Xala

El Hadji sat in his office, fuming about the beggar. He then asked Madame Dioup to call the president of the businessmen’s group. He asked the president to meet him in his office in an hour. Madame Diouf knocked right after he hung up to notify him that Oumi N’Doye was on the phone. She was asking for more money, which El Hadji initially refused. Oumi N’Doye flew into a rage, screaming that, after all he had just spent on another wedding, he could afford to give something to his children. She said that she was sending Alassane around to collect the funds. Before hanging up, El Hadji promised to visit that afternoon.

El Hadji was tired of Oumi N’Doye’s spendthrift ways. He wondered again if she was responsible for his xala. Someone else knocked on the door. It was the president of the group. He greeted El Hadji cheerily, figuring that the aphrodisiac must have worked and that his associate was busy after a happy honeymoon. El Hadji confessed that he had failed to consummate his marriage to N’Gone. The president was aghast. He asked when El Hadji had last had sex.