Xala (17 page)

‘El Hadji, tell us what you intend doing? Divorce or not?' the sacristan asked him.

El Hadji looked round slowly at each of them in turn. They waited.

All at once El Hadji rose to his feet. Modu followed him outside.

They had got into the Fiat when Yay Bineta, the Badyen, came out and somehow managed to thrust the tailor's dummy onto El Hadji's lap.

‘Take what you have left,' she said.

The two men said nothing.

Towards them came N'Gone, holding hands with a young man in a tight-fitting shirt, his trousers moulding his thighs. They went into the house.

The car drove off, taking the tailor's dummy with it.

They went to the shop. The shop was under seal: closed because of bankruptcy. On the corner the beggar was chanting as usual. Modu drew up alongside him. The chauffeur explained to El Hadji that the beggar could cure his
xala.
They discussed it. Modu got out of the car and went and knelt in front of the beggar. After a while Modu returned to the car and they drove off.

In a sharp, rising voice the beggar intoned his chant.

Two days later.

The garbage-collection lorry was doing its morning round, stopping in front of each villa. Two policemen were strolling down the street. In his makeshift shop the grocer was selling a loaf of bread to a customer. Behind the brightly coloured bougainvillæa hedges, the garden sprinklers were at work here and there wetting the pavement as well. The servants were collecting the empty dustbins.

At this early morning hour the suburb breathed with the well-being of its peaceful existence.

A maid with a little girl trotting by her side reached the fork in the road. Immediately the child let out a scream of fear and clung to the maid. Then they both screamed. Their sharp cries alerted the neighbourhood. Doors and windows opened and were immediately shut again. The woman and the child overcame their terror and took to their heels, calling for help. Dogs barked and ran away.

The two policemen hurried to the crossing. They stopped short, then reached instinctively for their revolvers and backed slowly away.

‘Inform the station right away. Go on! It's a riot,' ordered the one who seemed to be in charge.

The second policeman obeyed.

The grocer hastily pushed his customer out of the door and shut his shop. The customer replaced his wallet in his pocket and hurried off.

Walking abreast across the entire width of the road came a procession of lame and blind people, lepers, legless cripples, one-legged cripples, men, women, and children, led by the beggar. There was something repulsive about the procession, which gave off a fetid smell of ragged clothes.

The policeman, his hand on his revolver, was pushed up against a hedge. As they filed past him, he shivered with repugnance and disgust.

Outside the ‘Villa Adja Awa Astou' the beggar rang the bell. Then rang again. A pause. The maid opened the door. She drew back startled, nearly falling over onto the steps. Leading the way, the beggar pushed open the door, followed by his retinue. Some struggled crawling on to the verandah. They went into the sitting-room and settled themselves down as if it belonged to them. A legless cripple, his palms and knees covered with black soil from the garden, printed a black trail on the floor like a giant snail. With his strong arms he hoisted himself up into a red velvet armchair, where he sat with a foolish, triumphant grin that revealed his broken teeth and his pendulous lower lip. Another with a maggoty face and a hole where his nose had been, his deformed, scarred body visible through his rags, grabbed a white shirt and putting it on admired himself in a mirror, roaring with laughter at the reflection of his own antics. A woman with twins, emboldened by the others, tore open a cushion on the settee and wrapped one of her babies in the material. On the other cushion she rested a foot with a cloven heel and stunted toes. A hunchback walked warily round the tailor's dummy. He undressed it, placing the crown on his flat, rachitic's head. Very taken with the effect, he cried out joyfully:

‘Look at me!'

A cripple with a degenerate's head and runny eyes stuffed the crockery into a sling bag. Opposite him a one-armed man was using his remaining limb to heap in front of him all the shiny objects he could find.

Entering the sitting-room, Adja Awa Astou and El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye were made speechless by the strange scene.

‘It is me, with my friends,' said the beggar, introducing himself to El Hadji.

The sight of all these bodies kept them rooted to the spot. Adja Awa Astou was like a statue fixed to the ground, incapable of uttering a word. A legless man ran a hand over her calves. The horror sent a shiver of disgust up to the roots of her hair. Nausea spread through her whole body. A woman with a limp suddenly snatched off her headscarf and put it on her own head, provoking general hilarity. In a reflex of self-defence, Adja Awa Astou moved forward, but El Hadji held her back. Struck dumb by such audacity, he himself just looked on without reacting. He stared at the beggar in paralysed astonishment.

‘Say nothing! Nothing at all, if you want to be cured,' admonished the beggar, talking as if he was in the habit of organizing such operations.

A one-legged man chanced upon the food. He hopped victoriously to a chair. He had barely sat down when two other hands eaten up with leprosy were plunged into the plate. The twins' mother begged:

‘Give some to the children.'

They passed her handfuls of food, which she shared out to her children. A legless man sucked a tin of condensed milk, his eyes closed. Next to him a little boy was tying saucepans together. A leper, after suspiciously examining the bottles of mineral water, emptied them of their contents and placed them in a basket.

‘I know a shop where they buy these bottles,' he told his neighbour in a nasal voice.

‘What's in the bottles?' asked the neighbour.

‘Do you know?'

‘I'm a Muslim. I don't drink.'

‘These people are criminals! Alcoholics!' declared the leper with great seriousness.

Near the large, opened fridge, an adolescent who moved along sideways like a pyramid crab grabbed a pot of yoghourt and pulled off the top. First he tasted it with his index finger. Convinced that it was edible, he lay on his back, his right hip sticking out, opened his mouth and poured the yoghourt greedily into it. Then he gestured to another lad to do likewise. The new arrival pulled his leg along as he walked. An infected sore on his shin, covered with a zinc plate held in
place by a piece of string, gave off a smell of rotting flesh. He seized a packet of butter and hurried away from the fridge.

‘Help me! Help me!'

It was the moving ‘trunk', who was determined to get onto the bed. They helped him by throwing him onto it. He disappeared among the bedclothes like a drowning man in the sea. He stuck out his head and decided to try a few somersaults. He bounced up and down, emitting incoherent shouts of joy each time he fell back.

Rama came out of her room in her nightdress. She was accosted by two hideous fellows who eyed her figure with desire and refused to leave her alone. She went to her mother. They looked at one another in puzzlement.

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye protested.

‘They're a lot of brigands.'

‘No, I am taking my payment,' said the leader, who had not moved from his place.

‘What for?'

‘What for? Precisely! Why that
xala
? I want my payment in advance.'

‘You are a lot of thieves! I am going to call the police,' said El Hadji.

His face was a mask of fear. That man reminded him of something but he could not remember what.

At the word ‘police' there was a general scramble. A wind of fear passed over the faces. A fellow with a large albugo spot on his eye stopped stirring his plate in a gesture of fright. He squinted in all directions like a kid goat, looking for a way out.

‘If you want to be normal again, you will obey me. You have nothing left. Nothing at all, except for your
xala.
Do you recognize me? Of course you don't.'

He went and stood in the middle of the room. His words dropping into the silence, he spoke again:

‘Our story goes back a long way. It was shortly before your marriage to that woman there. Don't you remember? I was sure you would not. What I am now is your fault. Do you remember selling a large piece of land at Jeko belonging to our clan? After falsifying the clan names with the complicity of people in high places, you took our land from us. In spite of our protests, our proof of ownership, we lost
our case in the courts. Not satisfied with taking our land you had me thrown into prison. Why?'

The question was left unanswered. Before continuing the beggar backed up to the table. Big drops of sweat formed on his forehead and ran down his neck, following the folds of his skin. He coughed. A loose cough accompanied by a whistling noise. He was about to spit, looked around intently, and swallowed instead. He said nothing for a while, keeping his head lowered, then he looked up.

‘Why? Simply because you had robbed us. Robbed us with all the appearance of legality. Because your father was the chief of the clan and the title deed for the land was in his name. But you, you knew that land did not belong only to your father and your family. When I left prison I went to see you. There was another battle and once again I was well and truly beaten by your powerful friends. People like you live on theft.'

‘And exploit the poor,' thundered another voice.

‘All your past wealth – for you have nothing left – was acquired by cheating. You and your colleagues build on the misfortunes of honest, ordinary people. To give yourselves clean consciences, you found charities, or you give alms at street corners to people reduced to poverty. And when we get too numerous, you call the police...'

‘To get rid of us, as your clear your bowels,' said the fellow with the albugo in his eye, speaking fast, his arm stretched out menacingly.

‘Look! Look! What am I?' asked the mother of the twins, placing herself in front of Adja Awa Astou. Replying to her own question: ‘A woman, you say? No, a reproduction machine. And these babies, what will their days bring them? Look at them!'

With her right hand, she held Adja Awa Astou by the chin.

‘And me? I'll never be a man. Someone like yourself knocked me down with his car. He drove off, leaving me lying there.'

An outburst of blood-curdling laughter broke the moment of calm. The leper stood on the settee and proclaimed in his nasal voice:

‘I am a leper! I am a leper to myself alone. To no one else. But you, you are a disease that is infectious to everyone. The virus of a collective leprosy!'

In despair, Adja Awa Astou unrolled her beads and began praying, supported by Rama. Rama herself was bursting with anger. Against whom? Against her father? Against these wretched people? She who
was always ready with the words ‘revolution' and ‘new social order' felt deep within her breast something like a stone falling heavily into her heart, crushing her. She could not take her eyes off her father. ‘If you want to be cured, you are going to strip yourself naked, completely naked, El Hadji. Naked before us all. And each of us will spit three times on you. You have the key to your cure. Make up your mind. I can tell you now, it was I who caused your
xala
.'

 

 

Nearly two minutes went by in complete silence. El Hadji had listened carefully. He thought of the
seet-katt
who had told him: ‘It is someone close to you.'

The police siren could be heard approaching. A screech of brakes followed by the clatter of feet and strident blows of a whistle broke the silence.

The muffled oriental door-bell rang.

The human wrecks clustered. together, their faces stricken with fear. The mother of the twins, in a single gesture, almost a reflex action, flung one child skilfully on her back and took the other in her arms. The leper took a few paces towards the window and put his hand on the handle. The human trunk on his roller focused on a way out through a forest of twisted legs.

‘What shall we do?' asked one of them, pulling off the clothes he had stolen.

They all asked the same question.

‘We will all be taken to prison.'

‘Don't move,' ordered the beggar. ‘We are El Hadji's guests. He wants to be cured.'

A police officer pushed open the door. Behind him in the doorway could be seen other men in peaked hats. They were holding their noses.

‘Good day, El Hadji,' said the senior officer in French. ‘What is going on here?'

None of the faces told him anything.

‘Nothing, officer,' replied Rama.

‘What do you mean, nothing?'

Rama went up to the policeman.

‘They are father's guests. Once a month father gives alms to the poor.'

The officer was not convinced.

‘We have had phone calls from your neighbours complaining about a riot.'