Murder in the Sentier

Thursday Afternoon

OUSMANE SADA’S FEVERISH brow was beaded with sweat. He felt worse than before his visit to the marabout. Across from the sewing factory where he worked, he stopped in a Sentier café.

A few old men played backgammon at a Formica table. It took a while before the owner excused himself and asked Ousmane, in a brisk tone, what he wanted. Propping himself up at the zinc counter, parched and shaky, Ousmane allowed himself one small luxury. He ordered a steaming glass cup of sweet black tea, mint flavored. So soothing and such a comfort. Then he’d find his straw mattress and sleep his fever off. He’d promised himself he’d try what his maman had always advised … nothing sweats out a fever like hot, sweet mint tea, she’d always said.

Idrissa needed him in a few hours … already he was feeling better. Mandinkas never let the grass grow under a baobab tree, he remembered his father saying. He paid for the tea, and the owner acknowledged his tip with a nod of his head.

Ousmane made his way toward the sewing factory downstairs in the narrow Passage Ste-Foy. The dark passage’s light source was the flickering fluorescent bulbs in an upstairs office. Ousmane saw the yellow feather fetish, an omen of evil, just before he stepped on it. Too late. It crunched under his scuffed shoe. In horror, he clutched the stone wall. No way to reverse it, he knew. He’d been cursed for the second time that week.