My wife was shining on Instagram. Diara was shining in my life
I'm a married man. Married, yes, but alone. Yes, alone, in my own house.
Ironic, isn't it?
My wife, she's here. Physically at least. Always dressed, fresh nails of the day, well screwed wig and hand grafted phone like a sixth finger.
She spends her days talking in WhatsApp groups with flowery names: « Ladies classes of Sacred Heart« , « Queens Forever« , « Chic women« .
The only tasks she now controls are changing Snapchat filter and scrolling through statutes.
Next to her, there's « SHE » Hey! The good one. The one we call affectionately « Diarra », without ever knowing if that's his real name.
It comes from a small village my wife cannot even put the area on a map.
Arrive here with a sealed plastic suitcase, a washed pagne and dreams that she has stored at the bottom of her pockets. Housed, fed, corveable. These are the terms of his contract.
Diarra Get up first. Even before the muezzin. She's making me breakfast, coffee, spreads.
She irons my shirts with military precision, organizes my closets like a Swedish librarian and gives me my socks as a diplomatic assistant.
All this while my wife « test a new Korean face cream » 25,000 francs a pot.
My wife?
She doesn't know what drawer I'm putting in. She doesn't know if I prefer black coffee or milk. She doesn't know anything... except post selfies.
But Diarra, she, She knows..
She knows I don't like pepper too much. That I prefer my shirts ironed without central fold. That I have a pain in my back and that I sleep better to the left of the bed.
Diarra, she knows, because she observation, Listen, busy. She lives with us, but in the shadows.
It exists to serve, never to be seen. And yet I see her. More and more.
And then there's that word. This little word Sweet, almost annoyed, but that turns my soul every time she pronounces it : « Onton. »
She always calls like that, with a delicate voice, slid with tenderness between two tasks, as if she put that word in a box.
Not one « Sir », not a « Boss » Dry and hierarchical, no. CONTON, like a note of music that caress instead of slamming.
Every time she says it, it's like an invisible bandage on my frustrations, my abandoned human wounds, my chewed silences.
It's a voice stroke. A simple attention, but so rare in this useless house of fuzz.
And I am surprised to wait for that word. Watching his voice. Feeling to exist through an invented name, but sincere.
And then there was the vacarm of Diarra's name, repeated, barked, launched at all ends of the field, as an integrated domestic alarm.
« Diarra! Diarra! Diiiaaraa! »...
To believe that this name covered the walls of the house, which it resonated even in my dreams. From morning to evening, my wife called him unrelentingly, for everything and anything: a forgotten handkerchief, a remote control not found, a lemon badly pressed.
The poor woman spent her days running, breathless, always in motion, with this hunted beast look, never really where she was wanted, always a little too slow in the eyes of the couch empress.
And woe to her if she tarried, or worse, if she dropped a drink! That was the storm. The insults, the threats, the dramatic sighs: « I'll deduct that from your pay! You think it's free?! » launched my wife, without even raising her eyes on her phone.
The glass of 1000 francs was suddenly worth 5000 CFA francs. — a fortune when we know that Diarra sent his meagre salary to his mother there, to the village every month.
What about me? I was trying to protest, to reason. Each attempt ended in a dispute. « You're taking his side now? » Did she launch me, with that theatrical tone of telenovela at the end of the contract.
So I took the habit, in hiding, of giving Diarra a little complement. A note folded in half, slipped like an excuse in his callous hand. It wasn't much, but it was all I could do without triggering a nuclear war in the living room.
This unjust, inhuman, permanent behavior has severely cracked our couple. I couldn't stand the idea that the woman I married treated another woman like an object, or worse, like a nuisance.
I lost all admiration for her on the day she dared to treat Diarra as a wild girl used to living in a box in the bush, for a chipped plate. That day, I realized that our love had broken deeper than that plate
At first, it was just gratitude to Diarra.
Then admiration for his calmness, kindness, permanent smile and perseverance.
Now... I'm not sure anymore.
How I feel when she addresses this embarrassed little smile after I stretch my dish, or when she frowns my eyebrows to adjust my neck — It's no longer just comfort.
It's a new tenderness. A silent complicity I never had with my own wife.
And my wife in all this?
She sometimes complains that I'm not talking anymore, that I'm distant.
Remote? I'm down the hall, ma'am.
But between us, there is an ocean of silence, deep and icy. And every time I tried to talk, to say « you are absent », she fell in love: argument, screaming, accusations.
And then there's this other, more sneaky thing. This creeping plague that infested our couple without me seeing it come: WhatsApp groups. These digital arenas where women spend hours dissecting their husbands like lab frogs.
My wife was hanging out there daily, absorbed in endless discussions with her « sisters weapons » Keyboard.
Talking about other people's marital problems, they eventually invented themselves, up to forming a real army of aigry women, convinced of the need to avenge menEven if they hadn't done anything.
It's like a mental infection. A collective brainwash based on status « Girl Power » and pseudo-coach maxims of life.
My wife, honestly, had no real problem with me at first. But by reading, commenting, sharing the misfortunes of others, she ended up make it in our own home.
And I became the default culprit. The husband's too much. The enemy that had to be re-educated, rearranged, ignored.
I am convinced that It was in these digital salons that our link broke, with pre-made arguments and poisonous advice distributed by unknowns to filtered avatars.
So I gave up. Like you give up a piece of furniture that grins too much. We keep it for the decor. We don't sit on it anymore.
There you go. One morning, I realized I was no longer married to my wife. I was married to her phone, her girlfriends, her favorite hair salon..
And I was in love with a good one.
Oh, I can hear you from here. « Scandal! »
But you know what's really scandalous? It's not that a middle-class man falls in love with his maid.
What is scandalous is that a girl comes here to survive, serves tirelessly day and night, takes care of everything, and that in exchange, she is placed on a thin mattress in a corner of the kitchen like a broom with emotions.
What's outrageous is that nobody says thank you. No one cares about his life, his fatigue, his rules, his dreams.
It is « THE GOOD ». A status, not a person.
And then, one day, we separated.
My wife left. Not a scream. Not a scene. Just a poorly closed Louis Vitton bag, a vanilla scent and a last selfie posted with a broken heart.
And Diarra stayed.
She keeps making coffee, still not too sweet. She sometimes sits near me in silence. And I think thatOne day, we'll have to say thank you. Really. To it, and to all the Diarras that we use as appliances with hearts.
Because by mistreating the invisible, they are the ones who eventually illuminate the homes.
Don't be deceived: this story is not an ode to the submissive woman or the corveable companion at thank you. I didn't fall in love with a woman who serves me coffee, but with a woman. Present, Careful, Human.
My reproach for my wife was never her refusal to iron my shirts or cook. I don't want a slave in my house.
What I regret is his absence, its confinement in a virtual world, his obsession with appearance and frivolities, while real life, ours, unfolded without it.
And more than anything, it's his ordinaryized cruelty To another woman, Diarra, who disgusted me. Because we judge a person how she treats those who can bring nothing to her.
What I found in Diarra is not a docile servant. It's a soul anchored in reality, a constant presence, a look that seea heart that hears.
In this home, the fracture did not come from the division of labour, but from Indifference to tenderness, of arrogance imposed on fragility.
What I liked is not the service, it's human heat.
And this is precisely what is lacking in so many modern homes, stifled by appearance, digital, selfishness.
