The Happy Marriage

I sit on the sofa, which I cover up with my clothes so my skin won’t touch the plastic. I doze off. I dream again. I’m in Casablanca, at the Hotel Riad Salam. I hail a taxi. The driver goes really fast and doesn’t care that I slam against the window every time he takes a turn. He’s in a real hurry, he doesn’t listen to me, doesn’t turn around, he must take me to where I told him I want to be dropped off. The doors are locked. We arrive in Casablanca’s medina and the guy throws me into a courtyard where some young men seem to be waiting for me. The first man who looks at me is bald and doesn’t have any teeth. He stares at me for a long time and I hear: “That’s it, now you’re gonna pay.” Then he leaves me in the hands of the others, who all look aggressive. I don’t recognize anyone in that crowd. A guy in a brown sweater says: “Why don’t you write in Arabic? Now you’re gonna pay!” Then I reply: “But I’m not a writer, I’m a painter, you’re making a mistake.” But nobody believes me. I hear them say: “We know who you are, we’ve seen you on TV, you speak to us in French.” I try to reason with them, to defend the right of those who write in French even though I’m not a writer, but I can feel their hatred. They want to try me and to immediately sentence me to death. I sense that I’m lost. I tell them: “I’ve come to Casa to exhibit my paintings.” They laugh, then they yell: “He wants to run away from us, to pretend he’s a painter so we won’t judge him; that’s easy, because painting is neither French nor Arabic.” … At that moment, a gray-haired man arrived. I felt as though I knew him. He suggests postponing the trial until I have been properly questioned. I escaped being lynched … This man doesn’t speak to me, he turns his back to me and leaves me in a corner where children are arranging a table, chairs, and torture instruments …

The painter woke up at five in the morning and cursed that infernal bed where he’d fallen asleep.

Dawn was breaking, he pulled out the oxygen tubes, turned the water on in the shower, and watched it run over his body, which was turning gray and black. He wasn’t dreaming anymore, he was hallucinating.

That stay in the hospital, where he’d had such a near brush with death, had strangely left the painter feeling calm and collected.