The Happy Marriage

Voilà, I’ve gotten it all out of my system, and unlike him, I kept it brief and to the point. Regardless, I know that you’ll believe his version of events rather than mine, because his work will outlive our miserable love story. After all, I’m just the country girl who entered his life and wrecked everything. He never made me happy and yet I still made many efforts to ensure his life was pleasant. I regret having turned a blind eye to many things. Seeing him now in his wheelchair with half his body paralyzed fills my heart with pity. Pity isn’t a wonderful sentiment; however, I have no wish to see him regain his health so he can start betraying me again. From now on I’ll take care of him, be his nurse, his mother, his wife, perhaps even his friend. I’ve put a stop to the divorce proceedings. I’m going to change my behavior and alter my tactics, which will surprise him and he’ll realize he cannot do without me. I’m going to love him like I did in our early days, I’m going to love him and keep him close. I’m going to rid myself of my nastier urges; I’ll give up on exacting my revenge, I’ll be good to him and put myself at his disposal. I’ll stop asking myself whether I love him or not because I know he’s utterly incapable of love, or of giving and receiving. I’m not a monster, even though he’s depicted me as a harbinger of death and disease.

My first gesture will be to bring him some broth, and then I’ll give him a nice long massage just like his beautiful Imane used to do. She’s now living just a few miles away from here. One day around the beginning of August I went to see her and brought her a present, a pretty dress that I haven’t worn in a long time, and invited myself over to the tiny apartment in a poor neighborhood that she shares with her mother and brother. I was blunt with her and said: “I’m going to look after my husband myself, he needs me. I want him to get better so that he’ll get back to his paintings thanks to me, because I’m his wife. He’s a great artist, and so I’m asking you not to look after him anymore, I can see that this bothers him and it’s affected his blood pressure, which is dangerous. I know I’m asking you for a favor, so I’m going to offer you something in exchange: I’ll get your brother a visa so he can go to Spain and I’ll keep paying you until you leave for Belgium. It can all be easily arranged, you can teach me how to give him his injections and to help him with his physical therapy. You’ll also need to appease him and tell him that you can’t come anymore because you’re going to get married and your fiancé is on his way to take care of all the arrangements. I’ll handle all the paperwork and I don’t think it’ll be complicated because your situation falls under the “right to family reunification” category. As for your brother, I’m sure it’ll be easy, I know the Spanish consul well and Javier never says no to me. He’s a good friend of my husband’s too.”

Imane was initially shocked by my visit and my proposal, but she had a good heart and thought it was normal for a wife to want to look after her sick husband. She told me she thought of Foulane as an uncle or father, that she’d just been doing her job, and that she loved her fiancé. I pretended to agree with her and stuck to practical questions. She showed me how to give him his injections, taught me how to massage him and revitalize his muscles. It was a very informative afternoon. She gave me her brother Aziz’s passport and handed over her visa application to live in Belgium, which had been turned down. We hugged and I left, feeling proud of myself.

I’d gotten my plan off the ground and the trap was closing around him. All that was left to do was to approach Foulane and sweetly explain to him how his new life was going to unfold. I would have to practice in order to do that. Lalla helped me. She played the part of my husband, while I played myself. It was fun. At one point we burst out laughing. Lalla even said that our plan was going to be far more successful than all the incense the taleb from the mountains could provide. We opened a good bottle of wine to celebrate.