The Happy Marriage

I went to Marrakech. I had to wait for days to secure a meeting with Wallada — people called her that because she’d been a midwife in her youth. As soon as she saw me, Wallada said: “My poor girl, I’m glad you’ve finally come to see me; good, come and sit right there in front of me and give me a little something so we can begin our session.” I pulled out a two-hundred-dirham note and placed it next to her. She was a very powerful woman. She wasn’t a clairvoyant, but she could read people’s faces and was adept in palmistry. She told me all about my life as though she’d been there every step of the way. She knew everything and described the malevolent people in my life. I was impressed with her talents because she could tell who I was just by looking at me, and figured out the root of my unhappiness. Wallada came from the countryside and was illiterate, but she could write incomprehensible signs endowed with magical powers. I could see she was already hard at work while she was still talking to me. She dipped her reed into some sepia ink and drew a series of mysterious symbols, each more cryptic than the last, that I would be able to use to ward off evil spells.

My session cost me a thousand dirhams, but it brought me some relief, and I left equipped with the means to counteract all that Foulane’s sisters had dared to inflict on me. It helped me to give up on my husband’s family. I was polite to them whenever I saw them, and I would mouth my insincere As-Salaam-Alaikums. The woman from Marrakech and my taleb continued to work to ensure I was protected. I remained on my guard. I carried my taleb’s talismans with me at all times. Once every six months, the taleb would melt some bronze in a saucepan and mix it with a brew made of water and herbs that came from various places, which he would put in a bottle and hand over to me. I would use some of that yellowish liquid on my body before showering. During the worst of their attacks, I felt as though I was losing my mind, and surrounded by Evil, by powers that wanted to harm and destroy me. I could see it in Zoulekha’s eyes. She was Foulane’s nastiest and most envious sister, filled with absolute hatred. She looked at me as though she wanted to set fire to everything I did. One day she gave me a ring made of gold and silver. When I showed it to the taleb, he ordered me to take it off and give it to him. It was a booby-trapped ring, which had been made to counteract all the protective spells that he’d prepared for me. When I gave it back to her, she looked all surprised. I told her it was too tight for me and that I was allergic to gold. She smiled at me and pouted, as if to say, “Don’t worry, you’ll get what’s coming to you!”

This is how I put up a fight against his family.

Foulane was right when he said my family often came to see me. They protected me and I could count on them. He was also right that a few girls from my village came to live with us so they could help out with the children. Yes, my family always came first, and no, I never liked any of his relatives. I had my reasons but he didn’t want to understand them. I refused to let any of his nephews and nieces come over, because they were brattish and disrespectful. On one occasion when one of his nieces — a fat, stupid girl who’d failed her exams — was staying with us, I refused to let her loaf around the house, so I asked her to help me clean the children’s bedrooms. She refused, so I asked her to leave. Her reply was: “You don’t have the right to boss me around, I’m at home here, this is my uncle’s house, you can’t kick me out.” So I threw all her belongings out onto the street and she went running to her uncle’s arms. Foulane heaped a bunch of abuse at me that night.

His family always hated me. But I eventually stopped caring. It didn’t get to me anymore, but he was the one who refused to see them for who they really were. He didn’t believe me when I told him about all the amulets I’d found scatted around the house. “You’re sick,” he told me, “you’re just making it all up.”

Our Friends

We didn’t frequent the same people, partly because of the age difference, but also for class reasons. My friends were mostly immigrants. His were intellectuals, internationally renowned artists, writers, politicians, and they were all full of themselves. They looked at me condescendingly, often with the sort of kindness with which adults treat children.

I remember how, right at the beginning of our relationship, an Algerian woman — or was she Tunisian? — who was ugly and vulgar and married to a much older French man had screwed her face up so that she looked even uglier and said: “You’ve won the jackpot!”

“You’re an idiot!” I’d replied.