The Happy Marriage

And so one fine day he’d left Morocco for Paris. He hadn’t even been twenty years old at the time. In his mind, Paris had stood for freedom, boldness, and intellectual and artistic adventures. This was the city where Picasso had risen to fame and glory, and he had first discovered his vocation when admiring the master’s early canvases, especially those where the fifteen-year-old Picasso had painted his mother on her deathbed. Picasso had left a profound impression on him, and he had wanted to follow in his footsteps. He perfected his style at the École des Beaux-Arts and found his own voice. He had distanced himself from the great names to forge a unique style of his own, a kind of hyper-realism that would eventually become his signature. His canvases, which were rigorously precise, were the fruit of long, painstaking work. He could not create art in any other way. He’d never been able to understand how his contemporaries could splash a bucket of paint onto a canvas or doodle a few lines. He thought their hands were guided by what came easiest to them, and that was exactly what he hated the most. He detested anything that came too easily, without any effort or imagination. He had wanted his painting to be like his philosophy (which he’d nevertheless abandoned): a precisely built edifice that left no room for vagueness, generalities, clichés or approximations. This had been the foundation on which he’d erected his life. As far as he was concerned, it was about being demanding. He took special care over the projects he worked on just as much as he took care of himself. Even the state of his health had become a constant concern, not because he was a hypochondriac, but because he’d seen people close to him die simply out of negligence, or because they hadn’t taken their doctors’ recommendations to heart.

In his present state, his conscience — which dictated that everything be achieved to the highest standards — had stopped mattering as much as it once had. What was perfection good for if he couldn’t even grip a brush between his fingers? On some days, when he felt less overwhelmed and more optimistic, he wouldn’t give in to his usual despair of ever creating anything new again. He would remember Matisse and Renoir, both of whom had continued to paint well into their old age despite their physical afflictions. After all, he had avoided the worst. Hadn’t his friend Gharbaoui died of cold and solitude on a park bench in Paris at the age of forty? And hadn’t Cherkaoui, another painter he admired, died of peritonitis at the age of thirty-three after fleeing France right after the Six-Day War had broken out?

When he’d come to the clinic, a few days following his stroke, and when they’d brought him up to speed on his condition, he’d suddenly remembered what his mother had feared the most: becoming an object, like a pile of sand or rocks that had been dumped on one of the corners of life and was completely dependent on others. Happily, once he’d returned to his house, he’d been able to hire the Twins to help bear the burden of this new and unpredictable situation he was in. Being able to wash himself, or shave, wipe, dress, while still retaining some of his natural elegance, hanging on to his dignity and affability, that’s what lay on the horizon for him. The time of impulses and desires had drawn to an end. He could no longer satisfy his sudden urges for steak tartare at a restaurant. Could no longer go out for a morning stroll to stay in shape. Could no longer visit the Louvre, the Prado or the pretty galleries in the 6th arrondissement. Could no longer dive into new dalliances, or rendezvous with new beautiful women, or have romantic dinners in Rome or elsewhere, could no longer make impromptu visits to his old friend, the antique dealer, with whom he loved to visit Parisian markets. All of these things — and many others besides — had now become impossible. He had lost his inner lightness. Now he was no longer the sole master of his life, his movements, his desires or his moods. He relied on others. For everything. Even to drink a glass of water or to sit on the toilet seat to do his business. His reaction to that was immediate, he just became constipated. He would hold it in and delay his bowel movements as long as he could. That his bowel movements were few and far between partly encouraged that approach. “Shit betrays us,” he told himself. His mother had become incontinent; she would refuse to wear diapers and would then shit herself, just like a baby. His mother would stink of shit and yet he would still lean down and kiss her. Then he would call the nurses over so they could clean her up, while he would go out into the corridor to weep in silence. When your life is in someone else’s hands, is it still really a life?