The Happy Marriage (22 page)

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
.

On the first day, she focused on the parts of him that were easiest to swallow. On the second day, she helped send him off to sleep by stroking him for a long time, and licking his armpits and genitals. Despite the sedatives that she’d put in a glass of almond milk, her husband would wake up from time to time. He let her carry on, and with his eyes half-shut he smiled, his penis fully erect. Habiba was so excited that she hummed to herself, pleased. She enjoyed being able to do whatever she wanted to her man, and couldn’t believe her own prowess
.

Her friends had filled her with horror stories from their own wedding nights, and she’d been afraid of the violence of the sexual act, and she’d been especially terrified by the notion of those bloodied sheets. Especially since she used to touch herself as a little girl, and had found out after a doctor’s visit that she’d broken her hymen. As she’d never slept with a man, she’d refused to have her hymen restitched
.

On her wedding night, she’d offered herself up to her man, just like a traditional woman should, acting submissively and shy, keeping her gaze lowered, and letting him be in charge. Whereas in fact she had a plan: she would lure him into a sense of false security so she could prepare him for the following day. Her husband had ripped her satin sarouels off, spread her legs, and penetrated her unceremoniously. In pain, she’d pulled him closer to her and kept his member inside her for a moment, preventing him from moving. He quickly ejaculated and pulled out, proud of himself. They didn’t exchange a single word. Which was not the done thing in those cases. When she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, he’d seen her in all her splendor and had gotten hard again. Then he’d pounced on her, grabbing her by the arm, and tossed her onto the bed. Then, once more without stroking her or kissing her, he penetrated her and came, emitting a groan which she thought sounded like he was thanking God and his mother for having given him that woman. It was at that moment that she’d slipped the sedatives into the big glass of almond milk, which her husband had drunk in a single gulp. By the time she came back, he’d fallen into a deep slumber
.

Thus on that second day, Habiba had observed her husband while he slept for a long time. The idea of eating him piece by piece excited her. Her desire for him grew and grew. She was sweating and shaking. She drew close to him, started stroking his arms and then moved onto his hands. She sucked his fingers, one by one, and gleefully munched on them. On the third day, she started eating his arms. On the fourth she ate his feet and most of his legs. On the fifth, she severed his head and placed it in a crystal jar, which was a gift from her uncle, who’d made his fortune working in the Gulf. Finally on the sixth she ate what was left of him, taking care not to damage his genitals, which she placed in a magic box. By the seventh day, there was nothing left of the man she’d married. Or rather, every part of him was still there, just inside her. Habiba hadn’t even put on any weight. She felt happy and proud of herself
.

Finally a successful marriage. Habiba and her husband had become a single person. Nobody noticed anything. The wedding party had been in full swing when Habiba had been busy eating her husband, taking to it rigorously and methodically, scrupulously following the advice that her mother had given her a long time earlier: “You must always hang on to your man, my daughter, you can’t share your man with anyone else. And there’s no better way to keep him all to yourself than by eating him! If you do that, you’ll never need to talk to him, or threaten him that “I’ll cut off your balls if I catch you cheating on me, or if I see you with someone else I’ll slice both your throats” … You must stay one step ahead of him, otherwise it’ll be too late, men quickly get used to having us under their heels.”

Habiba had always told herself: “My man will be mine and I’ll be his. There won’t be any differences between us. We’ll be so inseparable that you won’t even be able to slide a thread of silk between us. We’ll become one person and we’ll stay like that forever. A perfect, total union, which nobody would ever destroy or surpass. That is love, crazy love. That’s what mothers teach their daughters. Men are hard to find. So women have to do everything in their power in order to keep their husbands close and prevent them from being lured away by other women
.

Just because Habiba ate her husband, this didn’t mean that he vanished off the face of the earth. She would spit him out every day so that he could go about his business, go to work, make a living, and then return straight home without even looking left or right. As though he were being guided by remote control, he obeyed his wife’s wishes, since she had the power to restore his human form whenever she chose. Whenever her husband came home, he would kiss her hand and offer her a bouquet of flowers, sometimes even some jewelry or some nice fabrics. He never came back empty-handed. He lowered his gaze whenever he spoke and never raised his voice. He would perform his prayers and wait for a sign from his wife, who would be ecstatic to see him. They would eat in silence, and he would give her all the tastiest morsels, doing so gracefully and politely. She would appreciate his silence and the kindness of those gestures. Toward the end of the meal, she would feel desire rising in her; it would only take a look to make her husband get up and precede her to the bedroom. He would sit there without asking any questions and wait for his sweetheart. He would also feel a strong desire rise within him. She wouldn’t give herself to him right away. She loved to make him wait, walking around him, brushing her fingers against his penis, assessing how hard he got and making his cock into her plaything. Her man would obey her and kiss her hand, her mouth, and her sex. He was completely in the moment and hers alone. The entirety of his sexual energies were devoted to his lawful wife
.

However, one evening he seemed a little distracted, and he ejaculated before making her climax. Habiba slapped him resoundingly across the face. Ever since that time, her husband made love to her even more attentively, devoting himself entirely to her pleasure. His mind, which was fully involved in the sexual act, would stimulate her and prepare her for the lovemaking. She would entice him with her perfume, and the scent of her flesh, the natural smell of her armpits, and the folds of her skin. He once imagined that he’d found her in a tent in the desert at night, her face draped in a veil. She crawled on the carpet on all fours, the veil slipped off her head, and she started sucking his testicles, sometimes swallowing them until she almost choked on them. On another occasion, he saw her while she’d been squatting and in the midst of cleaning her intimates, and had come up from behind her, taking her by surprise, and mounted her. She let him have his way with her, moaning like a woman in need. Sometimes the way they moved their limbs made them look like they were in perfect sync. While they made love, they spoke only a little, moving and loving and falling asleep in each other’s arms. They had become one and the same. He never tried to dominate her. He knew she wouldn’t tolerate it. Each time she spit him out again, she told him all about her desires and fantasies. The moment Habiba desired her husband, he would awake and fulfill her cravings. Sometimes after they made love, Habiba even told her husband to sleep in another room. He wouldn’t object, knowing she had her reasons. Her man belonged only to her, and nobody could ever take him away from her
.

Habiba and her husband were an exemplary couple. Her friends envied her so much that one day they asked her to reveal the secret behind their perfect relationship. Habiba told them: “He loves me, that’s the secret, we’re in love, that’s all.” But her friends weren’t satisfied with her answer, they argued with their husbands all the time, were convinced they were cheating on them, gambling the family’s money away in casinos or wasting it on liquor in bars and on prostitutes. They would go back to Habiba and ask her to give them more details. So she would tell them: “If you want to keep your husband close, then don’t wait until he’s already run away, you must take care of him on your very first night. A man who has left the house is already lost to his wife. You must never let him go, so that he belongs to you and you alone even when he’s not in the house.”

Lamia, one of Habiba’s friends, suspected that she’d been consulting a sorcerer. “Not at all,” Habiba protested. “Sorcerers are charlatans. No, there’s no need to resort to such absurd and ridiculous tactics. My recipe is unbeatable. It’s been put to the test. My mother gave it to me. My father was the most loving and submissive husband ever. He loved my mother and always did what she said. I followed her advice to the letter. No scruples, no hesitation, it’s him or me, so it might as well be me, right, ladies? I’m rather proud of my achievement
.

“I’m telling you, the first night is decisive. You mustn’t wait until the following day. As soon as he’d climbed inside the
dekhchoucha,
I saw that despite his enormous height and weight, he was just a little lamb deep down. I knew he would be mine. But he was the kind of man who was bound to resist. I stared him right in the eye and forced him to lower his gaze. The rest was a piece of cake. A man who lowers his gaze will be like putty in your hands. He’s yours, and he’ll stay that way forever. There’s no need for any potions, incense, or magic scrolls. It’s just a matter of willpower. This is what my mother taught me: you just need a little almond milk and a pinch of white powder …”

“What’s the recipe for this powder then?” Fatima exclaimed. “You must take pity on our unhappiness, you can’t be the only one to be able to leave this nightmare, while the rest of us are stuck here like wet rags waiting for our husbands to come home, hoping they don’t return stinking of booze after having emptied their wallets and scrotums.”

“I’ve told you once and I’ll tell you again: there’s nothing I can do for you, it’s too late to remedy the situation. You have to cut off the snake’s head on the very first night.”

“What snake are you talking about? We married men, not snakes!”

“You’re doomed … there’s nothing I can do.”

But her friends insisted and had her surrounded. “We won’t let you leave until you reveal your secret.”

“Fine, since you insist, I’m going to tell you what you should have done. You should have eaten your husband, that’s right, you should have gobbled him up and kept him inside your body forever. It’s what I did and it worked out for me. But it’s already too late in your case, I’ve told you that. Your husbands have become too leathery, tough, and uneatable. You can’t turn back time.”

“You ate him, you really ate him?”

“I did, I ate him all up. He’s right here inside me, and he only comes out when I want him to. I had no choice. It was either that, or I would have wound up being his dog, at his beck and call, so he could mercilessly exploit me or beat me up whenever he wanted. And I never would have had an orgasm either!”

“Are you planning to have children with him?”

“Not for the time being. I’ll exploit him as much as I can for now, and then we’ll see. If we have children, there’s a risk he’ll escape. At which point I’ll have to come up with another scheme to keep him completely submissive. I’ll ask my mother, who will ask her mother, but I must be quick about seeing as how she’s dying.”