Xala (10 page)

‘Have you been with your other wives... to try?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Nothing,' she echoed. She frowned, catching the cock woman's eye.

A long pause.

The Badyen's fertile mind was busy: ‘If the wives are not complaining it's because they have caused this
xala.
They aren't just jealous, they're a real danger to my N'Gone.'

An idea began to take shape in the pauses of her inner monologue. Her long experience made her inclined to doubt a man's word. ‘Is he virile? Is he the father of his children? These days women will do anything for money. They aren't made of rags. How can I find out the truth? The full truth?'

Yay Bineta tactfully changed the subject.

‘I have seen Babacar. You should go and see him. He knows a good
seet-katt
.'

‘We have been to him.'

‘Oh,' she said innocently, feigning surprise. There was a glint of malice in her eyes.

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was sure old Babacar must have told his wife and his sister about their visit to the
seet-katt.
Why did the woman harry him like this? ‘It is someone close to you,' he repeated to himself. ‘Could it be her?' That woman went too far. Was she out to run his life? Would he have to tell her all its intimate details?

‘You must do something quickly, before it is too late. We are looking forward to our
moomé
.'

El Hadji understood the inference but did not pick up the threat it contained.

‘You must not forget or neglect us,' the Badyen went on. ‘A young wife needs her husband. Love is fed on the other's presence.'

The two women got to their feet. El Hadji told Modu to drive them home.

‘You will come and see us this evening? Just a courtesy visit. Six days is a long time to wait.'

‘Yes,' he promised, as Modu put the car into gear.

Why had she come to remind him of N‘Gone's
moomé
? Wasn't he her husband? ‘Do something before it is too late.' What did she mean? And that threatening tone of voice! The woman revolted him.

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye's business was feeling the effects of his state. He had not replenished his stock since the day after his wedding. (It is perhaps worth pointing out that all these men who had given themselves the pompous title of ‘businessmen' were nothing more than middlemen, a new kind of salesman. The old trading firms of the colonial period, adapting themselves to the new situation created by African Independence, supplied them with goods on a wholesale or semi-wholesale basis, which they then re-sold.)

The import-export shop which he referred to as his ‘office' was situated in the centre of the commercial district. It was a large warehouse, which he rented from a Lebanese or a Syrian. At the height of his success it was crammed with sacks of rice from Siam, Cambodia, South Carolina and Brazil, and with domestic goods and foodstuffs imported from France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Luxemburg, England and Morocco. Household utensils made of plastic, pewter and tin were heaped up to the ceiling. Delicacies, preserved tomatoes, pepper, milk and sacks of onions blended their odours with the smell of damp
walls and obliged the secretary-saleslady to use up two cans of aerosol a week.

He had made a den for himself in a corner, calling it his ‘office'. He had furnished it with metal cupboards that had slots labelled with the months and the years.

 

 

Madame Diouf came to tell him it was midday. Since the Badyen's departure, he had been turning things over in his mind. He did not have a lunch engagement. He wanted to be alone. He could relax when he was on his own. He went to ‘his' restaurant, where he went for business lunches or when he took a girl out. The owner of the restaurant, a Frenchman, knew him well and welcomed him with obsequious courtesy, congratulating him on his marriage and offering him an aperitif. As he showed him to his table he said:

‘Africa will always be ahead of Europe. You're lucky you can have as many wives as you need.'

It was a simple meal: a grill with a salad, rosé d'Anjou, cheese. After coffee he felt like a siesta. Where? At his third's? His second's? His first's, the only villa where he would get any rest? On second thoughts he would do better to go to a hotel.

Modu had gone home. He'd have to go on foot! It was very hot and he would meet people he knew on the way. He took a taxi instead.

‘El Hadji!' said the manager, a Syrian, welcoming him with hands outstretched in the Muslim way. ‘You can have the same room with air-conditioning. What name if “anyone” asks for you?'

This was where El Hadji always came when he wanted to relax.

‘I'm alone today,' he replied, entering the lift.

‘Sick?'

‘No. I need to think.'

‘Here you are at home.'

He turned on the air-conditioning and the room filled with cool air. He soon dozed off.

How long had he been asleep? He looked at his watch. Seven in the evening. ‘All this time!' he said to himself. When he reached the entrance he found Modu waiting for him. His employer's behaviour puzzled him. Why does a man go and sleep in a hotel when he has three villas and three wives? If El Hadji had had a rendezvous with a
girl he, Modu, would have known about it. Because of the gossip he knew about the
xala.
A good marabout lived near his village. Could he find a way to tell El Hadji about him?

‘The “office” is closed, boss,' said Modu, so as to discover where to drive him.

They stood face to face. Modu, who was a down-to-earth sort of man, could see the distress in his employer's eyes, which were encircled by thin folds of skin, a sign of tiredness. They had the yellow colour of old African ivory. Modu stood aside and opened the car door. The Mercedes drove off towards the village of N'Gor.

When they reached the foot of the twin humps El Hadji told him to drive to the top. The car went up the circular track to the lighthouse.

El Hadji got out of the car and walked a little way along the path. He looked into the distance, his face grim, his shoulders sagging. Below him, like an enormous lake, shimmered the surface of the sea. The spray, like a net curtain being shaken by invisible fingers, folded and unfolded itself, catching the reflections of the light. The sea seethed and roared. Calmly he retraced his steps, skirting the caretaker's hut. He stopped again. In the distance, Dakar. From afar like this the buildings, roofs and treetops gave the impression that the town was carved out of a single, whitish mass of rock into an irregular lacework with touches of shadow. The fronts of the buildings were lit by the moon's rays and a row of winking luminous dots lined the main street.

Vultures were gliding above in the sky.

El Hadji had stopped for no particular reason. Modu, who had remained in the car, was suddenly alarmed. Was El Hadji going to commit suicide? The fear became so insistent that he approached his employer in order to watch him and intervene if he did try to jump.

The time passed.

The lights came on in the city. Above their heads the bright beam of the lighthouse came and went.

El Hadji turned to his driver and said;

‘Take me to N'Gone.'

He had promised the Badyen he would call in the evening.

Some people were sitting on the lighted verandah. Did he know them? It was not important. The Badyen introduced them: a twelve-year-old boy and his nine-year-old sister. N‘Gone's brother and sister,
who had come to live with her. It was normal that N'Gone should take her turn in bringing them up. She must relieve her parents of these mouths to feed, explained Yay Bineta, not giving him a chance to say anything. She thanked the man in advance. Beneath a shower of compliments about his generosity, goodness and loyalty, he entered the bedroom. Still in its nuptial state the white bed, symbol of purity, was waiting to be marked. The tailor's dummy still stood there, wearing the wedding dress and the crown.

N'Gone sat across the bed, leaning on one arm, in an effort to relax the atmosphere.

‘I have been hoping for your visit since the other day. How are your wives? And your children?'

This banal chatter, which had nothing elevated or subtle about it, made El Hadji realize that with N‘Gone he had built on sand. Not that he himself had much in the way of fine, delicate, or witty conversation. In our country, this so-called ‘gentry', imbued with their role as master – a role which began and ended with fitting out and mounting the female – sought no elevation, no delicacy in their relations with their partners. This lack of communication meant they were no better than stallions for breeding. El Hadji was as limited, short-sighted and unintelligent as any of his kind. Only his present situation prevented him from exchanging with N'Gone a flow of trite, empty conversation. The arrival of the Badyen with refreshments brought the bride's chatter to an end.

‘I hope I am not disturbing you? El Hadji must be thirsty. A man is always thirsty when he returns home from work,' opined Yay Bineta, placing at their feet a tray with two glasses and a bottle of lemonade.

She told N‘Gone to serve her husband. ‘These days young women don't know their duty.'

N'Gone filled the glasses.

‘Good luck, my dear,' she said in French.

‘I must go,' said El Hadji after tasting the drink.

He was embarrassed by the heavy silence and by the Badyen. The atmosphere clung to him and hindered his movements.

‘Already?' said N'Gone in astonishment, leaning more heavily on the man's shoulder.

‘N'Gone, remember El Hadji's car,' said the Badyen to her in the
bright tone of voice of the schemer. She was standing beside the tailor's dummy as there was no chair.

‘I'd forgotten all about it, Badyen,' said N'Gone in French.

‘I don't understand that jargon,' said Yay Bineta, bridling..

Then, still addressing N'Gone, she said: ‘You will see, your husband will agree with me. Won't you, El Hadji?'

‘Yes,' he acquiesced, not knowing what it was all about, but solely to win the woman's good grace and facilitate his speedy departure.

‘What did I tell you? You are lucky to have such a good man for your husband.'

Yay Bineta paused for a moment as if she had lost the thread of her thought. She was watching the man.

‘Now, there's the car. N'Gone can't drive yet. She will need a chauffeur. There are errands to be run. Also her brother and sister live with her now and their school is on the other side of the town. And it's far.'

‘I want to learn to drive.'

‘The chauffeur your husband hires will teach you to drive. Lots of young women drive,' said the Badyen, interrupting her. Then very maternal: ‘El Hadji, you decide between us.'

‘I'll take on a chauffeur tomorrow. You can learn with him.'

‘I'd prefer a driving-school. It's more reliable.'

‘You'll do as you are told! A wife must obey,' thundered the Badyen, before slipping quietly away.

When they were left alone N'Gone talked at length about the qualities of the different makes of cars.

El Hadji used to forget his other wives when he was with this girl who was now his wife He used to like her manner, her childish, laughing behaviour. She broke the drab monotony of his life. At the same time she made him feel strangely exalted, as if he were enjoying a second youth. Before, on the rare occasions when he was left alone with her, he had found it difficult to contain his desire for her. Now that she was offered to him N'Gone seemed to be the embodiment of mental and physical torture. She clung to him, clumsily took the initiative, like someone who had learned her lesson badly. She panted, pushed him over on the bed and lay on him.

Carefully he struggled free, straightened his tie and got up from the bed. He looked down at N‘Gone. ‘I am finished,' he said from the
depths of his misery. It was like a blow that echoed and re-echoed in his head, rolling and unfolding towards a limitless shore.

‘I must go. It is late,' he said, his voice heavy with unhappiness.

Disappointed, N'Gone doubled herself up on the bed, her head in her arms. Then with a movement of her hips, she flung herself back and opened her legs wide. She looked at the man defiantly, provocatively.

‘I'll be back,' murmured El Hadji, avoiding her eyes and the invitation they contained.

N'Gone remained still, in the same position, her face set. There was a heavy silence. El Hadji just stood there for a moment, then left.

Oumi N‘Doye had put on her best outfit for the cinema. She was gay, amusing, full of banter. They went to an exclusive cinema where the clientele was mostly European. Oumi N'Doye spoke to the people she recognized – Africans. For her this outing meant that El Hadji was taking an interest in her again. She showed off her man to draw attention to the fact that she was not abandoned, not for the moment at least. So she was noticed.