Xala

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1973

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Summary

Character Analysis

Section Summaries & Analyses

Sections 1-4

Sections 5-8

Sections 9-12

Sections 13-16

Sections 17-20

Sections 21-24

Sections 25-27

Themes

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Important Quotes

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Sections 25-27Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Section 25 Summary

Modu sat on his usual stool. The beggar approached and asked about what had just happened. Modu told the beggar about how Sereen Mada had cured El Hadji’s impotence problem. But, El Hadji didn’t have the funds to pay the healer. Modu concluded that Sereen Mada was going to restore the curse.

The beggar said that he had heard about Sereen Mada and knew that he was “a man of his word” (90). The beggar insisted, however, that the xala was a simple problem that he could address. He figured that Modu was skeptical, but it wasn’t that, Modu said. The fact remained that El Hadji was broke. The beggar insisted that he didn’t want money. Instead, El Hadji would have to do what the beggar wanted. The beggar promised that, if El Hadji followed his instructions, he would be cured. The beggar then returned to his chant.

Section 26 Summary

El Hadji’s xala returned. He went to Adja Awa Astou for comfort. Meanwhile, his creditors came after him. The National Grain Board prepared to sue him. The Automobile Credit people repossessed “the wedding present car, the mini-bus, and the Mercedes” (91). Then, the villas were repossessed.

El Hadji watched the children walk to school. Rama, who was able to keep her Fiat because it was in her name, helped ferry her younger brothers around town. Madame Diouf filed a complaint against her boss with the Labor Tribunal. He was found guilty. Adja sold her jewelry for extra money. Modu remained loyal to his employer.

Yay Bineta then visited and attacked El Hadji, outraged over his financial neglect. That same day, she and N’Gone left the third villa. Oumi N’Doye did the same, moving herself and her children in with her parents who lived “in a poor district of the town” (92). The children struggled to adjust to life in the slums. Her eldest son talked about leaving school to join the police force or the army. Oumi N’Doye demanded that El Hadji attend to his children’s future. Without a job, however, El Hadji was helpless. Oumi insisted that he take the children to live with him at Adja’s. El Hadji went to his first wife’s house and broached the subject with her. Rama refused, saying that the house belonged to her mother. Furthermore, they couldn’t afford to keep so many people there. Adja was hurt by Rama’s harshness, but her words were true.

El Hadji stopped visiting Oumi N’Doye, who began to fend for herself. She searched for work. She also pursued romances with well-to-do men. N’Gone, too, wanted to be free again. El Hadji went to visit her family at their home. In a corner was the tailor’s dummy, “still wearing the wedding dress” (93).

Yay Bineta complained that El Hadji had avoided N’Gone’s family since the wedding. Now, he had neglected them financially. The entire family was ashamed of the marriage. Modu felt contempt, but he spoke to mediate the situation. He insisted that his boss had not abandoned his wife. He also suggested that El Hadji had contracted the xala from N’Gone. This accusation outraged the family.

El Hadji looked at the tailor’s dummy, which “meant nothing to him now” (95). He didn’t remember what, if anything, he had felt for N’Gone. They left the house and got into Rama’s Fiat, which Modu drove for this occasion. Yay Bineta went outside with the tailor’s dummy and tried to shove it into the car. At that moment, they saw N’Gone walking down the road with a young man. They went into the house together. Modu and El Hadji drove off with the tailor’s dummy. They returned to the import-export shop, which was closed due to bankruptcy. The beggar chanted on the corner. Modu then brought up the beggar’s claim that he could cure El Hadji’s xala. After a brief discussion, Modu got out and “knelt in front of the beggar” (96). He then returned to the car and drove away while the beggar continued to sing.

Section 27 Summary

Two days later, a parade of beggars arrived at Adja Awa Astou’s villa. A policeman saw them and placed “his hand on his revolver” (96). He shuddered in repulsion. The chanting beggar, who had brought disabled people, lepers, and others with him, rang the bell. When Adja opened the door, they entered and sat down in the living room as though they lived in the house.

Adja and El Hadji were astounded. A woman snatched Adja’s headscarf off and placed it on her own head. The beggar insisted that El Hadji say nothing if he wished to be cured. Rama then entered the room, still wearing her nightgown. Two “ugly” men looked over her with desire. She stood by her mother. The beggar said that he was there for his payment, in exchange for curing El Hadji’s xala. El Hadji said that he would call the police. The beggar told him that, if El Hadji wanted the spell lifted, he would obey the beggar. He then took his place in the middle of the sitting room and reminded El Hadji that they have known each other for a long time, from even before El Hadji had married Adja. The beggar’s condition was El Hadji’s fault.

The beggar reminded El Hadji that he had sold a large parcel of land that had once belonged to the beggar’s family. He had swindled that land from his family after falsifying some names and gaining the complicity of important people. The beggar’s family, thus, stood no chance in court. Then, El Hadji had the beggar thrown in prison. He told El Hadji that his wealth was the result of duplicitous dealings. He only gave money to charities to absolve his conscience.

A mother of twins then came forward and prostrated herself before Adja. She said that she was no more than “a reproduction machine” who could not offer her children an adequate future (100). Adja took out her beads and began to pray. Rama became enraged, but her anger had no target. She believed that she was a revolutionary, but she also felt loyal to her father.

The beggar demanded that El Hadji strip down and allow each beggar to spit on him three times. The beggar then confessed that it was he who had caused the xala. El Hadji remembered the seer’s words that someone close to him had caused the problem. He heard an approaching police siren. The doorbell rang. The other beggars worried, but their leader encouraged them to stay put; they were guests of El Hadji’s. A police officer entered and kindly asked El Hadji what was happening. Rama said that the beggars were her father’s guests, but the officer didn’t believe her. The neighbors had called to complain, he said. They were worried that there was going to be a riot. El Hadji insisted that he was entertaining the beggars. The officer then withdrew, saying that he respected private property rights.

After he was gone, Rama demanded that they all leave. If they refused, she said, she would call the officer back inside. The beggar waved her off, saying that jail was better than the streets. At least there they would have a meal and a warm place to sleep. He then turned his attention back toward El Hadji, who unbuttoned his pajamas. One of the beggars struck him in the face with spit. Adja looked away, crying. A disabled woman encouraged Adja to spit on him if she wanted El Hadji “to stuff [her] again” (102). Angered by the woman’s vulgarity, Rama slapped her to the ground. Then, the leper spat at El Hadji. The disabled woman got up and slapped Rama back. She then took her own turn spitting at El Hadji.

By now, “El Hadji’s face was running with spittle” and he had removed his pajama bottoms (102). They passed him around. One man took the wedding crown and set it on El Hadji’s head. Outside, the police gathered and raised their guns, ready to fire.

Sections 25-27 Analysis

The final section addresses El Hadji’s redemption.

El Hadji returns to Adja Awa Astou after his xala is restored, as she is the only one of his wives who demanded almost nothing from him. Rama, however, is the only member of the family who remains mobile, due to her relative independence from her father and, symbolically, her estrangement from his materialist values—a position that is tested at the end of the novel.

Modu’s embrace of El Hadji as a surrogate father becomes clearer due to his unwavering support of El Hadji and willingness to remain with him, despite his employer no longer having work for him. Modu even goes so far as to defend El Hadji against N’Gone’s family and takes personal interest in the restoration of El Hadji’s erection, as El Hadji’s status as a father, even a surrogate one, depends on this expression of masculinity.

One of the most immediate results of El Hadji’s financial collapse is the dissolution of his extended family and the financial neglect of N’Gone and, more unfortunately, Oumi N’Doye. The latter is forced to rely on favors from men, not unlike the life of a prostitute, which she knew to be her only other option if she had not married El Hadji. Oumi N’Doye’s downfall illustrates the perils of life for an unskilled woman, even in the context of what seems to be a “good” marriage. Adja, on the other hand, retains some protections outside of El Hadji through her father, who reminded Rama that her mother still has a home in Gorée. The fact that she is the only wife who is not expelled from her villa also suggests that Rama’s prior assertion of her mother’s ownership of the house was both accurate and literal.

The novel culminates in El Hadji’s confrontation with the dispossessed. The beggars lay claim to Adja Awa Astou’s villa as soon as they arrive. One woman’s removal of Adja’s headscarf—a symbol of a woman’s modesty in Islamic faith—is a gesture that suggests Adja’s deposal from her lofty position, particularly when the disabled woman places the scarf on her own head. This is to indicate how easily power can shift from one party to another. This gesture correlates with the mother of twins asserting that the only reason she is not shown the honor that Adja enjoys is because she is poor and outcast. Thus, she is relegated to a reproductive machine, churning out only future members of the low-wage labor force. Finally, the chanting beggar’s revelation of his identity and the story of how he ended up impoverished harks back to El Hadji’s earlier admission that he had cheated to get to where he was. Thus, the beggar’s presence outside of El Hadji’s shop was an act of defiance by the former character, his refusal to allow El Hadji to forget that his privilege relied on the beggar’s dispossession.

Rama’s choice to side with her family over the beggars underscores the complexity of taking a political stance. This requires one to make choices that may even be against one’s own family, which is something Rama is unprepared to do. Arguably, she is not much of a revolutionary, due to her willingness to involve the police in removing the beggars from Adja’s house. She knows that the sight of the beggars in the wealthy community is a perceived threat to property rights, which the police exist largely to protect. Rama’s wish to assert property rights, not to mention her absence of sympathy for Oumi N’Doye and her half siblings being rendered homeless, exposes the hypocrisy underlying her political sympathies. Like her father, she has difficulty sacrificing her material comforts.

The final scene, in which the beggars take turns spitting on El Hadji, can be interpreted in several ways. One can read it as a crude baptism. El Hadji’s salvation may rest in his willingness to allow the lowest and most ostracized members of Senegalese society to debase him. According to Senegalese custom, when people are disgusted, they usually spit sideways, far away from anyone who can be hit with the spittle. Thus, the beggars’ choice to spit directly on El Hadji could, symbolically, be the beggars’ attempt to draw him near them, to make him a part of them so that he can more readily identify with their condition. Their placement of the wedding crown on his head also signifies a marriage between El Hadji and the group of outcasts and, thus, a realignment with his revolutionary values.