Abdellah’s ban on female companions

Abdellah’s ban on female companions bars Jo Henniger from accompanying David Henniger when he leaves with Driss’s body for Tafal’aalt. Enforced in the moment of departure, the rule separates Jo from the journey and exposes a contrast between the men’s obligation to go and her exclusion from it; her response reveals that the separation also touches the couple’s shared past.

The Rule and Its Expression

The prohibition is stated without qualification when Jo announces that she is coming too. Abdellah rejects the idea with “Pas de gazelles,” then makes its consequence explicit: no women, which means Jo must stay. He calls her presence an “insufferable complication,” framing her exclusion as a condition of the journey rather than an invitation to negotiate it.

The phrase follows Abdellah’s earlier remark, “A gazelle is a gazelle,” delivered as though it needed no explanation. The evidence links that remark to his insistence on the ban, but does not provide a fuller account of its rationale. What is clear is how the rule operates: Abdellah sets the terms, and Jo is told that she cannot accompany David.

Jo’s Exclusion and Response

Jo tries to make an argument, but the effort quickly fades. She does not want to go after all, and recognizes that rhetoric cannot conceal this from herself. Her response is therefore not simple resistance or relief: she feels a sadistic triumph that David, rather than she, is going, while also accepting that it is right for him to go. She finds the prospect worrying, but does not think it dangerous.

After the prohibition has settled the matter, Jo packs David’s shaving bag and sports bag carefully. She puts in his toiletries, toothbrush, aftershave, razors, vitamin pills, cotton balls, and clothes. The task resembles preparing a child for school, a domestic gesture that accompanies his departure without allowing her to share it.

Consequences at Departure

Jo’s distress turns toward the marriage’s past rather than toward a fear that David will be harmed. For a moment she puts a knuckle in her mouth as tears surge, then understands that they are for their past, which has suddenly disappeared. The ban thus marks more than a practical separation: in Jo’s perception, David’s departure makes a vanished shared history newly palpable.

When Jo comes back outside, David is drinking heavily and staring at the gold outline of the house and its filigree windows. She tells him, “You shouldn’t.” The scene leaves them together at the chalet but divided in their responses to the journey: David is preparing to leave, while Jo has been left behind by Abdellah’s rule and is already mourning what their past has become.