The House of Unexpected Sisters

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mr. Polopetsi lowered his voice again. She felt like reassuring him that there was nobody else around, but said nothing as he continued. “Now, Mma, what she said next really worried me. She said that Gopolang had told her that he had a plan to start selling house furniture as well as office stuff. Now that would be bad enough news for Phuti and Mma Makutsi, of course, because there is an unspoken agreement between the two shops that they do not cut into each other’s markets. But listen, Mma, it gets worse: Gopolang has been up to see that factory in Bulawayo and is going to take all their production—all their production, Mma.” He paused to let this sink in. “And Phuti will not be able to buy from them any longer.”

  Mma Ramotswe frowned. There was something in this story that did not make sense. “But why would those people up in Bulawayo sell everything to Gopolang,” she asked, “when they’ve been dealing with Phuti all along?”

  Mr. Polopetsi sat bolt upright to deliver the bombshell. “Because he’s going to pay them ten per cent more,” he said. “He’s then going to sell the furniture at a loss for six months. He has the money to do it, apparently. And then, after six months, when Phuti’s customers have all left him to come to The Office Place, he’ll raise his own prices to a more economic level. But by that time, Phuti will have been put out of business.”

  Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath. “That is a very underhand thing to do,” she said.

  Mr. Polopetsi agreed. “But it will probably work.”

  “Why did he tell her all this?” she asked.

  “Because he’s putting her in charge of that new department, and he wants her to know how everything works.”

  There was still something that did not quite add up. “But then why did Gloria tell you? Surely this scheme is going to work to her advantage. Why would she warn you about it?”

  Mr. Polopetsi had anticipated the question. “Because she doesn’t approve of that sort of thing, Mma. She is an old-fashioned lady.”

  He looked at her reproachfully, and Mma Ramotswe felt ashamed. Her question had made it sound as if she assumed that people would always do what was in their best interests even if it involved some underhand practice. She neither assumed that nor approved of such behaviour, and she felt she had to tell him this.

  “It is not old-fashioned to believe in doing the right thing, Rra,” she said. “I would never say that. It’s just that it is so common now for people to think of themselves first and foremost.”

  He assured her he had not imagined she would approve. “And you are right, Mma,” he continued. “There are many people now who just think of themselves. They don’t care if what they do causes distress to other people. They just think: me, me, me.”

  “So this lady must be very worried, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “She doesn’t know what to do, Mma. She thinks that if she warns Phuti Radiphuti about this plot, then Gopolang will find out and she will lose her job. And she can’t afford to do that.”

  “So what does she expect you to do?”

  Mr. Polopetsi sighed. “She doesn’t really know. She just wanted to tell somebody—to get it off her chest. She knows that I’ve been helping her son, and so she turned to me. She’s a widow, you see, Mma, and widows may not have many people to turn to.” He looked at her despairingly. “But the truth of the matter, Mma Ramotswe, is that I don’t know what to do. And so now I’ve told you.”

  It seemed to Mma Ramotswe that just as Gloria might have had nobody to turn to, then the same might be said of Mr. Polopetsi.

  “And I’m glad you did, Rra,” she said. “Because I’m sure I’ll be able to think of a way of dealing with this.”

  The effect of her words was instantaneous. Mr. Polopetsi smiled broadly. “Oh, that is very good, Mma. I hoped that you would say something like that. Now I need not worry any longer.”

  Mma Ramotswe was touched by his confidence in her ability to find a solution; she wished she were equally sure that she would do so, but she feared it was not going to be easy. At all costs they should protect Gloria from recrimination on the part of Gopolang, but they had an equal, if not greater, duty to prevent the Double Comfort Furniture Store from being damaged by this piece of commercial chicanery.

  “I shall do my best, Mr. Polopetsi,” she said, as she stood up to go. “That is all I can do.”

  Mr. Polopetsi nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right, Mma Ramotswe. That’s the most that any of us can do.” He hesitated. “One thing, though, Mma: You won’t tell Mma Makutsi, will you, that I told you rather than her about this Gopolang plan to sell house furniture? You see, I’ve told her about the lady in the chair—or on the lap in the chair—but I haven’t told her about the other thing. I wouldn’t want her to think I was holding information back from her when she’s the Principal Investigating Officer.”

  Mma Ramotswe assured him that she would not. Then, ushered out by Mr. Polopetsi, she made her way to her waiting white van. She had rather a lot to think about for the rest of the journey home: she had the trip to Lobatse to mull over, including the thought that she might soon be meeting a new and mysterious member of the Ramotswe clan; she had the new theory on the Charity affair to consider; and then she had the disturbing news about the plot against the Double Comfort Furniture Store. And at the back of her mind, barely acknowledged but still festering away, was the information she had received from Mma Potokwane that Note Mokoti had been seen in town. All this seemed to her to be just rather too much for one woman, traditionally built though she may be, to bear with equanimity. Gloria had been able to confide in Mr. Polopetsi; Mr. Polopetsi had been able to come to her; but who did she have to turn to? Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni? That would only be natural, as a wife should always be able to turn to a husband, and vice versa, but in this case she was unwilling to tell him that Note had been seen. Note was her problem—a part of her life of which she felt curiously ashamed, and she did not want to burden him with all that. No, she would work something out, and already she was beginning to see what she must do. If you are facing a dreaded meeting, one of the best ways of dealing with it is to bring the encounter forward on your terms. Gain the initiative by going forth to meet the person you dread. Clovis Andersen had said something about that in The Principles of Private Detection. What exactly he had said escaped her, but she was sure that was the gist of it. And had he not also said something about arming yourself with support for such a difficult meeting? He had, she thought, and what better support than Mma Potokwane? If a man had been born who could stand up to Mma Potokwane in full flight, then Mma Ramotswe had yet to meet him. Together they would seek out Note and warn him off. That would be necessary, she felt, as sooner or later he would try to contact her. That is what he had done on past return trips to Gaborone, and that was what she was sure he would do again. Well, that would pre-empt that. Clovis Andersen himself had said pre-emption is often the best defence. She agreed with that, and would perhaps go even further: sometimes pre-emption was not only the best defence—it was the only one.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WE MUST NOT CONFUSE MEN

  AT TEA TIME the following morning Charlie was looking out of the window of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency when he saw an unfamiliar car draw up and park immediately next to Mma Ramotswe’s white van. He watched as a woman emerged from the car and, as if engaged in a programme of exercise, slowly and carefully stretched her limbs.

  “Hah!” said Charlie. “I have seen something very interesting; let me tell you what Mr. Sherlock Holmes would say about this.”

  From behind her desk, Mma Makutsi snorted. “Don’t get ideas, Charlie. You aren’t Mr. Sherlock Holmes yet.”

  Charlie ignored the taunt and addressed himself to Mma Ramotswe. “Would you like me to tell you what I’ve just seen, Mma?” he asked.

  Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “I can tell that the lady who has just got out of her car outside has come from some distance away.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up from the contemplation of her
cup of red bush tea. She had been thinking of last night’s discussion with Mr. Polopetsi and the delicate task that lay ahead of her of dealing with the threat to Phuti’s business. “What lady?” she asked.

  “The lady who has just parked next to your van,” said Charlie. “She has got out and is doing some stretching exercises. So what does this tell us, Mma?” He waited for a few seconds before continuing, with some pride, “Why would somebody do stretching exercises, Mma? It is because she has been driving for a long time.”

  “Well done, Charlie,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That’s very observant.”

  Mma Makutsi, perhaps somewhat grudgingly, agreed that the deduction made sense. “That tells us something,” she said. “But not much. You won’t know where she’s come from, for instance, will you?”

  Charlie gazed out of the window again. “Lobatse,” he said. “She’s come from Lobatse.”

  Mma Ramotswe stiffened. “Lobatse?”

  “You’re guessing, Charlie,” Mma Makutsi challenged.

  “No, Mma,” countered Charlie. “There is a sticker on the back of her car. You know those stickers that say where the car was bought? Well that one is from that garage down in Lobatse—Kalahari Motors—we sometimes get their cars in here. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would…”

  He did not finish. Mma Ramotswe had risen to her feet and crossed the floor to the door. If this was who she thought it might be, then she wanted to meet her outside, rather than in the office under the eyes of Mma Makutsi and Charlie.

  “I think this person has come to see me,” she said over her shoulder as she went out.

  The woman had stopped her stretching and was looking about her when Mma Ramotswe came up to her.

  Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. “Can I help you, Mma?”

  The woman turned round, and Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. She was unprepared for the shock of seeing a woman who so closely resembled her. Not only was the build the same, but the face that was looking at her with such surprise was her own.

  The woman seemed to share her astonishment. “Mma?” she stuttered. “Are you Mma Ramotswe?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “And are you Mma Ramotswe, Mma?”

  The woman nodded. “I think we’re both Mma Ramotswe.”

  This was followed by silence, eventually broken by Mma Ramotswe’s saying, “I’m very glad you’ve come to see me, Mma.”

  Mingie Ramotswe smiled. “How could I not come and see you, Mma? I thought that you might be some distant relative, but now I see you and…” She stopped and made a hopeless gesture. “What can I say, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe was equally stuck for words. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came. She looked into the eyes of the woman in front of her and then, from somewhere deep within her, from a place beyond her control, she began to cry.

  The reaction from Mingie mirrored her own, and the two women took a final step forwards and threw their arms round each other. From within the office, a wide-eyed Charlie and an equally astonished Mma Makutsi peered through the window at the extraordinary reunion.

  “That’s Mma Ramotswe greeting another Mma Ramotswe,” said Charlie breathlessly.

  “Well, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,” said Mma Makutsi. “What do you make of that?”

  Charlie whistled. “I would say that Mma Ramotswe has just met her sister.”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Mma Ramotswe doesn’t have a sister.”

  Charlie looked at her and smiled. “She does now, Mma,” he said.

  —

  THEY DID NOT GO BACK into the office, but at Mma Ramotswe’s suggestion took a walk along one of the paths that led off into the scrub bush behind the garage. This was the very edge of Gaborone, and, as was often true of the immediate surrounds of an African town, there was an in-between zone where numerous paths criss-crossed one another; where cattle grazed unauthorised; where scraps of detritus from nearby roads were blown in small eddies of dust; where the sound of traffic and other human sounds were gradually drowned out by the screech of the insects that made their lives in trees and shrubs. Mma Ramotswe knew these paths because every so often, when she wanted to clear her head and get away from the office for a few minutes, she would walk out on one of them, would stand and look up at the sky, would breathe the air scented by acacia leaves and cattle dung—the smell of her native Botswana, the smell that evoked so many memories.

  They did not walk fast, but ambled at the pace of those for whom the journey was less important than the opportunity to talk, and who knew that their unspoken agenda was a grave one.

  Mma Ramotswe began the conversation. “I saw your photograph, Mma,” she said. “That is when I first heard about you.”

  Mingie nodded. “That was with some other nurses?” she asked.

  “Yes. Two others. And when I saw the name I was surprised, because I thought I knew all the Ramotswes and here was another one.” She paused. “Where were you born, Mma?”

  “Pilane,” answered Mingie. “That’s a place just outside Mochudi.”

  Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. “I know that place,” she said. “I am from Mochudi, you see. That’s where I was born.”

  “We didn’t stay there long, though,” said Mingie. “My mother left the country. She went over the border to a place just outside Johannesburg. She had a job there in domestic science college. She took me there with her and that is where I was raised. We were Setswana-speaking but we lived in South Africa.”

  “You went to school there?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  “Yes,” said Mingie. “It was during the big changes. I was at school in the early days of freedom.”

  The as-yet-unspoken question was hanging in the air between them and could no longer be ignored.

  “You mention your mother, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “What about your father?”

  She knew that this was likely to be an awkward question. There were so many people who either did not know who their father was or had not had the chance to get to know him. It was a shameful situation, with men casually refusing to acknowledge their offspring, leaving women to assume the entire burden; it happened, but it was not something of which Mma Ramotswe was proud: her Botswana deserved better than that.

  The cicadas shrilled; the sun inched its way up the sky.

  It took Mingie a little while to answer. “My father, Mma? I did not know him. I never met him.”

  “But did your mother say anything about him, Mma?”

  Mingie hesitated once more. “She did not say much, Mma. She said…Well, she said that he was not a good man. That was all she said.”

  Mma Ramotswe heard this in silence.

  “My mother said that when she left Botswana she asked him to come with her, but he refused.”

  “He must have been working, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mingie shook her head. “No. He was not working. He could have come with us to South Africa, but he did not.”

  Mma Ramotswe had been looking at the ground as she spoke. It was baked hard by sun and drought, and yet it was still home to plants and creatures that could somehow cope with its dryness. She saw what she thought was a scorpion, a small, scuttling flash of brown, almost transparent under the rays of the sun. She stopped walking, standing quite still, bringing Mingie to a halt as well.

  “Did your mother tell you his name?” asked Mma Ramotswe. The words came out slowly, tentatively; a question to which in her heart of hearts she knew the answer and which, in many ways, she did not want answered.

  “He was called Obed,” said Mingie.

  Mma Ramotswe did not remember very well what happened next. She did not remember how she wrapped Mingie in an embrace, there among the acacia trees, while a hornbill, perched on a branch of one of the trees, looked down with its curious, ancient eye; she did not remember how the two of them turned back, wordlessly, both knowing exactly what their conversation had established, and overcome by the discovery. Both had too much to think about to speak, at least in those first few minutes. Then, a
s they approached the end of the path and saw once again the familiar building of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, they both found that they had more to say than they could easily express.

  “I am very happy I have found a sister,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Very happy, Mma.” She was—in a way—but there was another feeling, one that she did not mention.

  And for her part, Mingie said, “A new sister is a gift from God, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked at her and smiled. “Perhaps it’s as if God has suddenly said, ‘Oh, Mma, I forgot to tell you: you have a sister.’ ”

  They both laughed. Then Mma Ramotswe, noticing a movement in the window of the agency, said, “I think you should come and meet some of my friends now, Mma. And my husband, of course.”

  “My new brother-in-law,” said Mingie. “What is his name, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe replied automatically, “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma.”

  Mingie looked puzzled. “Doesn’t he have…”

  It was a perfectly reasonable question, but one that Mma Ramotswe did not answer. “He has always been called that, Mma—even by me. If we started calling him something different, he would be very confused.”

  Mingie nodded. “We must not confuse men, Mma,” she said.

  —

  THAT EVENING Mma Ramotswe walked in her garden, past the mopipi tree, past the aloe plants that she had decided to think but had yet to do anything about, to the long narrow bed in which she grew her beans. These beans were struggling; they had climbed obediently enough up the strings she had provided for them, but their leaves were wilting from lack of moisture. Despite Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s drip irrigation system, the sun had been fierce in the cloudless sky and had seemed to snatch the water back before it did much good. She would get a crop, she thought, but every bean would be fought for, wrested from an unforgiving nature.

  It was a time of day when the sun had all but sunk into the Kalahari, when shadows lengthened and the glare and heat of the day was replaced by a far gentler light and a less ferocious warmth. It was a time of returning birds, of drifting wood smoke, of murmuring voices coming from somewhere nearby, beyond the scrub bush at the end of her yard, where people sometimes walked or sat or went to talk about things they needed to talk about.