medicines in Marrakech and he presented them as a gift.

They thanked him and asked him for news of his wife. The painter assured them that everything was well, that she was looking after the children and the house and that they were happy … It was the first time he’d been there on his own. He felt that he should go there more often, because things there seemed different to him. He found the people there humble, generous, thoughtful, and kindhearted. He told them that he was just passing through, and that he wanted to go up the mountain to draw and take some photos. One of them volunteered to accompany him and help carry his belongings. He was a bright-eyed young man who spoke a little French but not a word of Arabic. He wasn’t even twenty years old and his name was Brek.

Throughout their climb, Brek constantly asked him questions about “Clirmafirane.” It took the painter some time to realize the young man had been talking about Clermont-Ferrand. There was
something crazy about hearing the name of that boring town being spoken high up in those mountains. The sky was a deep blue, the views amazing, and the horizon almost stretched out into infinity. Two years earlier, Brek had led a French couple who had been visiting the region on a hike. They had promised him that they would do their best to secure him a visa so he could work for them in their house and look after their garden.

While the painter had been drawing in his large sketchbook, Brek had suddenly said:

“You know, my cousin, your wife had also suggested I go to France. I gave her some passport photos, my passport, and other documents. She told me I could go there soon. That’s why I know so much about Clirmafirane, is that where you live?”

“No, we live in Paris, in the Thirteenth arrondissement. It’s very different from this place.”

“She told me you have a big house and that I could look after the garden.”

“Ah, good!”

“Yes, I will be your gardener.”

“Are you a gardener?”

“No, but the people from Clirmafirane told me the same thing. I’m up to the task. I know how to pull out weeds, dig, water the plants …”

“But you’re going to get married soon. Are you going to leave your wife behind and emigrate?”

“No, my cousin said that my wife could work for you in the house. She said she would get a visa for her too.”

Which was exactly—or almost—what happened a few months later. On his return to Paris after opening an exhibition in Germany, the painter had been surprised to find that a very young woman had been set up in one of his children’s bedrooms. She was very shy and couldn’t
speak a word of French or Arabic. When he asked his wife why she’d never spoken to him about it or asked for his opinion, she’d answered very aggressively:

“I know what I’m doing. This girl got married very young and I’ve brought her here so she can go to school, and so she can help me to look after the kids from time to time. As for you, you’re never here, and you don’t know what goes on here when you’re gone, you don’t know how much there is to do. You’re trying to piss me off, is that it? Find something else to do …”

“But you just presented me with a fait accompli!”

“Just like you’ve done!”

He kept his mouth shut, but he saw the extent of the damage that very day. The poor peasant girl was completely out of her element. He found dirty toilet paper strewn all over the floor of the bathroom next to her bedroom. The toilet seat had been completely soiled because she’d stood on top of it and crouched on her haunches because she didn’t know that you could sit on it. Nauseous, he’d left the house. He didn’t say anything to his wife, preferring that she find out on her own. On his way out, he’d peeked into the girl’s room. She’d scattered all her belongings on the bed and had spread the duvet on the floor to sleep at night. The next day, he’d seen her doubled over and red-faced. She’d confused the jar of mustard with jam and had swallowed a huge spoonful of it. He’d also found a metal cap from a bottle of Coca-Cola that had been riddled with holes. She must have tried to open it with her teeth …

That evening, he heard her cry in her room.

The girl went back to her village a month later. The painter felt relieved. But two weeks later, another girl took her place. This new girl had just finished high school and had begun to study biology. He hadn’t been told about her arrival either. Any kind of discussion or protest had been useless. He only asked his wife a single question: “And what about the gardener, when is he coming?” She hadn’t answered him.

The village of Khamsa looked like a dry red spot from the mountain’s summit. There were no oases in its surroundings, nor any greenery or shrubbery of any kind. The painter had told himself that it was a cursed douar, nothing but rocks and thistles. Brek agreed. He talked a lot about the village where he’d been born: “God has forgotten us! We don’t have anything! Very little water, no electricity, no schools, no doctor, nothing, nothing grows here, but we have a lot of cats and dogs who are just as hungry as we are. They come here because we let them go wherever they like. So you see, brother, Clirmafirane is a lot better than this! Do you know why Madame Nicole never wrote to me or replied to any of my letters? And what about your cousin, do you think she’ll keep her word?”

When the painter thought he’d taken enough photos and produced enough sketches, he and Brek had returned to the village, where a sumptuous dinner awaited them. The tajine with mutton and olives had been very greasy. He hadn’t been able to eat, and had instead eaten some couscous that was just as greasy as the tajine. He’d been ashamed to be unable to enjoy the dishes that the women had spent the whole day preparing. Fortunately, the other guests had gobbled everything up. He’d slept in the room reserved for prayers. Stomachache and heartburn had prevented him from getting a wink of sleep. He’d left the house early the next morning and discovered a light that was incredibly soft and subtle. He took a few photos in order to remember it. On his return to Paris he’d immediately started to work on paintings about everything that he’d seen and which had affected him during that trip.

His wife had stormed into his studio and recognized her village. The two canvases were still unfinished. She’d looked at them and on her way out she’d said:

“The money you make from those paintings will go to Khamsa. You don’t have the right to exploit those poor people. They don’t even
know that you’re profiting from their misery. You’re just like your photographer friend who shoots workers in the mines and then exhibits them so he can make a pile of cash. This kind of thing should be forbidden.”

Even though he didn’t know whether she’d heard him, he’d said:

“They’re not for sale.”

IX

Casablanca

1995

Some people say that you can tell what the souls of the dead have transformed into by looking at how the color of their hair has changed.

—
LUIS BUÑUEL
,
The River and Death

One day, by which time they were living in their beautiful new house in Casablanca, his wife had come up to him and told him in a laconic tone: “I know you’re cheating on me, and I even know with who!”

The time of suspicions had begun. She would never stop. She would spy on him and never trust anything he said, and was skeptical of every woman in his entourage. Her jealousy knew no bounds. While he’d been preparing to leave for Berlin to appear on a panel about art and literature with Anselm Kiefer, his wife had told him that the trip had been canceled.

“How is that possible?” he’d asked. “Who did that?”

“Why, I did, who else? A girl called to ask what time your flight was going to land in Berlin, it was a North African girl, someone called Asma … I could tell from her voice that she was a little slut, and so I told her my husband wasn’t interested in that so-called symposium and that he was going to stay here with his wife, then I hung up on her.”

That episode had made the painter furious. He tried to remedy the situation, but it was too late—his wife had ripped up the invitation and he didn’t have the organizer’s name. He was very embarrassed by it all, and he discovered how dangerous his wife could be for him. He tried to call one of his friends in Berlin but nobody had answered. It was the day before the conference. He found it impossible to cool down. He slept in the living room that night and decided he would go see his sick mother.

By the following morning, the painter still hadn’t regained his composure. He was in a hurry to be far away from home. Bitter over the canceled conference, he’d pondered the situation while driving to Fez, where his mother lived. He recalled a recent dinner with friends at the Mirage Hotel just outside Tangiers. His wife had started to say terrible things about one of their mutual acquaintances. She just made things up, saying whatever came to her mind, and had accused this person of almost drowning their children, then stopped in midsentence and addressed her husband: “You’re not a man, and you’re even less of a husband! If you were a real man you would cut ties with that so-called friend who almost killed one of your children!” Unable to take any more, the painter had lost all control and had thrown a glass of water in his wife’s face. She reacted immediately and threw a glass of wine in his face. His eyes could no longer see and he spent a few moments in complete darkness. Everyone in the restaurant had witnessed the scene. The other couple had tried to calm things down. But the violent way in which things had happened made him feel really bad, and
he blamed himself for his lack of restraint. He would never again let himself go so far. His eyes welling with tears, he left to go for a walk on the beach with his friend. “When violence sets in,” his friend had said, “married life is no longer possible, everything quickly boils down to makeshift repairs and lying to oneself. At that point, divorce is the only option.” It was the first time he’d heard anyone use the word “divorce” in reference to them.

Whenever his wife left on a trip and he found himself alone with his children, their house in Casablanca would suddenly become calm and life would unfold without any drama. Even his children’s behavior grew less petulant. The painter would observe his house and say to himself: even the walls look more relaxed. An unusual sense of calm would reign over the house, which he would have liked to prolong beyond those absences. But how would he manage to do it? When they lived in Paris and he would go to work in his studio, he would wind up spending the night there because he sensed that a storm would be waiting for him on his return home. Thus he would postpone it for a night, hoping this would lessen the tide of recriminations. His wife suspected that he wasn’t alone during those nights, and she would barge into the studio in the middle of the night and then leave without a word. She started referring to his place of work as a “so-called studio,” or even bluntly as a “brothel.”

Admittedly, the painter had often entertained female friends in his studio, usually in the afternoon, which he preferred. He worked in the morning, and after lunch he always liked to take a nap. One of his friends in particular knew better than anyone the meaning he attached to that word. She was a young married woman who was a professor of applied mathematics. She loved those moments when she would visit the artist, whose work she knew and liked before they met. She would bring him presents, often parcels of tea with subtle fragrances; she loved him, while also loving her husband, with whom she’d come to an arrangement that allowed her freedom without the need to resort to lying or trickery. At no point did the painter feel guilty. He
was doing nothing wrong, he was simply looking for some equilibrium outside of his marriage, which only functioned intermittently, depending on events that transpired in the family or trips abroad. He spent hours talking to the prof—which was what he called her—and he sometimes even confided in her. Sometimes they also made love, but this wasn’t the most important component of their relationship. After a couple of years, they’d managed to achieve a sense of peace, which they’d both needed, him in particular. There was friendship, tenderness, and especially sensuality. They drank tea and talked about the exhibitions that were currently showing. She knew him intimately and was able to anticipate his desires. She loved to read and would tell him which eighteenth-century writers really blew her away. That bright-eyed prof had brown hair and skin that was stunningly white. Whenever she undressed, he would ask her to walk around the studio so he could better admire her body and demeanor. She would beg him to remain dressed, then she would kneel before him and slide his pants down using only her teeth. Then she would take his penis in her hands and stroke it for a long time, kissing it and not letting it go until she’d swallowed his seed, which spilled against the roof of her mouth, and sent shivers all the way down his spine.