Xala (6 page)

At the same time as the President and El Hadji were driving in the Mercedes along the main road of the town towards the suburbs, Yay Bineta, the Badyen, was leaving the conjugal villa. She was in a mood of bitter disappointment. The man might be suffering physically from his
xala
but she was the moral victim. Her dreams had been shattered. ‘I know how to defend myself. So El Hadji's wives want to get rid of us, do they? They want to humiliate us perhaps? I swear by my ancestors that within three months the co-wives will be repudiated and thrown away like worn-out rags. Or else they will kneel before my N'Gone like slaves,' she promised herself. She went past the two-seater wedding present, perched high on its trailer with its white bow. She had the key and the licence for the car under her cloth. She did not trust the man's intentions.

She crossed the road and hailed a taxi.

In order to understand this woman one needs to know her background. Yay Bineta had always been hounded by bad luck,
ay gaaf
. She had had two husbands, both now in their graves. The traditionalists held that she must have her fill of deaths: a third victim. So no man would marry her for fear of being this victim. This is a society in which very few women overcome this kind of reputation. She was seen as a devourer of men, the promise of an early death. Because of her
ay gaaf,
men kept out of her way, and married women of her age preferred to divorce rather than risk widowhood near her. Yay Bineta suffered deeply from her situation. She knew she was condemned to remain a widow for the rest of her life. In order to save
face and to preserve the balance of her mind her parents had gone so far as to ‘put her on offer', as it were. But. no man would, take it up.

The marriage of her brother's daughter was her marriage.

She exchanged the customary greetings and entered the single bed-sitting-room shared by her brother's children and grandchildren. Babacar was seated on a mat reading the Koran. Mam Fatou hurried forward eagerly to welcome the Badyen. She wanted news of her daughter. Had she really kept herself a virgin? Mam Fatou had not slept a wink all night.

‘Can I talk?' asked the Badyen.

‘Yes,' said N'Gone's mother, intrigued by the question.

‘We have been insulted! El Hadji has not consummated the marriage.'

‘What? What do you mean?'

Babacar. stopped his reading.

‘Just what I said. El Hadji has the
xala
.'

The three of them looked at one another without speaking.

‘Babacar, did you hear?' said Mam Fatou breaking the silence.

The old man had been so taken by surprise he could only nod his head up and down.

‘What's to be done?' asked Mam Fatou.

‘El Hadji has gone to find a healer,' said Yay Bineta. ‘His wives are bad, worse than whooping-cough in an adult.'

‘To be honest I wasn't happy about this marriage from the start. It was too easy, too good to be true in these times,' said Mam Fatou, looking at her husband.

A heavy silence followed this remark.

‘Say that again,' shouted the Badyen, ready to, leap at her like a tigress. ‘You should have said so before it was too late, and openly. El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye didn't force our hand.'

The Badyen spoke harshly and glared angrily at her sister-in-law, her face hard.

‘You misunderstand me. I am worried for our N'Gone,' said the mother, anxious to avoid a quarrel with the Badyen.

Yay Bineta's dislike for her brother's wife was intense. She hated the woman for having turned her brother into a sheep.

‘Babacar, you must go and see El Hadji and help him,' ordered Mam Fatou, addressing her husband.

‘Where will I find him?' he asked.

‘At his office. A woman can't talk to a man about such things,' said N'Gone's mother.

‘She's right,' said Yay Bineta.

The old man closed his Koran, folded his mat in two and got to his feet.

‘And the car?'

‘It's outside their front door. Here are the keys and the licence. It's his wedding present, so the car belongs to N'Gone,' the Badyen explained.

Babacar went out, wearing his slippers. When they were left alone the two women put their heads together. They suppressed their mutual dislike in order to confront the ill-will of El Hadji's wives together.

An empty, cloudless sky. The torrid, stifling heat hung in the air. Clothes stuck to damp bodies. Everyone was returning to work after lunch, so the streets were very busy. Mopeds, bicycles and pedestrians streamed in the same direction towards the commercial centre of the city.

Old Babacar had returned home. He had waited all morning in vain for El Hadji Abdou Kader Beye. After
Tisbar,
the midday prayer, Mam Fatou had insisted he try again. ‘He is your son-in-law after all,' she had told him. Walking close to the walls and the balconies he tried to protect himself from the sun's onslaught. He hoped he would find El Hadji.

The secretary-saleslady recognized him. She took him for a cadger come to collect his ‘share' of the wedding. She told him to take a seat and returned to her work. She had three customers to see to. Others came after them.

The hours passed.

The old man listened to the beggar's chanting. He liked it. ‘What a fine voice,' he thought.

The second wife, Oumi N'Doye, came in and without preamble spoke to the secretary bossily in French.

‘Is he in?'

Madame Diouf looked up. A stray lock of her black wig hung
down over her narrow forehead. She recognized the newcomer. She pushed back the hair with her finger.

‘No.'

‘He left nothing for me?'

‘No. But if you'd care to wait... This gentleman is also waiting.'

Oumi N'Doye sat on a chair, crossed her legs and opened the woman's magazine she had just bought. The secretary eased the fan towards her. Feeling the gusts of cool air the second wife thanked her with a sour smile.

Oumi N‘Doye was a great expert on overseas women's fashions, those of the
grands couturiers
and the film stars. Photo-novelettes were her daily reading. She devoured them, believing everything in them, and dreamed of passionate love affairs she would have liked to experience. She had felt uneasy since the previous day. She found her husband's third marriage intolerable; it devalued her. The thought that she was a second choice, an option, enraged her. The middle position, giving her a kind of intermediate role, was unbearable for a co-wife. The first wife implied a conscious choice, she was an elect. The second wife was purely optional. The third? Someone to be prized. When it came to the
moomé,
the second wife was more like a door-hinge. She had given a lot of thought to her position in the man's marital cycle and she realized that she was in disgrace.

Oumi N‘Doye could not overcome her feeling of ill-will towards Adja Awa Astou. ‘Why doesn't she show disapproval of this marriage? She must be pleased about it, the old monkey-skin,' she muttered to herself. She, Oumi N'Doye, had been El Hadji's favourite. There had been times when she had kept the man longer than the code of polygamy allowed. There had been times too, at the height of her reign as the favourite, when she had robbed Adja Awa Astou of whole days and nights. The first wife had never complained, never demanded what was her right. Oumi N'Doye had come to think of herself as the only wife. Without the least concern for Adja Awa Astou she had accompanied El Hadji to receptions, even when it was not her
moomé
. With Adja Awa Astou she could accept the life of polygamy, but the advent of a third wife reopened the wound of frustration suffered by all the Muslim women of our country. She even thought momentarily of divorcing El Hadji.

‘But why divorce him? Without a man's help a woman has to fall
back on prostitution to live and bring up her children. This is the way our country wants it. It is the lot of all our women,' her mother had told her, to persuade her not to divorce her husband. ‘If you had a job one could understand your rejection of this third wife. Your first co-wife was a Catholic. How can you, born a Muslim, dare refuse? What is more your husband has the means to support you. Look around you....'

Chastened by this advice Oumi N'Doye did not return to her parents with her complaints. She was not going to accept being forgotten, a woman who only saw her man to couple with him.

The telephone rang.

‘Hullo! Yes... No,' said the secretary. ‘I'll make a note. I don't know when the boss will be back. All right. Yes! Yes!'

Madame Diouf put down the receiver and looked at her watch.

‘I have to close now. It is time,' she said, addressing Oumi N'Doye, who had got up.

‘Where is El Hadji?' she asked.

‘I don't know. He went out this morning with the President.'

Babacar had risen and stood at a distance.

‘Young woman, I am the father of N'Gone, his third. When you see him tell him I'll expect him at my house.'

Oumi N‘Doye stalked out in fury, without so much as a ‘good-bye.' Her eyes had encountered Babacar's. She had given him a look full of animosity and the old man, unsure of its intention, had felt awkward. He followed the retreating woman with his eyes.

‘Who is that?'

‘It is El Hadji's second wife.'

‘
La illaxa illa la
! I should have liked to make her acquaintance,' said the old man hurrying after her.

The shops and offices were closing. People were streaming back to the Medina and the dormitory blocks of the suburbs.

Babacar looked up and down the road. He saw her in the distance disappearing into a taxi. Then his attention was caught by the beggar. He dropped a coin onto his sheepskin and walked on.

 

 

Alassane had dropped Adja Awa Astou's children and was helping the other children out of the vehicle in front of Oumi N'Doye's villa.

‘Alassane! Alassane! Wait a moment!' she shouted to the chauffeur.

She paid the taxi-driver and called out to her daughter. ‘Mariem! Mariem! Listen! Come here!'

The child went up to her.

‘Go and fetch your father for me. He is at his third's house. Tell him I must see him.'

‘Mother, can I wash first?'

‘Do as I tell you. Alassane, drive her there.'

‘Yes, madam.'

Alassane drove off with the girl.

Back in the sitting-room Oumi N'Doye turned on the radio. She only listened to the international service, because the broadcasts were exclusively in French. She asked the maid if the master had come while she was out. No, he hadn't.

Mariem was back already.

‘Father isn't there. No one has seen him all day.'

‘Did you leave my message?'

‘Yes,' said her daughter, helping herself to something to eat. The maid had laid out bread and butter, jam and dry cakes for the children's tea.

Mactar lay on the sofa with his legs in the air, in the throes of a fit of coughing. His mother shook the silver bell. The maid came.

‘Bring Mactar a glass of water.'

‘He eats top quickly, he's so greedy,' said Mariem, busily finishing her piece of bread.

The maid returned with a glass of water, which she gave to the boy. He drank.

‘Sip it,' admonished his mother affectionately.

Mactar began to breathe more easily as his lungs filled with air. He gave a sigh of relief and wiped the unintended tears from his eyes.

‘What were you going to say?' asked Oumi N'Doye in.a motherly voice.

‘Father should buy us a car. They have one at Adja Awa Astou's and father's third has one. While we...'

‘His lordship has seen Rama with her Fiat, so he thinks that as the eldest he is entitled to a car as well,' said Mariem scornfully, picking up a magazine.

‘Well, I'm a man.'

‘And so what? Women also drive. It's mother who should have a car for her shopping.'

‘Thank you, dear, for thinking of me. You're right, Mactar. I hadn't thought of it. All my money goes in taxis.'

Oumi N‘Doye fell silent. The idea was a new one to her. She said to herself: ‘There is a car at Adja Awa Astou's and also at the third's. And what do I have? Nothing!'

‘I was the first to mention the car,' broke in Mactar.

‘That's true, dear. I am going to talk to your father about it. Then you too will be able to go to school in your own car, instead of with all the others. You can run errands for me. Go round to Adja Awa Astou. If your father is there tell him I must see him. It is very urgent.'

‘You promise to lend me the car?'

‘I promise.'

Satisfied, Mactar ran out.