The Happy Marriage (30 page)

As for my sexuality, I’m still young, and people tell me I’m beautiful and alluring, so I hope that one day I’ll finally meet a man who’ll make up for all the frustrations, humiliations, and constant disrespect that Foulane put me through.

Jealousy

I admit it, I was jealous, incredibly jealous. I was never jealous of my friends, only of Foulane. He had a vicious knack for bringing out the worst in me, those awful—yet legitimate—feelings that drive couples crazy. Of course, his perversity only ever manifested itself in stealthy ways. He would compliment women with hideous hairdos and hideous dresses when we had guests over just to get on my nerves. He would take an interest in their lives, their children, asked them about what they liked to read or what they did to amuse themselves. Always employing that honeyed tone of his, which I loathed. On one occasion, we were invited to a party hosted by people in show business. A young starlet had been there wearing a dress with a scandalous neckline. Foulane’s eyes never drifted from her bosom and he spent the whole night talking to her. I even caught him entering her number in his phone. I didn’t do anything about it, but later that night I stole his phone and deleted all the numbers with women’s names, starting with the young starlet, who called herself Marilin—“with an ‘i,’ ” as she put it. He pulled a scene the following morning, talked about respecting
boundaries and privacy, giving me one of his lectures about morals that made me want to puke. In fact, my jealousy wasn’t fueled by my frustrated affections for him or by a desire to win him back. It was simply a reaction to his attempts to belittle me in public.

This other time, his Russian mistress—or was she Polish?—who was either a musicians or a painter, I don’t remember which except that she had artistic pretensions, actually called at the house: “I would like to zee my old loover again, you zee I’ve knoon him for a loong time …” The nerve! I hung up on her. Later that evening, Foulane laconically said: “Oh don’t mind her, she’s a lunatic.” That’s the way he treated the women he claims to have loved!

One day, he asked me to help him pick out a necklace he wanted to buy for his gallerist’s wife. He wanted to do something nice for her because they never came empty-handed whenever they visited us. We bought her a stunning Berber necklace made of coral and silver. I wrapped it up in gift paper. But a few months later I spotted it around the neck of a Spanish gallerist who must have certainly been his mistress. When I asked him why, he started stammering like a liar who’d been caught red-handed. Women called at the house from time to time, and I would give them his number so they could call him at his studio. Surprised, they would ask me: “But aren’t you his assistant? Or his secretary?” “I’m his wife!” I would shout back. Then they would hang up on me and he would never offer any explanations. He always used the same excuse: “I’m not responsible for the letters or calls I receive.” Then he’d add: “If you want to feed your pathological jealousy, you might as well focus on things that actually matter, and not these trifles that have got nothing to do with me!” What were these things that “actually mattered”? Marriage, love, a harmonious relationship? He would confess without revealing anything of import. Now that’s what I call insincerity, which is something I loathe.

Foulane had mastered the art of wounding my pride, and he would poke at the deep wounds that had their roots in my childhood, and he would twist the knife just to hurt me. He hurt me a lot. He
scoffed at my experiences as a model, saying that having the right proportions wasn’t the same as being talented. He would use what I’d told him in confidence to grieve me and remind me that my parents were illiterate immigrants. To think he’d painted a mural in honor of immigrants! What a show-off! What a fascist! He painted the mural for the city of Saint-Denis, and a few months later the mayor bought a couple of his paintings, one of which he hung in his office, while the other was hung in the entrance lobby of city hall.

I was jealous of some of his friends. He was always at their disposal. Always kind and always available. There were these two exiled Chilean politicians who were truly inseparable. Their wives never said anything, they just accepted the situation: friends always came first, and their wives and children last. At first I suspected they might have been gay, but that wasn’t true, they were just friends, and their friendship didn’t leave any room for anything else. One evening, when they’d been invited to dine at our place, one of them had the audacity to tell me: “Take care of our friend Foulane. He’s a great artist. You must be kind with him, we’re very fond of him, and we’re in awe of his immense talents!” I couldn’t restrain myself, my wild streak took over and I slapped him. I left him speechless and gaping and the dinner came to an abrupt end. I never saw them again. Foulane obviously berated me, hurling a bunch of abuse at me, and the ensuing fight reached unprecedented heights. Voilà, my jealousy was nothing other than anger and extreme aggravation. Nothing more. But nowadays Foulane is weak and stuck in his wheelchair, so he can’t do anything to me. He needs me whenever he needs to sit, eat, stand up, or even shit. He’s at my mercy. My jealousy has become pointless.

The Mistake

I remember the night I didn’t come home—which Foulane mentioned in his manuscript—as clearly as he does. Some girlfriends I’d met up with that afternoon told me that I looked awful and unhappy. So they decided to take me out that night. We had dinner at a good restaurant and we wound up at a fashionable nightclub. I danced like a madwomen, flirted with some blond guy, and later that morning I picked up some croissants and went home. Foulane was there waiting for me, car keys in hand, and he asked me where I’d been. So I told him: “At a nightclub!” He slammed the door behind him, rushed down the stairs, and left. It wasn’t until later that I learned that he’d showed up at my parents’ house to complain like people do in conservative families. Where the daughter, despite being married, is always seen as a little girl, and her parents, who always side with the husband, even have the right to punish her, beat her up and lock her away. But my parents didn’t trust him as much as they trusted me. They didn’t believe him, muttered a few stock sentences, and then discreetly called me to inform me of his sudden visit. They didn’t like him. They found
him arrogant and spiteful. They knew that he didn’t make me happy, but we don’t divorce in our culture, it’s part of our tradition. Instead, my mother recommended I go see Hajja Saadia, who was capable of casting good and evil spells alike. I refused. Not that. Not yet. How many times had I slipped a potion into his coffee to make him devoid of willpower? A potion that apparently consisted of powdered hyena brains along with other African and even Brazilian ingredients …

I shouldn’t have gone back to the house that day, it’s true, but our son was six months old and I couldn’t just leave him. After that episode, I felt like leaving him often, but whenever the thought occurred to me, I would quickly change my mind and tell myself: “He’s going to change, he’s an old bachelor who doesn’t know how to share his life with someone and be responsible, but he’ll wake up eventually and assume his responsibilities, he’s going to understand that this isn’t just about him, that he’s got a family and has to act like it.” So I would give him some time and the chance to give up his old solitary habits.

Not long afterward, he was awarded a prestigious international prize for his painting, which was followed by a number of trips and exhibitions. He took me everywhere with him: Egypt, Brazil, Italy, the U.S., Mexico, Russia, and so forth. I loved those trips, the fancy hotels, the great food, and the chance to discover the beautiful cloths and jewelry of the Far East. Whenever we traveled, we got along a lot better, even from a sexual point of view. But when we came back home, he would go into a sulk and lock himself up in his studio, where he found it difficult to get any work done because all the traveling had interfered with his painting.

By this time the 1980s had drawn to a close and he began to be hospitalized for various ailments, which would gradually lead to his stroke. I would worry about him because he looked so agitated, pale and stressed. I wasn’t sweet toward him, because I thought that it would be better for me to remain strong and deal with the pain, especially
because his prognoses weren’t that alarming. He spent whole nights without sleeping, preventing me from getting any, blaming me for the parasite he’d contracted in China, a country he’d wanted to visit without me. It served him right! While he was in the hospital, I prepared his food, took care of his correspondence and canceled all his engagements. His American agent came to see him: not because he was worried about his client; quite the contrary, he came to weigh up the situation! If Foulane suddenly died, the price of his paintings would go through the roof. Armed with a box of chocolates he bought at the airport, he went to the sick man’s bedside. Once he’d inquired after his health, he jumped back on the plane and went back to calmly inform the gallerists he worked with.

Foulane was overjoyed that his agent had come all the way from New York just to see him. When I expressed some doubts as to the real reasons behind his visit, Foulane flew into a fury, despite the fact he was wearing an oxygen mask. Three days after he was discharged from the hospital, Foulane lost one of his closest friends—who’d been among those who’d accompanied him when he asked my parents for my hand in marriage—to a rare disease. This loss affected him deeply, especially since he’d just had a close brush with death. Foulane was surprised to see I didn’t share his grief. But I’m not the sort of woman who laid it on thick, or said or did sweet things. That’s just the way I am. My father didn’t kiss me after the age of three or four. Throughout those months, I had to put up with a hypochondriac who roamed around the house like an old man, never going out in the evenings, and who spent all his time drawing in his sketchbooks. He stopped painting. His gallerist called him and sent him an advance for his next exhibition. Since he loved money, he got back to work. No more illnesses, no more laziness. He would get up very early in the morning and go to his studio, and in the evenings he would tell me what he’d done that day. Now I’m going to have to see even more money slip through our fingers, I told myself. I knew he wanted to help a relative of his whose business had gone under. So I called his American gallerist
and asked him to wire the royalty payments directly to me. His reply was curt: “We’ve had express orders from Foulane not to do so as long as he’s alive.”

I was dumbfounded. I mumbled an apology and started to cry.

My mistake was to think people can change. None of us change, not least of which a man who’s already lived out most of his life. I entered his life at a time when he’d decided to stop having fun and settle down, because the anxiety of his encroaching death had begun to creep over him. I was the little flower who was going to take the reins, except that Foulane was the one who took my youth and innocence.

We were not made to be together. That was my mistake, our mistake.

The In-Laws

Foulane’s indifference and the war his family waged against me were calculated to drive me crazy. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, even though the room was warm. A sign of the evil spells they’d cast on me. Foulane said he didn’t believe in such things, but I had proof that the women in his family were using sorcery against me. My
taleb
told me everything and I was fully aware of what they wanted to do to me and when. At first they tried to wreck our relationship, to force us to separate. My man stopped touching me or wanting to sleep with me. Then he became indifferent to my presence, as though he were allergic to the touch of my skin. Being close to me didn’t arouse his desires. That wasn’t normal. I later learned they’d been able to procure a lock of my hair and some of my sanitary napkins. I suffered, experienced sudden panic attacks, and would roam around the house in circles, incapable of calling for help, losing my strength and my sanity. During that time Foulane was nevertheless able to work, go out, and travel, completely at peace.

I followed the
taleb
’s instructions and cleaned the house from top to bottom. My friends helped me and we found little packets wrapped in tinfoil all over the house, tucked under each bed and inside the toilets. The house was overrun by spells designed to make me ill.

That day I discovered that I was in danger, under surveillance, and that I had to act in order to protect myself. My
taleb
wasn’t up to such a task. He told me about an old, powerful woman in Marrakech who would be able to help. He also told me I should slaughter a ram on the threshold of my house and burn some incense to repel their spells.

I went to Marrakech. I had to wait for days to secure a meeting with Wallada—people called her that because she’d been a midwife in her youth. As soon as she saw me, Wallada said: “My poor girl, I’m glad you’ve finally come to see me; good, come and sit right there in front of me and give me a little something so we can begin our session.” I pulled out a two-hundred-dirham note and placed it next to her. She was a very powerful woman. She wasn’t a clairvoyant, but she could read people’s faces and was adept in palmistry. She told me all about my life as though she’d been there every step of the way. She knew everything and described the malevolent people in my life. I was impressed with her talents because she could tell who I was just by looking at me, and figured out the root of my unhappiness. Wallada came from the countryside and was illiterate, but she could write incomprehensible signs endowed with magical powers. I could see she was already hard at work while she was still talking to me. She dipped her reed into some sepia ink and drew a series of mysterious symbols, each more cryptic than the last, that I would be able to use to ward off evil spells.

My session cost me a thousand dirhams, but it brought me some relief, and I left equipped with the means to counteract all that Foulane’s sisters had dared to inflict on me. It helped me to give up on my husband’s family. I was polite to them whenever I saw them, and I would mouth my insincere
As-Salaam-Alaikums
. The woman from
Marrakech and my
taleb
continued to work to ensure I was protected. I remained on my guard. I carried my
taleb
’s talismans with me at all times. Once every six months, the
taleb
would melt some bronze in a saucepan and mix it with a brew made of water and herbs that came from various places, which he would put in a bottle and hand over to me. I would use some of that yellowish liquid on my body before showering. During the worst of their attacks, I felt as though I was losing my mind, and surrounded by Evil, by powers that wanted to harm and destroy me. I could see it in Zoulekha’s eyes. She was Foulane’s nastiest and most envious sister, filled with absolute hatred. She looked at me as though she wanted to set fire to everything I did. One day she gave me a ring made of gold and silver. When I showed it to the
taleb
, he ordered me to take it off and give it to him. It was a booby-trapped ring, which had been made to counteract all the protective spells that he’d prepared for me. When I gave it back to her, she looked all surprised. I told her it was too tight for me and that I was allergic to gold. She smiled at me and pouted, as if to say, “Don’t worry, you’ll get what’s coming to you!”