How to Raise an Elephant

by Alexander McCall Smith

  It was delicate because Mma Ramotswe knew that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had his views on people who relied on distant family connections to get some sort of favour from others. In his view it was this idea of obligation that led to corruption, the canker that had held Africa back from achieving its full potential. Corruption was the devil, he said, that led countries rich in resources to the begging bowl. It had happened so many times in so many different places, but never in Botswana. “And why?” he asked. “Because Seretse Khama would not tolerate corruption—that is why.” And he, the first President, that good man who spoke with all the authority that came from his origins in the first family of the Bamangwato people, had said that there should be no corruption in Botswana and that those who had power should wield it for the good of all rather than for the lining of their own pockets. And that had worked, when all about them, in Angola, and South Africa, and Zimbabwe, officials and politicians had taken their cut and slowly drained the blood from their economies. Some had become immensely rich, funded by stolen diamonds or the bribes paid for large construction contracts—there were hundreds of ways of taking money that should not belong to you—and honest men and women had suffered as a result.

  “And how does this happen?” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni asked. “It happens because of that thing you boast about, Mma Ramotswe. It happens because one person can go to another and say: You are my cousin, or my cousin’s cousin, or even my cousin’s cousin’s cousin, and this means that you must give me the job or the contract. And so this thing grows, and puts down deep roots, just like the mopipi tree, deep roots that go right down into the heart of a country. Deep, deep. And soon nobody can do anything about it, because everyone is doing it, and there are no honest people left, and that is what corruption is, Mma.”

  Yes, thought Mma Ramotswe, yes, but…And the but was a big one. She thought he was right about how some people took advantage of family connections to get the things they wanted; he might be right about that, but at the same time she would not want to see that tradition abandoned, because that would make Botswana just like anywhere else where people did not think they had to help others. You had to look after other people because if you did not, then the world was a cold and lonely place, a place where, if you stumbled, there would be no hand to pull you to your feet. So even if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was right about how people had abused this idea of mutual reliance, she could not bring herself to reject it.

  Now, as she sat on the edge of their bed, while he sipped the tea she had made him, she said, “That woman who came to see me yesterday, Rra. You remember her?”

  He nodded. “What did she want, Mma?”

  “She wasn’t a client, you know.”

  He took a further sip of his tea. “I know. She said something about being a cousin. I meant to ask you about her, but that gearbox I was busy with…” He shook his head. Gearboxes were the cross he bore in life. He did not mind shock absorbers or fuel pumps, or brake drums, but gearboxes were another matter altogether.

  “Her name is Blessing. She is a very distant cousin—you know how it is: daughter of a cousin who married a cousin—that sort of thing.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “That makes all of us cousins,” he said. “You, me, Mma Makutsi—even Charlie, I suppose. We’re all related.”

  “Yes, we are,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And if you trace it far back enough, we all come from the same place—way, way back. East Africa. Even people up in Iceland—they come from East Africa originally. So everyone is a cousin.”

  “That is this DNA they talk about,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, adding, with mock seriousness, “I should like to see some of this stuff one day. I wonder if it looks like motor oil. High-grade motor oil, naturally.”

  She laughed. “We are not motor cars, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Well, I’m certainly not…”

  He drank the last of his tea and put the empty cup down on his bedside table. Putting his hands behind his head to act as an extra pillow, he prepared to enjoy the last few moments in bed before getting up. He closed his eyes.

  “You aren’t going back to sleep, are you?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “It’s a working day, remember.”

  His voice was drowsy. “I’m not going back to sleep. I’m just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About those early people back then—you know, the ones in East Africa—the ones whose skulls they dug up. I was thinking about them having a sort of kgotla meeting and saying, ‘It’s about time we got moving.’ ” He opened his eyes and smiled. “And then one of them says, ‘How about going off to Europe or India? There will be big opportunities there.’ ”

  “This Blessing,” Mma Ramotswe persisted. “She came to tell me about one of our relatives. She says that he is not well.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “People are always falling ill, Mma. That is the way we are.” He paused. “I’m sorry, of course. It is not very pleasant being unwell, but it is always happening, I’m afraid.”

  “And—”

  He interrupted her. “And they need money? Right?”

  Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes. He knew how these things worked, just as she did. She gave a wordless reply, nodding to confirm what he had said.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sat up and began to get out of bed. “It’s always the same, Mma. This one, that one—everyone needs money. There’s never enough, no matter how careful you are, no matter how hard you work. There is always a need for more money.”

  “It is a man called Tefo Kgomo. He worked in the mines up at Selebi-Phikwe and is now living down here—just outside town. You get to his place from the Lobatse Road. Down that way.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni donned a clean shirt. He gave another sigh. “And what is wrong with him, Mma?”

  “His hips,” she said. “He has arthritis in both his hips. It is very difficult for him to walk now. It is always very painful.”

  “Can’t they do something? I thought that these days they have an operation.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They do have an operation. They can put in new joints.”

  “It’s amazing,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Just like cars, Mma, don’t you think? A new set of engine valves. A new suspension system. Just like cars.”

  “You’re right, Rra. It is amazing. But Tefo cannot get these things, she said.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni paused in his dressing. “But there’s that big hospital down in Lobatse. That’s close to where he lives, surely. They have plenty of doctors there. My friend Thomas, who has his garage down that way, says that he looks after the cars of at least seven doctors at that hospital. They come from all over the place—there are some very well-trained doctors, Thomas says. Big experts in blood and hearts and so on. There will be a bone doctor there—definitely.”

  “I’m sure there is,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But there’s a problem. Tefo cannot get treatment in the government hospital. Not this special treatment, anyway.”

  He was puzzled. “But I’ve heard of people who’ve had that operation here in Gaborone. In the government hospital. There hasn’t been a problem.”

  “Citizens, Rra.”

  He frowned. “Citizens?”

  “Those people will be citizens. This man, this Tefo, is South African. He’s a Motswana, yes, but from over the border. He has worked in this country for many years, but he isn’t a citizen.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni asked why not. There were procedures for obtaining citizenship, and if you were in the country long enough and qualified, then it might be granted.

  “That’s true,” Mma Ramotswe said. “It’s ten years. You have to be in the country for ten years if you want to be naturalised.”

  “But you said that he had worked here for many years…”

  She looked down at her hands. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was a kind man—there was none kinder in Botswana, she had always thought, but he
was slow to get involved in the affairs of others. And now she had to reveal the most uncomfortable aspect of the whole story.

  “He has worked for a long time, Rra, but…but there is something that means he will not get citizenship.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni waited.

  “He has a conviction.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head ruefully. “I thought that, Mma. The moment you said ‘but.’ I thought: This man has been convicted of something.” He paused. “What is it?”

  “Stock theft.”

  It was the worst answer she could have given, short of saying that Tefo had been convicted of murder. The ownership of cattle lay at the heart of Botswana’s culture, and stock theft was widely and roundly condemned.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shrugged. “That’s it, then. If that’s on his record, Mma, then I’m surprised they didn’t send him back over the border.”

  “He has two children,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They are still young—or they were young when he was convicted. He was supporting them, and since their mother is a Motswana, they would not deport them. So they let him stay under a residence permit.”

  “Did he go to jail, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe relayed what Blessing had told her. It had not been a serious case of stock theft—he was accused of taking a heifer belonging to a neighbour and putting his own brand over the original owner’s. Since it was only one animal, the magistrate had been lenient and not sent him to prison. But it was a conviction nonetheless, and that remained on his record.

  “Blessing said that she was convinced he was innocent and that the neighbour had done the rebranding himself. He had hoped that Tefo would be sent to jail.”

  “Why?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “What had Tefo done to him?”

  Mma Ramotswe shrugged. Rural feuds were complicated, and as often as not went back a very long time. Sometimes they were handed down from parent to child, with the result that they could simmer away when everybody had forgotten the original cause of hostilities.

  “There must be few things worse than being wrongly accused of a crime,” Mma Ramotswe said. “You know you are innocent, but you also know that most people will not believe you—even your friends.”

  “It must be very bad,” agreed Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. But what, he wondered, could one do about it? The world was like that. There were things that were wrong about it that were very difficult to change, and no matter how careful the police and the courts were, they would sometimes get the wrong person.

  “I want to help her,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  He was pulling on his socks. He stopped. “You want to help with the operation?”

  She nodded. “I can’t give a great deal,” she said. “Just a small amount.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stared at his feet. This was what he had feared. “But, Mma,” he said. “If we give money to every distant relative who needs it, we will have none left for ourselves. Word gets out—you know that as well as I do. People will say, ‘Oh, that Mma Ramotswe will always help you,’ and then, before you know it, there’s a line of people halfway to Lobatse, all wanting a bit of financial help, and every one of them—every single one of them—a distant cousin.”

  She did not say anything. She knew that what he said was right.

  “And do you know how much those operations cost?” he continued. “Tens of thousands of pula, Mma. If you can’t get the government to pay, then you have to pay a very big bill. As much as a car costs, Mma. Did you know that? Easily as much as a car costs.”

  “I was only going to give a little,” she said.

  He shook his head. “You can’t, Mma. Look at what you pay Charlie—hardly anything. If you want to be charitable, then I think you should start at home—right under your nose—and give Charlie more money, rather than help this distant cousin—so distant that we’d need binoculars to see him, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe did not argue. Before she and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni married, they had not discussed their financial situation in any detail. Both had assumed that they would pool resources, and that each would decide which part of their joint patrimony he or she wished to manage. Without there ever having been any real debate about it, Mma Ramotswe found herself looking after the bills, drawing upon the common account into which they paid their separate regular incomes—hers from the profits of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, his from the takings at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. In addition to those sources, they each had a small amount of money from the occasional sale of cattle. In that respect, Mma Ramotswe was considerably better off than Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, as Obed Ramotswe had left her a good-sized herd and there were still many head of these out at her cattle post. Some people were loath to sell cattle, treating them almost as family members, but Mma Ramotswe had never been sentimental about this. She loved her cattle, yes, but she understood that there was a time for selling just as there was a time for cherishing.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s cattle had been taken into the herd of an elderly uncle of his, a man who, like Obed Ramotswe, knew almost everything there was to know about cattle husbandry. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni liked this uncle, who had in his time been a railway mechanic, and he admired his judgement—when it came to cattle and to the care and maintenance of railway engines. But what he found trying was the uncle’s inability to talk about anything other than cattle. There had been a time when he had been prepared to converse about trains and cattle, but lately the trains seemed to have been forgotten about and the conversation focused entirely on cattle. But whatever his shortcomings as a conversationalist were, he took good care of his nephew’s cattle, even though he never had more than ten head at any one time. This was very little when compared with Mma Ramotswe’s one hundred and fifteen.

  Mma Ramotswe could not recall ever having a single argument about money with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Now, as he told her about charity and its demands in her back yard, she realised that this was a disagreement. She could have argued with him, but she felt reluctant to do that. In her mind, consensus and the doing of things together was the key to a good marriage. Once you began to argue about little things, the stage would be set for much bigger disagreements, and she did not want that. So all she said was, “It’s all right, Rra—I won’t give them any money.”

  He looked abashed. “I didn’t say you couldn’t, Mma. I didn’t say that. I would never tell you what you should do with our money.”

  She looked away. He had. He had said “you can’t.” She was sure of that.

  “All I said,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni went on, “or all that I meant to say is that there are too many people looking for money. If you decide that one of them actually deserves it, then there is no reason why you shouldn’t help them. But you have to be careful, Mma—that’s all.”

  “I don’t think we should argue about this, Rra,” she said. “I know that you are careful when it comes to money, and that is a good thing. Money should be looked after by the head, rather than by the heart. I will find out a bit more about this man. But I won’t do anything foolish.”

  “You’d never do anything foolish, Mma,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, relieved that a potentially difficult issue had been satisfactorily resolved—at least for the moment.

  They spent the next few moments in silence. And then, just as Mma Ramotswe was about to rise to her feet and take Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s teacup back to the kitchen, they heard the sound of voices outside.

  “Is there somebody in the garden?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He crossed to the window and peered out. “No, there’s nobody there.”

  The voices returned. A woman’s voice was raised, and it was followed by a lower voice in answer. Then the woman spoke again, shouting this time.

  “It’s coming from next door,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Our new neighbours.”

  Mma Ramotswe joined him at the window. The voices were clearer now, the volume of th
e exchange having been turned up. It was possible to pick out some of the words, although no full sentences could be heard.

  Mma Ramotswe looked at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “They’re arguing, Rra.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni winced. “Did you hear what she just said, Mma?”

  She shook her head.

  “Just as well, Mma,” he said. “She is being very rude to him.”

  The woman’s voice rose to become even more shrill.

  “That was not a nice thing to say,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “She called him an anteater.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “That is a rather rare insult, Rra. I have not heard that used very much. And what is wrong with anteaters, I wonder?”

  “They are very greedy,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He was not sure about that, but he thought it might be true, as they seemed to gorge themselves once they found a colony of ants. “And they have these very long tongues, Mma. Perhaps he has a very long tongue, this new neighbour of ours.”

  “Or a long nose,” suggested Mma Ramotswe. “They have a long nose that they put down ant-holes. If his nose is long, then that might be why she is calling him that.”

  “If she didn’t like his nose,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, “then why did she marry him, Mma? Before you marry somebody, surely you should make certain that you don’t have a problem with his nose? Would you not agree, Mma Ramotswe?”

  Mma Ramotswe hesitated. In general, she took the view that a person’s physical appearance was neither here nor there, and that when it came to choosing your life partner, how the other person looked had little or no bearing on how successful the marriage would be. She was aware of many cases where a woman had been very happy, for many years, with a husband who was unprepossessing in the extreme. Phuti Radiphuti was a case in point: he was not the most good-looking of men, and yet he had been a wonderful husband for Mma Makutsi. And then there was that man who worked in the supermarket—his ears were so large that they made him look like a jackal, and yet Mma Potokwane, who knew his family, had told her that his wife said that the day she met him was the luckiest day of her life. And, speaking of noses, that senior civil servant who brought his car to be serviced at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors had one of the largest noses in the country—so large and dominating that it was almost impossible to see his eyes or mouth—and yet his wife seemed to love him and had borne him seven children, which was always a good sign in a marriage.