Xala (5 page)

‘The
xala
⁵
is nothing to worry about! What one hand has planted Another can pull up. Get up! You have no need to feel ashamed.'

Xala
! El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was aghast. He could not believe what had happened to him. When he had talked about the
xala
to other men he had always treated it as a joke. This morning he was completely shattered. He felt numbed. He could barely realize what had happened. All night he had stayed awake, his body separated from his desire, his nerves disconnected from his nervous centre.

The Badyen went over to the bride.

‘Stop crying now. You have nothing to blame yourself for. It's up to your husband to take the necessary precautions. I am sure you are a virgin.

Holding her cock tight the other woman admonished El Hadji. ‘Pull yourself together, El Hadji! Get up! You must do something! Do something! You must find a cure.'

El Hadji went into the shower. While he was away, Yay Bineta hunted under the pillow for the licence and the keys of the wedding gift car. Having found what she was looking for, she proceeded to call the co-wives all the names she could lay her tongue to.

When El Hadji reappeared he was dressed.

Outside it was day. The courtyard was strewn with empty bottles, broken glasses, overturned tables and chairs. There were flies everywhere.

Modu was waiting for his employer. When he saw him coming he threw away his cigarette. El Hadji's scowling face suggested to him something quite different from the truth – an exhausting night.

Installed in the Mercedes El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye did not know what he should do. He thought of going to see Adja Awa Astou. Twice he rejected that idea. What would he say to Asta? He could not order his thoughts. Which of his wives had planned it? Which of them
had made him impotent? And why? Which of them? Adja Awa Astou? Unthinkable. She who never said anything out of place. It must be his second then, Oumi N‘Doye. The
xala
could easily be her doing. She was very jealous. Ever since he had told her of his marriage
moomé
spent with her had been nights of hell. Yet in his heart of hearts El Hadji rejected that idea. Oumi N'Doye was not so spiteful. His thoughts kept returning to his wives.

Modu drew up in front of the import-export shop that was also his office. His secretary-saleslady, seeing her employer arrive, stopped her work with the Flytox and hurried forward to congratulate him.

‘It was wonderful yesterday. My congratulations.'

‘Thank you, Madame Diouf,' replied El Hadji, taking refuge in the tiny room he called his office.

Madame Diouf resumed her battle against the never-ending invasion of flies, cockroaches and geckos.

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was very depressed. He contemplated the door of his office, without seeing anything of the carpenter's bad handiwork. The noise from the street reached him, interrupting his reflections. The monotonous scraps of a beggar's chanting on the other side of the road got on his nerves. He returned to reality like a drowning man who reaches the surface and finds he can breathe again. To his surprise he found himself already regretting this third marriage. Should he get a divorce this very morning? He put that solution out of his mind. Did he love N'Gone? The question brought no clear answer. It would not upset him to leave her. Yet to drop her after all he had spent seemed intolerable. There was the car. And the villa. And all the other expenses. To repudiate her now would hurt his male pride. Even if he were to reach such a decision he would be incapable of carrying it out. What would people say? That he was not a man.

There had been a time when he had loved (or at least desired) N'Gone. She had attracted him. And now? What would become of him? What was he to do?

Modu sat on his stool, his back against the wall, as he supervised the little boy who was washing the car. His torso bare, the lad was busily
wiping the car with a sponge. Modu was one of his best customers, for his employer was a man of importance. At the corner of the same crowded, busy street, on the right-hand side, the beggar sat cross-legged on his worn-out sheepskin, chanting. Now and again his piercing voice dominated the other noises. Beside him lay a heap of nickel and bronze coins, the gifts of passers-by.

Modu enjoyed the beggar's song. The chant rose in a spiral, up and up, then fell back to the ground to accompany the feet of the pedestrians. The beggar was part of the décor like the dirty walls and the ancient lorries delivering goods. He was well-known in the street. The only person who found him irritating was El Hadji, who had had him picked up by the police on several occasions. But he would always come back weeks later to his old place. He seemed attached to it.

Alassane, the chauffeur-domestic employed to drive El Hadji's children to and from school, was late this morning. He too had been celebrating the day before. He had a great weakness for beer. The morning round began as usual at Oumi N'Doye's villa.

As soon as Alassane hooted the children came running out of the house with their satchels.

‘Alassane!' called Oumi N'Doye, still in her dressing-gown, from the doorway.

‘Madam?'

‘Have you seen the master this morning?'

‘No, madam,' replied Alassane, helping the children. into the vehicle.

‘Alassane, when you have dropped the children, come straight back here.'

‘Yes, madam,' he said, driving off.

Oumi N'Doye's offspring were in their places. The back of the mini-bus was divided in two. Each family had its bench. This segregation had not been the work of the parents but a spontaneous decision on the part of the children themselves.

In his office El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was raging against the beggar. That vagabond! He had asked his secretary to telephone the President of the ‘Group'. The wait seemed interminable. He ached between the shoulders. The telephone rang. He grabbed the receiver.

‘Hullo! Yes! Speaking. I need your help, President. Yes, it's very urgent. Very. In my office. In an hour? Fine.'

He replaced the receiver and called out:

‘Come in!'

It was Madame Diouf.

‘Your second wife is on the phone. The other line.'

‘Thank you. I'll take it.'

When his secretary had left the room, he picked up the receiver again.

‘It's me. What is it Oumi? I had a lot to do this morning. I have my work to do. What? Come round to your place'. Now? I can't. What? Money? You've had enough already!'

El Hadji held the receiver away from his ear. At the other end Oumi N'Doye stormed:

‘I'm not Adja Awa. After all you spent on this wedding, you can at least think of your children. I'm sending Alassane round.'

‘A waste of time,' shouted El Hadji. ‘I'll call this afternoon. Yes, I promise. Yes, yes!'

El Hadji nervously replaced the receiver and took out his handkerchief to wipe his damp face. Oumi N'Doye exasperated him. The woman was a spendthrift. Only the day before yesterday he had given her plenty of money. What had she done with it? His suspicions returned to her. Was she responsible for his
xala
? Why had she phoned him at the shop?

There was another knock at the door.

‘Come in!'

It was the President, wearing a big smile.

‘I thought you must be exhausted! So the “stuff” worked then?' he asked, settling himself comfortably into a worn-out easy-chair bought at a sale.

‘It's not that,' said El Hadji, coming from behind the table. ‘I have a problem. And you're the only person I can trust. I have the xala.'

The President started and looked up at El Hadji, who was standing over him.

‘I'll be frank. I can't manage an erection with the girl. Yet when I left the shower I was stiff. Then when I got to her, nothing. Nothing at all.'

The President sat with his mouth open, unable to utter a sound.

The beggar's chant, almost as if it were inside the room, rose an octave.

‘This morning the Badyen advised me to see a marabout.'

‘You took no precautions?'

‘What precautions? I've never believed in all that nonsense,' said El Hadji. The tone of his voice had changed, became agitated, as if broken. ‘The Badyen wanted me to sit on a mortar.'

‘When last did you make love?'

‘The day before yesterday with my second wife.'

‘Do you suspect anyone? Either of your wives?'

‘Which one?' El Hadji wondered, walking over to the window and shutting it.

‘These beggars should all be locked up for good!'

‘Adja Awa Astou, for example?'

El Hadji turned round to face him. His face was expressionless, only his eyes moved.

‘Adja Awa Astou?' he mused aloud. He could not make up his mind. He could not say for sure that she was responsible for his condition,

‘No,'he confessed. ‘Our sexual relations are very infrequent but she never complains.'

‘The second then?' .

Frowning, El Hadji pondered the possibility.

‘Why would Oumi N'Doye do this to me? I spoil her more than the
awa
.'

‘All the more reason for her to make you impotent. As long as she. was the favourite she accepted polygamy and the rivalry. But now she has lost the privileges of being the youngest. She is not the first woman to behave like this and give her man the
xala
.'

El Hadji was impressed by the President's logic.

‘You mean it is Oumi N'Doye?'

‘No! No! I'm not accusing your second wife at all. But I do know that they are all capable of it.'

‘I am a Muslim. I have the right to four wives. I have never deceived either of them on this point.'

The President realized his colleague was talking to himself.

‘The thing to do is to go and see a marabout.'

‘That is why I asked you to come round,' said El Hadji eagerly.

‘I do know a marabout. But he is very expensive.'

‘His price will be mine.'

‘Let's go then.'

In the street the President said a few words to his chauffeur – a fat man with eyes reddened by chronic conjunctivitis who shook his head continuously – then took his place beside El Hadji in Modu's Mercedes.