The Kalahari Typing School for Men

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “A good idea,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly. “And maybe you can play some games with him. Football, perhaps.”

  “Yes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I shall do all these things, starting this very evening. I shall do them.”

  When they returned to Zebra Drive, while Mma Ramotswe prepared the evening meal, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni took Puso for a ride in his truck to look at the dam, taking him onto his lap and allowing him to steer the wheel as they bumped along a back track. On the way home, they stopped at a café for potato chips, which they ate in the cab of the truck. Then they returned, and Mma Ramotswe noticed that both were smiling.

  THE NEXT day at the shared premises of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, everybody’s mood, if not elevated, was at least buoyant. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni felt considerable satisfaction at having prompted the purchase of a new pump at the orphan farm, and was happy, too, with the progress he had made in communicating with Puso. Mma Ramotswe shared his pleasure in this and was further cheered when the morning post brought three cheques from clients who had been stalling in their payments. The younger apprentice had about him an air of quiet serenity, as if he had seen a vision, thought Mma Ramotswe, although she could not work out what could have made him look so pleased with himself. The older apprentice was strangely silent—although in no sense grumpy. Something had happened to him, too, thought Mma Ramotswe, although again she could not imagine what it was, unless, in his case, it had been the discovery of some breathtakingly beautiful girl who had stunned him into silence and contemplation.

  The younger apprentice would very much have liked to spread the good news of the miracle which they had witnessed at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors the previous afternoon. He could not do this—not at the garage at least—because of the compromising circumstances in which the miracle had occurred. To announce that prayer had caused the malfunctioning hydraulics to work would entail admitting that they had wrongfully used the equipment in the first place. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would probably not be so interested in how the car came down as he would be in how it came to be up in the air, and this would lead to a reprimand, at the very least, or possibly to a docking of pay, which he was entitled to do under their apprenticeship contract in the event of serious wrongdoing. So the apprentice could not announce that something special had happened, nor claim the credit for having caused this event. He would have to wait until the following Sunday, when he would be able to reveal to the congregation at the church, to the brothers and sisters who would be interested in this sort of thing, that prayer had brought immediate and concrete results.

  The older apprentice was naturally sceptical about such things, but he had been astonished by what appeared to be a clear connection between a prayed-for event and the event itself. If his younger colleague could do this, then did it mean that everything else that he did was equally valid? This had alarming implications, as it meant that he would have to pay some attention to his predictions of divine wrath should he, Charlie, not change his ways. That was a sobering thought.

  Mma Ramotswe also noticed that there was something different about Mma Makutsi. It could have been that she had new shoes and a new dress, both of which could do a great deal for a person’s mood, but she thought that there was something more to it than that. What struck her was a certain demureness that appeared to have crept into her manner, and for this there was usually only one explanation.

  “You are happy today, Mma,” she said casually, as she entered the details of the cheques in her cash-received book.

  Mma Makutsi made an airy movement with her right hand. “It is a nice day. We have received those cheques.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Yes,” she said. “But we have received cheques before, and they have not had this effect on you. There is something more, isn’t there?”

  “You’re the detective,” said Mma Makutsi playfully. “You tell me what it is.”

  “You have met a man,” said Mma Ramotswe plainly. “That is how people behave when they have met a man.”

  Mma Makutsi seemed deflated. “Oh,” she said.

  “There,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I knew it. I am very pleased, Mma. I hope that he is a nice man.”

  “Oh he is,” enthused Mma Makutsi. “He is a very handsome man. With a moustache. He has a moustache and his hair is parted in the middle.”

  “That is interesting,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I like moustaches, too.” She wondered whether Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would be persuaded to grow a moustache, but decided that it was unlikely. She had heard him talking to the apprentices about the need for mechanics to be clean-shaven; it was something to do with grease, she imagined.

  She waited for Mma Makutsi to enlarge on her description, but she sat at her desk, busying herself with a sheaf of garage bills. So she returned to her cash book.

  “He has a very nice smile, too,” Mma Makutsi suddenly added. “That is one of the nice things about him.”

  “Oh yes?” said Mma Ramotswe. “And have you been out dancing with him? Men with moustaches can be good dancers.”

  Mma Makutsi lowered her voice. “We haven’t actually been out together yet,” she said. “But that will happen soon. Maybe tonight.”

  MR. BERNARD Selelipeng was the first student to arrive that evening, knocking at the door of the hall a good twenty minutes before the class was due to start. Mma Makutsi had already been there for half an hour, setting out the papers for the evening’s exercises and touching up the chalked-in finger diagram on the blackboard. A group of Boy Scouts had met in the hall that afternoon, and one of the Scouts had traced finger marks over Mma Makutsi’s drawing of the typewriter keyboard, necessitating some repairs to the third finger on the right hand and the little finger on the left.

  “It’s only me, Mma,” he said on entering the room. “Bernard Selelipeng.”

  She looked up and smiled at him. She noticed the gleaming parting in his hair and the neat buttoned-down collar. She saw, too, his highly polished shoes; another good sign, in her view, and one which suggested that he would appreciate her own new green shoes.

  She smiled at him as he made his way over to his desk, to which she had earlier returned his essay. As he picked up the piece of paper and began to read her pencilled-in comment, she purported to concentrate on the pile of papers on her table, but she was watching for his reaction.

  He looked up, and she knew immediately that she had done the right thing. Folding up his essay, he crossed the room to stand before her.

  “I hope that you did not think I was being rude, Mma,” he said. “I wanted to write the truth, and that was the truth.”

  “Of course I did not think you rude,” she said. “I was happy to read what you had written.”

  “And your reply is just what I was hoping for,” he said. “I would like to ask you to come for a drink with me after the class tonight. Will you be free?”

  Of course she would, and for the rest of the class, although she was outwardly occupied with the teaching of typing, she could not think of anything other than Mr. Bernard Selelipeng, and it was difficult to address questions to the class as a whole rather than to the smiling, elegant man seated in the middle of the second row. There were so many questions that had to be answered. What was his job, for example? Where was he from? How old was he? She guessed that he was in his mid- to late thirties, but it was always difficult to tell with men.

  At the end, when the class had been dismissed and everybody except for Bernard Selelipeng and Mma Makutsi had dispersed, he helped her to tidy up and to lock the hall. Then he showed her to his car, the possession of which was another good sign, and they drove off in the direction of a bar which he said he knew at the edge of the town, on the Francistown Road. It was an intensely pleasurable feeling for her, sitting in the passenger seat of his car, like any other of those fortunate women who were driven about by their husbands and lovers with such an air of security and possession. It seemed to her to feel completely right, that she sh
ould be transported in this way, a handsome, moustachioed man at the wheel. How quickly, too, one might become accustomed to this; no long walk to work across dusty paths, trodden by so many other feet, nor any frustrating wait for the crowded and stuffy minibuses which would ferry one about in bone-shaking discomfort for a pula or two.

  Bernard Selelipeng glanced at her and flashed his smile in her direction. The smile, she thought, was his most attractive feature. It was a warm, inviting smile, of the sort that one could imagine living with. A husband who scowled all the time would be worse than no husband at all, but a man who smiled like that would turn his wife weak at the knees every day.

  They arrived at the bar. Mma Makutsi had seen it before, from the road, but had never been in. It was an expensive place, she had heard, where you could have a meal, too, if you wished. There was music playing in the background as they went in, and a waiter quickly appeared to take their order. Bernard Selelipeng ordered a beer, and Mma Makutsi, who never drank alcohol, ordered a soft drink with ice.

  Bernard Selelipeng knocked his glass gently against hers and smiled again. They had not made much conversation in the car, and now he asked her politely where she lived and what she did for a living during the day. Mma Makutsi was not sure whether she should tell him about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, as she was not certain whether he would be inhibited by her being a detective, even if only an assistant detective, and so she confined herself to mentioning her role as the assistant manager of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

  “And what about you, Rra?” she asked. “What do you do yourself?”

  “I work in the diamond office,” he said. “I am a personnel manager there.”

  This impressed Mma Makutsi. Jobs with the diamond company were well paid and secure, and it was a good thing, she thought, to be a personnel manager, which had a modern ring to it. But even as she thought this, she wondered why a personnel manager, handsome, of an interesting age, and in possession of his own car, should be unattached. He must be one of the most eligible men in Gaborone, and yet he was paying attention to her, Mma Makutsi, who was not necessarily the most glamorous of ladies. He could go to the Botswana Secretarial College, park outside the drive, and pick up any number of fashionable girls much younger than herself. And yet he did not. She glanced at his left hand as he lifted his glass of beer to his mouth. There was no ring.

  “I live by myself,” said Bernard Selelipeng. “I have a flat in one of those blocks at the edge of the village. That’s not far from your garage. That’s where I live.”

  “They are very nice flats,” said Mma Makutsi.

  “I would like to show you my place someday,” said Bernard Selelipeng. “I think you would like it.”

  “But why do you live by yourself?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Most people would get lonely living by themselves.”

  “I am divorced,” said Bernard Selelipeng. “My wife went away with another man and took our children with her. That is why I am by myself.”

  Mma Makutsi was astonished that any woman could leave a man like this, but of course she might well have been the flashy type, and they were notorious. She imagined that such a wife could have her head turned by a richer, more successful man—although Bernard Selelipeng was clearly successful.

  They made easy conversation for several hours. He was witty and entertaining, and she laughed at his descriptions of some of his colleagues in the diamond office. She told him about the apprentices, and he laughed at them. Then, shortly before ten o’clock, he looked at his watch and announced that he would be happy to run her home, as he had to be at an early meeting the following morning and did not wish to be too late. So they went back to the car and drove back through the night. Outside the house in which she rented her room, he stopped the car but did not turn off the engine. Again this was a good sign.

  “Good night,” he said, touching her gently on the shoulder. “I will see you at the class tomorrow.”

  She smiled at him encouragingly. “You have been very kind,” she said. “Thank you for this evening.”

  “I cannot wait for us to go out again,” he said. “There is a film I would like to see at the cinema. Perhaps we can go to that.”

  “I would like that very much,” said Mma Makutsi.

  She watched him drive down the road, the rear red lights of his car disappearing in the darkness. She sighed; he was so kind, so gentlemanly, rather like a glamorous version of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. What a coincidence it was that she and Mma Ramotswe should both have found such good men, when there were so many charlatans and deceivers about.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A DISGRUNTLED CLIENT

  W ITH SUCH a profusion of positive developments, they had given little thought to the rival agency, and perhaps they would have forgotten about it completely had it not been for two developments which reminded them of Mr. Buthelezi. The first of these was an interview published in the Botswana Gazette, an interview which took up the entire features page and was headed by a picture of Mr. Buthelezi sitting at his desk, a cigarette in one hand and the telephone hand-piece in the other. The article was spotted by Mma Ramotswe, who read it out to Mma Makutsi while the latter sipped thoughtfully, but with increasing astonishment, at a mug of bush tea.

  “From New York to Gaborone, via Johannesburg,” ran the caption at the top of the page. “A detective from different worlds: we spoke to the charming Mr. Buthelezi in his well-appointed office, and asked him what it was like to be a private detective in Gaborone.

  “‘It is quite hard being the first proper detective,’ he said. ‘There are, as people know, one or two ladies who have been dabbling in this for a little while, but they have no background in detection. I am not saying that there is not a job for them to do. There will always be jobs relating to children and the like. I am sure that they will do those very well. But for the real work, you need a proper detective.

  “‘I was trained with the CID in Johannesburg. That was a very tough training, with all those gangsters and all those murders, but I soon learned to be tough. You have to be tough in this business. That’s why men are best at it. They’re tougher than women.

  “‘I had many cases in the CID. Well-known murders. Jewel thefts. Ow! Millions of rands gone, just like that! Kidnappings, too. All of that was my daily bread, and I soon found that I understood the criminal mind very well. That’s experience for you.

  “‘I have been very busy since I opened up. There are obviously many problems here in this city, and so if any readers have something that needs looking into, I am their man. I repeat, I am their man.

  “‘You ask what are the best qualities for a private detective? I would say that an understanding of how human psychology works is one of the best. Then a good eye for detail. We have to notice things—often very little things—in order to find out the truth for our clients. So a private detective is like a camera, always taking photographs in his mind and always trying to understand what is going on. That is the secret.

  “‘You ask how you become a private detective? The answer is that you have to be trained, preferably in the CID. You cannot just set up your sign and say that you are a private detective. Some people have tried that, even here in Gaborone, but that will never work. You have to have been trained.

  “‘It’s also helpful if you’ve been to London or New York, or to some of those places. If you’ve done that, then you know the world, and nobody will be able to pull the wool over your eyes. I have been in New York, and I know all about the private detection side of things there. I know many of the men working in this area. They are very clever men, these New York detectives, and we were close friends.

  “‘But at the end of the day, I always say, East West, Home’s Best! That is why I am back here in Gaborone, which was my mother’s place and which was where I went to school. I am a Motswana detective with a strange name. I know a lot, and what I don’t know, I’ll soon find out. Give me a call. Anytime!’”

  Mma Ramotswe finished re
ading and then tossed the newspaper down with disgust. She was used to bragging men, and was tolerant of them, but these words from Mr. Buthelezi went too far. All those references to the superiority of men over women in detection were unambiguously aimed at her and her agency, and while it was obvious that an attack of this sort could only be the result of insecurity on his part, it could hardly be left unanswered. And yet an answer was probably what he wanted, as it would merely draw further attention to his business. Moreover—and this was worrying—what he said would probably strike a chord with many of the newspaper’s readers. She suspected that there were plenty of people who did believe that the work which she did was better done by a man. They believed this of driving and flying aeroplanes, in spite of the fact that she had read—and others surely had read, too—of the evidence that women are simply safer drivers and pilots than men. The reason for this, apparently, is that they are more cautious and less given to flamboyant risk-taking. That is why women, on the whole, drive more slowly than men. Yet many men refused to acknowledge this fact and made belittling remarks about women’s driving.

  “I’m going to do a little bit of research,” she said to Mma Makutsi. “Could you go and fetch Charlie, Mma. I want him to read this.”

  Mma Makutsi looked puzzled. “Why?” she asked. “You know that he’s only interested in girls. He won’t be interested in this.”

  “An experiment,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You wait and see.”

  Mma Makutsi left the office and came back a few minutes later with the older apprentice, who was wiping his hands on the cotton lint that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni provided in his battle against grease.

  “Yes, Mma,” said the apprentice. “Mma Makutsi says you need my advice. I am always happy to give advice. Ha!”

  Mma Ramotswe ignored the comment.

  “You read this, please,” she said. “I would like to get your opinion on it.”