Hi Friends,
Here is the final part of Fruits and Fornication. Do enjoy and please comment.
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**It is fruit mother’s yells that crowd this canto. Her once absent voice now becomes such panicky screams that ring with the same rhythmic terror,**
> “So, you want to start doing what grown-ups do, eh?”
**The reason is not farfetched; somehow, she has caught wind of her daughter’s adventures. It is her Yoruba neighbour, Iya Adura that first sights this most shameful act. Unable to contain her eyes, she first goes to fruit mother, who, on this Sunday, is just coming back from morning mass. Morning mass, for her, has become a routine. She now practices a religion she once called funny. That she will be a faithful devout of the Catholic Church, even singing their litanies and using their rosaries had never in anyway been anticipated. She has even begun to participate in the Good Women’s meetings, where they all wear same Ankara designs, sing funny Ibo-Western religious songs and display stickers with the words “Glory to Jesus, Honor to Mary” in their shops.**
**By now, fruit mother has another booth in a marketplace not too far away. This burst of religious energy cannot be explained in any way, but one cannot exclude the possibility of its having to do with one of her numerous lovers who is promising marriage but whose staunch Catholic background prevents him from marrying a non-believer. And yes, she still keeps a handful of these lovers though, in a way, their shuffling of feet into the room rarely happens these days. It is this Catholic man whose silent feet creep into the room now. He seems to be an old widowed deacon in the church. He comes every Sunday to talk about his days as a soldier in Babangida’s regime.**
> “I should have been the HOS then, but because of the manipulation of some military juggernauts, they passed it over my head.”
> “Hmm, Nigeria and corruption,” this always has been fruit mother’s reply to these words.
**Anytime he is around, Enitan dares not go too far away - this is the time her role as a well brought up daughter becomes invaluable while fruit mother plays the part of a mother hen nursing an overgrown, obese chick.
It is in the heat of waiting for her overgrown chick that she finds Enitan with her cloth stripped to the waist, while Maliq caresses every part with expert lips- he evidently knows by heart every inch of her still-evolving anatomy.Fruit mother screams, puts her hands on her head, shows her red eyes like she had done with her husband, only this time, she exclaims in genuine pained words,**
>“Why are you doing this to me…what have I not done for you? Your father is where he is, enjoying himself; I am here suffering for you…”
**Then, as if possessed by her grief, she takes a stone nearby, throws it at Malik, and drags her daughter who has all the while been standing like a tired mourner, to the verandah of their house. She starts screaming for everyone to come and see the girl that has started doing what grown-ups do, that girl that hates her mother so much and wants to kill her. A crowd gathers, no one would miss this rare spectacle for anything. They chide Enitan, spit at her feet, call her a disgrace but deep down their hearts, they wondered why this woman whom everyone knows to be mistress to almost every married man in the environment, a destroyer of homes should complain, this daughter is merely a duplicate of her mother.**
**Enitan does not cry or shrink, she takes the insults almost gracefully, only frowning satirically when the little children and teenage girls who have gotten a whiff of her disgrace gather around her singing in elation,**
_One day na one day_
_Sinner girl go die_
_And go to hell-fire_
_She no go fit come back_
_To repent again._
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[Image Source](https://www.google.com.ng/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiBpYKy0MXXAhUMWxoKHZrzAFgQjhwIBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.psiholjub.com%2Fnauka%2Fmoguca-objasnjenja-nasilnickog-ponasanja%2F&psig=AOvVaw0z981ZSC9TKXxiuxe5R1pr&ust=1511008532219356)
**Enitan’s only regret is the abruptness with which she has been snatched from Malik. She prays silently that Malik’s punishment should be nothing more than the sharp stone that has bruised his head, but mother frustrates this prayer when she goes to Malik’s compound, bangs on the door of the family house and scream hysterically,**
>“Tell your son not to near my daughter again ooo…because the next time I see that Omo Kewu, that Muslim unbeliever, that dirty boy near my daughter again, I will kill him and his yeye father with that mallam cap of his and dirty beards…Iya Ruka, Iya Saheed, Iya Fatima, Iya Toheeb, tell that boy without a mother not to come and put sand sand for my garri…”
**Then, with the same rage, she drags Enitan into their room. Without thinking, she takes the widower’s belt hanging on the door, the spare one he leaves with her just to register his memory. With this, she gives Enitan a thorough thrashing; every stroke is followed by choky words,**
>“You with that dirty boy…never again…Omo kewu…I have suffered. What does he give you that I don’t give you?”
**Enitan almost says everything- love, one that is not affected by circumstances. She almost voices how fruit mother has slowly begun to not see her anymore, so that she doesn’t notice how Catholic man would, every time he comes, press her to the bed, touch every conceivable place in her body, dig his hands mischievously into her inside, while fruit mother is cooking his favourite Oha soup in the common kitchen. Those touches were always monstrous, but she could never get away from them.**
**He always comes three hours after morning mass, always meets her crouched in a corner, always taps the bed, a signal she should come and sit with him. She doesn’t say any of these things, or even try to console fruit mother who is crying terribly. All she does is stand, nurse the scars on her body in silence, stare at her mother’s made up face with a wicked grimace and counts the seconds down to when this whole dramatic fiesta will end…when she can see Malik again.**
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**At first, Enitan thinks her stomach is filled with the robustness that comes with being fifteen; of well-cooked beans and plantain eaten with Malik coursing his hands through her thighs. It is when her stomach refuses to deflate and spittle inadvertently crawl up the rim of her mouth that she knows something has planted itself in her. Fruit mother, upon knowing, screams, shows her red eyes and drags Malik out of his mother’s bosom to be married to her daughter. Malik sobs, streams down mucus and says they have never done it before.**
**He pleads with Enitan to say the truth. But is there any truth in telling of how Catholic-man usually invited her into the room, pressed her to the bed and dug mischievously into her inside, while fruit mother was cooking his favourite Oha soup in the kitchen? There is no truth in this, only shame and pain. So as Enitan watches herself being unceremoniously shoved into Malik’s arms alongside a basket of fruits for a frugal beginning; as she notices the way Malik looks at her body with disgust and how the anger in his eyes forms into a fist, she can’t help but suck in her breath, just knowing that a vicious cycle has surreptitiously begun again- of love and its lacklusterness; of rage and red eyes; of fruits and fornication.**
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