My Husband

by Maud Ventura

My husband has no name; he is my husband, he belongs to me.

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For years my husband has called me “sweetheart” while I yearn to be a femme fatale.

Such an important scene requires the nicest decor. And so I designed the space with care: a carved mirror that cost a fortune, a beautiful ceramic bowl for our keys, our framed family photos one above the other. It’s the first room my husband encounters upon his arrival, so naturally I’ve paid special attention to it. Otherwise, I will have only myself to blame if my husband stops wanting to come home one day.

Louise looks sublime in her long black dress, and I can’t stop myself from commenting that the color of the dress and her haircut suit her well. I’m mad at myself as soon as the words come out of my mouth. It’s a habit I’ve been trying to correct for years: I can’t help complimenting a necklace, an outfit, a lipstick, or a perfume I like. I need to settle for discreetly finding out where they come from and buying them later instead.

What the...

We are clinking our champagne glasses when my husband says to Nicolas and Louise (in a complicit tone): “Welcome to real life!” I don’t know how to interpret this. What does my husband mean? What exactly is real life? We discuss their new status as young forty-something parents, diapers, bottles. Holding his champagne glass, my husband talks about the period when our son wasn’t yet sleeping through the night and was crying for hours on end, keeping us awake and feeling powerless. He reassures Nicolas, reminding him that children grow up, that the lack of sleep, the tears, the screams don’t last forever. Is that what my husband means to say when he announces so solemnly to his friends that they are entering “real life”? Does he mean an unexciting and overly restrictive existence? Does “real life” for him amount to abandoning his dreams and renouncing his freedom?

My husband had the wonderful idea to get sick during our honeymoon. “How could he do this to me?” I would constantly ask myself whenever I saw his pale face.

I wish I could observe them once the guests leave. I’d like to see how they behave once they’re finally alone. I wish I could watch their relationship from day to day; I wonder if they still seem so in love when the baby has been crying a lot, when fatigue sets in, when the worries pile up, or when one of them falls ill.

Oh?

I’ve barely dried my two crystalline tears when I hear my husband’s slow breathing. How can he fall asleep so easily after what he’s done to me?

I spent the night ruminating on all the fruits I could think of. I arrived at the following conclusion: I would have liked to be a peach, a blackberry, or a cherry. I hate being a clementine, but I also wouldn’t have appreciated being a pear, a banana, or a grape.

As soon as it goes into retrograde, as it is now, everything gets complicated: I struggle to communicate, I start questioning everything, I’m highly emotional. I hate Wednesdays and I hate Mercury.

I’m not stupid. I chose a ringtone that’s available on nearly every phone, two very simple notes (a D and a B). No one thinks anything of it, but I know immediately that those are the notes associated with a single contact in my phone: my husband. This trick helps me to avoid a lot of disappointment—hoping it’s him, only to find that it’s just a friend or family member.

Is my husband canceling our lunch? Does he no longer need the folder? Did I get dressed and made-up for nothing? Is he telling me that he’s not coming home tonight, that he’s not coming home at all, that he’s leaving me?

When I arrive, my husband isn’t there. I’m early, it’s not 1:00 yet. But my first thought is that he’s not coming. He’s left me for good now that he’s realized I’m a cold mother and an overly demanding wife.

It is exactly 1:00. I notice my husband’s silhouette approaching in the distance. I’m not wearing my glasses (he prefers me without them),

“I’ve been thinking about what you said last night, about the clementine. I found it a bit harsh! I for one think I’m more of a blackberry, or a cherry.” “You’re still hung up on that?” he responds, laughing. He’s laughing it off to shut down the conversation. My husband pauses and takes another sip of wine (is this his new way of changing the subject?). I’ve lost this battle.

On the way home, I cry. I cry about the clementine.

If I had to explain to a passerby why I’m crying, what could I possibly tell them?

I do my best, but most of the time I’m too busy being in love to be a good mother.

“That’s Clémence, my wife.”

That’s why I never feel guilty for being unfaithful: How could I, when I do it out of love for my husband? Plus, I know how to set limits: I’ve never cheated on my husband on any day but Thursday. It’s not the color of betrayal for nothing.

When my husband finally appears, I am happy to see him, even happier than normal. I never miss him so much as when I spend time with another man. My infidelity has the inverse effect of what I intend: I return even more in love with him.

It’s the last thing I’ll do out of love for him today, on this day that I’ve consecrated entirely to our relationship: pretend to be asleep so that he doesn’t see me with no makeup, in pajamas, my hair undone (he’s made it clear that he doesn’t like when I neglect my appearance).

When my husband doesn’t take my hand, when he turns me into a clementine, when he doesn’t ask me about my day, when he closes the shutters and draws the curtains before going to bed, when he interrupts me, when he forgets the name of a coworker I tell him about often, when he doesn’t seem particularly eager to see me again, when he lets go of my hand in the street, when he doesn’t answer one of my calls, when I catch him with his eyes open during a kiss: those moments set my marriage to a sad soundtrack. Each moment adds a bitter taste of solitude, waiting, and abandonment to our fifteen years of love. And one moment can effortlessly cloud all of our years.

My little wife writes it all down. My darling. She gets herself so worked up.

But to be honest, I didn’t think she would get so upset over a clementine.

But like I do every time, I made love to her that very night. I do it systematically whenever she sleeps with another man.

The secret to keeping the scales of power tipped to my advantage is to switch up the intensity: if every week were like this one, she would be exhausted and numb to everything.

No other woman will ever love me like she does. She’s Ariane. She’s my wife.