The Happy Marriage (15 page)

Next came the turn of those who called themselves the students, who’d come to see him because they’d been writing a dissertation or essay on painting and Morocco. They’d all accommodated his schedule and had welcomed his tactful advances. Some had come back for a few months, others instead had vanished. He’d regretted their disappearance,
but then had quickly forgotten them. And now there they were, walking through his dreams, happy to revisit a shared past. He couldn’t remember their names anymore, but he still recalled the perfumes they used to wear or the way they moved. There was a pretty Asian girl among them who, after working her way through not a few men, had taken holy orders and never returned. He remembered how fiery she’d been when they’d made love. When he found out she’d become religious, he hadn’t been surprised in the slightest.

There was the one who wrote poems in Arabic and who’d dreamed of writing a book illustrated with his paintings. She’d thought of herself as intelligent and professional; she’d sent him a few of her books along with a portrait of her by the Greek painter Alekos Fassianos. A beautiful woman and a beautiful painting. The painter had known something would happen between them the moment she’d set foot in his studio. It was a matter of intuition, as well as the way she’d looked at him. She wasn’t very tall but she had splendid black hair and gray-green eyes. They talked a lot about politics. She came from a part of the world that had been ravaged by war. She didn’t say a word about her project. On her way out, she’d asked him for a favor: to let her take him to dinner.

“Or rather, why don’t you let me take you out sometime next week?”

“That’s out of the question,” she’d replied, “I insist, and besides I’ll be in Greece next week.”

They’d had dinner the following night at a small restaurant. She was the one who’d asked: “Are you free later tonight?”

He, on the other hand, had responded evasively, “I usually sleep at night, or at least I try to.”

Then she’d taken hold of his arm and whispered: “I don’t want to sleep with my partner tonight, I want to sleep with you. I’ll leave you alone after we’ve made love.”

Their sporadic affair had lasted for two years. They rarely saw one another in Paris, but made time whenever they were traveling. One day, her partner had given her an ultimatum: “It’s either me or him!” She’d opted for safety and security, and she’d married her partner a few months later.

Curiously enough, she’d appeared before him alongside her husband, who was older than her and a little bulky. He must have had hidden qualities.

There was the one whom he’d called the Angel of Brasilia, a young art history student who’d been sent to his studio by her professor, who was married to a Moroccan woman who happened to be the painter’s cousin. Her beauty had reminded him of certain Egyptian actresses: buxom. She’d fainted when he’d grabbed her hand. It was the first time he’d seen a woman faint. He’d revived her as best he could, then after she’d regained consciousness, she’d apologized and confessed: “I always faint when I’m touched by a man I admire!” He’d smiled and promised he wouldn’t touch her again. Laughing, she’d retorted: “But that’s a punishment!” She became his mistress during his time in Paris, then they met again in Buenos Aires. It was like a party each time they met. She would let herself go and talk to him in Arabic, using phrases she’d learned by heart. Their love became a kind of friendship, a tenderness that they jealously guarded in their hearts. She told him she’d never loved anyone like him, but he’d stayed silent. He liked her, but pretending to be in love was be-yond him.

The painter opened his eyes, scanned his surroundings, and then called the Twins by pressing the bell, indicating he wanted to be taken out for a little stroll. He told himself that this procession was like looking at a catalog. He hated himself and refused to content himself with the images that flashed past his mind the moment he shut his eyes.

He drank some coffee that evening, hoping to put an end to it, but his imagination placed him on a balcony from which he could admire those women as they moved past him elegantly.

There was Caroline, the woman with perfect legs whom he’d met while she was in the midst of battling breast cancer. An exceptionally intelligent, tender, and sensual being. He’d been happy to see her, to clasp her in his arms, to confide in her. Their friendship had led to a cautious love. She’d found it difficult to be naked in front of him, having recently undergone a mastectomy. Making love to someone who was disabled was difficult. How could she tell him, or warn him? She’d blushed and then she’d told him: “They removed that unlucky breast but I’m waiting for my reconstruction surgery before the summer arrives so I can go to the beach with my children!” She’d asked him to close his eyes while she’d undressed and to switch off the light. Her chest had been wrapped in bandages. He’d touched her softly and delicately. He’d licked the tears from her cheeks and pressed her against him without hurting her. They’d taken a little time to get used to things and humor had been the best medicine. They’d laughed and swapped jokes, talked about how she’d get a new breast and would be able to show it off at a nice beach. That missing breast had haunted him for a long time. He would think about her and grow angry over how such a kindhearted, beautiful soul had been struck by such an injustice.

She never managed to make it to the beach. That woman really suffered a great deal. She’d had a lot of courage and hope. In lieu of seeing one another, they’d exchanged letters. Her last had read:

I’m writing to you from a waiting room, which is terrible, just like hospital waiting rooms usually are. I’m wearing pajamas and I’ve got a scarf around my head, which is completely bald. I feel ugly, abandoned by life, but I’ve got faith. The doctor’s a friend of mine. He’s an older gentleman who continues to practice despite the stupidity of French laws. He helps me to remain optimistic and he knows just how to talk to me and the right things to say. Here I am, I think about you, but then I’m here, watching gaunt elderly people whom death has shunted into a corner, I think of you and beg you to keep fighting so that nobody can compromise your integrity as an artist and as a man; nobody has the right to trample on you, or to steal what’s most precious to you, your work, your art, your gift. I say this to you because I know how often selfish people have taken advantage of your sensitivity. Be strong, be well, and continue to amaze us, giving us the best that you have to offer
.

I’m here, I’m waiting and I know that I want to live, I want to scream so that God—if indeed He does exist—can hear me and give me a little more time, so I can love again, have sex, eat a plate of lentils, drink some fine wine, and smoke a cigar with you. I long for that time, and I’ll find it wherever it’s hiding, I won’t let anyone take it away from me
.

There’s a woman next to me and she’s looking at me while I write. She leaned over and said: “How lucky you are, you’ve got someone to write to, someone you love, I suppose? I don’t have anyone to write to. My children have forsaken me, my husband is dead, and my friends are all in the hospice, having completely lost their memories. Well, say something nice to that man. Tell him that Gisèle sends him a kiss. So he knows that there’s an eighty-four-year-old woman out there whom he doesn’t know but who’s sent him a kiss. Thank you.”

There we have it, my love, my tree, my music, my greatest folly. It’s my turn to see the doctor now. Don’t forget, don’t allow anyone to compromise your integrity
.

The painter had carried the memory of that woman’s unspeakable grief for a long time, without ever being able to share it with anyone.
He could have lived with her because she’d given him an ensuring sense of serenity. She’d soothed him and loved him. Every moment he’d spent with her had been sheer bliss. They’d met when they’d attended a retrospective of Billy Wilder’s films. The painter loved films from Hollywood’s golden age, especially Ernst Lubitsch’s and Frank Capra’s. They’d spent entire evenings talking about the various cuts of Orson Welles’s
Touch of Evil
. If her illness hadn’t ended her life when she’d been so young, beautiful, and energetic, he might have spent the rest of his days with her. He told himself that in order to keep her memory alive. When he learned that her ashes had been scattered in Africa, where she’d grown up as a child, he’d been thrown into a state of panic and confusion. How could the body that he’d pressed against his own have disintegrated into ashes and been lost in the sands of a distant land? The idea of it tormented him. He put it out of his mind and focused on the image of her when she’d been most alive. He could still hear her sweet voice and peals of laughter. One day, her daughter had called him and said: “I dreamed of mama, she was so happy and she told me to call you, to tell you to take care of yourself and that she loves you!” He’d been taken aback, had lain down his brush and reread the letter she’d sent him that he kept hidden in a locked drawer.

She’d given him pride of place in her dreams, but wouldn’t be coming to see him. He struggled to remember her and was gradually forgetting her features, as usually happened to him whenever he experienced strong emotions.

Instead, it was Ava’s face that superimposed itself on hers in his mind. First with her bright gray-green eyes, her lioness-like hair, her impressive height, her naturally sensual voice, and that slender body of hers that always made his head spin, leading her to bust out in fits of giggles. Ava had entered his life a few months into his secret period of mourning, entering it like a storm or a burst of summer rain that made him marvel and kneel before her. An encounter right out of the
pages of Nabokov or Pushkin, or even
Gone With the Wind
or
Pandora and the Flying Dutchman
, where his Ava could be played by Ava Gardner, except that his Ava wasn’t a femme fatale who sowed misery and destruction in people’s lives. His Ava stood for love, sweet madness, and adventure. She had an air of mystery about her and a solemnity in her eyes, but also a joie de vivre. He’d known they would have an intense affair the moment he’d met her. He’d completely changed the moment she’d sent him a note where she’d reproduced a drawing by Matisse by way of introduction. She’d written her phone number on the back of the note and had signed her name in the shape of a shooting star. When he’d called her, she’d answered with a burst of laughter, as if they’d known each other forever and had a shared past. She’d told him: “Your paintings break my heart! Life’s already left too many scars on me, and you don’t have the right to add any more!” Then she’d added: “Nonsense, nonsense …”

Ava understood that she’d entered the painter’s life at a time when nothing had been going right with his wife. He was afflicted, miserable, tired of fighting against headwinds and still hopeful he could put an end to it all and free himself. He’d told his wife as much and she’d answered him: “That’s not my problem! You’ve put children into this world and now you have to endure the responsibilities!” He’d tried to explain to her that there was a way in which they could separate without hurting the children, that one couldn’t force destiny, and that all their attempts to reconcile had failed, but she’d refused to hear a word of it, and he’d been left utterly dismayed by her determined obstinacy. He was fighting all on his own. His words simply vanished into thin air, like dust. She refused to listen to him and she would push him away before he’d even had the chance to reach out to her. She only gave in a little when presented with facts, and even then she would suspect the influence of some sorcerer or evil female mastermind hell-bent on wrecking her home. She would become ill and shut herself
away in her room, letting the house fall apart and telling the children that she was suffering because their father was a monster, crying, losing weight, and making the atmosphere unbreathable. The doctor had taken him aside and told him: “She’s using depression as blackmail, but she must take care lest she actually becomes depressed—that is, unless it’s already happened!” She would take her medications, but would refuse to see a psychiatrist.

This was around the time that his work had met with great success at the Venice Biennale. Several galleries in Europe and the United States wanted his work. He needed to produce more paintings, but he was preoccupied by the breakdown of his marriage. His wife had found out about Ava’s existence, but hadn’t managed to learn more than that. She didn’t know her name or where she worked. She’d begged him to tell her who she was, but he’d held steady and refused to say a word, minimizing the affair since he didn’t have the courage to come clean at the risk of provoking another huge upset. In her irrationality, his wife was highly capable of causing a lot of damage. She would throw everything she could get her hands on at him, calling him names so as to make him feel guilty. The children witnessed all those theatrics and would ask themselves what their father was guilty for. He would refuse to involve them, but his wife would do so in his stead and upset them. She felt betrayed, and was doing everything she could to avenge herself, wanting to inflict five times the harm that had been done to her. He would remain silent and then run away, abandoning her to her distress. He didn’t talk about it with Ava; they could only enjoy a few moments together, and he was keen to live them to the fullest. He felt a strong desire to leave his wife, but his weakness—or rather what his wife called his “cowardice”—prevented him from making such a decision.

The mystery of the night was compounded by bouts of insomnia, a cruel kind of suffering that left his body and mind feeling battered. He also had high blood pressure and tried to look after it without managing to keep it entirely under control. He experienced peaks that
rose to worrying levels and then returned to normal. The night scared him, as did the risk of apnea. He dreaded the coming of night and the moment when he would have to go to sleep. He slept in his studio, but tremors ran up and down his limbs, enervating him. He would get up, pace around the meticulously tidy space where he stored his canvases, his equipment, his collection of art books, and his documents. He would drink some water, take a second sleeping pill, go back to bed, and wait. Nothing would happen. He could follow the progress of the clouds through the sky of Paris through the skylight on his roof. Exhaustion would assail him toward dawn and he would then finally be able to sleep for an hour or two.