Morality for Beautiful Girls tn1lda-3

by Alexander McCall Smith

  She lay on her bed and stared up at the white ceiling boards. They had been well dusted, which was a sign of good housekeeping. In many houses, the ceilings were fly-spotted or marked, at the edges, with the foundations of termite trails. Sometimes large spiders could be seen looping across what must have seemed to them upside-down white tundras. But here, there was nothing, and the paintwork was unsullied.

  Mma Ramotswe was puzzled. All that she had learned today was that the staff had views, but that they all disliked the Government Man. He threw his weight around, it seemed, but was there anything untoward in that? Of course the older brother would have views on how the cattle should be handled, and of course it was natural for him to give these views to his younger brother. Of course the old woman would think that her handicapped son was clever; and of course she would believe that city people lost interest in cattle. Mma Ramotswe realised that she knew very little about her. The cattleman thought she was wicked, but he gave no reason to back up his assessment. He had told her to watch her eyes, which she had done, to no effect. All that she had noticed was that she looked away, into the distance, while they all had lunch together. What did this mean?

  Mma Ramotswe sat up. There was something to be learned there, she thought. If somebody looked away, into the distance, then it meant that he or she did not want to be there. And the most common reason for not wanting to be somewhere was because one did not like the company one was in. That was always true. Now, if she was always looking away, that meant that she did not like somebody there. She does not dislike me, thought Mma Ramotswe, because she gave no indication of this when I saw her earlier and she has not had the chance to develop a dislike. The child would hardly have given rise to that sort of reaction, and indeed she had treated him quite fondly, patting his head on one or two occasions during the meal. That left the son and his wife.

  No mother dislikes her son. Mma Ramotswe understood that there were women who were ashamed of their sons, and there were also women who were angry with their sons. But no mother actually disliked a son at heart. A son could do anything, and would be forgiven by his mother. This old woman, therefore, disliked her daughter-in-law and disliked her intensely enough to want to be somewhere else when she was in her company.

  Mma Ramotswe lay back on her bed, the immediate excitement of her conclusion having passed. Now she had to establish why the old woman disliked the daughter-in-law, and if it was because her other son, the Government Man, had said something to her about his suspicions. Perhaps more important, though, was the question of whether the woman knew that her mother-in-law disliked her. If she did, then she would have a motive for doing something about it, but if she were a poisoner—and she did not look like it, and there were also the contrary views of the maid to be taken into account—then surely she would have attempted to poison the old woman rather than her husband.

  Mma Ramotswe felt drowsy. She had not slept well the previous evening, and the drive and the heat and the heavy lunch were having their effect. The stew had been very rich; rich and viscous, with that glutinous trail. She closed her eyes, but did not see darkness. There was a white aura, a faint luminous line, that seemed to cross her inner vision. The bed moved slightly, as if with the wind that had now started to blow from over the border, far away. The rain smell came, and then the hot, urgent drops, punishing the ground, stinging it, and bouncing back up like tiny grey worms.

  Mma Ramotswe slept, but her breathing was shallow, and her dreams were fevered. When she awoke and felt the pain in her stomach, it was almost five o’clock. The main storm had passed, but there was still rain, beating on the tin roof of the house like a troop of insistent drummers. She sat up, and then lay down again from the nausea. She turned on the bed and dropped her feet to the floor. Then she rose, unsteadily, and stumbled on her way to the door and the bathroom at the end of the corridor outside. There she was sick, and almost immediately felt better. By the time she had reached her room, the worst of the nausea had passed and she was able to reflect on her situation. She had come to the home of a poisoner and had been poisoned herself. She should not be surprised at that. Indeed it was entirely and completely predictable.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WITH YOUR LIFE?

  MMA MAKUTSI had only three days. It was not a long time, and she wondered whether she could possibly find out enough about each of the four finalists to enable her to advise Mr Pulani. She looked at the neatly typed list which he had provided, but neither the names, nor the addresses which followed them, told her anything. She knew that there were people who claimed that they could judge people on their names, that girls called Mary were inevitably honest and home-loving, that you should never trust a Sipho, and so on. But this was an absurd notion, very much less helpful than the notion that you could tell whether a person was a criminal by looking at the shape of his head. Mma Ramotswe had shown her an article about that theory and she had joined her in her laughter. But the idea—even if clearly not a very appropriate one for a modern person like herself to hold—had intrigued her and she had discreetly embarked on her own researches. The ever-helpful librarian of the British Council Library had produced a book within minutes and had pressed it into her hands.Theories of Crime was a considerably more scholarly work than Mma Ramotswe’s professional bible,The Principles of Private Detection by Clovis Andersen. That was perfectly adequate for tips on dealing with clients, but it was weak on theory. It was obvious to Mma Makutsi that Clovis Andersen was no reader ofThe Journal of Criminology; whereas the author ofTheories of Crime was quite familiar with the debates which took place as to what caused crime. Society was one possible culprit, Mma Makutsi read; bad housing and a bleak future made criminals of young men, and we should remember, the book warned, that those to whom evil was donedid evil in return.

  Mma Makutsi read this with astonishment. It was absolutely correct, she reflected, but she had never thought about it in those terms. Of course those who did wrong had been wronged themselves—that very much accorded with her own experience. In her third year at school, all those years ago in Bobonong, she remembered a boy who had bullied the smaller boys and had delighted in their terror. She had never been able to understand why he had done it—perhaps he was just evil—but then, one evening, she had passed by his house and had seen him being beaten by his drunken father. The boy wriggled and cried out, but had been unable to escape the blows. The following day, on the way to school, she had seen him striking a smaller boy and push him into a painful wagenbikkie bush with its cruel thorns. Of course she had not linked cause and effect at that age, but now it came back to her and she reflected on the wisdom revealed in the text ofTheories of Crime.

  Sitting alone in the office of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, it took her several hours of reading to reach what she was looking for. The section on biological explanations of crime was shorter than the other sections, largely because the author was clearly uncomfortable with them.

  “The nineteenth century Italian criminologist, Cesare Lombroso,” she read, “although liberal in his views of prison reform, was convinced that criminality could be detected by the shape of the head. Thus he expended a great deal of energy on charting the physiognomy of criminals, in a misguided attempt to identify those facial and cranial features that were indicative of criminality. These quaint illustrations (reproduced below) are a testament to the misplaced enthusiasm which could so easily have been directed into more fruitful lines of research.”

  Mma Makutsi looked at the illustrations taken from Lombroso’s book. An evil-looking man with a narrow forehead and fiery eyes looked out at the reader. Underneath this picture was the legend:Typical murderer (Sicilian type). Then there was a picture of another man, elaborately moustachioed but with narrow, pinched eyes. This, she read, was aClassic thief (Neapolitan type). Other criminal “types” stared out at the reader, all of them quite unambiguously malign. Mma Makutsi gave a shudder. These were clearly extremely unpleasant men and nobody w
ould trust any of them. Why, then, describe the theories of Lombroso as “misguided”? Not only was that rude, in her opinion, but it was patently wrong. Lombroso was right; youcould tell (something which women had known for a very long time—they could tell what men were like just by looking at them, but they did not need to be Italian to do so; they could do it right here in Botswana). She was puzzled; if the theory was so clearly right, then why should the author of this criminological work deny it? She thought for a moment and then the explanation came to her: he wasjealous! That must be the reason. He was jealous because Lombroso had thought about this before he had and he wanted to develop his own ideas about crime. Well! If that were the case, then she would bother no more withTheories of Crime. She had found out a bit more about this sort of criminology, and now all she had to do was apply it. She would use the theories of Lombrosan criminology to detect who, of the four girls on the list, was trustworthy and who was not. Lombroso’s illustration had simply confirmed that she should trust her intuition. A brief time with these girls, and perhaps a discreet inspection of their cranial structures—she would not want to stare—would be enough to provide her with an answer. It would have to suffice; there was nothing else that she could do in the short time available and she was particularly keen that the matter should be satisfactorily resolved by the time of Mma Ramotswe’s return.

  FOUR NAMES, none of them known to Mma Makutsi: Motlamedi Matluli, Gladys Tlhapi, Makita Phenyonini, and Patricia Quatleneni; and beneath them, their ages and their addresses. Motlamedi was the youngest, at nineteen, and the most readily accessible—she was a student at the university. Patricia was the oldest at twenty-four, and possibly the most difficult to contact, at her vague address in Tlokweng (plot 2456). Mma Makutsi decided that she would visit Motlamedi first, as it would be a simple matter to find her in her students’ hall on the neatly laid-out university campus. Of course, it would not necessarily be easy to interview her; Mma Makutsi knew that girls like that, with their place at the university and a good job virtually guaranteed for them, tended to look down on people who had not had their advantages, particularly those who had attended the Botswana Secretarial College. Her own 97 percent in the final examinations, the result of such hard work, would be mocked by one such as Motlamedi. But she would speak to her and treat any condescension with dignity. She had nothing to be ashamed of; she was now the Acting Manager of a garage, was she not, and an assistant detective as well. What official titles did this beautiful girl have? She was not even Miss Beauty and Integrity, even if she was in the running for that particular honour.

  She would go to see her. But what would she say? She could hardly seek out this girl and then say to her: Excuse me, I have come to look at your head. That would invite a hostile response, even if it had the merits of being completely true. And then the idea came to her. She could pretend to be doing a survey of some sort, and while the girls were answering, she could look closely at their head and facial features to see if any of the telltale signs of dishonesty was present. And the idea became even better. The survey need not be some meaningless marketing survey of the sort which people were used to responding to; it could be a survey of moral attitudes. It could pose certain questions which, in a very subtle way, would uncover the girls’ attitudes. The questions would be carefully phrased, so that the girls would not suspect a trap, but they would be as revealing as searchlights. What do you really want to do with your life? for example. Or: Is it better to make a lot of money than to help others?

  The ideas fell neatly into place, and Mma Makutsi smiled with delight as each new possibility revealed itself to her. She would claim to be a journalist, sent by theBotswana DailyNews to write a feature article on the competition—small deceptions are permissible, Clovis Andersen had written, provided that the ends justified the means. Well, the ends in this case were clearly important, as the reputation of Botswana itself could be in the balance. The girl who won Miss Beauty and Integrity could find herself in the running for the title of Miss Botswana, and that post was every bit as important as being an ambassador. Indeed, a beauty queen was a sort of ambassador for her country, and people would judge the country on how she conducted herself. If she had to tell a small lie in order to prevent a wicked girl from seizing the title and bringing shame to the country, then that was a small price to pay. Clovis Andersen would undoubtedly have agreed with her, even if the author ofTheories of Crime, who seemed to take a very high moral tone on all issues, might have had some misplaced reservations.

  Mma Makutsi set to typing out the questionnaire. The questions were simple, but probing:

  1. What are the main values which Africa can show to the world?

  This question was designed to establish whether the girls knew what morality was all about. A morally aware girl would answer something along the lines Africa can show the world what it is to be human. Africa recognises the humanity of all people.

  Once they had negotiated this or, rather if they negotiated this, the next question would become more personal:

  2.What do you want to do with your life?

  This was where Mma Makutsi would trap any dishonest girl. The standard answer which any beauty contestant gave to this question was this:I should like to work for charity, possibly with children. I would like to leave the world a better place than it was when I came into it.

  That was all very well, but they had all learned that answer from a book somewhere, possibly a book by somebody like Clovis Andersen.Good Practice for Beauty Queens, perhaps, orHow to Win in the World of Beauty Competitions.

  An honest girl, thought Mma Makutsi, would answer in something like the following fashion:I wish to work for charity, possibly with children. If no children are available, I shall be happy to work with old people; I do not mind. But I am also keen to get a good job with a large salary.

  3.Is it better to be beautiful than to be full of integrity?

  There was no doubt, again, that the answer which was expected of a beauty contestant was that integrity was more important. All the girls would probably feel that they had to say that, but there was a remote possibility that honesty would propel one into saying that being beautiful had its advantages. This was something that Mma Makutsi had noticed about secretarial jobs; beautiful girls were given all the jobs and there was very little left over for the rest, even if one had achieved 97 percent in the final examination. The injustice of this had always rankled, although in her own case, hard work had eventually paid off. How many of her contemporaries who may have had a better complexion than herself were now acting managers? The answer was undoubtedly none. Those beautiful girls married rich men, and lived in comfort thereafter, but they could hardly have claimed to have had careers—unless wearing expensive clothes and going to parties could be described as a career.

  Mma Makutsi typed her questionnaire. There was no photocopier in the office, but she had used carbon paper and there were now four copies of the question sheet, withBotswana Daily News Features Department meretriciously typed at the top of the page. She looked at her watch; it was noon, and the day had warmed up uncomfortably. There had been some rain a few days previously, but this had rapidly been soaked up by the earth and the ground was crying out for more. If rain came, as it probably would, the temperatures would fall and people would feel comfortable again. Tempers became frayed in the hot season and arguments broke out about little things. Rain brought peace between people.

  She went out of the office and closed the door behind her. The apprentices were busy with an old van which had been driven in by a woman who brought vegetables up from Lobatse to sell to the supermarkets. She had heard about the garage from a friend, who had said that it was a good place for a woman to take her vehicle.

  “It is a ladies’ garage, I think,” the friend had said. “They understand ladies and they look after them well. It is the best place for a lady to take her car.”

  The acquisition of a reputation for looking after ladies’ cars had kept the apprent
ices busy. Under Mma Makutsi’s management, they had responded well to the challenge, working late hours and taking much greater care with their work. She checked up on them from time to time, and insisted that they explain to her exactly what they were doing. They enjoyed this, and it also helped to focus their thoughts on the problem before them. Their diagnostic power—so important a weapon in the armoury of any good mechanic—had improved greatly and they also wasted less time in idle chatter about girls.

  “We like working for a woman,” the older apprentice had said to her one morning. “It is a good thing to have a woman watching you all the time.”

  “I am very happy about that,” said Mma Makutsi. “Your work is getting better and better all the time. One day you may be a famous mechanic like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. That is always possible.”

  Now she walked over to the apprentices and watched them manipulating an oil filter.

  “When you have finished that,” she said, “I would like one of you to drive me over to the university.”

  “We are very busy, Mma,” complained the younger one. “We have two more cars to see to today. We cannot go off here and there all the time. We are not taxi drivers.”

  Mma Makutsi sighed. “In that case I shall have to get a taxi. I have this important business to do with a beauty competition. I have to speak to some of the girls.”

  “I can drive you,” said the older apprentice hurriedly. “I am almost ready. My brother here can finish this off.”

  “Good,” said Mma Makutsi. “I knew that I could call on your finer nature.”

  THEY PARKED under a tree on the university campus, not far from the large, white-painted block to which Mma Makutsi had been directed when she showed the address to the man on the gate. A small group of female students stood chatting beneath a sun shelter that shaded the front door to the three-storey building. Leaving the apprentice in the van, Mma Makutsi made her way over to this group and introduced herself.