Ladies' Detective Agency 04 - The Kalahari Typing School for Men

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “But you never did cook, Rra,” said Mma Potokwani. “What is this talk about cooking?”

  “I sometimes cooked,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “When did you cook?” asked Mma Potokwani.

  “Sometimes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But we must not stand around and talk about cooking. I must go and fix this pump of yours. What is it doing now?”

  “It is making a very strange noise,” said Mma Potokwani. “It is unlike the other times when it has made a strange noise. This time it sounds like an elephant when it trumpets. That is the sort of noise it makes. Not all the time, but every now and then. It is also shaking like a dog. That is what it is doing.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. “It is a very old pump,” he said. “Machinery doesn’t last forever, you know. It is just like us. It has to die sometime.”

  He could tell that Mma Potokwani was not prepared to entertain such defeatist talk.

  “It may be old,” she said, “but it is still working, isn’t it? If I have to go out and buy a new pump, then that will take money which could be used for other things. The children need shoes. They need clothes. I have to pay the housemothers and the cooks and everybody. There is no money for new pumps.”

  “I was just pointing out the truth about machines,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I did not say I would not try to fix it.”

  “Good,” said Mma Potokwani, bringing the pump discussion to a close. “We are all fond of that pump. We do not want it to go just yet. One day, maybe, but not yet.”

  She turned to Mma Ramotswe. “While Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is fixing the pump,” she said, “we shall go and have tea. Then, when he has finished, his tea will be ready. I also have a fruitcake, and there will be a very big piece set aside for him.”

  THE PUMP house was at the other end of a wide field that bordered the row of cottages in which the orphans lived. There was a large vegetable patch at the side of this field, and then the field itself, which had been used for maize and which was still covered by the withered stalks of the last year’s crop. The borehole which the pump served was a good one, tapping into an underground stream which was fed, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni suspected, by waters that seeped down from the dam. He had always found it surprising that there should be so much underground water in a dry country; that underneath these great brown plains, which could get so parched in the dry season, there could still be deep lakes of sweet, fresh water. Of course you could not rely on there being water underground. When they had built the big stone house out at Mokolodi, they had found it very difficult to get any water at all. They had consulted the best water diviners there were, and these men had walked this way and that with their sticks in their hands, and nothing had happened; there had simply been no movement. For some reason, the underground water was not there. Eventually they had been obliged to use an old water tanker to bring water for the house.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni walked across the field, the dust on his shoes, the dried mealie stalks cracking under his feet. The earth was generous, he thought: sand and soil could be persuaded, with a little water, to yield such life, and to make such good things for the table. Everything depended on that simple generosity: trees, cattle, pumpkin vines, people—everything. And this soil, the soil on which he walked, was special soil. It was Botswana. It was his soil. It had made the very bodies of his people; of his father, Mr. P.Z. Matekoni, and his grandfather, Mr. T. Matekoni, before him. All of them, down the generations, were linked by this bond with this particular part of Africa, which they loved, and cherished, and which gave them so much in return.

  He looked up. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni always wore a hat when he was outside; a brown hat with no hatband, made of thin felt of some description, and very old, like the orphan-farm pump. He tilted his hat back slightly, so that he could see the sky more clearly. It was so empty, so dizzying in its height, so unconcerned by the man who was crossing a field beneath it, and thinking as he did so.

  He walked on and reached the pump house. The pump, which was controlled by an automatic switch attached to the water storage tank, was in action as he reached it. It sounded as if it was working normally, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wondered whether Mma Potokwani had been imagining the problem. But even as he stood there, before the pump house door, thinking of the large slice of fruitcake to which he could now return, the pump issued the strange sound which Mma Potokwani had described. It did indeed sound like the trumpeting of an elephant, but to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s ears it meant something much more worrying: it was the pump’s death rattle.

  He sighed and entered the pump house, taking care to look out for snakes, which liked to lie in such places. He reached out and flicked the manual override switch. The pump groaned and then stopped. Now there was silence, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni put down his toolbox and extracted a spanner. He felt weary. Life was a battle against wear; the wear of machinery and the wear of the soul. Oil. Grease. Wear.

  He laid down his spanner. No. He would not fix this pump anymore. Mma Potokwani was always telling him to do this and do that, and he had always done it. How many times had he fixed this pump? At least twenty times, probably more. And he had never charged a single thebe for his time, and of course he never would. But there came a time when one had to stand up to somebody like Mma Potokwani. She had been so kind to him when he was ill—although now he remembered so little of that strange time of confusion and sadness—and he would always be loyal to her. But he was the mechanic, not she. He was the one who knew when a pump had come to the end of its life and needed to be replaced. She knew nothing about pumps and cars, although sometimes she behaved as if she did. She would have to listen to him for a change. He would say: “Mma Potokwani, I have examined the pump, and it can no longer be fixed. It is broken beyond all repair. You must telephone one of your donors and tell them that a new pump is needed.”

  He closed the door behind him, taking one last look at the pump. It was an old friend, in a way. No modern pump would look like that, with its wheel and its beautiful heavy casing; no modern pump would make a noise like the trumpeting of an elephant. This pump had come from far away and could be given back to the British now. Here is your pump, which you left in Africa. It is finished now.

  “SUCH GOOD cake,” said Mma Ramotswe, accepting the second slice which Mma Potokwani had placed on her plate. “These days I find I do not have the time for baking. I should like to make cakes, but where is the time?”

  “This cake,” said Mma Potokwani, licking crumbs off her fingers, “is made by one of the housemothers who is a very good cook, Mma Gotofede. Whenever I am expecting visitors, she makes a cake. And all the time she is looking after the children in her cottage. And you know how much work that entails.”

  “They are good women, these housemothers,” said Mma Ramotswe, looking out of the window to where a couple of the women were enjoying a break from their labours, chatting on the verandah of one of the neat cottages in which groups of ten or twelve orphans lived.

  Mma Potokwani followed her gaze. “That is Mma Gotofede over there,” she said. “The lady with the green apron. She is the one who is such a good cook.”

  “I knew somebody of that name once,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They lived in Mochudi. They were a big family. Many children.”

  “She is married to one of the sons of that family,” said Mma Potokwani. “He works for the Roads Department. He drives a steamroller. She told me that he ran over a dog with his steamroller last week, by mistake, of course. It was a very old dog, apparently, who did not hear the steamroller coming.”

  “That is very sad,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But the late dog would not have suffered. At least there is that.”

  Mma Potokwani thought for a moment. “I suppose not,” she said.

  “This cake is delic ious,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Perhaps Mma Gotofede would teach me how to make it one day. Motholeli and Puso would like it.”

  Mma Potokwani smiled at the mention of the children. “I hope that they are
doing well,” she said. “It is very kind of you and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to adopt them like that.”

  Mma Ramotswe lifted her teacup and looked at Mma Potokwani over the rim. There had never been any mention of adoption before this; the agreement had been to foster them, had it not? Not that it made much difference, but you had to watch Mma Potokwani: she would do anything to benefit the orphans.

  “We are happy to have them,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They can live with us until they are grown up. Motholeli wants to be a mechanic, by the way. Did you know that? She is very good with machines, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is going to teach her.”

  Mma Potokwani clapped her hands with delight. She was ambitious for the orphans, and nothing gave her greater pleasure than to hear that one of the children was doing well in life. “That is such good news,” she said. “Why can’t a girl become a mechanic? Even if she is in a wheelchair. I am very happy to hear that news. She’ll be able to help Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni fix our pump.”

  “He is going to make a ramp for her wheelchair,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then she will be able to get at the engines.”

  Mma Potokwani nodded her approval of the plan. “And her brother?” she said. “Is he doing well, too?”

  She knew from Mma Ramotswe’s hesitation that something was wrong.

  “What’s the matter? Is he not well?”

  “It’s not that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is eating well and he is growing. Already I have bought him new shoes. There is nothing wrong there. It’s just that …”

  “Behaviour?” prompted Mma Potokwani.

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I didn’t want to bother you with it, but I thought that you might be able to advise me. You have seen every sort of child there is. You know all about children.”

  “They are all different,” agreed Mma Potokwani. “Brother and sister—it makes no difference. The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father. One child is fat, one child is thin. One child is clever, one is not that clever. So it goes on. Every child is different.”

  “He started off as a good little boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He was polite and he did nothing wrong. And then, suddenly, he started to do bad things. We have not smacked him or anything like that, but he has become very sullen and resentful. He glowers at me sometimes and I do not know what to do.”

  Mma Potokwani listened attentively as Mma Ramotswe went on to describe some of the incidents which had taken place, including the killing of the hoopoe with the catapult.

  “He did not learn to kill birds here,” said Mma Potokwani firmly. “We do not allow the children to kill animals. They are taught that the animals are their brothers and sisters. That is what we do.”

  “And when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni spoke to him about it, he said that he hated him.”

  “Hated?” exclaimed Mma Potokwani. “Nobody should hate Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and certainly not a little boy who has been given a home by him, and by you.”

  “It is as if somebody has poured poison into his ear,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Potokwani reached forward and refilled Mma Ramotswe’s teacup, frowning as she did so. “That is probably more true than you think, Mma. Poison in the ear. It happens to all children.”

  “I do not understand,” said Mma Ramotswe. “When could this have happened?”

  “He goes to school now, doesn’t he? Children go to school and they discover that there are other children. Not all these children behave well. Some of them are bad children. They are the ones with the poison.”

  Mma Ramotswe remembered what Motholeli had told her about the bullying. Puso was much younger, of course, but could be experiencing the same thing.

  “I think that he doesn’t know where he stands,” said Mma Potokwani. “He will know that he is different from the other boys at school—because he’s an orphan—but he will have no idea how to make up for that. So he’s blaming you because he’s lost.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought that this sounded reasonable, but then what could they do? They had tried to be kind to him and give him more attention, but that seemed to have no effect.

  “I think,” said Mma Potokwani, “that it is time for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to start giving him some rules to live by. He needs to show him limits. Other boys will have fathers or uncles to do that. They need it.” She paused, watching the effect of her words on Mma Ramotswe. “He needs to be more of a father, I suspect. He needs to be stronger. His trouble is that he is such a gentle, kind man. We all know that. But that might not be what that little boy needs.”

  Mma Ramotswe became very thoughtful. “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni must be firmer?”

  Mma Potokwani smiled. “A bit. But what he needs to do is to take the boy out with him in his truck. Take him out to the lands, to see the cattle. Things like that.”

  “I shall tell him,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Potokwani put her teacup down and looked out of the window again. A group of children was playing under a shady jacaranda tree. “You can find out everything you want about children by watching them play,” she said. “Look at those children over there. You’ll see that the boys are playing together, pushing one another over, and the girls are watching. They will want to join in, but they won’t know how to do it, and they’re not very keen on that rough game. See? Can you see what’s happening?”

  Mma Ramotswe looked out. She saw the boys—a group of five or six of them—engaged in their physical play. She saw one of the girls pointing at the boys and then stepping forward to say something to them. The boys ignored her.

  “See,” said Mma Potokwani. “If you want to understand the world, just look out there. Those boys are just playing, but it’s very serious to them. They’re finding out who the leader is going to be. That tall boy there, you see him, he’s the leader. He’ll be doing the same thing in ten, twenty years’ time.”

  “And the girls?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Why are they just standing there?”

  Mma Potokwani laughed. “They think the game is silly, but they would like to join in. They are watching the boys. Then they will work out some way of spoiling the boys’ fun. They will get better and better at that.”

  “I am sure that you are right,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “I think I am,” Mma Potokwani said. “We had somebody out from the university, you know. This person called herself a psychologist. She had studied in America, and she had read many books about how children grow up. I said: just look out of the window. She did not know what I meant, but I think that you do, Mma Ramotswe.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I do.”

  “You don’t have to read a book to understand how the world works,” Mma Potokwani continued. “You just have to keep your eyes open.”

  “That’s true,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. But she had her reservations about Mma Potokwani’s assertions. She had a great respect for books herself, and she wished that she had read more. One could never read enough. Never.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  MR. BERNARD SELELIPENG

  YOU WERE very brave back there,” said Mma Ramotswe to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as they travelled back from the orphan farm. “It is not easy to stand up to Mma Potokwani, and you did it.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “I didn’t think I would have the courage. But when I looked at the old pump, and heard it make those strange sounds, I decided that I just would not do it again. After all those repairs. There is a time to let a machine go.”

  “I watched her face as you told her,” said Mma Ramotswe. “She was very surprised. It was as if one of the children had spoken back to her. She had not expected it.”

  In spite of her surprise, though, Mma Potokwani had given in remarkably quickly. There had been a halfhearted attempt to persuade Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to change his mind and to fix the pump—“just for one last time”—but when she realised that he was adamant, she had switched to the question of who could be persuaded to pay for a new one. There was a general-purpose fund, of course, wh
ich was more than capable of footing the bill, but this would be drawn upon only when there was no other way of meeting the cost. Somewhere there would be somebody who might be persuaded that it would be an honour to have a pump named after them; that was always a good way of getting funds. Some people liked to do good by stealth, discreetly and anonymously providing funds, but others liked to do their charitable works in the glare of as much publicity as Mma Potokwani could arrange. This did not matter, of course: the important thing was to get the pump.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had not left the orphan farm without making a positive contribution. Although he had brought bad tidings about the pump, he had nonetheless spent an hour attending to a timing problem in the engine of the old blue minivan used to transport the orphans. Again, this could not be kept going indefinitely, and he wondered when he would have to announce its end to Mma Potokwani, but for the time being he could keep it on the road with judicious tinkering.

  While he worked on the van, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwani had occupied themselves by visiting some of the housemothers. Mma Gotofede had been consulted about her recipe for fruitcake and had written it out for Mma Ramotswe and given her one or two tips on how to ensure the right consistency and moisture level. Then they had seen the new laundry, and Mma Potokwani had demonstrated the efficiency of the steam irons which they had recently acquired.

  “The children must always look neat,” she had explained. “A neat child is happier than a scruffy child. That is a well-known fact.”

  It had been a good visit, and in the truck on the way back, after they had discussed the pump, Mma Ramotswe judged the time right to raise with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni the issue of Puso’s behaviour. It would be a difficult message to convey. She did not want Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to think that she was criticising him, or that Mma Potokwani had done so, but she had to encourage him to play a greater role in the boy’s life.

  “I talked to her about Puso,” she ventured. “She was sorry to hear that he had been difficult.”