The Happy Marriage

“We’ve come to do an inventory of your work. We have to appraise and catalogue all the paintings you have here in your studio and elsewhere. We’ve been commissioned by your wife. Though you should know that we admire you a great deal, you do us proud. Please forgive us, we’re only doing our job.”

He let them carry on with their work. Most of the paintings in his studio were incomplete or had been left unfinished. He led them to the basement where he kept some paintings that friends of his had given him. They took note of everything and said they would come back in case …

Later that evening, he tried to talk to his wife about their visit. As he was in a hurry to finish some work for an exhibition scheduled to open at his gallery in Monaco, he contented himself with pretending to be offended and asked his wife to calm down. He couldn’t bear the idea of having another fight with her.

“I don’t trust you, and so I must take precautionary measures. If you run off with someone else tomorrow, then I’ll be left completely destitute and out on the street. I won’t let that happen. The other day I saw you drooling after that peroxide blonde who’s married to one of your dear friends even though she’s almost half a century younger than him! Anything’s possible, so I’m taking the initiative …”

“Don’t worry, just let me paint. I just need some peace and quiet so I can finish a big commission. I’m working a lot at the moment.”

“You’ll never have peace and quiet!”

The painter and his wife lived as though they were enemies spying on each other. The moment he left the house, his wife would rifle through all his things and make photocopies of any and all documents she could get her hands on. Which she would then send to her lawyer. Over the course of those weeks, the painter’s work took a new direction and acquired a certain depth and cruelty. It was like a condemned man’s last days on earth. His art thrived in the midst of that adversity. He knew that, and thought he should take a holiday once all this was over, he could go somewhere with Imane, maybe to an island. He’d never fantasized about deserted islands, but thought that once he got far enough away, he would be able to breathe a little and reflect on his work. But did he really have to go to the other side of the world in order to do that?

XXVI. Casablanca, February 3, 2003

I don’t think there is such a thing as the truth. No matter what we say or do, it will hurt.

— INGMAR BERGMAN, Scenes from a Marriage

Imane arrived in the afternoon wrapped in a blue djellaba. She’d just left the hammam. She put her things down, gave him his injection and a long massage. She smelled wonderful, but it wasn’t a new perfume, it was just her body’s natural fragrance after it had spent a few hours in those baths, where people’s tongues loosened and wagged.

“I’m going to tell you a love story,” she told him, while packing away her equipment. “I didn’t make this one up, in fact I just heard it at my neighborhood hammam earlier today. Even though women talk a lot of nonsense in those places, where the heat and the steam free their minds and imaginations, I still think the story I’m going to tell has a kernel of truth to it. So lend me your ears and judge for yourself.”

This is the story of Habiba, a woman who ate her husband.

The day after her wedding, Habiba decided to eat her husband so she could always keep him close to her. First she sniffed him, just like a cat does when it’s encircling its prey, then she started to nibble on him, then began eating him, taking care not to arouse anyone’s suspicions.