Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Happy Marriage

Unfortunately, she would refuse to leave the painter alone, even if only for an hour. Lalla was ready to make the trip to Salé, where the sorcerer had set up shop, but she had refused. After all, she didn’t need his help. Her husband was right there, and unable to go anywhere, and that was the best way of punishing him. She could now get whatever she wanted out of him. She didn’t even need his signature to withdraw money from the bank. She’d discreetly managed to secure power of attorney, which put her in complete control.

She had triumphed over him, but the situation was less comfortable than she might have believed. Although he was at her mercy, he’d been able to find refuge in his illness. He maintained a glacial silence and barely looked at her. It was a catch-22: regardless of what she did, he would never belong to her in the way that she’d dreamed. The painter devoted himself to his art, to his friends, and to his family, but never to her. Her frustration upset him, but there was nothing left to salvage, nothing left to repair. It was the end, and what a miserable outcome it had been for both of them.

Lying on his side, his head turned to face the garden of his friend’s house, the painter observed an unhappy-looking fig tree that had long since stopped bearing fruit. He started at that stumpy, bare-branched tree, a gray ghost of its former self that should have been cut down long ago, and experienced a profound melancholy at the thought that his destiny resembled the one in store for that useless old tree. “If I still had the strength to paint,” he told himself, “I might paint that tree and call it a self-portrait.” Tears streamed down his face and stained his pillow. He couldn’t stop them from flowing. Those tears comforted him and gave him some relief, although he simultaneously detested the feel of that tear-drenched pillow against his cheek. It reminded him of how his father had started silently weeping the moment he’d realized he would die that day. The doctor’s grimace had told him he was screwed and that there wasn’t any hope left. That scene had left a deep mark on the painter. Seeing the father he so admired reduced to an old man waiting for a death foretold had filled him with an intense wrath. He’d leaned over and wiped the tears from his father’s face as he prepared to die sobbing like a child.

The part that the actor Michel Simon had played in Jean Renoir’s La Chienne , that of an old painter who’d been robbed of all his possessions and thrown out into the street, came to the painter’s mind while he looked out at the sea from his friend Abdelsalam’s house. He’d seen the film as a very young man and had found the plot entirely pathetic. He’d later watched Fritz Lang’s American adaptation, Scarlet Street , where the role had been reprised by Edward G. Robinson, an actor whom he greatly liked, but he’d never taken an interest in the fate of that artist who’d fallen victim to his passion and naïveté. Nevertheless, the parallels to his own life were obvious. Sure, unlike the lead character, he’d never stooped so low as to paint Kitty’s toenails, Kitty being the bitch who steals his money and fame. He hadn’t had his work stolen from him, his wife had just gotten in the way of his pursuing his art. Also unlike the lead character, he hadn’t turned into a homeless man who opened the door of a car whose owner had just purchased one of his paintings. But the painter was stuck with his wife and confined to his wheelchair, all wrapped up, as though he were a package waiting to be delivered. It would be impossible now to break through and get away, freeing his limbs so he could make his escape from the prison and run free like a wild stallion.

It had been months since he’d stopped speaking to his enemy. Henceforth he would stop even looking at her, he would ignore her and withdraw into himself by shutting his eyes whenever she approached him. If she asked him any questions, he would simply refuse to answer, he would remain still and refuse to make a single gesture, not even a grimace. He would live in his own world, wall himself off entirely, overcoming his desire to fight fire with fire. Unable to leave her as he’d wanted to, his victory would be complete on the day when he would be able to stop hating that woman. She would simply cease to exist.

A fly buzzed around him. The painter raised his right hand and moved it a little. The fly flew off. He rolled up a newspaper and waited for it to come back so he could permanently eliminate it.

Obsessive, unsettling, amusing, diabolical. I am a fly. Restless and resolute. Gluttonous and stubborn. A fly, just a worthless fly. To be unceremoniously hunted down, swatted, and crushed when caught. Something to be despised, but also feared. There’s nothing nice about flies. Nothing to be proud of either. Unlike the queen bee. Black, gray, shameless, and unscrupulous. Yet it’s free, and it amuses itself with those who chase after it. Doesn’t care about anything. Doesn’t have a house, or belong to any country. Arrives on the back of an evil wind and just settles there without asking anyone’s permission. It’s only discouraged by the rain or the cold. It dares to do whatever it likes. It flies into fashionable salons, mosques, and alcoves, sneaking its way into the most intimate and secret spaces: bathroom cabinets, kitchens, laundry rooms, following its instincts wherever they lead it. It disturbs the dead, and bites into their lifeless flesh, then wanders off somewhere else. It bites into a baby’s soft skin, causing it to swell up. It goes wherever it likes and is unstoppable. Free and stubborn. I’m going to be a fly this morning. It’ll amuse me. I’ll enjoy being fearless and shameless. I’m going to become a fly in order to annoy my husband. I’m very good at that. I’m happy whenever I can settle on his nose and watch him being unable to swat me away. I giggle and cling to him. I tickle him, make him itch, and make his life hellish. I like that. A small kind of revenge. Let’s put it this way: a taste of what’s in store for him .

It’s crazy how men are so afraid of being alone. What a sin! I’m not afraid of being alone. I even go to the length of creating that solitude and allowing it to reign. It doesn’t make me neurotic. I’m just like a fly, I’m independent-minded and don’t like compromises. My man thought I was rigid. He’s certainly right, but I don’t like that word. It reminds me of death. As for solitude, I get along with it just fine. There’s no need to whine about it to other people, people who are probably all too happy to despise you. I am solitude. Solitude is the fly that takes its time and refuses to budge. I am the solitude that crawls under my man’s skin. I’ve stopped calling him that. He’s never been “my” man, but has instead always belonged to other women, starting with his mother and those two sisters of his, both of whom are witches .

Today I’m a fly. We’ve lived in solitude for a long time, way before his accident happened. I’ll admit I’m exaggerating a little, dramatizing this as much as I can. I’m left without a choice. I suck blood out of the tip of his large nose. I bother him, bump into him, insult him, spit on his skin, and there’s nothing he can do about it, he can’t even move his arms, hands, or fingers. He’s been taken hostage by his illness and I try not to neglect any details .

I’m nothing but a fly, any old fly, stupid and stubborn. I’m obstinate. It’s in my genes. The only way I know how to be. It’s just the way things are. I know that’s moronic, but that’s how it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. I am — and always have been — stronger than he ever was. Just like a fly. I have eyes on the back of my head and I’m suspicious of everyone, and I think this suits me very well. This is how it is and nothing’s ever going to change my mind. I’m a fly, a dangerous fly .