The Happy Marriage

A month later, Foulane came to visit my parents in Clermont-Ferrand, accompanied by six of his closest friends, so that he could formally ask for my hand in marriage. It was a Saturday and my father was home from work. It went fairly well, certainly better than on the wedding day itself. His friends found out that I belonged to a family of immigrants and saw that we came from a humble background. This had never been a problem between Foulane and me. He knew where I came from, but I didn’t know about his origins, or what his life had been like before we’d met.

The following week Foulane introduced me to his parents at a restaurant in Paris. He’d bought their airline tickets and called a friend of his who loved his paintings and worked at the French consulate in Casablanca to fast-track their visas. I heard his mother say behind my back: “This can’t be the girl he was talking about, she’s not … She’s not even white.” I pretended that I hadn’t heard her. My skin was fairly dark because I tanned very easily. I smiled. His father was far more sympathetic. He immediately asked me a number of questions about my village, my father’s property, and our traditions. He even asked me: “Is it really true what people say, that you people have magical powers?” I laughed and said, “I have no idea.” But deep down he too disapproved of the match. You can’t hide such things, I could see it in his face and in his eyes. I didn’t know if he was talking about me, but I heard him say “media mujer” several times — which is Spanish for “tiny woman,” an expression he often used to refer to his wife’s small frame. I also heard him use the word khanfoucha, meaning “beetle” in Arabic; was he talking about me? I’d landed in the middle of a family of lunatics! They spoke in innuendos and metaphors. I wasn’t used to those kinds of jokes. My parents never insulted anyone and never spoke ill of people. Some of the women who worked for my mother-in-law took me aside to warn me that my life would be difficult, that it was a matter of class complicity. One of them said: “You know, little one, Fassis don’t like us much. There’s nothing that can be done about it, they think they’re better than us and they don’t really respect other people! So watch out, your husband is a nice man but his sisters are absolutely terrible!”

I could have changed my mind, called everything off, and gone back to my parents’ house. There was nothing stopping me. I can’t quite understand what made me embark on that dangerous adventure. Love, of course. But I still ask myself whether I ever really loved him. I liked him and found him alluring and charming; besides, he was an artist, and I’d always wanted to rub shoulders with that wonderful magical world of musicians, writers, and painters. It was like a dream. So despite those worrisome signs, I pressed ahead and plunged headfirst into married life.

At the time, Foulane was all sweetness and light, always very attentive, cheerful, and loving. He always wanted to please me, and he’d rush to the other side of the town just to buy me a present. He’d put an end to his former days as a bachelor and ladies’ man. But there were still traces of that former life in his apartment. A bra, a nightgown, designer shoes. I threw them in the neighbor’s trash the first chance I got. Foulane didn’t even realize that they’d gone missing. Or if he did he never mentioned it.

I found hundreds of photos in one of his drawers. Some were related to his work, but others depicted him in the arms of other women: blondes, redheads, brunettes, tall, short, Arab girls, Scandinavian girls … “What kind of a hole have I gotten myself into?” I asked myself. “Why me? What do I have that they don’t? Oh, I get it now, the guy’s pushing forty and so he’s decided to listen to his mother and have kids, so I’m going to be his surrogate mother. Until he eventually trades me in for a younger woman.”

My parents were very traditional. The marriage took place in the village hall. Once they’d arrived — late, of course — Foulane’s family was completely shocked, especially the women. How could their son — the famous artist — possibly get married in a rented room just like immigrants did when they returned home? They exchanged knowing glances of the kind I would have to endure for years, then pulled some grimaces and went to greet my mother and my aunts. The men assembled on the other side of the room, where the adel was going to preside over the signing of the marriage contract. Foulane was wearing a white djellaba with slippers that kept falling off his feet; he was embarrassed and ill at ease. He felt that the union of those worlds was a losing combination. He was sorry about it, sorry about the fact his relatives were racists, sorry that my relatives weren’t well educated, sorry that I belonged to a tribe that didn’t know the kind of good manners that the people of Fez were accustomed to, because in their eyes our good manners weren’t all that good.