The Happy Marriage Read Online Free Page A

mothers whose life was a complete struggle due to the fact that Morocco did not have any adequate facilities to take care of these children. “Afflicted by a disease nobody cares about!” as one of the psychologists present in the room had said. After the meeting, the painter had had the idea of inviting Nabile back to his studio. He’d given him a canvas and some colors. Then he’d shown him how to use them. Nabile had been happy and had spent the whole day painting. They’d left in the evening along with his paintings, which his parents had had framed and hung in the living room of their home.
    His stroke had provided him with the opportunity to reconsider everything in his life. He was completely convinced of that. Not just hismarried life, but also his relationship to work and the act of creating. “I would love to paint a scream like Bacon did,” he said to himself, “or even fear, that certain something that makes my blood freeze or makes me vulnerable. To paint fear so accurately that I would be able to touch it, as well as render it useless, rub it out, and banish it from my life. I believe in the magic that comes out of painting and acts on reality. Oh yes, as soon as I can move my hands and fingers, I will unleash my attack on fear, a fear that is as horizontal as railroad tracks, an amorphous fear that constantly changes its colors and its appearance, a fear that will extinguish all lights. Indeed, I will catch that fear and lay it out in front of a sea whose blueness will spill over the whole canvas. I will gaze at it in the same way that I think about death. Death no longer frightens me now. But I must be especially careful not to get caught up in my style. I’ll have to create a new rhythm, a music that will repel fear!”
    He eyed his lifeless leg and laughed softly. One evening, when he’d been meditating on his fate, he had convinced himself that his paralyzed leg had become the sanctuary of his soul, and that this was where his liberation would begin. The soul is alive and cannot put up with what is stiff and motionless. He was happy to think that his soul had lodged itself in his leg and was working on restoring his ability to move. Sure, it was a bit of a crazy idea, but his belief in it was unshakeable. Since he could no longer paint, he spent his time dreaming and reinventing life. He liked to tell himself that he was living in a little hut from which he could watch the world go by without being seen. Nevertheless, his pain, which was still raw, and his difficult physical therapy exercises had quickly pulled him out of that sickly child’s universe.
    One day, when he’d gone back to the clinic for a checkup, he received a phone call. One of the Twins had given him the handset and told him: “It’s Madame Kiara!” which he’d accompanied withan incomprehensible gesture. He’d immediately recognized her voice and was stunned that she hadn’t forgotten him. She had asked him for news, but had quickly realized that he still found it difficult to talk. She told him that Ricardo was doing spectacularly better. They had spent some time in Italy, but had soon been able to travel to set up a new life in the United States, where Ricardo’s physical therapy had completely changed him. His agent had taken care of everything. Ricardo could now move his fingers and when they sat him in front of the piano, he could still play, albeit slightly off-key, just like Glenn Gould, who interpreted Bach in his own inimitable way. His agent had immediately decided to exploit this new angle to Ricardo’s style. “Producers always have their heads screwed on,” she’d added, “but what we really care about is for Ricardo to regain the full use of his reflexes.”
    The painter had been pleased to receive news of his old roommate. He told himself that hope could be found on the other side of pain.
    Once he’d returned home after his checkup, he had amused himself by imagining how rumors of his stroke had