The Happy Marriage

The jackpot! Yes, a jackpot of troubles and contempt. I was always suspicious of the people around him, but he stood up for them and preferred their company to mine. But when they screwed him over, he always came crying to me, at which point I would happily tell him to get lost.

After all those years of married life, we only managed to have a few mutual friends. There weren’t many of them and I was never fully at east with them because they had such admiration for the great painter whom the king had bestowed his honors on after purchasing a dozen of his paintings at full retail value. What truly bothered me was that nobody gave me any recognition for always being right there for him, pushing him to work, and taking care of all of life’s essentials in order to free him from all responsibilities.

I raised our children on my own. I would tell them that their father needed to work and that he couldn’t be disturbed. I spared him all the hassles. Which explained why I always told his friends — whether they were his real friends or so-called friends — that I was one of the big reasons behind his success, but that my efforts went unrecognized, which was the fate that befell the wives of famous men, especially artists’ wives.

As we didn’t have the same friends, I told him to leave me alone whenever I went out with mine from time to time. I usually only hung out with girls, because we had more fun that way, we spilled our guts, swapped gossip, jokes, laughed, let ourselves go, and hardly noticed how the time flew by. But Foulane would always call me and ask me to come back home. I would tell him to leave me alone: “I’ll come back when I feel like it!” He hated me for saying that. Whenever I returned, he wouldn’t be able to sleep and would blame his insomnia on me. At which point he would go sleep in another room under the pretext that I stank of booze.

His friends often meddled in our business. They would call me and ask me to come see them because they had something important to tell me. Once I got there, they would lecture me: “Don’t you know how lucky you are to share your life with such a great artist? People both admire him and are jealous of him, you must help make his life easier and not bother him with such silly things. He gets easily depressed, and he only wants a little peace so he can work. You see, he feels overwhelmed by your family, he can’t put up with them.”

On one occasion, instead of replying, I just shouted at them to stay out of our lives.

At which point Foulane lectured me: “How could you treat my childhood friends like that? They’re only trying to help.”

There were always misunderstandings, whether with him or with his friends.

Until the day I met Lalla, which changed everything. Foulane’s jealousy for her gnawed away at him and made him furious and violent. He refused to speak while at the dinner table, but simply gave commands with his hands. All because I’d finally found someone who understood me, who helped me endure all the things he or his family and friends did to me. I was tired of being seen simply as a mother. I wanted to fulfill myself, to have a life of my own, and overcome all the defeats I’d suffered. When I met Lalla, I had the strange feeling that I’d met my soul mate, someone who knew the contents of my heart and my mind. She possessed a natural sweetness that she’d acquired during those years she’d spent in India studying with a guru whose name I’ve forgotten. She’d given me his books and we spent a lot of time discussing them. She opened my eyes and showed me a path, teaching me that I was a sensitive person endowed with incredible potential that my husband had always stifled. She helped me to see the wounds that my marriage had dealt me. She had a positive outlook on life. New horizons opened up before me. I felt like a child who’d been introduced to the school of life while in her presence. I realized how much time I’d wasted trying to fix things. Lalla held out her hand to me, and I will never forget that. In her, I’d finally met someone who was interested in me but asked for nothing in return. I spent hours at her place and we’d talk ourselves to sleep. Foulane immediately suspected we were lovers. Men are crazy! As soon as two women get together they suspect them of being lesbians. Lalla wasn’t a lesbian. She liked men and made no secret of it. I even suspect she had lovers, but we never talked about that. Her reputation completely distorted who she really was. Men envied her freedom, beauty, and generosity. She was someone who spent all her time helping others.