Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Happy Marriage

After he’d returned from his trip, Foulane pretended to be tired, using the usual excuse that he had a migraine. I asked him where he’d been and he told me: “You know exactly where I’ve been, in Frankfurt, so I could talk to my gallerist about the coming exhibition. It was a difficult trip, the people were nice but I didn’t like the city, so I tried to get everything done quickly so I could back home. So, what’s for dinner tonight?”

Without hesitating I replied: “English condoms in rotten white sauce to be followed by angel hairs cooked in sweat and a few drops of Chanel No. 5.”

He wasn’t amused. He remained frozen in his chair. He picked a magazine up from the floor and began flipping through it. At which point I threw a large glass of water at his head, although I would have preferred vinegar, but that’s what I had in my hand at the time. I hated him for not reacting to it. He just stood up, coolly wiped his face, and left the house. He came back five minutes later and just as coolly packed some changes of clothes, stuffed them in his suitcase, which he still hadn’t unpacked, and left again. Later I called him at his studio and hurled a bunch of insults at him. I was in tears and threatened to sue him. In fact, I said whatever went through my head at the time. I was hurt, really hurt. Betrayal is a terrible thing, an unbearable humiliation. Just unacceptable. The children heard me shouting and crying. They slipped into my bed and slept beside me, murmuring: “We love you, mummy.”

He spent the next three months living in his studio, or rather his brothel, to be more exact. During that time he received a letter from my lawyer, which was intended to scare him. Something else that he was careful to avoid mentioning in his manuscript. Then one day I cracked, went to his studio, and slipped inside his bed, because I was still in love with him, that’s right, I admit it. I remember it all very well, he was watching television, and he didn’t push me away, we made love without exchanging a word, and the next day he was mine again, he came home and our lives went back to the way they were. A grave error. My mother disapproved of my decision. She had to go seek out our illustrious ancestor in the southern reaches of Morocco to stop him in his tracks. If you’re going to get back together with your husband, he might as well be in good shape, she told me.

I thought Foulane had understood, that he’d realized he would have to start behaving properly from then on. But he very quickly reverted to his old bachelor habits, without caring about how that might make me feel. He traveled, went out in the evenings for dinner—“work dinners”—only returning late at night and smelling of another woman’s perfume. I kept my mouth shut and swallowed the bitter pill of humiliation. I would look at my children and weep in silence. When he slept with another woman, he would rush into the bathroom on his return and take a shower. Although he usually only showered in the morning just like everyone else. Whenever I tried to get close to him, he wouldn’t even get hard. He’d used up all his energies on someone else. His balls were all floppy and his pecker was in a pitiful state. He was depleted, completely depleted. It was intolerable! I put up with it for years. I was incapable of doing anything else. My morals, ethics, and upbringing forbade me from cheating on him. In our culture, a woman who cheats on her husband no longer has any rights, everyone thinks badly of her, even if she was victimized by a lying, violent husband. Everyone in our village knew the story of Fatima, the only women in our village who ever dared to have a lover. She was banished and spent a few years begging on the streets of Marrakech, until one day she threw herself under the wheels of a bus not far from Jamaa el Fna. Poor Fatima! May God rest her soul and forgive her!

I would have liked to have flings of my own, and have scores of lovers, but at no point did my soul or my pride allow me to do that. My friends encouraged me to do so, urging me to get my revenge and return the insult fivefold, but I resisted. I wasn’t even attracted to other men. I loved my husband and didn’t want to give myself to another man. I was courted by handsome, interesting, freethinking, and generous men. But I rejected them all despite being flattered to be the object of such interest. “You’re very seductive and beautiful and yet your husband neglects you; it’s a crime against love that should be punished with love.”

I loved him and yet didn’t let him see it: it was a question of modesty. My parents had never kissed one another in front of us, and had never exchanged tender words. So where did this love come from? He was the first man I’d ever loved. The men I’d been with during my years in Marseilles didn’t count because I hadn’t been myself at the time. So I simply flirted a little with some friends, nothing more. He intimidated and dominated me. I needed to shift the power dynamic in our relationship and so I dared to defy him and knocked him from the public pedestal he’d set himself up on. What I admired most in him was his maturity, his experience, and his fame. I wanted him all to myself, there was nothing unusual about that, no woman ever wants to share her man, as far as I’m concerned any woman who sleeps with a married man is a whore and a slut. I can spot them a mile away and I hate them. I even started to hatch plans for how I would kill these kinds of women, plotting these crimes carefully, with a serial killer’s rigorousness. Oh yes, I would take my time with them, make them fall into a trap and then disfigure them, one after the other. I loved to visualize those moments down to the smallest details, thinking about how I would approach them, gain their trust, and especially how I wouldn’t leave any traces behind, the perfect crime. A female serial killer! I dreamed up plenty of scenarios, but never put any of them into practice of course.

You might not believe me, but I never cheated on Foulane. He was well aware of that, but yet he cast doubts on my loyalty in his manuscript. That he had the nerve to suspect me! It was certainly true that I spent a lot of time out with my girlfriends, and that since he traveled a lot I had plenty of opportunities to betray him. But I never crossed that line. However, I must confess that I regret that now. I was an idiot, constrained by principles that put me at a constant disadvantage. I thought about Fatima’s story, but it’s not like we were living in that village of virtue. We were living in Paris at the time, and we had a social life. He was in the public eye and I was the pretty little thing on his arm. Once, during a reception at the Élysée Palace, he turned his back to me just as he was talking to the president. Against all odds, François Mitterrand turned to address me and broke into a big smile. He asked me where I was from and what I was studying. When I told him I was married to the artist he’d just been speaking to, he said: “Oh, now I understand, you’re his muse.” He was right about that. I was his muse, his slave, his property, the trophy wife he could parade at receptions and soirées. This bothered me at first, but then I got used to it. Nobody was going to give me any complexes. I knew who I was and what I was worth. I didn’t feel the need to pretend, or to be a hypocrite like his sisters, who’d all had plastic surgery, felt uncomfortable in their own skin, and were all fat and charmless. I would watch them strut about at weddings, acting like peacocks, while I would remain isolated in my corner. I was the foreigner, the stranger, the bad apple that had to be avoided at all costs. I polluted the clean, limpid air of a society that was well-versed in all manner of hypocrisy and at keeping up appearances.

I suffered a long list of humiliations and I’m going to tell you all about them, I won’t make anything up. After all, I’m not writing a novel. I’m going to get it all off my chest. He was always keen on smoothing things over, avoiding scenes, no scandals or noises, it was better to remain calm and stay flexible. “To turn a blind eye,” as Foulane was fond of saying. But I’ve always kept my eyes wide open. I’m not flexible, and I never will be. What does being flexible really mean anyway? To always turn the other cheek and keep your head down? No, I’ll never do that!