Fiction: “A Day in the Life of a Married Man”

Casablanca's medina seen from the Atlantic.

15 MARCH 2022 • By Malika Moustadraf, Alice Guthrie

 

a short story excerpted from:
Blood Feast, the Complete Stories of Malika Moustadraf
Translated by Alice Guthrie
The Feminist Press 2022
ISBN 9781952177897

 

Malika Moustadraf

Translated by Alice Guthrie

Dull, dull, dull. The same thing happens every day, in the same way and at the same time: I go to work, she goes into the kitchen, I come home at lunchtime, she prepares the meal, we eat in silence, we exchange a few words. The weather is stifling, the heat is unbearable, and in winter, the weather is freezing, the cold is unbearable.

Blood Feast has just been published by The Feminist Press in the US.

I try to push her into conversation, any old conversation, just so long as we don’t stay silent. I fail, I try again, I fail, I go back to work, she goes back into her kitchen, washes dishes, wipes down the stove, chats on the phone, runs up a bill that electrocutes me. At night she makes dinner, we eat in silence, we exchange the same few words: the weather is stifling, the heat is unbearable, or in the best case she might add a sentence or two, grumbling about my mother, who visited her, or about my sisters, or…or…

I bury my head in a newspaper. She watches TV, flicking through the channels in obvious irritation. I ignore her. Rawboned fashion models, my God, don’t they eat? The outfits they wear are so weird it’s like they’re from another planet. I sneak a look at my wife. She’s always munching on something or other, chewing away. Thick folds of fat have clumped around her neck and her waist, but her legs are still as skinny as a goose’s. I take in the terrain of her body, the highland peaks, the lowland valleys. In this changing landscape, her backside is still as flat a plain as ever. It all feels so repetitive, I’m pining for the days of our betrothal . . . Uff . . .

I feel this routine choking me, like a poison I’m taking by the spoonful. It’s running through my veins, slowly spreading around my body, paralyzing me … it’s suffocating me, and yet death never comes. She ostentatiously heaves herself to her feet, goes into the bedroom. She calls to me in a voice she’s trying to make sound seductive. I know what she wants. I ignore her. She repeats her call, trying and failing to make her voice soft and tender. I pretend to be searching for something, I don’t know exactly what. She is still calling for me.

Her tone this time is laced with menace …. I surrender my fate to Allah and reluctantly drag my body into the bedroom. I find her spread out on her back like a mangy dolphin. Even the way we do this is dull … no excitement and nothing new, even in bed. The smell of onion and garlic mixed with cinnamon makes me feel like I’m sleeping inside a stew pot, or in a spice store, makes me completely lose any desire I might have felt. I turn my back to her. I can guess the laundry list of Moroccan swear words she must be rattling off inside her head. You try making a woman go hungry sexually! Just try depriving her of her rights in bed—whatever the reason—and suddenly her claws will come out. You’ll become an utterly loathsome person in her eyes, someone who provokes her fury on sight, who talks in a vapid way, with a repugnant mustache and an irritating mother and bitter spinster sisters who’ve made her life hell—she’ll turn you into a monstrous freak devoid of one single commendable feature, and she’ll curse everyone who conspired to “make the match and make the marriage.” A woman might let many things go unpunished, such as your empty bank account or your lack of interest in buying her a birthday present—she’ll even take a smack across the face dealt in a moment of anger—but she will definitely not overlook being denied her rights in bed … Even if you set her up in the most luxurious villa and dressed her in the trendiest styles and gifted her her body weight in gold, all that would count for nothing. She will seek out whatever ways she can to make your life hell, no matter what. The phrase “You’ve never once brightened my day” will become her refrain, repeated night and day in every rhythm and to every tune until you’re obliged to grant her a divorce. And if she isn’t able to get by financially without you and is forced to stay with you for that reason, you can be sure that she’ll cheat on you with the person closest to you, perhaps your driver.

Something else I want to whisper in your ear: women are really masochists by nature. Don’t let your mouth hang open like that. A woman loves an evening beating from time to time, before she goes to sleep, and for you to pull her hair every once in a while—these customs have been ingrained in women since the Stone Age. And when she complains  about  it  to  her  neighbor, don’t  you believe her cries of misery. She’s just doing that to spite her neighbor, as an indirect way of telling her, “My husband hits me, therefore he cares about me.”

The neighbor will purse her lips at this, outraged and indignant, and goad her on to stand up to her husband, informing her that only donkeys are still getting beaten like that in this country, and afterward she’ll go home (the neighbor), and you can be sure she’ll create some problem or other, do whatever it takes to provoke her husband and drive him out of his mind, and she won’t let it go until she gets her evening dose and obtains the indisputable proof she can offer the next day to her neighbor: that she too has a husband who cares about her.

Note: don’t try this prescription with all women. But that’s enough off-limits talk for one day.

 

Malika Moustadraf

Malika Moustadraf

Malika Moustadraf (1969–2006) was a preeminent arabophone writer from Casablanca, Morocco. She died at just thirty-seven, leaving behind a semiautobiographical novel and a collection of short stories. An exacting social critic, Moustadraf was admired for her distinctive and experimental style.

Alice Guthrie

Alice Guthrie Alice Guthrie is an independent translator, editor, and curator specializing in contemporary Arabic writing. Widely published since 2008, her work has often focused on subaltern voices, (winning her the Jules Chametzky Translation Prize 2019). Her bilingual editorial and research is... Read more

Join Our Community

TMR exists thanks to its readers and supporters. By sharing our stories and celebrating cultural pluralism, we aim to counter racism, xenophobia, and exclusion with knowledge, empathy, and artistic expression.

RELATED

Books

History of Ash by Khadija Marouazi—an Excerpt

4 JULY 2025 • By Khadija Marouazi
<em>History of Ash</em> by Khadija Marouazi—an Excerpt
Fiction

“The Social Media Kids”—a short story by Qais Akbar Omar

5 JULY 2024 • By Qais Akbar Omar
“The Social Media Kids”—a short story by Qais Akbar Omar
Fiction

“Frida Kahlo’s Mustache”—flash fiction from Abdullah Nasser

5 JULY 2024 • By Abdullah Nasser
“Frida Kahlo’s Mustache”—flash fiction from Abdullah Nasser
Essays

Happy as an Arab in Paris

1 APRIL 2024 • By Wanis El Kabbaj, Jordan Elgrably
Happy as an Arab in Paris
Book Reviews

Love Across Borders—on Romance, Restrictions and Happy Endings

4 FEBRUARY 2024 • By Lina Mounzer
<em>Love Across Borders</em>—on Romance, Restrictions and Happy Endings
Fiction

A Jaha in the Metaverse—fiction by Fadi Zaghmout

3 DECEMBER 2023 • By Fadi Zaghmout, Rana Asfour
<em>A Jaha in the Metaverse</em>—fiction by Fadi Zaghmout
Amazigh

The Tate Embraces Morocco with The Casablanca Art School

9 OCTOBER 2023 • By Sophie Kazan Makhlouf
The Tate Embraces Morocco with <em>The Casablanca Art School</em>
Book Reviews

Off to War—A Marriage on the Brink

31 JULY 2023 • By Antony Loewenstein
Off to War—A Marriage on the Brink
Fiction

“The Agency”—a story by Natasha Tynes

2 JULY 2023 • By Natasha Tynes
“The Agency”—a story by Natasha Tynes
Fiction

We Saw Paris, Texas—a story by Ola Mustapha

2 JULY 2023 • By Ola Mustapha
We Saw <em>Paris, Texas</em>—a story by Ola Mustapha
Columns

The Man at the Heart of Lamhamid, Morocco

5 MARCH 2023 • By Aomar Boum
The Man at the Heart of Lamhamid, Morocco
Columns

Sudden Journeys: Morocco Encore

9 JANUARY 2023 • By Jenine Abboushi
Sudden Journeys: Morocco Encore
Art

Marrakesh Artist Mo Baala Returns to Galerie 127 with Collage

3 OCTOBER 2022 • By El Habib Louai
Marrakesh Artist Mo Baala Returns to Galerie 127 with Collage
Art & Photography

Two Ways to See Morocco from Across the Mediterranean

26 SEPTEMBER 2022 • By Nora Ounnas Leroy
Two Ways to See Morocco from Across the Mediterranean
Fiction

Fiction: “A Day in the Life of a Married Man”

15 MARCH 2022 • By Malika Moustadraf, Alice Guthrie
Fiction: “A Day in the Life of a Married Man”
Fiction

Flash Fiction: “A Wife’s Diary”

21 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Hanan Fathi
Flash Fiction: “A Wife’s Diary”
Featured excerpt

Fadi Zaghmout’s banned-in-Jordan “Laila”: a TMR Valentine

14 FEBRUARY 2022 • By Fadi Zaghmout, Rana Asfour
Fadi Zaghmout’s banned-in-Jordan “Laila”: a TMR Valentine
Book Reviews

Three North African Novels Dance Between Colonial & Postcolonial Worlds

25 APRIL 2021 • By Rana Asfour
Three North African Novels Dance Between Colonial & Postcolonial Worlds

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

4 × two =

Scroll to Top