I was lucky to meet Lalla, my neighbor, whom Foulane hated and tried to distance from me. Lalla saved me. She opened my eyes, gave me the means to defend myself. She’s an exceptional woman: selfless, beautiful, wholesome, generous, and with the soul of an artist, who refused to make compromises, unlike Foulane.
Lalla talked to me about sexuality and explained that a woman my age needed to be satisfied at least once a day. I wouldn’t have hoped for so much, but she was right, I had to leave that selfish, perverted monster who’d managed to make me lose my mind. I know that Foulane didn’t like Lalla. She helped me to discover what he was up to: he was trying to drive me crazy so he could leave me, start a new life, and still keep everything.
I owe Lalla a debt for helping me to start achieving my freedom. He was jealous of her, very jealous. He would shout and scream, supposedly because he loved me. What a hypocrite! He’d spent his life being interested in just one thing — his ego — and when someone opened my eyes to that, he couldn’t bear it. He thought that he’d married a quiet little shepherdess who wouldn’t look him in the eye and would swallow all of his bullshit! Oh no! He was fooling himself, he had no idea what that little country girl had in store for him.
As for my sexuality, I’m still young, and people tell me I’m beautiful and alluring, so I hope that one day I’ll finally meet a man who’ll make up for all the frustrations, humiliations, and constant disrespect that Foulane put me through.
Jealousy
I admit it, I was jealous, incredibly jealous. I was never jealous of my friends, only of Foulane. He had a vicious knack for bringing out the worst in me, those awful — yet legitimate — feelings that drive couples crazy. Of course, his perversity only ever manifested itself in stealthy ways. He would compliment women with hideous hairdos and hideous dresses when we had guests over just to get on my nerves. He would take an interest in their lives, their children, asked them about what they liked to read or what they did to amuse themselves. Always employing that honeyed tone of his, which I loathed. On one occasion, we were invited to a party hosted by people in show business. A young starlet had been there wearing a dress with a scandalous neckline. Foulane’s eyes never drifted from her bosom and he spent the whole night talking to her. I even caught him entering her number in his phone. I didn’t do anything about it, but later that night I stole his phone and deleted all the numbers with women’s names, starting with the young starlet, who called herself Marilin—“with an ‘i,’ ” as she put it. He pulled a scene the following morning, talked about respecting boundaries and privacy, giving me one of his lectures about morals that made me want to puke. In fact, my jealousy wasn’t fueled by my frustrated affections for him or by a desire to win him back. It was simply a reaction to his attempts to belittle me in public.
This other time, his Russian mistress — or was she Polish? — who was either a musicians or a painter, I don’t remember which except that she had artistic pretensions, actually called at the house: “I would like to zee my old loover again, you zee I’ve knoon him for a loong time …” The nerve! I hung up on her. Later that evening, Foulane laconically said: “Oh don’t mind her, she’s a lunatic.” That’s the way he treated the women he claims to have loved!
One day, he asked me to help him pick out a necklace he wanted to buy for his gallerist’s wife. He wanted to do something nice for her because they never came empty-handed whenever they visited us. We bought her a stunning Berber necklace made of coral and silver. I wrapped it up in gift paper. But a few months later I spotted it around the neck of a Spanish gallerist who must have certainly been his mistress. When I asked him why, he started stammering like a liar who’d been caught red-handed. Women called at the house from time to time, and I would give them his number so they could call him at his studio. Surprised, they would ask me: “But aren’t you his assistant? Or his secretary?” “I’m his wife!” I would shout back. Then they would hang up on me and he would never offer any explanations. He always used the same excuse: “I’m not responsible for the letters or calls I receive.” Then he’d add: “If you want to feed your pathological jealousy, you might as well focus on things that actually matter, and not these trifles that have got nothing to do with me!” What were these things that “actually mattered”? Marriage, love, a harmonious relationship? He would confess without revealing anything of import. Now that’s what I call insincerity, which is something I loathe.
Foulane had mastered the art of wounding my pride, and he would poke at the deep wounds that had their roots in my childhood, and he would twist the knife just to hurt me. He hurt me a lot. He scoffed at my experiences as a model, saying that having the right proportions wasn’t the same as being talented. He would use what I’d told him in confidence to grieve me and remind me that my parents were illiterate immigrants. To think he’d painted a mural in honor of immigrants! What a show-off! What a fascist! He painted the mural for the city of Saint-Denis, and a few months later the mayor bought a couple of his paintings, one of which he hung in his office, while the other was hung in the entrance lobby of city hall.
I was jealous of some of his friends. He was always at their disposal. Always kind and always available. There were these two exiled Chilean politicians who were truly inseparable. Their wives never said anything, they just accepted the situation: friends always came first, and their wives and children last. At first I suspected they might have been gay, but that wasn’t true, they were just friends, and their friendship didn’t leave any room for anything else. One evening, when they’d been invited to dine at our place, one of them had the audacity to tell me: “Take care of our friend Foulane. He’s a great artist. You must be kind with him, we’re very fond of him, and we’re in awe of his immense talents!” I couldn’t restrain myself, my wild streak took over and I slapped him. I left him speechless and gaping and the dinner came to an abrupt end. I never saw them again. Foulane obviously berated me, hurling a bunch of abuse at me, and the ensuing fight reached unprecedented heights. Voilà, my jealousy was nothing other than anger and extreme aggravation. Nothing more. But nowadays Foulane is weak and stuck in his wheelchair, so he can’t do anything to me. He needs me whenever he needs to sit, eat, stand up, or even shit. He’s at my mercy. My jealousy has become pointless.
The Mistake
I remember the night I didn’t come home — which Foulane mentioned in his manuscript — as clearly as he does. Some girlfriends I’d met up with that afternoon told me that I looked awful and unhappy. So they decided to take me out that night. We had dinner at a good restaurant and we wound up at a fashionable nightclub. I danced like a madwomen, flirted with some blond guy, and later that morning I picked up some croissants and went home. Foulane was there waiting for me, car keys in hand, and he asked me where I’d been. So I told him: “At a nightclub!” He slammed the door behind him, rushed down the stairs, and left. It wasn’t until later that I learned that he’d showed up at my parents’ house to complain like people do in conservative families. Where the daughter, despite being married, is always seen as a little girl, and her parents, who always side with the husband, even have the right to punish her, beat her up and lock her away. But my parents didn’t trust him as much as they trusted me. They didn’t believe him, muttered a few stock sentences, and then discreetly called me to inform me of his sudden visit. They didn’t like him. They found him arrogant and spiteful. They knew that he didn’t make me happy, but we don’t divorce in our culture, it’s part of our tradition. Instead, my mother recommended I go see Hajja Saadia, who was capable of casting good and evil spells alike. I refused. Not that. Not yet. How many times had I slipped a potion into his coffee to make him devoid of willpower? A potion that apparently consisted of powdered hyena brains along with other African and even Brazilian ingredients …