The Happy Marriage

Delighted, Imane had gotten back to work, humming and murmuring words that had a soothing effect on him. Which was exactly what he needed since the last bout of irritation still plagued him. What had happened to make his wife suddenly go back on the warpath? Must he steady himself against future onslaughts? He was worried. Imane decided to stay a little longer and offered the painter a cup of tea. The Twins were playing cards and turned their back to him in order to not embarrass him. It was a tea from Thailand called “the poet’s tea,” which had a smoky, subtle taste. Imane raised the cup to his lips and enabled him to drink it, sip by sip. She was sitting in front of him, and on seeing him happy, asked him if he still wanted to hear her story. He responded with his eyes, but stopped smiling the moment he remembered how hideous a grimace he pulled whenever he tried to do so. From time to time, Imane would get up and go to the window in order to see if the painter’s wife was nearby. He understood her apprehension and reluctantly dismissed her, hoping to see her the following day. Unfortunately, Imane would have to spend the next day accompanying her grandmother to the hammam, which she insisted on still going to despite her age and frailness. Before leaving, she’d leaned over him and touched his cheek. She’d laughed and said: “It stings!” It had been two days since the Twins had shaved him.

XII. Casablanca, 1998

You wouldn’t hesitate if you had to choose between a straight shooter and a thug, you’d choose the thug!

— Mrs. Menoux to Julie

FRITZ LANG, Liliom

Their marriage had become a living hell. Their home was their battlefield, their friends were caught in the crossfire, and their families had become arbiters, although they were hardly impartial. Nevertheless, the painter hadn’t given up hope of finding a means to bring the conflict to an end. He would spend countless hours reflecting on what was happening to them.

So it was that one day he thought he’d stumbled onto the reason why their marriage had fallen apart so strangely. His wife had become two different people. Two people, two characters, two moods, two faces coexisted inside a single body. Even her voice had changed. He knew that every person on Earth seemed to suffer from a split personality, but the extent to which his wife did so was quite troubling. Sometimes he didn’t even recognize her. He would ask her: “Who are you? A stranger? Are you the mother of my children, or have you been possessed by someone else?” She never answered him. Over the course of his life, the painter had met people who were called “temperamental,” but this was something else. It seemed like a pathological condition! She would suddenly change from one state to the other, without any warning and without even noticing it. Whenever he heard her call out to him in a clear voice and say: “I have a surprise for you!” he knew the next fifteen minutes would be tough. It was her way of announcing that she wanted an explanation for something or that he was to fall victim to a well-organized attack.

Once, he’d returned home to find that the contents of his toiletry bag had been spilled onto the floor. He found his wife sitting on top of the stairs smoking a cigarette, waiting for him. At the time, he’d been using condoms whenever he made love to her. Calmly, she’d said: “Before you left for Copenhagen there were eleven, and now there are nine. So you cheated on me twice, you bastard, and you’re going to pay for it. I already called the hotel, her name’s Barbara, some bitch who works at the Klimt Gallery!”

Convinced that she was being persecuted — and that the painter’s family was out to get her, that her husband’s friends were dishonest profiteers, that the neighbors were jealous, that the people who worked in her house were trying to steal from her — she suspected everyone. She’d built a foundation of unshakeable certainties. There could be no discussions of any kind. He’d noticed that before she’d started to attack his family, she’d also tried to distance him from his friends, especially the ones he was closest to. She never lacked pretexts, and had ample opportunity to see them, so he’d always had to brace himself against her attacks.

The painter’s childhood friend had been an easy target for her. He had a bad temper and he was just as unyielding and full of hang-ups as she was. She would provoke him and he would reply in a scathing manner. So it eventually came to a head, and the painter was ordered to cut his ties with the “dwarf” who’d dared to criticize her. That friend had a penchant for humor, but he never took things lightly. The painter had held steady until the day his friend had sent him a letter informing him their friendship was over. His wife had won.