Tahar Ben Jelloun - The Happy Marriage

But nowadays I hate him, I admit it. I don’t just want to hurt him, I want to do more than that. I’m only calm when he isn’t there. The moment I can feel his presence, even in his current condition, I get all tense and nervous. One day he told me: “Hate is easy, love is more complex, we must lower our guard and just let it happen.” What a bunch of mumbo jumbo. He always used those kinds of explanations to belittle me, as though he just wanted to remind me that he’d studied philosophy whereas I hadn’t. Just like that story about the embroidered tablecloth he’d insisted on covering the round table in the living room with. I’m not as stupid as he thinks I am. If I took it away it’s because I knew that it was so precious that it deserved to be framed, and not left on top of a table where it could get dirty or torn to pieces. If he wants proof he can go look inside the big chest in our bedroom and see for himself how carefully I stored it away.

I started to wish he would just disappear. We’ve all felt those kinds of desires at one point or another, if only for a few seconds. But once, during a party when he wouldn’t stop buzzing around a flirty blonde, I suddenly realized I couldn’t stand him anymore. I picked up my purse and left the party. He followed me out into the parking lot, grabbed the door handle, and wouldn’t let go. I sped off and he fell, but I didn’t stop, I just kept driving. If there had been a car behind me, he would have been run over. He got up and his face was covered in blood. Nothing serious, just a few scrapes, I later found out. I still remember that evening down to its slightest detail. He reproached me for it for a long time afterwards, blaming me for not having taken him to the hospital and for having left him behind. But after all I’d had to endure from him, I certainly wasn’t going to let him open the door and talk with him as though nothing had happened. It wasn’t that dissimilar to when I refused to be his chauffeur on his return from China. I had wanted to punish him for refusing to take me with him. I suspected he’d gone there with someone else. So, sick or not, I wasn’t in the mood to drive him around.

I admit it, I’m a violent woman. So if he knew that, why would he keep provoking me?

He often reproached me for not admiring him. He was right. How could I possibly admire such a mean-spirited man, such a mediocre husband? As for his being an artist, I couldn’t have cared less, it was useless to me. Being Foulane’s wife might have been a stroke of good luck as far as others were concerned, but it made my life a living hell. He identified with Picasso and the way the latter coarsely went about making his romantic conquests. We’d even seen a film about Picasso where Foulane had openly confessed to admiring him. But I didn’t admire my husband, I hated him, and seeing him enfeebled by his stroke did not inspire the slightest pity in me. Every time I looked at him, I couldn’t help but see the monster who’d taken the best years of my life and then abandoned me. He claimed it was all my fault. It’s easy to blame his stroke on me. The doctor had warned him to stick to a diet and to stop smoking and drinking. But he continued to live as though he were thirty years old. He was always stressed and anxious whenever we went abroad. He would show up at the airport incredibly early, hated taking care of the luggage, couldn’t stand to wait in line, and would rush onto the plane as though someone was going to steal his seat. He’d already been a very stressed man by the time I met him. Thus it was that his stress, the lack of a healthy lifestyle, and the nights he went out carousing with his friends — who adored him because he always picked up the tab — all contributed to his stroke. If I had any responsibility, it was that I helped precipitate the situation. He eventually recovered a little, thanks to Imane, or so he claimed, who pretended that she was his nurse even though she slept with him despite the state he was in. She was just an ambitious girl who was taking advantage of an old man. The truth was that I was the one who looked after him. Which is something that I bitterly regret to this day.

I’ll never leave Foulane, I’ll never leave him alone. He has to assume his responsibilities. I couldn’t care less about his health, mood, or state of mind. I’ll never stop hating him so long as my thirst for revenge isn’t quenched. One day I’ll rebuild my life, but not before he’s paid the price. So long as he refuses to atone for what he’s done to me, or publicly confess in front of everyone, I’ll refuse to let go! I’m too proud to leave him. I’m full of hate, and if anyone were to shake me, drops of poison would inevitably fall out.

I hate his smell.

I hate his charm.

I hate the smell of his breath.

I hate his mouth.

I hate his smirk.

I hate his hypocrisy.

I hate his friends.

I hate how quickly he eats and how he slobbers all over himself.

I hate his stress and his anxiety.

I hate his insomnia, which prevents me from sleeping.

I hate how weak he is and how he refuses to react.

I hate his hearty laughter.

I hate his single malt whisky.

I hate his Cuban cigars, which he guards jealously.

I hate his collection of luxury watches.

I hate the way he makes love.

I hate his pregnant silences.

I hate his indifference.

I hate his hypocritical outlook on religion.

I hate his long absences.

I hate his selfishness.

I hate his love handles.

I hate his passion for the cinema.

I hate the jazz he listens to at high volumes.

I hate all the women he met before me.

I hate and despise all the women he was with after me.

I hate how passive-aggressive he is.

I hate his mannerisms (he always bites his lower lip when he’s angry).

I hate the way he used to call me just before he went to fuck someone else (he would always call me on the landline to make sure I was home).

I hate his paintings, his studio, his bed, his sofa, his pajamas, his toothbrush, his comb, his razor, I hate all his toiletries, his luggage, and especially that little leather suitcase that follows him everywhere.

I dream of destroying him, of seeing him at my mercy, on his knees, stripped of all his goods and assets, naked and ready to slide into the funerary shroud that I gave him on our wedding day.

I also began suffering from insomnia; after all, it’s not like the artist exercised a monopoly on that. So I would examine my life and put things in perspective. Then I would amuse myself by thinking up ways to get to him, to hurt him. My need for revenge would become twice as ferocious during those sleepless nights:

• Burn his collection of ancient manuscripts, which I stole from his studio. I know, that’s criminal, but if it makes him suffer, then that’s what I’ll have to do.

• Stalk the mistresses of his I’ve been able to track down and keep Foulane apprised of my actions and the reactions of the women who wrecked my life.

• Take advantage of his guard being momentarily lowered to get him to sign over power of attorney (I already have the letter) so I can transfer all his assets into my bank account. As he loves money, this will drive him crazy.

• Have medical experts declare him of unsound mind and thus have him placed under my tutelage.

• He’ll only piss when I let him. He’ll call and call but I won’t come to help him to the bathroom. I love thinking about him feeling his hot piss run down his legs. He’ll be so humiliated.

I’ve got plenty of other ideas. But I’m going to do this step by step. No sudden, impromptu moves.

Sometimes I still ask myself: did I ever love this man? Perhaps I didn’t love him as I should have done, but these days, after having gotten everything off my chest, and after having talked about it and reflected on it, I can safely say I was only ever spurred by love. Not just any kind of love. The sort of love that had neither rhyme nor reason to it. Something different. I loved him because I had no other choice. I came from a faraway place, a land few people knew much about. One day, when my family had been celebrating an engagement, I’d gotten very troubled. I looked around myself and everything seemed so unlike the life I led with Foulane. I felt I was utterly unlike those people: the women were satisfied, the men looked happy and comfortable, and the children were allowed to run loose around a dusty, filthy courtyard. I looked at my aunt, whose daughter had just given birth to a baby, and asked myself: “Do she and her husband love each other?” I observed them in their respective nooks: my aunt busy preparing dinner while my uncle played cards with the other men. Love, the real kind of love that sweeps everything in its path, was nowhere to be seen anywhere around me, and was certainly not to be found in that house in the middle of that desolate bled where everything was neatly arranged and in its place. Not the slightest trace of conflict … the women knew their place, and the men knew theirs. Nature and traditions followed their own logic, while I felt out of place in that gathering where everyone was happy and content. I had to make sure I didn’t disturb it. I stepped away and observed that happiness following its own rhythm, adhering to a ritual I could not understand. I had become a stranger in my own homeland. My father had told me on numerous occasions that our roots were always a part of us, and I could see his point, but it felt as though mine hadn’t followed, or better yet, that they had abandoned me; and when I went to look for them, all I found were the ridiculous traces of a crude, impoverished peasantry.