Poor Lalla Zineb more or less got through this test. Judging by the looks and taste of the result, as well as the unimpressed faces around the table, Ghita refrained from driving her point home. But she did indulge her daughter-in-law to the point of offering her an honorable way out of the mess. Even more treacherously, she chose to imply her verdict in the following manner.
“Well, one bite won’t kill you,” she said to Driss. “Today you sent us a nice fresh fish. Its gills were still oozing with blood.”
Make of that what you will. Now let’s leave that mess behind.
Outside of these housekeeping matters, the cold spell that set in after the fever of the wedding was due to a number of factors that I will try my best to elucidate. I was well aware that the complicated relationship between my brother and his wife was a source of irritation for Ghita. The newlyweds reacted quite strangely to the daily grind of our family life. They spent many hours — and not only during the holidays — holed up in their room, only making a sortie during mealtimes. Their cloistering seemed peaceful for the most part, but from time to time we could hear the sounds of an altercation taking place behind their doors, followed by sounds of a different nature. Si Mohammed usually emerged from those battles in a pitiable state: his shirt torn, scratch marks on his face, looking as if his body had been pushed to the limits of endurance. Ghita was outraged. For a husband to beat his wife, now that one thing, even if that was not the way things were done in our home. Driss had never dared raise his hand against Ghita. Quite the opposite, in fact, since whenever things got heated between them, Ghita always had the last word. But for a woman to defend herself and give tit for tat, that simply defied belief.
“It’s the end of the world,” she cried. “Give a dog too much rope and he’ll lick your lips and then sit on top of your head. Men should be men and women should be women. Otherwise, where are we going to end up? Or else men will be the ones wearing the veil and women the ones leaving the house to support them. You’re the one who’s responsible for this, Ghita. It was your feet that led you to that good family’s house and you are the one who lost your mind when you laid eyes on that young girl. You are the one who took disaster by the hand and brought it right to the threshold of your home, telling it: Come in! I’ll never do it again. Next time, if anyone wants to get married, let them arrange it themselves. Am I the one who’s going to cuddle the bride in bed? If you want to catch a fish you need to get your trousers wet.”
Outburst after outburst, Ghita put her cards on the table, laying bare the reasons behind her disaffection with her daughter-in-law. The fact that this new recruit wasn’t much of a cook took a backseat to other considerations. The fact she comported herself like a tigress when brawling with her husband also faded into the background. What Ghita really couldn’t get over was that her informants had failed right from the start. They hadn’t warned her that her future daughter-in-law had a serious flaw: that someone had already once asked for her hand and this previous engagement had been broken, though no one knew what the reasons had been or who had broken it off. A dark cloud thus hung over the past of the one Ghita had thought to be unblemished from the moment she’d left her mother’s womb.
The feeling that she’d been cheated deepened every time she paid a visit to Lalla Zineb’s family. Her three sisters, two of whom were of marriageable age, she quickly took a disliking to because (they too!) would run off and shut themselves away with their older sister so that they could no doubt spout malicious gossip behind Ghita’s back. To boot, those flappers would wear skin-tight dresses, giggle in the presence of men, and even took to sitting like men, with their legs crossed, thereby revealing a not inconsiderable part of their intimate anatomy. It was then their father’s turn to be subjected to criticism. Barely a presence, his voice inaudible, he kept a low profile. No wonder he hadn’t been able to father a single son. A father of such uncertain virility couldn’t be relied upon to keep his daughters in check. God knows what the poor devil had turned a blind eye to. Ghita’s verdict: The man was henpecked.
Happily, an event came to pass that allowed the tension to subside. The signs were all there. My sister-in-law was pregnant.
I hadn’t expected this turn of events would lead me to betray my mother and forge a rapprochement with the accused. Ghita’s defamatory campaign hadn’t swayed me. The fact was I liked Lalla Zineb and if I understood her correctly, she didn’t dislike me. I would often boldly go into her room, and she made me feel welcome. I would stay there and watch her as she admired herself in the mirrors of her wardrobe. She wasn’t embarrassed to change in front of me. What did I admire most about her: her well-rounded shoulders, her firm, perky breasts, or was it rather her lacy, see-through nightgowns, her dressing robes decorated with exotic motifs? I think I can safely say — though you are not obliged to believe me — that my infatuation was purely aesthetic. The feelings I had were not unlike those I experienced when I listened to Mr. Benaïssa play his flute for the first time.
During the course of my visits, I was able to witness a ritual that my sister-in-law carried out with zeal, consenting to my presence with an air of carefree amusement. Thanks to her, I discovered that applying makeup was an intricate and refined art, whereas Ghita had only ever shown me the messy side of it. Lalla Zineb was “painting.” Instead of “blinding” herself with the traditional stick of kohl, she used a little brush and mascara. With a few strokes, she curved her lashes and curled them up, accentuating them and giving them volume. Consigning that garish carmine to the museum of antiquities, she coated her lips with a glossy pink lipstick. The fragrant moisturizer she applied to her cheeks was kept in a round blue pot, though I refuse to mention the brand name. What else? Oh yes, the straightening brush she used on her hair, which was cut short in the fashion of the day, had a silver-plated handle and back, replacing the traditional sheep-horn comb, which under other skies was insidiously called a head-lice comb. But the most unexpected and fascinating part of her toilette was when she used little tweezers and started plucking her eyebrows. The gracefulness she displayed put me on cloud nine as I watched two waxing crescent moons, as the poet would say.