CHAPTER 55
When I enter the reception, Big Madam is sitting in the sofa by the aquarium and looking at the floor.
Ms. Tia jumps when she sees me, and I draw a breath, comforting myself with her scent of coconut oil and lily flower.
She is looking much better now. Her hair is sitting in a big puff on her head, pushed back with a red band. And her face is no more having plenty lines, the skin smooth again.
“Your face,” I say. “It is looking good.”
“Palm oil worked its magic,” she says with a wink. “Are you okay? Have you been crying?”
“I am okay now,” I say.
“Adunni, listen,” Ms. Tia says. “Your madam and I have had a lengthy discussion about your future. She is aware of the scheme and says you can come with me today, but she insists on having a word with you before she can release you.”
Big Madam stands, beckons with her fingers. “Follow me.”
“Florence . . .” Ms. Tia’s voice is low, like a warning.
“I just want to have a word with her,” Big Madam says, “alone.”
“Then I will step out,” Ms. Tia says as she nods at me, leaves the reception, closes the door quietly.
Big Madam holds out her hand. “The letter?”
I shake my head no.
“Hand me the letter this minute, or I will make it very difficult for you to leave. I don’t care what Tia threatens. In the end, you will be the one to suffer if I make things difficult for you.”
My heart is heavy as I put my hand inside my brassiere, bring out the letter, and give it to her.
She snatches it and starts to read, her eyes scanning the letter, reading fast, her face showing no feelings. Not even as she sees the dried blood. Then slowly, she starts to tear the letter to pieces.
I watch in shock, as small by small by small, a rain of black ink paper is pouring out from her hand and floating to the floor. A question—two questions—hit my mind so hard, it nearly stops my breathing.
What if it was Big Madam and not Big Daddy that caused Rebecca to disappear and bleed blood? And if so, is that why Rebecca was writing that she is afraid Big Madam would do something bad to her? Why Big Madam did not arrest Big Daddy with the police? I think back to the night I told her Rebecca wrote a letter, and how she seemed not too shocked. Sad, tired, but not shocked. She didn’t even read it! The only thing that seemed to nearly run her mad was the Caroline Bankole thing.
I look at her face, searching for answers, but all I see is a blanket of sadness and sorrow and pain.
“Ma, there was blood on that letter,” I say. “On the letter you just teared up.”
“I know,” Big Madam say, her voice low. “I saw it.”
“Why did you let the police go?” I ask. “Why did you tear the letter when you know Big Daddy may have killed her or wounded her or caused her to—” My voice is starting to rise, and Big Madam is holding up her hand, fear crawling all over her face. “Stop raising your voice, Adunni.”
“What happened to Rebecca?” I ask. “If you don’t tell me now, I will shout and shout and tell everybody what happened. That you killed Rebecca.”
She laugh a shock of bitter laugh. “Me? Kill a human being? Is that how low you think of me?” She sigh. “Adunni, I do not owe you any explanation, but I will tell you this. Rebecca is not dead. She was not harmed. I know Chief got her pregnant. I have always known. The day she left this house, I drove her away.”
“What about the blood?” I ask. “On the letter? Why is it there?”
“Where did you find the letter?”
“Under my bed,” I lie, because I don’t want to put Abu in trouble, and because of that, I know I cannot talk about the wet seat in the car, which I now know was maybe full of blood too before somebody washed it off. “What happened to make her bleed?”
“This will remain between you and me,” Big Madam says, watching me. Inside her eyes, I see one hundred mouths wide-open, screaming a warning. “The day Rebecca left, I was at home, unwell. My husband did not know I hadn’t left for the shop. He and I were not on speaking terms—we hardly are anyway. I needed Rebecca to make me some food, since Kofi had gone out, and because I called for her with no response, I was forced to go and find her in her room. When I got there, she was in so much pain. She was moaning, holding her stomach, trying hard to twist out her waist beads. She was in a bad state, in real agony. She said she drank something, something my husband gave to her. She must have been in the middle of writing the letter you found under your bed, before the pain started, because I noticed it on her bed as I rushed out to get her help.”
“I saw the waist beads,” I say, “on her window.”
She took them off because her stomach was turning with so much pain.
Big Madam shrugs. “She might have left them there as we got ready to leave the house. I ended up dragging her to the car myself because no one was home. I had sent Abu to deliver an urgent fabric order on the mainland, and I don’t know where Chief went. I suspect he gave her a drug to cause a miscarriage and took a stroll, left her to bleed out the baby. His baby.”
She stops a moment, sway on her feet a little, then still herself. “I drove her to hospital. On the way, Rebecca started to bleed. Turns out she was nearly four months pregnant—I don’t know how I missed her growing bulge—and that she was losing the baby. She told me my husband was responsible. And that the bastard had promised her marriage.
“Immediately the doctor was able to control the bleeding, I got her discharged, took her mobile phone off her, deleted all the messages she and Chief had been exchanging, and drove her to the nearest motor-park. I gave her some money, told her to get out of Lagos and never return. She never returned to her village, because Mr. Kola would have found that out and told me, but she has stayed away from my life. And me, in my foolishness, I asked Mr. Kola to get me a much younger girl as my next maid. I didn’t know I was married to an animal. A beast. Age matters not to him. Nothing, absolutely nothing, matters to him.” She sigh. “Go and get your things, Adunni.”
I look at the scatter of paper on the floor, not moving from where I am standing. “How do I know, ma, that you are not lying?” I ask, but I think she is saying the truth. I think too that Rebecca took the letter with her to the car and hid it there, maybe by mistake or because she had hope that somebody would see it.
“Our conversation is over,” Big Madam says. “Go now and get your things and leave my home.” And then, raising her voice, she says, “Mrs. Dada, you can come back in. Adunni and I are done.”
Ms. Tia returns inside, sees the scatter of paper on the floor, says, “What the hell?”