Xala (9 page)

The
seet-katt
enjoyed a certain renown as a hermit mystic. His serious activities extended beyond the limits of his own neighbourhood. With a wave of a skinny arm he invited them to sit on a goatskin. Because of his European clothes El Hadji hesitated for a moment, then seated himself as best he could on the ground. Old Babacar sat cross-legged. The
seet-katt
spread a piece of bright red cloth between them and took some cowrie shells from a small bag. First he said some incantations, then with a sharp gesture threw the cowries. He quickly collected them up again with one hand. Holding himself stiffly erect he looked his clients up and down. Abruptly he held out his clenched fist. Slowly the ball of fingers at the end of his skinny arm opened, like a sea anemone.

Deferentially old Babacar pointed to El Hadji.

‘Take these and breathe over them,' ordered the
seet-katt,
addressing them for the first time.

El Hadji held the cowries in the palm of his hand and murmured a few words. He breathed over the cowries and gave them back to the
seet-katt.
The latter closed his eyes, muttering to himself in concentration. Then with a gutteral roar he flung the cowries onto the piece of cloth.

Like a shower of sparks in the dark the buried, ghostly universe of his early childhood rose to the surface of El Hadji's memory and held him in its grip. A host of spirits, gnomes and jinns paraded through his subconscious.

The
seet-katt
counted the cowries. Once. Twice. A third time. What? He raised his tobacco-coloured eyes up to his client. He scrutinized him. El Hadji was suddenly afraid. Why did he stare at him like that? The diviner gathered up the cowries and threw them down once more.

‘Strange,' he muttered.

No one spoke

Before throwing the cowries again the
seet-katt
took a cock's spur from a red cloth in which it was wrapped and put it with the other objects. His face clouded over: His gaze became more penetrating. Stiffness? Desire to impress? Ritual gesture? He changed his posture. He leaned forward then. straightened himself again. A smile of satisfaction spread over his face.

‘This
xala
is strange,' he announced.

A feeling of immense joy came over El Hadji. His whole being was filled with a warm, comforting euphoria. He looked happily at his father-in-law. Why had he never heard of this
seet-katt
before?

‘Who caused this
xala
?' asked old Babacar.

The seer was lost in contemplation..

From the distance came the noise of children, from nearby the sound of music – someone was walking past the compound with a transistor radio.

‘I can't see who it is. Is it a man? A woman? Very hard to say. But I see you very clearly. There you are, as clear as anything.'

‘I want to be cured,' said El Hadji spontaneously.

He waited anxiously for the reply.

‘I am not a
facc-katt
– a healer – but a
seet-katt.
My job is to “see”.'

‘Who has done this to me?' asked El Hadji.

His face had aged so much it had taken on the expression of a Baule mask.

‘Who?' echoed the
seet-katt.

The fingers held over the fan of cowries seemed to be plucking the strings of a guitar. The
seet-katt's
eyes, like his fingers, followed an invisible line. ‘Who?' he repeated. ‘The shape is indistinct: But I can definitely say it is someone close to you. This
xala
was carried out during the night.'

‘Tell me who it is and I will give you anything you ask. I want to be cured! Become a man again! Tell me how much you want,' shouted El Hadji in anguish.

Suiting the action to the word, he took out his wallet.

‘I only take what is my due,' replied the
seet-katt
self-righteously.

His eyes encountered El Hadji's and he added: ‘Do you only want to know the name of the person who has made you impotent?'

‘Yes, that is what I blew onto the cowries,' admitted El Hadji
regretfully. ‘But you can treat me, cure me! Cure me!' implored El Hadji, waving the bank-notes.

The
seet-katt
carefully collected his instruments together and folded the cloth, without paying them any attention. He was completely lacking in deference now.

‘How much do we owe you?' asked old Babacar.

‘Five hundred francs.'

El Hadji handed him a thousand-franc note. Since he had no change he made him a gift of the rest.

Outside the house El Hadji turned over in his mind the sentence: ‘It is someone close to you.' Just as nature re-imposes its life on ruins with small tufts of grass, the ancestral atavism of fetishism was being re-awakened in El Hadji. Like a torrent, his suspicions carried along names, imprecise silhouettes, faces without shape. He felt himself surrounded by treachery and ill-will. After his visit to the
seet-katt
he became more reserved, more touchy. Fatigue added its weight to his depression. He was haunted by what the diviner had told him.

It was Oumi N'Doye's
moomé.
He put off the moment when he would have to go to her. He was certain in advance that he would not be able to accomplish his conjugal duty with her. He finally arrived as late as he could in the evening.

Oumi N‘Doye had prepared her
aye
in a spirit of rivalry. A reunion meal. The menu culled from a French fashion magazine. She wanted to make him forget the last meal he had had with his first wife. The table was laid in the French way. There were various
hors d'œuvres
and veal cutlets. The Côtes de Provence rose kept the bottle of French mineral water company in the ice-bucket; at the other end of the table a pyramid of apples and pears. Next to the soup tureen cheeses in their wrappings. The planning of the meal was part of the second wife's campaign to reconquer lost ground. To regain her husband's affections. One of her women friends, prodigal with advice, had that very day whispered in her ear:

‘If she is to have her man's favour, a wife who is obliged to compete with others must aim at the male's two most vulnerable parts: his stomach and his genitals. She must make herself desirable by being feminine, with just a touch of modesty. In bed she must not hold back. If she does she will only find disappointment.'

Oumi N'Doye had plaited her hair over her forehead in the
Khassonke style. She had twisted a gold ring into the middle plait, which hung down to her neck. On each side of her head, starting above her ears, five branches opened out into a heart-shaped fan, each topped with a flat mother-of-pearl. A thin layer of antimony accentuated her black eyelashes and eyebrows.

She sat opposite her husband and chatted away, doing most of the talking. Now and again she rang the bell for the maid.

‘I had given you up,' she said, laughing. ‘Yet I am your wife too, aren't I? A little older than your N'Gone, I know. Still, side by side, we look like sisters,' she concluded happily, her eyelashes fluttering like apair of butterflies about to take off. On the side of her face in the light, her eye had the polish of china clay.

El Hadji forced a smile. He was scarcely eating anything. He was not hungry. He felt as if the room was closing in on him.

‘You're playing hard to get with me now, aren't you? You could have phoned me. Oh, it's not for me. I know my place. It's for the children. What if one of them fell ill? Touch wood! But you never know. Me? I know when it's my
aye
. I make no demands. A thought costs nothing. A thought gives pleasure.'

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye was wrapped in his obsession. ‘Why not her?'

Oumi N‘Doye talked on. She had been lucky to get the meat. Veal cutlets from France. Native butchers don't know how to cut meat. Don't you agree? The greengrocer's avocado pears weren't ripe. Only good for the
toubabs
(whites). Aren't there a lot of
toubabs
around now?'

El Hadji got up from the table. He sat down in the armchair and stretched out his legs. Tilting his head backwards he undid his tie. The harsh light of the lamp in the corner exaggerated the signs of age on his face. His short hair glistened white, like linen.

‘Of course, when you eat at two tables you have your preferences,' she flung out acidly, still at the table.

After a brief silence she resumed, her voice very gentle: ‘You must realize that when I speak to you it's also for the children. You must treat us all fairly as the Koran says. Each household has a car except this one. Why?'

El Hadji was not listening. He was completely absorbed in his
xala
. His thoughts turned to Adja Awa Astou, and at this moment he felt
grateful for his first wife's reticence. As if he were about to be caught red-handed performing some shameful act he dreaded the moment when he would have to go to bed with his second. His heart was beating fast. He would have liked to miss out Oumi N'Doye's
moomé.
He could then have spent the night somewhere else, far away from her. He knew in advance that the woman would move heaven and earth to bring him back to her house.

‘Answer me!'

‘I didn't hear. What were you saying?'

Hands on her hips, she looked down at her husband.

‘No one is more deaf than he who doesn't want to hear. I repeat, my children must also have a car. Adja has one, your third has one. I don't mind being on the tandem but I won't be the spare wheel. You're giving my children a complex about it.'

‘No need to shout. You'll wake them.'

‘Admit that I am right. Everything for the others. Nothing for me or my children.'

‘Pass me the mineral water.'

Her anger was only a flash in the pan. She brought him the bottle and a glass.

‘Shall I run you a bath?' she asked.

She had just read this in one of her magazines. El Hadji could hardly believe his ears. He looked at her, agreeably surprised.

‘Yes, thank you.'

She disappeared.

After his bath El Hadji climbed into bed. Soon she was ready too. The room was filled with her perfume. Slipping into bed beside him she unbuttoned his pyjamas. Her hand travelled up and down the man's body, familiar with its geography. The exploration became more feverish and she pressed herself against him.

El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye had to endure this torture. His back was running with perspiration. Physical contact with Oumi N'Doye used once to stimulate his desire. Now the hand that caressed him inflicted the sufferings of hell. He was wet all over. His nerves were dead. He lacked the simple, humble courage of everyday heroism to tear himself from this misery which burned him like red-hot coals. Unable to help himself, tears welled up from deep inside him.

Oumi N'Doye interpreted her husband's attitude as an indication
of her fall from favour. She flew into a rage. Her highly coloured verbal repertoire, rich in innuendo, hit its mark, filling the man with resentment. She suffered as well.

‘Your old Adja has worn you out. Or is it your N'Gone? You have to be a good rider and a young one to mount two mares at the same time, especially at a canter,' she said. She came to the end of her outburst and turned her back on him.

Eventually, feeling calmer, his mind a blank, El Hadji slept in fits and starts. Each time he woke he could hear the beggar's chant unwinding itself.

The following morning, shaved and in a fresh change of clothes, he was having his breakfast – after the children's departure for school – when Oumi N'Doye came and sat down beside him. Her eyes were dull as a result of her unsatisfied night. There was an awkward barrier between them. El Hadji, anxious to justify himself, tried to explain. He blamed an increase in business activity. To win her forgiveness for his conduct of the previous night he took out his wallet and at the sight of the wads of notes she melted.

‘Don't expect me this afternoon.'

‘Where will you have lunch?'

‘With the President. We have to meet some
toubab
businessmen and spend the day together.'

As he spoke El Hadji looked away towards the door. This lie gave him a feeling of relief; like a soothing balm.

‘Come home early then. It's a long time since we went to the cinema.'

‘All right,' he agreed as he left her.

 

 

Modu had noticed his employer's decline: his voice, his reluctance to look you in the eyes, his heavy hesitant walk. El Hadji had always been like a grandfather to him. But since his marriage he had become different, distant. After dropping him Modu went and sat on his stool, listening to the beggar. The car-washer busied himself about the vehicle as he did every morning.

The hours passed.

Yay Bineta, the Badyen, arrived, accompanied by the woman with the cock. As soon as she was seated opposite El Hadji, she said:

‘How are you these days?'

‘Thanks to Yalla, well.'

‘Well? Well?' she queried.

El Hadji hesitated to answer in front of a stranger.

‘Don't you recognize her? Surely you do? You must have been thinking of something else that morning! She's the one who came for the “cloth of virginity” ceremony.'

For a brief moment hatred mingled with embarrassment flowed over El Hadji. The prerogatives of this Badyen woman were quite extraordinary.

‘And your other wives?'

‘The same.'

The Badyen opened her mouth. A reflex action. She glanced at her companion.

‘
Yam
! A bad case!' she exclaimed.

Regret? Hostility? Still confused and undecided she held back. Her agile mind, used to this kind of situation, was hard at work. She was taking stock. There was a question she badly wanted to ask. She hesitated and looked towards the window, pretending to listen to the beggar. Then: