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scissors for him to cut the umbilical cord, he was so overcome by emotion that he nearly fainted. Once he’d recovered, he’d rushed to the telephone booth in the lobby to announce the news to everyone he knew until he ran out of coins. His mother broke out in ululations and made him cry. His friends and the people he worked with congratulated him. The gallery that represented him sent them a big bouquet of flowers. He danced and sang that evening after he’d left the hospital.
    Their return to the house proved more difficult. Their cleaning lady had quit, and the painter hadn’t had the time to find a new one. Luckily, the painter’s mother-in-law came to lend them a helpinghand. They threw a wonderful party to celebrate their child. The painter’s mother, who lived in Morocco and hadn’t been able to come, had felt left out: “I’ll organize a real party for you when you visit me here,” she’d said in a peremptory manner. The painter had said nothing.
    Then their life suddenly changed. The baby took up all their space, and their couple life took a back seat, but the painter was still very much in love with his wife. After a month, his gallery called and asked him to get back to work. The painter shut himself in his studio and took some time before finding inspiration. The kind of cold hyper-realist drawings he’d worked on before his marriage no longer satisfied him. Whenever he returned in the evening, he would remark on how exhausted his wife looked. He would look after her, make dinner, and console her. Then it was his turn to look after the baby, and he would change him and give him his bottle. He can still remember now how long he would have to wait for the baby to burp before he could settle him down in his crib … He was an attentive father, he learned how to go about it and tried to bring a little joy into the house. However, his wife was depressed. It was textbook, they’d both foreseen it. The painter became even more attentive and tender. Their child made progress day after day, and this made the couple seem stronger. Life had smiled on them and the painter felt as though his work was entering a new phase.

IV
    Paris
1990
I can discharge you any time I feel like it.
—Mrs. Muskat to Liliom
FRITZ LANG , Liliom
    It was a gorgeous hand-embroidered blanket that had been crafted in Fez toward the end of the nineteenth century. It was a little worn and it hadn’t endured the ravages of time. One of the painter’s Moroccan friends, who was knowledgeable when it came to embroidered cloths, had offered it to the couple as their wedding present. It was so beautiful and precious he had wanted to have it framed and hang it as though it were a painting. Before doing that, he’d stretched it out as carefully as possible on a low-lying table that he hadn’t liked at all—neither the wood nor its shape—but which was the sort of typical table one would find in most homes. Gracefully situated in the middle of the living room, it covered up what was an ugly piece of furniture,but had also made the room far more beautiful. The painter had done some research on embroidered cloths crafted in Fez during the previous century and had been surprised to learn that it had once belonged to the family of his maternal grandfather. It had been a part of Lalla Zineb’s trousseau. Lalla Zineb had been the daughter of Moulay Aly, a professor at the University of al-Karaouine. The cloth had become priceless in the painter’s eyes! Not only because it was beautiful and unique, but also because it was a part of his family heritage. Truth be told, it was the only wedding present they’d received that he truly liked. The others had been so unoriginal that he’d quickly forgotten all about them. That wasn’t the case with his wife, who scattered those presents all over their house, especially their bedroom, giving them pride of place: vases, decorative plates, sheets embroidered by little hands, synthetic wool blankets,