Five hours later in the ward of a private hospital. The body of Liz lies on a bed covered with a piece of cloth. Besides the bed is her mother, weeping silently and bitterly. Some hospital attendants huddle together at a corner, sympathizing. Enter Femi.

BIMPE: My son, Femi, my life is totally spoiled. See how death has scattered my home, leaving nothing but sorrow and great lamentation? My only joy in life is gone! Dead!

FEMI: O mother! Life has dealt us a cruel blow! (He goes to the bed, lifts the cloth and gazes at the face of Liz for a few minutes. He covers it.) But if it will comfort you somewhat, know that Liz was innocent. She was forced to do that abominable deed by Professor Fayemi who used my academic progress to blackmail her into submission. Blinded by her love for me, she could not refuse; and I knew nothing about it till yesternight. Upon hearing it, I was infuriated and in a blinding rage went to the professor with the revenge in my mind. Unfortunately, some security officers intervened and I was arrested. I was released only a few minutes ago after signing an undertaken to be of good behaviour.

BIMPE: Where is this infamous lecher called, Fayemi? Where is this animal that has brought this tragedy into my home? Show me this devil and let him kill me too or taste the fury of a childless woman.

(At that moment, Fayemi enters the room.)

FEMI: There he is, mother. There stands the impish professor who has brought so much sorrow into our lives.

(Bimpe and Fayemi look at each other.)

PROF.: Who am I seeing? I know you although it’s been a long, long time. Are you not Bimpe? Or am I dreaming?

(Both examine each other closely. Suddenly, Bimpe screams.)

BIMPE: AAAAAAH!!! FAYEMI! FAYEMI! Now I remember you. You were the teacher who impregnated me twenty-five years ago at our village school in Oke Ofo and ran away. AAAAAAH! OOOOORO! Did you do this?

(She begins to run round the room in despair. Fayemi shivers and stammers.)

PROF.: Wwwhat isss the matter, Bimpe? Iss ssshe a rrrrelation of yyyours?

BIMPE: Foolish man! SHE WAS YOUR DAUGHTER!

ALL: AH!

PROF: Noooooooo!!! Ittt issss immmpossible. Itt caannot be ttrue.

BIMPE: O yes, it is! She was your daughter! The self-same product of that unfortunate love affair between you and I so many years ago while you were teaching in our village in Oke Ofo. SHE WAS YOUR DAUGHTER! YOUR OWN DAUGHTER! OOOOORRROOO O!

(SHE breaks into tears. Her legs begin to falter but Femi catches her before she falls. She clings to him and sobs. Meanwhile, Fayemi staggers round the room, speaking with great passion.)

PROF: God Almighty, why have you done this to me? Oooooolodumare! Why have you done this to me? Aaaah Father, Father, why did you place this terrible curse on my head? Oooooooooooroo O !

(He breaks into tears.)

When the plantain tree matures, it blossoms forth ripe fruits. But alas! The very hour of shinning glory, bright as the morning sun and varicolored like the rays of the rainbow is its life cruelly terminated. For it is the fruit that proclaim its fecundity in gross proportions of health and vigour that attract the sharp edge of the farmer's cutlass. That has been my life. True to my father's words, it is the child of my loins that has brought me down to this infernal end. I am like the aged he-goat that in blind passion mounted his own daughter. O you silent flesh that is on this skeletal frame padded, O you treacherously clay, why keep you so treacherously silent while a father unknowingly mounts his daughter? (Pauses.) Is this the meaning of life? This endless toil and joyless sweat? This shattered hope and broken heart? This wicked labyrinth fraught with danger and death? Must I continue this meaningless course, this sorrowful and shameful life? Must I continue to live as the scorn of the world, a shameful being, a disease to be avoided lest infected?

(He stops and stands still in the middle of the room, raises his hand to the sky and says in a very solemn voice.)

Almighty God, thou art the author of this unhappy life. Take now what you have given me and let this misery end. Father, father, take the life you have given me unsought and end all my sorrows.

(He shakes violently, clutches his heart and falls down. A doctor rushes in, puts his stethoscope on the professor's chest and shakes his head.)

DOCTOR: DEAD! You men, carry both corpses to the mortuary.

(Exit the doctor and the attendants with the two corpses. Femi and Bimpe freeze into shocked immobility. The light slowly fades out on them, clinging to each other like mother and son.)

THE END

ABIODUN ADENIJI,

1980

Ile-Ife, Nigeria