Dear Mister Gordon. How are you, Sir? I am fine, praise the Creator. I have never met the chance to ask your forgiveness for my sudden departure from your house. Many times you asked me why, but I never told you the truth. My heart knew that if I began, I wouldn’t stop. So, I thought maybe I will write a letter. I was angry too, and what is the profit if I lose my temper in front of you on account of that scorpion? Yes, the one who shortened my food water from your home is nobody else, but Serkalem. I left because of her. If I stayed, I would have fallen on a disease. To make whom happy? Above head, wind!

Serkalem became my enemy from the first day when I began working at your house two years ago. I waited, thinking she will be better from today tomorrow. But she became worse. I, for my head, never arrive on people. I do what they order me to do. Why did she stick to me like a louse on the back? God knows. I said, let it be, and kept it all in my stomach. Why trouble you with our quarrels when you are like a mother to us. There is no leaf I haven’t plucked, no stone I haven’t turned, thinking she would leave me. I forgave her, I passed her, I begged her, I gave her face. But none of these was useful. Now, let the almighty God be the judge; who gave the right to a donkey like her to insult a man like me, when I am the father of a son and a daughter, both married by dignity? She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know a man’s measure because a woman raised her. Serkalem, they called her. The ugly one, they support with a name.

Dear Mister Gordon, I will tell you a secret that I kept for a year. I am carrying a stone and asking your forgiveness for not telling you this till today. Do you remember? When your daughter little Caroline was sick with tapeworm? A full year already. How time runs! I remember when you came wearing fire and asked us who gave Caroline raw meat. Serkalem said she didn’t, and I didn’t breathe a word. But the truth is, I have seen, with the metal of my eyes, when she fed her raw meat. "Why do you give raw meat to the little one? What will you answer if tapeworm catches her?" I asked her. "This doesn’t concern you. You should know your place!" she told me. As I feared, Caroline became sick, but thank God, she has a father like you, and she was cured at once. As it is said, run when the sun shines, adorn yourself when your father lives.

You see Mr. Gordon, Serkalem has two faces. Before you, she is a saint. To me, she is a spiteful snake and she whipped me with her tongue day and night. For two years, she didn’t let me sit or stand. I swallowed it all and kept silent for your sake. But when your former wife, little Caroline’s mother came from London a month ago to visit you for a week, Serkalem passed the boundary. She said she knew English and every time I walked in and walked out, she whispered to the madam, and the two laughed at me. As they said, they told her you know you know, and she washed her husband’s book. And who said Serkalem knows English? If using the hands more than the tongue is speaking English, then no one knows it better than her.

The cup filled and overflowed on the day of St. Gabriel, when I was sitting outside reading my book of prayer. I don’t know what the workhouse told the madam, but the two laughed and laughed and something sparked at me and I threw away the holy book, may the Lord have mercy on me, and went to make her taste a slap. She stood behind the madam, and I, respecting Caroline’s mother, didn’t touch her. I apologize for daring to say this, but to a good man like you, God will give a woman who doesn’t side with a pest like Serkalem to laugh at a poor old man.

I can tell you all day what kind of a chameleon Serkalem is, but what is the use. I leave it all for God. I wanted to come and see you, but I don’t have health. Seven days, I haven’t left my bed. I don’t eat, I don’t sleep. The pain wakes me up at midnight. Something pierces me with a spear on my side, and my back burns like fire. If I sleep for a moment, in the morning my body is sweat by sweat. If I had the money, I would go to the hospital. The little money I saved for a bad day, I spent it for the holiday. I may be old and poor, but no one can say Sisay starves his family. Whatever comes, there is always food in the kitchen. Better to walk barefoot with a full stomach. As our fathers said, if they fool the stomach with collard green, the knees malinger on the hill. And now, I have nothing. I have two children, but they have their own troubles, and they don’t help me. I have a cow in the sky but I don’t see her milk, said the man. What is it to the Lord to give health to a poor old man like me? And as if there is lack of misery in our house, my wife is sick with influenza. There is no one to give us water. As they say, on the goiter, ear supporter.

The boy Alemu who brings this letter is my nephew. He is trustworthy. If you help me, a sick old man, in my time of need, God will pay you back three fold. I will not forget you in my prayer.

Sisay Teferra.