“And who will you vote for?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, smiling.
Mma Ramotswe did not reply straightaway. “I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t want to vote for Violet Sephotho, but isn’t it a bit boastful to vote for yourself? Are you allowed to do that?”
“Of course you are,” said Charlie. “Mma, if you don’t vote for yourself, then who will vote for you? Nobody, Mma—nobody.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni now asked whether anybody thought Violet Sephotho would vote for herself. “Of course she will,” said Charlie. “And that’s another reason why you must vote, Mma Ramotswe. Your vote will cancel hers out.”
Mma Ramotswe poured herself another cup of red bush tea. As she raised the cup to her lips, she sighed. Politics was definitely not for her; it seemed that you had to boast and brag, make all sorts of misleading statements, deal with intrusive questions from persistent reporters, and then, to top it all, brazenly vote for yourself. She felt comfortable about none of that, and now all she hoped for was a swift end to the whole business—which would come two days later. Violet Sephotho would win, she suspected, but at least she, Mma Ramotswe, would be able to look Mma Potokwane in the eye and tell her that she had stood against her and had done her best. It would be a secret relief, of course, if Violet won, as she herself could then retire gracefully from her political career and concentrate on her real job, which was to help people with the problems in their lives. That was an honourable calling, and she felt that she did not need to justify it: a single good result, even if many other cases were never solved, could make all the difference to somebody’s life.
The Dr. Marang affair was a case in point; justice, sheer basic justice, demanded a solution to that case, and, if she managed to find one, then it would somehow balance the scales of justice once again. She had some cause for optimism, even if slight; cases in which there was a complete lack of evidence or clues frequently ended up on the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’s list of failures. Eddie’s behaviour, however, made this a different matter: at least they now knew something, which was that there was one person in Mochudi, apart from the driver himself, who knew who had knocked Dr. Marang down. That person was probably a friend of Eddie’s, as it appeared that Eddie had not needed much time to find out who it was. More than that, Eddie was effectively protecting the driver, as he had acted as the intermediary. This suggested that the guilty person was a close-enough friend, as otherwise Eddie would have had no reason to cover up for him. The solution, then, was to find out who Eddie’s close friends were, and then find out which one of them had a blue car. That process, Mma Ramotswe thought, would lead them straight to the person for whom they were looking. It would be that simple.
Mma Ramotswe smiled as the pieces of the puzzle seemed to slot into place. Noticing this, Charlie asked, “Do you have a plan then, Mma?”
She replied, “Yes, Charlie. I have a plan.”
“A good one, Mma?”
She hesitated, but only briefly. “Yes, Charlie. I think it’s a very good one.”
Realising that Mma Ramotswe seemed unwilling to say much more about her plan, Charlie looked at his watch, yawned, and announced that he was going to bed. They said good night to him, and he started to leave the room. He stopped at the door and turned around to face his hosts.
“I am very happy,” he said. Then, after a short pause, he explained the cause of his happiness. “I am very happy to be going off to my own room in this nice house. I am happy to be safe.”
Mma Ramotswe lowered her teacup. “I am glad about that, Charlie.”
Charlie hesitated, but he had more to say. “You have been so kind to me, Mma Ramotswe—and you too, Rra.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at the floor. “That’s all right, Charlie,” he muttered.
“You have been like my mother and father,” said Charlie.
Mma Ramotswe smiled at him. “One day you should tell us about your real mother and father, Charlie. You’ve never spoken about them.”
“One day,” said Charlie, but with the circumspection of one who has no wish at all to speak about something.
* * *
—
ON THE DAY of the council election, Mma Ramotswe awoke earlier than usual. Her night’s sleep had been fitful, punctuated by anxious dreams in which it seemed that everything—and nothing—was happening. Mma Ramotswe normally slept well, and her dreams, when remembered, tended to be uneventful. She often simply dreamed of driving her white van through featureless bush—a strange thing to dream about, she thought—or that she was having tea with Mma Potokwane on the matron’s verandah, but not saying very much, just sitting and sipping tea. Other people spoke of vivid things that happened to them in that world of sleep—bizarre meetings, unlikely happenings, magical jumblings-up of people and places—but Mma Ramotswe did not, or, if she did, she did not remember any of it. That was something that Mma Makutsi had pointed out to her: “Everybody dreams the same amount, Mma,” she had said. “It’s just that we don’t remember all our dreams—and that’s just as well, if you ask me, Mma!” That last remark had been accompanied by a shake of the head, relieved as much as rueful, which made Mma Ramotswe wonder what sort of dreams Mma Makutsi was talking about, and whether she, Mma Makutsi, suffered from such dreams—suffer being the right word there. It must be difficult, she thought, to dream too much about things you would never do, because that suggested, people said, that you really wanted to do those things. So, if you dreamed about cake—and Mma Ramotswe did just that from time to time—then that meant that you secretly wanted to eat more cake, or not so secretly, perhaps. There were some people who very clearly and obviously wanted to eat more cake, it was written all over their faces. One might as well wear a large badge saying Greedy Person on it.
But it was not cake that Mma Ramotswe dreamed about on the night before the election, nor was it politics—and heaven knew what politicians dreamed about; meetings, perhaps, endless meetings. Her dreams on that fitful night were, rather, of needing to be somewhere and not being able to get there. And then, when she would emerge into the outskirts of consciousness—that vague state of being awake but not quite awake—she would struggle to work out where she had to be and why, before drifting back into sleep and the recurrence of that sense of unease and anxiety. When she awoke, she saw from the clock beside her bed that it was almost half-past five—too late to go back to sleep, but exactly the right time to go out into her garden and watch the dawn. It was her favourite part of the day, a time when humanity was stirring but had yet to begin to make much noise, and the air was given over to birds, to have their say before their songs were drowned out; it was a time of faint wood-smoke and the smell of acacia leaves unfurling so as to be ready for the first of the sun’s warmth, a smell that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni said was not there, was nothing but imagination, but which she knew existed because she had always picked it up, even as a young child; it was a time when she could call to mind small matters, because the important things that the day brought, the distractions and concerns of life, were not yet elbowing everything else out of the way. Look at the small creatures on the ground, her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, had said to her. Look at those small creatures before the birds wake up and chase them away. And she had, she remembered; she had watched them going about their minute, generally unnoticed business in their tiny world: engaged in their search for food or for building supplies—blades of dry grass, microscopic fragments of wood, grains of sand—with which they would construct their towns and cities, every bit as elaborate and as impressive as our own human creations.
Now, with her cup of freshly made red bush tea in hand, she made her way out into the garden, still wearing the faded pink housecoat that doubled as a dressing gown, because nobody would see her—except possibly the neighbours, if they were to be up at this hour, and she, anyway, had seen them in their nightwear, taking bowls of food out to the kennel occupied by their
ill-tempered yellow dog. Mma Ramotswe was not one to care unduly about fashion or about how she looked, as long as her clothes were clean and in reasonable repair. In this respect she differed from Mma Makutsi, whose interest in fashionable shoes was well known, and who tended to prefer bright colours. Mma Ramotswe’s own footwear was functional—“Traditionally built shoes are the right thing for traditionally built people,” she would point out—and she invariably chose shoes that allowed room for her broader foot to spread out in comfort. She also favoured shoes that would not show the dust, and so these were almost always brown, the same colour as the earth. “Dust is a big problem in a dry country like Botswana,” she observed, “and that is why brown shoes are more sensible than white shoes. Everybody knows that, I suspect, except for those who do not know it, and whose shoes quickly become scruffy.”
In the garden that morning, waiting for the sun to come floating up over the eastern horizon, she thought about the day ahead. On occasion, she was able to put thoughts of unpleasant tasks out of her mind should they come to her while she was enjoying her garden, but this morning there was no doing that. This was the day of the election, and the day on which she would have to grit her teeth and endure attention that she had never sought, was most uncomfortable with, and really hoped would simply go away. If she could have her way, she would turn the clock forward, skipping the hours of daylight, until it was dark once more and she was in her kitchen, the day behind her, preparing for supper and an early night. That was the thought that always came to her when she found life trying or unpleasant: the thought of climbing into her own bed shortly before nine, turning out the light, and sinking into the arms of blissful sleep. Such a prospect could sustain one through just about anything, just as the imagining of a draught of cold water must sustain some poor soul lost in the Kalahari, trying to find a path or track that would lead the way home; or just as the thought of retirement must enable people to do hard and unpleasant work, knowing that before too long they would say goodbye to the workplace for the last time, sit themselves down under a tree, look at the sky, and think of what it was like not to have to do whatever it is that they had had to do, day in, day out, for all those years.
She shook herself out of her reverie. She would face the day as bravely as she could; she would get to the polling station as soon as it opened, slip in and cast her vote, and then absent herself as quickly as possible, seen, she hoped, by nobody. Then she would take Charlie off to Mochudi, as they had planned, and busy herself with what she should be doing—helping her clients—rather than involving herself in the messy and unpleasant world that was politics.
The sun came up, at first a curved slice of golden red, and then a shimmering, glowing ball, lifting itself free of the line of tree-tops, light, effortless, floating. And then the sky opened up, freed of its veils of darkness, a great pale blue bowl above…above me, thought Mma Ramotswe—and all the other people who were getting up now in Botswana; above people for whom this was their first day on this earth—the tiny, fragile babies—and above those for whom it was their last—the aged people who had seen so much and who knew that the world was slipping between their fingers…all—or most of us, at least—trying our best, trying to make something of life, hoping to get through the day without feeling too unhappy, or uncomfortable, or hungry—which was what just about everybody hoped for, whether they were big and important, or small and insignificant. She sighed. If only people could keep that in their minds—if they could remember that the people they met during the day had all the same hopes and fears that they had, then there would be so much less conflict and disagreement in this world. If only people remembered that, then they would be kinder to others—and kindness, Mma Ramotswe believed, was the most important thing there was. She knew that in the depths of her being; she knew it.
The children were aware that the day was a special one and made their preparations for school quickly and co-operatively. Then, once they were out of the house and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had driven off to work with Charlie, Mma Ramotswe perfunctorily tidied the kitchen, made a pack of sandwiches to take on the trip to Mochudi, and set off for the polling station that she had been told would be established in the municipal offices on Independence Avenue.
She arrived just as the official opened the door to the room in which the polling booths had been erected. There were three of these—curtained constructions in which the voters could mark their papers in private before placing them in a large box atop a trestle table. This table had been draped in the national flag, reminding voters of the importance of the task they were performing. Although candidates’ publicity was forbidden in the immediate vicinity of the polling station, there were several large posters proclaiming civic messages. It’s your democratic duty—cast your vote wisely! counselled one of these; while another said, perhaps more opaquely, If you don’t vote, then you can’t complain! Mma Ramotswe approached the young man who was sitting at a desk to the side of the booths. She greeted him in the traditional way, and then said, “I would like to vote, Rra.”
The young man looked at his watch. “It is too early, Mma. You cannot vote until the polls are open, and that will only be in two minutes.”
Mma Ramotswe resisted the temptation to laugh. Rules, she supposed, were rules, but really…
“In that case,” she said, “could you just check my name on the roll? Then, when you are ready to open, I will be able to go straight in.”
The young man shook his head. “I cannot do that, Mma. I must wait for another two minutes before I check your name.”
She stared at him. “You cannot…”
He shook his head. “No, I cannot do anything until it is the proper time.”
There was a note of finality in his voice, and Mma Ramotswe did not press the matter. After two minutes had elapsed, the young man looked at his watch, adjusted his tie in a self-conscious manner, and eventually paged through a large register on the desk before him. Finding Mma Ramotswe’s name, he ticked it off, and handed her a voting paper. “Don’t vote for the wrong person, Mma,” he said, and then laughed.
Mma Ramotswe smiled tolerantly. “I haven’t made up my mind yet,” she replied.
The young man’s expression changed immediately. “But, Mma, you are a candidate…”
Mma Ramotswe assured him that she was only joking. Charlie was the same, she told herself; young men often failed to realise when somebody was not being entirely serious.
The young man now lowered his voice. “I’m not going to vote for that Sephotho woman,” he confided. “You don’t want a glamorous woman on the council. You don’t need that in politics.”
Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “No, Rra?”
“No. You see, a glamorous lady like that will be always thinking me, me, me. That’s what they’re like, Mma. And then…”
Mma Ramotswe waited for him to finish.
“So,” he continued, “if we must have women on the council…”
Mma Ramotswe drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Rra,” she said, “I didn’t quite catch what you said.”
The young man shifted in his seat. “I said, if there are going to be women on the council…”
Mma Ramotswe raised a finger. “No, Rra, I don’t think that’s what you said. And you know, we mustn’t tell people we said one thing when we actually said another. You know that, don’t you?”
Chastened, the young man nodded.
“So, I don’t think you would ever say that there shouldn’t be women on the council. You wouldn’t say that, would you, Rra?”
This brought a miserable shaking of the head. Nothing much had been said, but the sheer authority of Mma Ramotswe had had the desired effect. Now, seeking to explain himself, the young man continued, “What I meant to say, Mma, was that it’s better not to have glamorous women, who will not do the job very well, when there are other, not very glamorous women who will be much b
etter. Such as you, Mma—you would be very good, I think.”
She inclined her head in acknowledgement of the compliment—if that was what it was. Not very glamorous…well, she had never pretended to be anything other than what she was. Glamorous people were all very well, but when it came to cooking pumpkin, or repairing children’s clothing, or making stew for a hungry husband, or doing any of the other hundreds of things that women had to do every day, every day, then glamour did not get one very far.
She went into the polling booth. Opening the voting paper she saw the two candidates’ names: SEPHOTHO, V, and RAMOTSWE, P. The sight brought it home to her that this really was happening: throughout the town, people would be looking at this very slip of paper and seeing her name—her ordinary, mundane name—placed there in print with the authority of no less a personage than the Minister of Local Government. Going back all those years to that school in Mochudi, the old, red-roofed building on the hill with its view of the plains below, who would have dreamed that the small Ramotswe girl would end up with her name on a ballot paper in Gaborone? Who would have thought it? And yet here it was before her, and she now had to make the same decision that everybody else would have to make—she would have to vote.
She felt the back of her neck grow warm, and she knew at once what this was. It was shame; it always happened when she felt ashamed. And her shame on this occasion was entirely to do with her natural modesty. You never congratulated yourself. You never pushed yourself forward in front of others. You never boasted about what you had done or could do. You never did any of these things, she had been taught, because it was wrong, simply wrong, to make much of yourself. She had been taught that by her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, who had been a man of egregious modesty. Everybody knew that his cattle were among the finest in the country; everybody knew that, when it came to judging livestock, to selecting which cow would give birth to the best calves, there was nobody to equal him in Mochudi, nor for miles around, in fact. And people respected him for that, because to be a good cattle man in Botswana, where cattle were so loved and admired, was a mark of the greatest distinction. But he never talked about all this, and would deflect such praise as people gave him, saying that there were many who were every bit as good at judging cattle as he was, and even more who were better—which was not true, of course.
The Colors of All the Cattle Page 19