Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Happy Marriage

She was a romantic and her life had been neither easy nor carefree. A girl who’d been wounded at every turn in life and who kicked her feet in deep waters whenever she was about to hit the bottom. Then she would resurface, fighting with all her might, propelled by her need to love, thirsty for life and happiness.

The painter had forbidden himself to feel any regrets because it would serve no purpose. He would tell himself: “Regrets and nostalgia are merely the trappings of our weakness and helplessness. They are lies that we camouflage with words to soothe us and help us to sleep. They make our defeat seem less cruel.”

He hadn’t known how to choose her. He’d had his reasons, but what good could possibly come of revisiting that happy period of his life? Sometimes he tried to picture what his life might have been like if he’d divorced his wife and stayed with Ava. The scenarios he conjured were worthy of a horror film. He pictured Ava as a disloyal, malicious, and insatiable wife … no, he stopped watching that film. It was impossible. Ava could not have had such an evil doppelgänger.

The painter knew he’d thrown away the opportunity to have a real life, he’d missed out on the woman who had meant the most to him. For a long time, Ava’s ghost governed his days and nights, guiding and advising him. He needed her intuition, her intelligence, and her romanticism, even though it sometimes made him laugh. Ava had been the love of his life, and she’d just passed him by, leaving him stuck on the docks, weighted down with guilt and chained by his conjugal bonds, frozen in fear. The only thing he hadn’t messed up in his life was his art. When he’d told his psychiatrist that even though his marriage had been a failure, his career had been a success, the latter had retorted: “You can’t think of this as a system of communicating vessels; each phase of your life has had its fair share of failures and successes. One does not make up for the other, or vice versa. Otherwise life would be too easy!”

The painter, who was obsessed with labyrinths, and had spent much time mulling over the subject after reading Jorge Luis Borges’s stories, now found himself right in the middle of one, except that instead of opening up to let him through, the walls were increasingly closing in on him, so much so that he felt he was suffocating. His condition still got on his nerves, but it didn’t bother him as it once had. His mind was perfectly lucid, in fact more remarkably so than ever before. He could now clearly grasp his situation without embellishing it. One thing was certain: he had to free himself from his wife’s controlling influence and her destructiveness. He would have to toughen up in order to achieve that. He often recalled Nicolas Chamfort’s final words: “the heart must either break or turn to brass.” But how can a heart turn to brass? Or be replaced with a rock? Some people are born with a piece of metal inserted where their heart should have been, while others are born normal. People who belong to the latter category are more numerous, but they often become victims.

His wife had a good heart, and often ran to the rescue of anyone in need, especially if they belonged to her tribe. She was generous, always warmly welcomed her friends and never went to a dinner party empty-handed, calling her hosts the next morning to thank them. She had a good heart indeed, but whenever she felt wounded, every fiber of her being mobilized to avenge herself. The other woman inside her took over. She turned into a savage, became completely irrational, and was ready to do anything in order to sate her desire for retribution. Hers wasn’t an act, she would loudly proclaim her intentions and then carry them out. He remembered an incident where a poor seamstress had ruined one of his wife’s caftans and yet had refused to refund the payment or admit she’d made a mistake. His wife had subsequently ruined that woman’s reputation in the space of a week and had succeeded in destroying her business.

He’d understood he would never be able to escape from her now. She had forgiven too many of his mistakes and absences. Sick or not, he would have to suffer through this until the bitter end.

Why should anyone pay so dearly for having fallen out of love? A Spanish member of parliament had introduced legislation to criminalize breakups. Meaning that when a man or a woman fell out of love with their spouse, they would be liable to pay a fine, and, why not, perhaps even spend a few years in prison. Exactly how many years would one spend in jail, and how much would the fine be? This was exactly the sort of punishment his wife would have liked to exact, who, feeling betrayed and humiliated, would have loved for a judge to make an example of her husband, a man who’d had the audacity to stop loving his wife and to go around spending his children’s money on other women. When she’d stumbled across proof of his affairs, he’d refused to apologize. Besides, he’d just about done everything to ensure he’d left a trail she could follow. After all, why should he apologize when this could contribute to his being freed from a situation that he could no longer put up with, a life built on lies, hypocrisy, tantrums, and outbursts of uncontrollable anger?

He could hear Caroline’s voice telling him: “Why should anyone suffer? Is there a law that says one must suffer at someone else’s hand? Don’t forget that you are your own capital, there is no other!” Which was pretty much what his psychiatrist told him. Nothing can justify you being trampled on. As for his mother, she’d told him: “Nobody has the right to wash their feet over you!”

His nihilistic Swiss friend had given him the usual speech: “In the end you’re an artist, and you’re entitled to some respect despite all your screwups and bullshit: after all, who doesn’t eventually screw up? Just run away, and remember, we live alone and we die alone. From time to time we manage to break through that solitude to enjoy moments of pleasure, but make no mistake, these moments are fleeting, my friend, fleeting! Do as I do, go live in a hotel, spend your money, go for a dip in the best swimming pools of the world, and as for your children, they’ll go on with their lives, work, and don’t ever think they’ll come to sit by your bedside when you’re dying in a hospice like poor Francis, the great luminary of French culture, who’d been so disfigured by illness that when he was sat drooling in a chair he couldn’t even recognize the people who’d come to visit him. One must always visit friends who’ve been ravaged by illness. It’s a good lesson to keep in mind. Once you’ve taken all of this into account, it’s certainly wise to stake your future on lightness!”

He could notice the progress he was making with each passing day and saw that he was in a better shape. The prospect of seeing Imane made him rejoice. One day she arrived with a bouquet of roses.

“Today we’re going to walk for an hour, it’s nice outside. You’re recovering your reflexes in your left leg and arm. You can stand up on your own by leaning on a crutch.”

The walk did him a lot of good. Imane met her mother on the promenade. She introduced her to the painter. She was still young. She thanked him for all that he’d done for Imane. Once she’d left, the painter stopped and told Imane:

“What did she mean by all the good I’ve done for you? You’re the one who’s done a lot for me, you’re so patient and your hands have healing powers …”