I began crying. Furious, he angrily pulled at my sheet again and threw it away.
“Screw you,” he said and stormed out the door.
Drawn by the commotion, his mother entered the room and tried to console me.
“What’s going on in here, what’s all the screaming about?” she asked plaintively. She picked up the sheet on the floor and handed it to me.
“He kicked me, out of the blue,” I said between my tears.
“Oh, honey, I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you,” She began in her soft-spoken way. “You should try to understand, Wafa, he was just really eager to show you around.” She sat on the bed and reached for my hand.
She and Jack had welcomed me and made me feel at home immediately, happy to meet their eldest son’s exotic girlfriend. I looked at her beautiful face, smelling the scent of patchouli that accompanied her, her silver-gray hair pulled back in a graceful French bun, her gray-blue eyes filled with concern, and I hoped, for a minute, she would understand the extent of my consternation.
“But… but he hit me because I wouldn’t get out of bed at his command,” I protested.
“I’m so sorry, honey. That’s not right, I know. But, you see, he was so disappointed. He’d put so much effort planning your day together.”
From her expression, I could tell she would take his side no matter what I said. Silent tears kept flowing down my cheeks. I pulled my hand out of hers.
17
Wretched Marriage
After I left Houston, I spent a good part of my three summer months in Morocco, working as an interpreter for a team of American agricultural consultants from California. The Americans were overseeing the implementation of the latest irrigation techniques for the king’s large farms in the region of Oujda in the northeast of Morocco. I was in desperate need for money for my big move to New York City. With my summer earnings and small gifts from family and friends, I gathered close to three thousand dollars.
On August 27, 1983, I arrived in New York, alone, and stayed at a friend’s while looking for an apartment in the vicinity of New York University for Robbie and me. Incredibly, I was dead set on starting my new life with him, despite everything. Manhattan was still unfamiliar and I wanted to stay within walking distance of my classes in Washington Square. I eventually settled on a charming apartment on Ninth Street and University Place.
A fifth-floor walkup in an old brownstone, the small flat faced south and got plenty of sunlight, as well as stifling heat in the summer, from a built-in skylight window in the living room. The kitchen was the size of a closet with worn-out appliances, the bathroom was antiquated, and the bedroom could barely hold a full-size bed and an armoire, but it was affordable. My NYU stipend was enough to pay the rent. I had already spent nearly all the cash from Morocco on the down payment, first month’s rent, a new bed, utilities and only the most basic household necessities.
The moving-in day, the bed’s delivery, and Robbie’s arrival all were scheduled for September 3rd. He had rented a U-Haul truck, packed it with his college furniture, and driven from Houston with his mother. She was flying from JFK Airport to the United Arab Emirates to join her husband in their next assignment in the Persian Gulf.
Back in May, Robbie had admitted that he was terrified by the big city; I had no idea how much. He had not finished his paper, and his eight-month stay in Texas had not gotten him any closer to his graduation goal. And since he had wasted most of his time getting high—neither studying nor working—his father had refused to give him one more cent. He was meeting me in New York flat broke.
In his father’s defense, I must add that a few years earlier, he had offered him a generous sum of money with the choice of starting a business or pursuing a college degree, all expenses paid. Robbie had elected to attend college and now that it was over and he had failed to graduate, his father felt it was no longer his concern. Unbeknownst to me, then, as his parents were leaving the country for their overseas job, I was willingly inheriting their biggest family problem.
I started school mid-September and naturally relied on Robbie to look for a job to feed us. I paid the rent and believed it was only fair for him to contribute his share, especially since I was a full time student. My expectation fell short. After he arrived in New York, and for the following two weeks, Robbie’s first order of business was to paint the apartment, starting with the bedroom. I would come home and find him still slogging on the little room’s walls. He wanted it to be perfect. After much arguing, we decided not to paint the rest of the apartment. Our small, joint bank account, opened with my last three hundred dollars, was fast vanishing. I’d always been freakishly insecure about money, but this was worse than I had bargained for. Needless to say, we were in a constant tug of war.
“Why don’t you look for a part-time job, too?” Robbie asked me one evening. He was lying across the full length of his old, trailer-days sofa, watching TV, waiting for dinner.
“I already pay the rent, don’t I?” I retorted. “Besides, I am a foreign student, and it’s not exactly easy to find work illegally.”
I glanced at him from the small kitchen, an eye on the bubbling pasta sauce.
“As it is, I’m already concerned about our housing. I’m afraid one of these days someone is going to ask me to produce proof of our ‘marriage,’ and then we’ll be in even more trouble.”
NYU had allowed me to lease one of their rent-subsidized apartments on the assumption that I was a “married” graduate student who could not be accommodated in a regular dorm setting. I had completed the official housing application with that stipulation.
“Well, then, perhaps we should get married.”
He’d said it calmly, with a weird detachment, puffed on his menthol cigarette, and grinned, waiting for my answer.
“What on earth are you talking about? We can’t even afford a burger and a movie. How can we get married now?”
The thought was both scary and exhilarating, and it triggered a fretful throbbing in my ribcage.
“Why not? It’d just be a formality—we’ll get a real ceremony later when things are better.”
He stood up and walked toward me.
“That would solve a few problems, wouldn’t it?”
He leaned his tall frame over my back and held me from behind, his cheek touching mine.
“Do you remember the first time we met, at Cynthia’s?” he whispered.
“I sure do.”
I smiled at the titillating memory.
“Well, that same night, when I got home, I called a friend and told him I had just met the woman I was going to marry.”
He kissed my neck, holding me tighter against him.
“You did? Really?” I turned around and looked up at his exquisite features.
“Okay then, let’s do it,” I murmured.
And so it was that, on October 3, 1983, on a crisp fall morning, without pomp or ceremony, Robbie and I were married in New York City. We had only one witness, Carlos, a Colombian friend of Robbie’s, whom, for no particular reason other than he used to get high with him, I didn’t like very much. Not a single member of our families was present, no invitations were sent, no honeymoon trip booked, no party planned. No one came, no one was invited, no one was even told until after the fact. They were all too far away, we allowed by way of justification, and we somehow knew this was no celebration.
In the impersonal and bland-looking City Clerk’s office, downtown, we stood side by side, at once uneasy and solemn, hearing, without listening to, the man who was marrying us. We had bought a pair of unadorned, identical gold rings for fifty dollars each from a store on West 47th Street, and we were both dressed in plain two-piece suits. The overwhelming impression I retain from that day is still present in my memory: I couldn’t repress an undeniable sense of qualm and foreboding.
That same morning we had had a fresh argument about his procrastination and persistent unemployment, and, for days, while awaiting the requisite blood tests, my i
ntuition nudged at my conscious mind. I just kept shutting it down. The only souvenir I had from that momentous event was a photograph of the two of us standing in the park outside city hall. We made a very attractive couple, no doubt, but the smiles on our faces were not exactly blissful. Eventually, even that single photograph, which I had put in a frame and displayed in our apartment, was destroyed during one of our dreadful confrontations.
Fully six weeks after his mother dropped him off at my doorstep, Robbie found his first job at Novo Arts, a hip art gallery located merely two blocks away. He was hired by Marlaina and Linda Deppe, the two attractive owners, to assist with anything and everything. He made about a hundred and ten dollars a week, and he spent almost a third of that on weed.
In December, both my sister and mother came to visit us in New York. Nezha stayed at a friend’s nearby, and Mom moved in with us. Life in Morocco had become unbearable for her. She had broken up with Berto, the love of her life, and she was deeply alienated from her society. She had visited us on a couple of occasions in Florida and had fallen in love with America and the American Dream. I believe she had already, albeit tacitly, made up her mind that this was the home she had always longed for. In many ways, the trip to New York signified a point of no return for her. She never explicitly announced her decision to stay; she just did.
There was no room to accommodate her comfortably or with any degree of privacy. We bought a full-size inflatable bed that we dressed every night in the middle of the living room, and for a few weeks we alternated sleeping in the small bedroom and living room with her. The question of affording her an independent living in America became an urgent matter for us all.
Strolling in the West Village one mild winter weekend, my sister and I noticed a new restaurant on Bleecker Street called “Marrakesh West.” Intrigued, we climbed up the few stairs to the entrance and found the owners in the midst of renovation for the big opening. We were greeted by two welcoming young Israelis, whose mother, born and raised in Morocco, had instilled a particular fondness for Moroccan cuisine and culture. We became fast friends, and they soon offered a full-time waiter’s job to Robbie.
Until he lost his gallery job four months after he started, his ego had remained resistant to the idea of waiting on tables. But after enough of my nagging, Robbie reluctantly agreed to become a waiter in the restaurant on Bleecker. It must have felt like the end of a dream to him. Time was running out fast on the completion of his paper, and the goal of graduating college was ever more distant.
I honestly had no desire to see him give up on his graduation and his pursuit of a fulfilling career, and I would have accepted any sacrifice had I seen even a glimmer of desire and intent in his eyes. Only, when he was not waiting on tables, he was vegetating in front of TV for hours on end, making no contribution to our domestic chores, least of all his research paper. His eyes were bloodshot and empty, filled only with the haze of weed.
Exactly two weeks after Robbie became a waiter, I, too, started waitressing on weekends. Over the summer, I worked even harder, four to five dinner shifts at the Marrakesh West and a few lunch shifts at a new midtown restaurant and catering business called Between-the-Bread. After only three months, Robbie quit on bad terms with our Israeli employers and briefly worked at two other places before being hired as a bartender and catering captain at Between-the-Bread. He stayed employed there for the next six-and-a-half years.
My mother, who was a fabulous cook, also got her first job in America at the Marrakesh West. At home, she was well known, among family and friends, for her delicious Moroccan dishes. Very quickly, and to the great delight of the Marrakech West’s owners, she introduced some of her best specialties to the restaurant’s patrons. She and Rina, the matriarch and chef, got along very well, but it was my mother’s talent that infused the restaurant’s menu with its subtle flavors and touch of sophistication. Soon, her famous bastella—a filo pie stuffed with chicken meat, eggs, almonds and exotic spices—her delicate tajins, and her variations on the popular Moroccan couscous became main staples. Shortly after that, my mother began dreaming of her own business. Her cuisine was highly appreciated, and she began catering small functions out of our tiny kitchen on Ninth Street.
The next step was to find her an apartment of her own. Her first home was on the second floor of a two-family house in Long Island City, on the other side of the East River. A dull and nondescript neighborhood, the area was predominantly inhabited by Greeks and, increasingly, Middle-Easterners. Her apartment had a good-size kitchen and two small bedrooms, one of them overlooking the overhung subway track. Every few minutes throughout the day and night, the N train sent the house shaking and rumbling. But it was spotless, and the Greek landlady, who lived below, was friendly and helpful to Mom. From there, she was able to make a living and even plan for her own restaurant.
After she settled in Queens, and because our landlord had fulfilled his contract with NYU, Robbie and I were forced to move out. We rented a renovated two-bedroom on Bank Street, in the West Village, that was even smaller than the one we had just left. The new apartment was so tiny; we could barely fit in a queen-size bed in the master bedroom and a desk and single bed in the second room. The kitchen opened onto a minuscule living room fitted with only a single window facing a wall. Our dining room table had to be folded, when not in use, to allow us to use the couch and chair.
I completed my first year at NYU with straight A’s and was extended another full fellowship and stipend for the following year. Despite our easing financial situation, Robbie and I were still teetering between heaven and hell. But never, no matter how bad the abuse and pain could I ever imagine separating from him. To this day, I cannot account for my obstinate attachment to him.
“I just can’t imagine life without him,” I would pitiably repeat when my mother questioned me after every pathetic episode.
What sustained me, I imagine, were those rare moments of absolute bliss when we lost ourselves in each other’s arms with aching passion. In our times of grace, there was a sort of indescribable elation in the way our very souls seemed to dissolve into one another, interrupted only by our devastating “descents into hell,” as Robbie put it in one of his many notes to me. Like me, he was clearly torn and bemused by the clashing emotions that made up our reality.
My darling,
The events of yesterday have had as shattering an effect upon me as with you. I am so sorry to have hurt you, both with the offal of my mouth and with my brutally suffocating hands.
Throughout the night I have been perplexed as to why our blissful rapport of the last weeks was so suddenly and ferociously wrestled from us. Perhaps the depths of our disparaging violence is measured precisely by the altitude of our elation. The more we cling together like desperate souls in our intimate duo-solitude, the more sudden and pronounced the slightest fall from grace. A small fall from such heights is like a plummeting descent into hell. To have the cloak of your ever so vivificating love snatched, for even a brief second, from around me is like being snatched from the womb and being plunged into the chill of the darkest wasteland to be left unto death.
I know there shall be again times of the utmost satisfaction between us, times of such heightened, blissful security; and again times of shattering descent. But how protect ourselves from the ravages of bleak alienation if not by mutual effort to reassure, forgive and warm again the heart that will again carry aloft our fragile spirits.
I have no illusion about this: with you, and only you, have I attained and enjoyed grace and with you have I vowed unto death to strain ever again toward the sublime, peaceful excellence of genuine marriage.
All my love, darling—Robbie”
Mixed with his apology and regret was the essence of his message, his need to share responsibility in the violence, to minimize the gravity of his physical abuse with the expression of his own injury at my hands. Oh, there were more letters, each growing more pedantic and obtuse in its rationale, each finding comfort and justi
fication for “our” actions. I always struggled to make sense of them to find the reasoning behind the pomposity of their verbiage.
The very complexity of the message implicitly solidified in my mind the intellectual superiority of my lover and reinforced my awe of his intellect. Perhaps I was not really worthy of his love; perhaps I did in fact deserve his “punishment,” as he put it. My deep-seated feeling of doubt and self-loathing at once concealed from my awareness and manifested in the belief that I was just as responsible for his violence, would keep me chained to him for years to come.
Our positions as waiters reached their peak when I landed a position at the fashionable Café des Artistes, on the Upper West Side. But the lure of increased income came at a great cost to my academic accomplishments. I was awarded another fellowship from the US government just as I completed my master’s degree. So I decided to pursue a doctorate. At the Café des Artistes, I was making more money than ever. I was accumulating the more lucrative, highly sought-after dinner-shifts when I submitted my dissertation topic and defended my proposal, but I was getting increasingly tired and side-tracked.
The more hours I took on, the more resentful I became and the more critical I was of Robbie. I often arrived home at two in the morning, after a long fifteen-hour double shift on a Saturday, only to find Robbie lying on the couch watching TV. My feet would be aching, only to be faced with a pile of dirty laundry on Sunday morning before I rushed to my dinner shift. I missed Thanksgiving dinner and New Year’s Eve with my family because the earnings would have been too great to pass up.
However, I made a lot of money, and I secretly saved enough cash to pay a substantial down payment on our first apartment less than two years later. When I received a one-year Guggenheim Foundation Research Award to continue my research on “International Terrorism” and help the director of the program, I was ecstatic. I thought then I would be in a better position to finish my PhD dissertation. For four months I managed the impossible—research at the foundation and waitressing.
THE ROAD FROM MOROCCO Page 16