And here she was, the daughter of that great man, about to vote for herself. Wondering what he would have said about that, she reached the conclusion that he would have been astonished that anybody could do such a thing. Yes, she thought, but were he to know what the alternative was, then surely he would understand. She was not sure whether her father had ever met anybody like Violet Sephotho. She imagined that he must have done in the past—he had been a miner, after all, and the women you met in mining camps were often on the fast side—but would they have been as ambitious, as calculating as Violet? Probably not. “Oh, Daddy,” she muttered to herself, “don’t think harshly of me: this is all Mma Potokwane’s doing, it really is. I did not want to find myself in this position. I did not want my name to be plastered all over town. I do not want to be a member of any committee, let alone the Gaborone City Council. I am not that sort of person…”
She closed her eyes. The moment of truth had arrived, and she would have to vote. Only half opening her eyes, she stared at the paper momentarily, and then put a cross against Violet’s name. She voted for Violet Sephotho. It doesn’t matter, she told herself, one vote won’t make the slightest difference. I could not—simply could not—vote for myself.
* * *
—
SHE HAD PARKED her tiny white van under a tree not far from the entrance to the council offices. As she began to walk towards it, she felt a blanket of shame descend on her. She had voted for Violet Sephotho, and that was the cause of her shame, although she wondered whether she might not have felt even more ashamed if she had voted for herself. Perhaps she should not have voted at all, but then there was ignominy attached to that as well—it was your duty to vote, as Seretse Khama had said, or would have said had anybody ever asked him about it.
When the man came up to her, she did not see where he came from. She was almost at the van when he stopped in front of her and greeted her.
“You are Mma Ramotswe, aren’t you?”
There was a note of apology in his voice.
“Yes, Rra,” she said. “I am Mma Ramotswe.”
She looked at him. He was a middle-aged man, neatly but plainly dressed. He was not wearing office clothes, nor the outfit of one who earned his living with his hands. He was carrying a hat, the rim of which was discoloured through long use. Straitened circumstances lay not far away, she thought. “You do not know me, Mma,” he said. “I am just an ordinary person.”
She almost said, “But so am I, Rra,” but she stopped herself. Everything had changed since the election campaign had begun, and she was no longer just an ordinary person—she was public property.
He gave her his name. He was John Maphephu, he explained, and he was a security guard at one of the banks. “The head security guard,” he said. “I have five men working under me, Mma. It is not a big job, but they are good to us. We have good conditions.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled encouragingly. “It is good to have a job like that,” she said. “You know that you will get paid at the end of the month.”
John Maphephu agreed that this was important. He looked down at the ground. Mma Ramotswe waited. Overhead, a large bird, catching an early thermal, circled lazily. Mma Ramotswe glanced up at it, and then looked at the man. She saw that the hand in which he held his hat was shaking slightly; a tremor. She had seen that in her father; his hand had started to shake, and that was the first sign of his illness, she had learned. Was this man ill, or was something making him nervous?
She decided to speak. “What is it, Rra? Is there anything I can do for you?”
People had told her that once you went into politics you could expect people to seek favours. Was this the first occasion of that, she wondered; and would every day be like that if she were to win? Would there be a constant stream of supplicants wanting all sorts of things that she would have no idea how to provide?
John Maphephu was shaking his head. “I’m not asking for anything, Mma. I only wanted to speak to you, to thank you for what you’re doing.”
It took her a moment or two to respond. “But I’ve done nothing, Rra.”
“Oh, yes, you have, Mma. You’ve done a great deal.”
“I don’t think so,” she began.
He brushed her objection aside. “Mma, you must remember you are standing for election. This may only be a council election, but every election—even a small one—is important. And now, with you, Mma, we have the chance to vote for somebody who is honest.”
She raised a hand to stop him. “But there are many honest politicians in Botswana,” she said. “We are very lucky that way. We are not like some other places.”
There was no need for her to mention anywhere in particular; everybody knew.
“And there is not a lot of corruption in this country, Rra,” she said. “That is another thing we can be grateful for.”
John Maphephu accepted all that. “That’s true. But this election is different, you see, Mma. This is the first time that somebody has not promised anything. This is the first time that somebody has said: I cannot work miracles, and I will not promise you this, that, and the next thing. You said that, Mma. Then you said that you would do your best, even if your best would not be very good.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “People told me I shouldn’t say that, you know.”
“Of course they did,” said John Maphephu. “But they are wrong, Mma Ramotswe. It is the very best thing that anybody could have said.” He paused. “And that is why everybody is going to vote for you.”
Mma Ramotswe’s mouth opened slightly; she had not expected this.
“Everybody,” repeated John Maphephu. “All the people I’ve spoken to—every single one of them has said, I’m going to vote for that fat woman who says she can’t do anything. That is what they’re saying, Mma.”
“Traditionally built,” muttered Mma Ramotswe.
“Yes, Mma, that’s right—traditionally built. People like to vote for a traditionally built lady who tells the truth.”
Mma Ramotswe looked away. She was embarrassed by this display of enthusiasm—and deeply concerned at the implications. If everybody voted for her, then she would win. That seemed to be the logical conclusion of what this man was saying to her, but it was not a conclusion that she in any way wanted.
“And as for that other lady,” John Maphephu continued, “nobody is going to vote for her, Mma. Nobody.”
Except me, thought Mma Ramotswe.
She looked at her watch. “You have been very kind to tell me all this, Rra,” she said.
“It is the truth, Mma. And now I shall go in and vote for you. That is what I’m going to do.”
“Then I shall let you do that, Rra,” she said. “And thank you.” They parted. Mma Ramotswe got into her van and sat lost in thought for a few minutes before briskly starting the engine. There was no point, she told herself, in worrying about the outcome of the election: what was going to happen was going to happen and there was nothing she could do about it now. There was work to be done—the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had things to do, and that day she was planning to go to Mochudi with Charlie. That was something practical that needed to be done, whatever the result of the election, however uncertain her future now looked. Yes, she said to herself, there are things to do, many things…and then, as she drew away in the tiny white van, she looked in the driving mirror and saw that there were more people arriving at the council offices. John Maphephu had gone inside, but there was now a small line of four or five people waiting outside the door. These were the voters; she was sure of it. And with that realisation she gasped and pulled over to the side. These people were going in to vote; they were actually going inside to vote. This was really happening. This was not some scheme dreamed up by Mma Potokwane—this was real.
She let the engine idle as she took a series of deep breaths. She closed her eyes, and then opened them. Bo
tswana was still there. Glancing in the mirror again, hardly daring to do so, but forcing herself, she saw that the voters had begun to enter the door. But more were arriving. She closed her eyes again.
And then something happened that had only happened once or twice before, but when it had done so, it had burned itself into her memory. Her father was there. Somehow, in a way known only to late people, he had slipped into the cab of the van and was seated beside her. Of course, she could not see him—not in the physical sense—but of his presence she had absolutely no doubt.
“So, my Precious,” he said. “This is a very important day for you.”
He spoke as he always did—it was his voice—but at the same time it was distant, as if it came from a long way away, like the voices of those who spoke to one another in the earlier days of telephones, when it was such a complicated business to call Gaborone from Francistown, all that way down those singing, strung-out telephone wires.
She wanted to say something, but could not find the words. She wanted to say to him that she had never stopped loving him and that she thought of him every day, every day without fail—sometimes in the morning when she went out into her garden to watch the sun rise; sometimes in the kitchen, when she was standing at the sink doing the washing up; or in the office, when she and Mma Makutsi were drinking tea and the sunlight was slanting through the high window, dappling the once-white ceiling boards. She wanted to say that, but she found that she could not speak. He would understand, though, because they had spent many hours together before he became late, when they had said nothing to one another but had nonetheless said everything. Because it was possible, she knew, to say nothing and to say everything at the same time—if you were with somebody whom you understood and loved. It was not necessary to talk in such circumstances; there was no need.
He spoke again, his voice fainter now. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “You never were, you know—you were never afraid. Remember this, my Precious; remember this—you have Botswana.”
And, with that, he slipped away. Mma Ramotswe held the steering wheel with her shaking hands. She took a further deep breath, and it calmed her. She found herself smiling.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THIS IS WHERE I AM HAPPIEST
AS THEY DROVE up to Mochudi, Charlie told Mma Ramotswe about Queenie-Queenie. It was an intimate conversation, not one that up until then would have been likely, but now, with new-found maturity, the young man seemed prepared to speak honestly.
“She’s a nice girl,” Charlie said. “But she’s above my pay grade.”
“Pay grade?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “What is this to do with pay grades?”
Charlie laughed. “It’s a way of speaking, Mma. It means that she’s too good for me—not good-good as in going to church and things like that. Not that. No—classy, you see. Too classy.”
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. Charlie was driving, and she wanted him to concentrate, as there were large trucks on the road—cattle trucks from the north—and their drivers tended to assume they owned the public highway. But this conversation was too intriguing to cut short. Charlie’s love life had been a closed book to everybody in the past; they knew there were girlfriends, but they had never been able to work out who was in favour at any particular time. Mma Makutsi occasionally reported on a sighting she had had of Charlie with a girl somewhere or other, but that was about the extent of the intelligence.
“Cattle,” said Charlie.
That made it clearer, and Mma Ramotswe sighed. “Oh, I see.” She glanced at Charlie. The lebola system, in which the man paid the woman’s family a bride price, had hung on in spite of all the changes that the country had seen. People talked about doing away with it; people criticised it for making young women into something that could be bought and sold; but it continued, stubbornly, as these traditions often persisted, and it remained something that a young man contemplating marriage had to face.
“I was reading in the paper,” Charlie continued, “that down in Kanye they’ve been trying to set a limit. They say eight cows, max. People have been greedy, you see. Uncles and so on have been asking for fifteen head of cattle, maybe more.”
“That is very bad,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You shouldn’t make it hard for people to marry, Charlie.”
Charlie agreed. “The government should give men cattle in order to marry, Mma. They’re always telling us to get married rather than to—” He broke off.
“I know what you mean,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“Rather than to have a good time. They should say: Okay, if you get married then we will give you eight cattle. They could afford it, Mma. Look at all the money the government has. All that money from the diamonds: Why not give it to men, to encourage them to marry ladies?”
Mma Ramotswe chuckled. “I don’t think it works that way, Charlie. The government can’t go round giving people lots of cattle. The government hasn’t got that many cattle, you know.”
Charlie was prepared to compromise. “Well, how about this, Mma? How about the government giving cattle to men to marry those girls who cannot find a husband? How about that? So if there are some girls—and I’m sorry to say there are—if there are some girls that nobody would want to marry because…well, Mma, you know there are some girls who haven’t got very pretty faces, or who are generally useless: those girls, Mma, they could get a husband if the government paid him enough. There would always be some man who’d say, Well, give me eight cattle and I’ll close my eyes and get on with it.”
Mma Ramotswe felt it was time to change the subject. “You were telling me about this Queenie-Queenie girl, Charlie. Her father’s well off, is he?”
“Very,” said Charlie. “So I knew there was no future for me.”
“Have you met him?”
Charlie seemed surprised. “Her father? No, Mma. He wouldn’t want to meet somebody like me.”
“And what does Queenie-Queenie herself say about it?” Mma Ramotswe asked. “Did you discuss it with her?”
Charlie said that he thought there would be no point. “It’s not going to happen,” he said. “So I didn’t bother her with it. I made the decision.”
“You? Just you by yourself?”
Charlie nodded. “I ended it, Mma. It was easier that way.”
For a few moments, Mma Ramotswe was silent. A large truck, its horn blaring, swayed past them head-on—a truck full of cattle. There was a rush of air and the smell of confined animals, and dust. Cattle, thought Mma Ramotswe. Cattle.
She turned to face Charlie. “Sometimes it’s best to talk to people, Charlie. You talk to them, you see, and then whatever problems there are can be sorted out. You should try it.”
“There’s no point, Mma,” he said. “It wouldn’t be her decision, you see. It would be her family’s, and I know for a fact—for a fact, Mma—that they would think I’m nothing.”
“You’re not nothing,” she said.
“I am, Mma. I’m nothing to people like that.”
Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. They were on the outskirts of Mochudi now—outskirts that seemed to spread further and further into the bush every time she went up there. When she had been a girl, there had been nothing at this point—just virgin bush—and now there were houses, a school, a cluster of small shops.
“Maybe we can talk about it some other time,” she said to Charlie. “We have to go to a clinic.”
Charlie looked concerned. “Are you not well, Mma?”
“I am very well,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But there is a lady there—a nurse—who is an old friend of mine. She is one of these people who knows everything. I want to ask her for some information.” She paused. “Remember what I said, Charlie: talk to people. It is the best way of doing things. Talk, talk—you can never have too much talk.”
* * *
—
THE CLINIC was at the far end of t
he town, an outpost of the hospital nestling at the foot of the hill. Its concern was small matters, mostly to do with public health—inoculating children, screening for bilharzia, attending to the minor injuries and complaints that did not merit hospital attention: the cut fingers that had become infected, the bruised ribs, the eye infections that were brought on by the flies that crawled around children’s eyes. The human body in a hot climate can go wrong in a hundred different ways, with rashes and bites and infections that luxuriated in the heat, and these were the daily concern of Mma Ramotswe’s friend Sister Montsho. The nurse had been a childhood friend of Mma Ramotswe’s, having been in her class at school. They had grown up together, and had remained in touch for all but the recent period of two years when Sister Montsho had gone off to Nairobi for specialist training. Now she was back, and the friendship, like so many friendships of early childhood, had proved to be unaltered by the years.
There were people sitting patiently, waiting to be seen, but Sister Montsho, seeing the arrival of Mma Ramotswe’s white van, had brought forward the morning tea break.
“I need a break to catch my breath,” she said. “This is a busy time of year for some reason. People are treading on thorns, burning their hands on cooking pots, even putting marula pips up their noses, would you believe it? All these things, Mma Ramotswe—every day, every day.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “If any of those things happened to me, Mma, I would be glad to put myself in your hands.”
Sister Montsho clapped her hands. She turned to Charlie. “Hear that, young man? Those are the words of a lady who knows how to make her friends feel good.”
The Colors of All the Cattle Page 20