Xala

An elderly woman came to the villa. Yay Bineta, who had been waiting for her, let her in. The two women went to the door of the bridal chamber and knocked. When there was no answer, Yay Bineta carefully let herself in. N’Gone was still in her nightgown. El Hadji sat on the edge of the bed, looking crestfallen. The elderly woman carried a rooster. Yay Bineta examined the white sheets, looking for spots of blood. She then took the rooster and placed it between N’Gone’s legs, ready to break the animal’s neck in sacrifice. N’Gone screamed “no” and closed her thighs. She cried and pushed the rooster away from her.

Yay Bineta asked what happened. El Hadji confessed that he could not make love to N’Gone. The rooster ran away. While the elderly woman tried to catch it, Yay Bineta muttered that someone must have cast a spell on El Hadji. She blamed his problem on the fact that he hadn’t sat on the mortar as she had told him to. She told him he needed to find a marabout right away to cure him. She insisted that this curse—this xala—could be lifted. El Hadji was shocked. The notion of the xala had always been a joke to him when he had heard about it happening to other men.

While El Hadji went to shower, Yay Bineta looked under the pillow “for the licence [sic] and the keys of the wedding gift car” (25). Outside, Modu waited for his boss. He noticed that El Hadji looked unhappy. While sitting inside of his Mercedes, El Hadji wondered what to do. He figured that one of his first two wives had rendered him impotent. He concluded that it must have been Oumi N’Doye, who was prone to jealousy. In the end, he rejected this notion. She was never spiteful.

Modu pulled up in front of El Hadji’s shop. His secretary, Madame Diouf, congratulated him on his recent nuptials. He thanked her, but he was depressed. He suddenly found himself regretting this third marriage. He didn’t think that he loved N’Gone, but he had already invested in a car and a villa to accommodate her. Also, he was worried about what people would say, particularly after they found out about his impotence.

Modu sat on a stool, leaning against a wall. He was watching a boy wash the Mercedes. Modu was one of the boy’s best customers, due to El Hadji being a prominent man. On the corner of the street, a beggar sat cross-legged, chanting. His piercing voice sometimes rose above the other voices that permeated the street. There was a heap of coins next to him. Modu enjoyed listening to the beggar, who was as much a part of the street’s scenery as “the dirty walls and the ancient lorries delivering goods” (26). The only person who disliked the beggar’s presence was El Hadji, who had directed the police to pick the man up. But, the beggar would always return after being arrested, going back to his usual place. 

Alassane was another chauffeur El Hadji employed, though he served strictly to ferry the children to and from school in a minibus. Alassane was late on this particular morning. He had been a guest at the wedding and was hungover. When he arrived at Oumi N’Doye’s, he honked his horn and the children, as if cued, rushed out of their villa. Oumi N’Doye stood at her doorway and called out to Alassane, asking if he had seen El Hadji. The chauffer said that he hadn’t. Oumi N’Doye directed him to return as soon as he had dropped off the children.

The rear of the minibus was divided into two sections. Adja Awa Astou’s children sat on one side and Oumi N’Doye’s on the other. The parents had not designed it this way. The children had decided themselves to have things this way.