One Virgin, Many Deaths

A Stageplay

By Geoff Adeleye (Nigeria)

Act 2, Scene 5

          

 Act II
 Scene V\
                                   
                                         Palace   
                  Enter BELARU, BAWURA and SOBADE
BAWURA [his hands hook between his groins]: Ah! Oh, my
   soul! Nothing but grief, and this cloud scuds across my heart in
   torpor, wedging me to the doldrums: brain-sapped, thought-dimmed –
   oh, I’m gone! [breaks down
BELARU: How are the glittering stars fallen!
BAWURA: Fallen, fallen!
BELARU: And so brought shroud of obscurity enclosing our night!
BAWURA: Stygian night, stygian night!
SOBADE: If the stars are fallen while the moon radiates, need we worry
   about darkness? For the glory of moon transcend that of galaxies
   of stars!
BAWURA: But those stars were prominent – oh, even freshly green,
   and have their existence for a purpose quite different from that of
   the moon.
SOBADE: Sadness is such waif which to a wonky mind sticks, feeding
   and pinching; but to an equable mind, it flashes past. It’s normal for
   a man to die.
BELARU [displeased]: Damned you uncanny thing, void of pity to stir
   up compassion in you!
SOBADE: Haven’t I sympathised with the bereaved?
BELARU: When Devil cries, he laughs!
SOBADE [irked badly]: You idiot, I think you need a hot slap!
BAWURA: Must you engage yourself thereby inflating our sorrow?
SOBADE: You need warn him.
BELARU: Get lost, brusque brute!
SOBADE [gets up, lunges, but BAWURA, quickly heads him of]: Leave
   go to teach the fatuous fool. I’m ready to break his mouth.
                            Enter BADEDIRAN
   They stand up, prostrate and greet
BADEDIRAN: What engendered this strife – need we further grief
   than this of which we feel our world a hell?
BAWURA: No, Your Majesty.
BADEDIRAN: Yesterday night – my people – was horrendous. I
   never experience that before.
SOBADE: Notwithstanding, we’re here to console, and congratulate
    you, Your Highness.
BELARU: Congratulation with stench of death very much around?
BAWURA [To BELARU]: Won’t you let him talk?
BELARU: Let him go ahead!
SOBADE: I’m happy because it’s a blessing in disguise. Prince’s
   marriage to Renate is now feasible, contest-free. Is this not sufficiency
   of felicity?
BAWURA [impressed]: Good talk!
BELARU [ill at ease, scowling at BAWURA]: It’s not strange if
   plant should bend to the direction of wind: it’s not friendship,
   it’s weakness.
BAWURA: Don’t insult me, you grouch.
SOBADE: Didn’t I tell that he needed a hot slap? Indeed, this snooty
   thing means to implicate us.
YATOKE [clears his throat]: It’s time I step in being the head of
   the vigilante. In the meantime, it’s unbecoming for a prominent
   chief like Chief Belaru to speak in an awkward manner.
SOBADE: Leave the rabid fool alone I soon disgrace him. I moot
   we chuck him out.
BADEDIRAN: Please, handle him with ease. Friendly fight is
   without rancour. Even if he breaks rank we won’t do that.
BAWURA: Let his whiny lives on – I don’t care.
BELARU: Don’t see me an odd one out simply because I won’t buy
   your vulpine chicanery to the people thereby blindfolding justice. Must
   a witch’s mouth be stained with blood before we could know
   she’d killed?
SOBADE: Didn’t I tell you? You can see now!
YATOKE [To BELARU]: Sir, I’m astounded at your scurrilous flak.
   I think a sea change will do us better.
BELARU: One thing I’ve discovered.
SOBADE: What did you dig up?
BELARU: Your conscience is so blunt that no whetstone in the earth
   can sharpen it. So I’ve broken my stand.
SOBADE [rapping his knuckles]: What is the use of your protest,
   which lacks substance of reasonableness.
BELARU: Truth is the heaviest burden. Who can bear it?
SOBADE: Are we liars?
BADEDIRAN: Enough of that. Let’s bury our difference. [To YATOKE]
   How far had you convinced the people that we’d no hands in the
   brutal murder?
YATOKE: More than I could relate had been done. I’d successfully
   instilled into the people that the young men were killed by the
   armed robbers.
BADEDIRAN: What was their response?
YATOKE: Initially very bad.
BAWURA: What else did you do?
YATOKE: I made them to understand that when the armed robbers
   wanted to enter the town, we spotted them and went at them at
   once behind, with a lot of casualties at their side. Realising that,
   they killed the young men in a blind revengeful acts – I mean they
   were killed at random in retaliation.
BADEDIRAN: Their response after that?
YATOKE: Very good! They believed my story, expressed pity
   and consoled the bereaved.
BADEDIRAN: You did well.
BAWURA: No wonder the wailing died overnight.
BADEDIRAN: What else?
SOBADE: That Prince should get married to Renate forthwith.
BELARU: Too rash, too soon, big fool!
BAWURA: Chill out, worried soul! What should a man do who had
   taken his opponents to the cleaners?
SOBADE [annoyed with BELARU]: Let him get married to his daughter.
                                                                                         [Exit SOBADE
BADEDIRAN: Any other thing?
BAWURA: No, Your Majesty.                                          [Exeunt]