The Happy Marriage

I hope you noticed that he never referred to me by my name throughout the entirety of his manuscript. I was nothing to him, a gust of wind, a smudge of dew on the window, not even a ghost. Just like his father, who never called his wife by her name. He would just shout, “Woman,” and she would come running. Very well, I’ll do the same. From now on, I’ll refer to my husband as Foulane, an Arabic word used to refer to “any old guy.” I know, it’s a little contemptuous, perhaps even a little pejorative. “Foulane” means someone who doesn’t really matter, a man just like any other, without any distinctive characteristics. When people are talking quickly, they often drop the “ou” in “Foulane” and pronounce it “Flane,” meaning someone whose actual name and origins are unknown. Besides, it was precisely his origins and roots that led to the failure of our marriage. He often spoke of how important his roots were to him and talked about them as though he were a philosopher: “Our roots follow us wherever we go, they reveal who we really are, they show our true colors and subvert our attempts to try to be something we’re not.” One day, I finally understood that despite all his gobbledygook, he’d always looked down on my peasant origins: on the fact I was the daughter of poor, illiterate immigrants. He disliked the poor. He gave out alms, but always wore an expression of disdain. He would give his driver some money and tell him to distribute it among the beggars at the cemetery where his parents were buried. On Fridays, he would ask the cook to prepare large quantities of couscous for the needy, thus performing his duty as a good Muslim. After which his conscience would be clear and he would be able to devote himself to his paintings where he imitated photographs and gave them such shameless titles as “Shanty-town,” “Shanty-town II,” and so forth.

What exactly was he hoping to accomplish with this novel — what I read of it clearly indicates that it is a novel, especially since his friend the scribe called it such below that ridiculous title, The Man Who Loved Women Too Much? Did he want to publish it? Why? Who would bother to read such a pointless web of lies? There isn’t an ounce of truth or originality in it, starting even with the title, which is a rip-off of François Truffaut’s film, The Man Who Loved Women. Foulane simply added his two cents and tagged “too much” on the end of it to be a smart-ass. As for his friend, he was hardly a great writer. He self-published his books and nobody read them, so the copies just piled up in his garage. The book is just a series of falsehoods and allegations, each more intolerable than the last before it. Doesn’t one get the distinct impression that I caused his stroke by the time one gets to the last page? It’s a terrible insinuation. Isn’t it criminal and irresponsible? I may have been nasty and devilish, but certainly never criminal, not even close!

He already suffered from migraines, high blood pressure, tachycardia, and a host of other nervous disorders by the time I met him. They were congenital and I had nothing to do with them. You’ll have noticed that before describing the scene that caused his stroke — which I must stress was the sheer product of his artist’s imagination, which was intoxicated with his own success — he devoted a number of beautiful pages to me, even going so far as to say that he loved me. Don’t fall for any of it — he was utterly incapable of the slightest praise, he never had a kind word to say in the morning, no tenderness before going to bed, nothing, he lived in his own world, and I had to dwell in his shadow and cower in it. Oh, that ubiquitous shadow, it was bleak and heavy, followed me everywhere, harrying me and overwhelming me to the point that it immobilized me. It pushed me into a corner and kept me there. A shadow doesn’t speak: it hovers over you menacingly and crushes you. I would wake up exhausted and empty in the mornings. The shadow had haunted me all night. I didn’t have anyone to talk to, and besides, who would have believed me? Struck by a shadow! People would have thought I was crazy, which would have played into his hands. It must have taken a lot of effort for him to ever say anything sweet. So he avoided it and closed in on himself. He would reach his hand out and rub my knee whenever he wanted to make love. That was the sign, his way of asking me to welcome his advances, as though I should be constantly at his disposal, willing and available, all so Foulane could reassure himself that he could still get it up. He was always in a hurry to satisfy his needs. He would push himself inside me a little forcefully and fuck me in a robotic manner for a few minutes until he came, at which he’d puff out, like a toy whose batteries had gone dead.