There was an expectant silence, as if she was waiting for Phuti to ask her. But he did not, and the conversation moved on to the new house.
“I hear that you have that Mr. Putumelo building you a house,” said the aunt. “I know his wife. She is a big lady in the church, although you never see him there.”
“Maybe that is because he is very busy,” said Phuti. “Some people are too busy to go to church.”
“That’s true,” said the aunt. “I myself cannot go every Sunday, because I am so busy.” She reached out to refill Phuti’s cup. “He is building his own house, you know. It’s very close to my butcher’s house. The butcher says it is a very fine house.”
“That’s what you’d expect of a builder,” observed Phuti. “I have never known a builder who lived in a not-so-good house. They know what makes a good place. They know those things, Auntie.”
The aunt nodded. “That’s very true. Yes, they know. The butcher told me that this house is made of very high-class bricks. They are imported, he says.”
Phuti was not surprised by this. “He likes bricks, that builder. He recommended that we use bricks, too.”
“Mind you,” the aunt continued, “I do not know where he finds the money. The butcher says that he has a big bill run up with him, and when he talked to him about it he told him that he is finding things very difficult at the moment. He says that there is not very much work, and that he has a big overdraft with the bank.”
This did not sound unfamiliar to Phuti. “People often say that,” he remarked. “They say that their business is not doing well when it really is. They do not want to make other people jealous.”
The aunt considered this. “Maybe, but not in this case. The reverend at the church said something about them. He said that they were in financial difficulties and we should pray that the Lord brings them some money. The wife must have told him that.”
Phuti closed his eyes. Financial difficulties. Bricks. The Lord. Houses. There was so much to think about, and the thoughts came crowding in on him. Then one line of thought, in particular, emerged from the rest. How could the builder be building a house for himself when he had no money? How did one do that? With the Lord’s help?
WHILE PHUTI WAS wrestling with the question of Mr. Clarkson Putumelo’s new house, Mma Makutsi, along with Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane, was sitting around an open fire, under the stars. They had finished the meal Mma Potokwane had prepared for them—a stew of beans, carrots, and tomato soup, all poured over a base of freshly cooked pap. Mma Ramotswe had pronounced it delicious, and Mma Makutsi had enthusiastically concurred. Mma Potokwane had accepted their compliments, but had added a remark to the effect that she would have more time to cook now that “nobody had any use for her.” This had been vigorously refuted by Mma Ramotswe, who had insisted that of all the citizens of Botswana—all two million of them—Mma Potokwane was without question one of the most useful. Mma Makutsi, without prompting from Mma Ramotswe, had agreed. “Nobody is useless,” she said heatedly, “and you are less useless than nobody else, Mma. Definitely.”
This remark was greeted with silence while Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane had tried to work out what it meant. The spirit in which it was made, though, was clear enough, and Mma Potokwane simply thanked her. “You have always been very kind to me, Mma,” she said. “Always.”
“And you to me,” said Mma Makutsi.
Mma Ramotswe knew that this was not entirely true—indeed it was completely false—but was pleased that such good spirit was abroad, and said nothing to contradict what had been expressed. New friendships can be every bit as strong as old friendships, and of course became old friendships in due course. She thought of this in silence, watching the flickering light of the fire play across the faces of the other two women; three friends sitting out in the darkness in the immensity of the surrounding bush, with the Kalahari a stone’s throw away and the stars, silver-white fields of them, hanging high above, so dizzying, so humbling to look at.
“No,” said Mma Potokwane after a while. “I have made up my mind, you see. I have stopped working, and I am going to do some things for myself—things I’ve always wanted to do.”
Mma Ramotswe understood this. She knew a number of people who had stopped working with the same thing in mind, and they had told her that the decision had been the best decision of their lives. One had opened a poultry farm and now supplied eggs and chickens to many of the major shops in Gaborone; another, a mechanic friend of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s, had taken to restoring old cars and had already sold a 1956 Pontiac to a collector over the border. There were so many things that you could do if you simply had the time, but most of us left it too late.
“I can see that,” she said. “What will you do, Mma?”
There was a silence. Mma Makutsi looked at Mma Potokwane with interest, as did Mma Ramotswe.
“Well …,” Mma Potokwane began. “Well …”
“You will be very busy,” Mma Makutsi suggested helpfully. “All those things …”
Mma Potokwane pursed her lips. “Many things,” she began. “There are many things.”
They waited. Mma Potokwane poked a stick into the fire, making a few short-lived sparks fly heavenwards. Yes, thought Mma Ramotswe; yes, there are so many other things that might come to mind, but not if you have given your life to orphaned children; not if you have spent every waking hour working out how to advance their interests, how to procure some little benefit, some little treat that would make each of them feel loved, special; not if you had given to those same children all the love that a large—traditionally built—frame could muster; not then, not then was there anything that you wanted to do but to continue with what you had always been doing, which was to look after those children.
Mma Ramotswe decided to break the silence. “But the most important thing to you, Mma, is running the orphan farm. That’s what you really like doing, isn’t it?”
Mma Potokwane did not answer: she did not need to, as her expression said everything that needed to be said.
“I thought so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And that’s why I think you should come back with us.”
Mma Potokwane looked up sharply. “No. I have left now. My deputy will run the place until they get somebody else.”
“Then he will have won,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “That man will have won. Bullies often do.”
Mma Potokwane turned to look at her. “Why do you say that, Mma?”
“Because it’s true, isn’t it? Bullies often win. They know that people are not prepared to stand up to them, and so they win.” She looked at Mma Ramotswe for confirmation. “And there are many men who bully women. You agree with that, don’t you, Mma Ramotswe.”
Mma Ramotswe’s reply was cautious. “Well, sometimes … But remember, Mma, there are many men who are not bullies.”
“Of course,” said Mma Makutsi. “Phuti is not like that. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is not like that. And your husband, Mma Potokwane, I have heard he is not like that either …”
“He is certainly not like that,” said Mma Potokwane. “Rra Potokwane is very kind. He does not go around pushing people about.”
No, said a small voice, you do all the pushing, don’t you?
Mma Makutsi shot a glance down in the direction of her shoes.
Sorry, Boss, we couldn’t resist that.
She looked at the other two women: Had they heard too? Mma Ramotswe had a slightly puzzled expression on her face—it was possible that she might have heard—but Mma Potokwane seemed unaffected. Of course she would not have heard, Mma Makutsi reminded herself: there was nothing to hear. These apparent interventions by her shoes were nothing but her own imagination: a sort of conversation with herself—that was all.
So you think, Boss!
Mma Ramotswe now continued. “But even if not all men are like that, at least some are. They insist on getting their way on everything, even on the question of whether children should eat at home or in big rooms …”
“Horrible big rooms,” said Mma Potokwane.
“Yes, horrible big rooms,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. “And how will they get to know each other and their house-mother if they do not eat together, in a kitchen? How will they do that?”
Mma Potokwane became animated. “That’s just what I said! And it’s just what the house-mothers themselves said. All of them. They said: we want to feed the children in the houses. We want to do the cooking ourselves, in our own kitchen, with our own pots.”
“Of course they said that, Mma. And they said that because they knew what they were talking about. And then some man comes along—a man who probably has never cooked so much as a potato in his life—this man comes along and says, I know best.”
“Not one potato,” fumed Mma Potokwane.
Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi, who was smiling. “Of course, if people—if women—let men like that get away with it, then they’ll do it again, and again, and again. Soon they’ll have all of us eating in big halls from big kitchens—just to save money.”
“That will not be possible,” said Mma Makutsi. “People would never agree …”
“I do not mean that exactly,” said Mma Ramotswe patiently. “I am just pointing out how things could get worse.” She turned to Mma Potokwane. “So it’s quite important, Mma, that we don’t give up too early. Not while there’s still a chance.”
Mma Potokwane gave Mma Ramotswe a searching look. “Do you think there’s still a chance, Mma? Do you really think so?”
Mma Ramotswe had not been able to come up with anything about Mr. Ditso Ditso that could be used to get him off the board, and she was not sure that she would. But of course there was a chance, and there was something that told her that she had already found what it was but just did not realise it. It was a curious feeling, but it was there, and it was enough to make her want to persist.
“I think so,” she said.
Mma Potokwane sighed. “So you want me to go back?”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes, that’s what we want, Mma.”
Mma Potokwane hesitated before she gave her reply. “If that’s what you want, Mma, then … then I’ll do it.”
“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi firmly. “Good.”
They sat in silence after that. Later, though, shortly before they retired to bed in Mma Potokwane’s large sleeping hut, shared with two young Potokwane nieces who had been helping in the fields, Mma Ramotswe whispered to Mma Makutsi, “She’s still not herself, Mma. She says she hasn’t given up, but I think she has.”
Mma Makutsi was dismayed to hear this; she had been more optimistic. “But she said that she’s coming back. She said that …”
“People say things,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But when they’re in that frame of mind, they don’t mean them. The lips say one thing, the heart says another. Or says nothing.”
The lips say one thing, the heart says another. Those words echoed in Mma Makutsi’s mind as she drifted off to sleep that night. Outside, in the night, a dog barked at some shadow, some creature in the night. The lips say one thing, the heart says another. She wondered whether that was true, or whether it just sounded true. And what did it mean to say that the heart said nothing? Were there people whose heart really did say nothing? And if there were, who exactly were they? The dog gave another bark, followed by a yelp. Then there was silence. She opened her eyes in the darkness. Nothing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
A LAWYER SPILLS TEA OVER HIS SHIRT
THEY RETURNED THE next day, a Saturday, arriving back in Gaborone in the middle of the afternoon. On Sunday Mma Ramotswe went to church at the Anglican Cathedral, as she always did, and helped with the tea afterwards, an opportunity for people to chat, to inspect at closer quarters what others were wearing, and to discuss—and if necessary criticise—the day’s sermon. One of the members of the congregation, an Indian accountant from Kerala who had lived in Botswana for twenty years or so, was going home to India for a daughter’s wedding. He told Mma Ramotswe about the wedding plans, which involved, he revealed with a modicum of pride, several hundred people travelling from all over India, all wanting hotels and feasts and special treatment. She listened to this with sympathy—weddings were rarely simple, and Indian weddings, it seemed to her, were even more complicated and fraught with difficulty than their Botswana counterparts—but she was not really concentrating. Nor did she pay attention when Bishop Mwamba himself came up to speak to her and told her about a book he had been reading that he thought she might enjoy, if she had the time.
“But I know how busy you are, Mma Ramotswe,” the Bishop said, “what with your business and all those investigations, and so on.”
She nodded politely. He was right, but it was the so on that was the trouble now, and in particular that bit of the so on that was made up of Mma Potokwane’s troubles. And then there was Fanwell, whose trial was due to take place the following day.
“Yes, Bishop. There are many things to worry about in this life. Many things.”
The Bishop smiled. “But we must not let those overwhelm us,” he said. The smile faded, to be replaced by a look of concern. “You are all right, aren’t you, Mma Ramotswe?”
She looked up at the sky. The man to whom she was talking, she reminded herself, had major concerns to think about. He knew the issues of Africa, its sorrows. He knew all about the burdens and difficulties of those who struggled to get by in countries where there was cruelty and oppression. It was all very well for her to stand here drinking tea in a peaceful and well-ordered country, but what about those who did not have that luxury? And should she then worry him with her petty concerns—very small ones, really—when there were many weightier things occupying his attention? No, she thought. No. “Everything is all right, Bishop,” she said.
The Bishop was tapped on the shoulder by one of the members of the choir and detached himself from Mma Ramotswe. She helped a few people to tea, poured another cup for herself, and then looked around the group of people who were still talking to one another in the church courtyard. Mma Ramotswe felt that she needed to catch up on local news. There were always the newspapers, of course, but the real news, a complete picture of what was really happening, could only be gleaned from actual conversation with people. It was ordinary people who knew what was happening—not official spokesmen or the editors of newspapers. And the closer one got to the grass roots, the nearer one came to the people who actually experienced the effect of what was happening in the public world above them, the more complete one’s understanding could become.
She surveyed the faces of the congregation. These were all good people—or they were good people at that hour on a Sunday morning. Some of them, she knew, found it more difficult still to be good as the day wore on, and even more difficult when Monday morning dawned. But they were all human, just as she was, and the real issue was whether they were doing their best. Mma Ramotswe felt that as long as you did your best, then it was not too important if you fell below the standards that others might expect of you. What mattered was doing your best and then, if your best turned out to be not very good, at least admitting it and trying a bit harder next time.
There were some people, of course, who clearly had no intention of doing their best—Violet Sephotho, for instance, but that was another matter … Fanwell’s trial: that was the thing she would have to think about now. Poor Fanwell—how would he be feeling now? She imagined that he would not sleep that night—how could one be expected to sleep, knowing that at nine o’clock the next morning one would be standing in the dock facing the full force of the law of Botswana?
She looked down into her cup. If only she could speak to the magistrate, whoever he was, and tell him what sort of young man Fanwell was; of course he would be reading the letter that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had so painstakingly drafted that would say much about Fanwell’s character—and she had drafted one too—but it was one thing to receive a letter, quite another to have somebody expres
s her feelings to you in person. If she were to be given five minutes—only five minutes—with the magistrate, she would explain to him that it was simply impossible that Fanwell would knowingly fix a stolen car. He was not like that; it was just not in his character. She would say, “Rra, I beg you. Rra, I beg you: listen to what I am saying. I have met many wicked people in my work, Rra—just as you have—and I’m telling you, Rra, from the bottom of my heart I do not think this young man could have done what they say he has done.”
She sighed, and took a sip of her tea. Magistrates must hear that sort of thing day in, day out. They could be forgiven if their eyes glazed over, or if they looked out of the window in the face of such pleas. Everyone has a mother who believes in them; everyone has somebody who says that they would never do anything wrong; of course they have. And the job of a magistrate was not to let everybody off just because their mother, or their aunt, or their employer spoke highly of them.
Again her eyes moved over the members of the group. It was interesting, she thought, to see how different people held their teacups: that woman over there, for example—the woman who sometimes arranged the flowers and whose daughter had married that man whose brother was a pilot with Air Botswana—that woman held her cup round the rim, ignoring the handle. And the man she was talking to was balancing the saucer on his palm as if his hand were a table; it was very strange. And the man next to him, the one in the dark suit … he was a lawyer. She stopped; a possibility had occurred to her. He was a lawyer.
Putting down her empty teacup, Mma Ramotswe negotiated her way past the milling members of the congregation until she was standing beside the lawyer. He was in the process of bidding farewell to the woman to whom he was talking; having done so, he turned to Mma Ramotswe.
The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection Page 19