A Letter from Madam Concord

Veronica

Two days ago, news got to me that you have uprooted your daughter from my son’s household and if I tell you that this piece of information sits nicely with me, I lie and the truth is not in me.

But be that as it may, it scarcely surprises me, for I have nursed this nagging feeling about what manner of people you all were and I was certain that the opulence in my clan would discomfit people of meager income such as you. Talk of clean water mingling with something… brackish.

What astonishes me most is how much we have spent preparing for this union. We did not even ask your people to contribute. We took upon us the bills. Hundreds of cartons of Norfolk wine from Italy. A surfeit of exotic Chinese pastries. The honeymoon suite in Cuba. A reception by the sea shores. A8ll paid for and in full. But see how you repay us with this coldness of shoulders. How do you think it shall be well with you?

And to think that you carried out your deed for a flimsy reason. He flung a saucer at her and broke her toe. So what?  It was all in a fit of rage. I agree that my son can be quite tempestuous and given to maddening rage but he has never killed anyone and your daughter won’t be the first. His father of blessed memory also had anger issues. He’d shove me at times and, well, occasionally raised his fist. I remember the time he almost threw me off the stairs when we had an argument because his fufu did not come out fluffy; but thank God my angels were on guard and I only broke a few ribs. But I endured. I survived. That’s what good women do. He often said mean things to me…but I knew he did not mean them. I knew Chief Adams more than anyone else. He had a heart of gold. We all have our faults and ways in which we err one another. A man cannot be totally good.  Chief in all his rage was a generous man. If my son inherited his quickness of temper, he must have also inherited his magnanimity.

Look at all the inheritance he left I and my sons and look at what your daughter is about to miss: the choicest of apartments in London and Banana Island and Houston and Bombay, to name but a few cities. And not to forget the fleet of cars and a vibrant wardrobe to make her enemies go green in envy.

But Vero, come to think of it, Gbenga paid your daughter’s school fees right from her first year at the university till she graduated. Did he not rent an apartment for her in the elite part of town? Did he not put in a good word for her in that oil company where she works now?

Without my Gbenga, your daughter would be another nonentity with a heedless future, just like those other girls in mini-skirts who grovel and do all sorts of nasty things to climb society’s ladder.

You and your family promised us during the introduction ceremony that there were no fly-by- nights in your gene and women from your clan were faithful and are known to comport themselves well. Why is your daughter behaving like she is possessed by some ruthless spirit that can’t keep her wretched frame put in the house of a man who has deigned to build an undeserving interest in her? What is in a saucer being flung at her? People who have had T.V sets thrown at them are still enduring. What if he beats her occasionally? Should that deter the marriage arrangements already made? It must have been her caustic tongue that led to his fit of rage. Yes, of course. These young women do not know to control their tongues and they are experts in making demons out of men of noble character.

The saucer only cut her big toe, as I heard, and caused her to bleed profusely. No cause for alarm. I have enough resources to send her to the best of hospitals and put her in the hands of foreign doctors who would stitch the wound to non-existence. I, Madam Concord have connections that run wild and loose and you know I am not tight-fisted. Your daughter is an active recipient of my overflowing generosity. Remember.

Afterwards, she and my Gbenga can forget that this ever happened and carry on with their lives together. 

You have few days to rethink your actions. I have no time for ungrateful wretches.

Madam Concord.

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