Xala by Ousmane Sembène Page A

Yalla, well.’
    â€˜Well? Well?’ she queried.
    El Hadji hesitated to answer in front of a stranger.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜And your other wives?’
    â€˜The same.’
    The Badyen opened her mouth. A reflex action. She glanced at her companion.
    â€˜ 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:
    â€˜Have you been with your other wives... to try?’
    â€˜Nothing.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜I have seen Babacar. You should go and see him. He knows a good seet-katt .’
    â€˜We have been to him.’

    â€˜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?
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜You will come and see us this evening? Just a courtesy visit. Six days is a long time to wait.’
    â€˜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