How to Raise an Elephant

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I saw you from the car, my sister. I saw you waiting here.”

  The woman looked at her over the baby’s head. She did not at first respond to Mma Makutsi’s remark, but seemed to be waiting for something else.

  “So, you are waiting for the doctor?” said Mma Makutsi.

  The woman shook her head. “There is a nurse—that is all.” She spoke quietly, as if she were uncomfortable about disturbing the quiet that lay about them; for the others were silent, and were listening as they watched. And all that there was, all that could be heard about them, was the sound of the cicadas screeching away, as they liked to do in the heat, determined that their hidden kind, concealed in the private places of insects, should hear them and take notice.

  Mma Makutsi persisted. “For the baby? You’re taking the baby to the nurse? Or is it for yourself?”

  The woman sighed—a sigh that came from a hinterland of acceptance: This is the way the world is. This is what it is like. “It is for the baby,” she said. “She is crying, crying, crying after I feed her. She never stops—except when I come here. Then she is silent.”

  Mma Makutsi clicked her tongue almost inaudibly—the sound, in Botswana, of a sympathy that may be felt, even if it is hard to put into words. But then she said, “It is always like that. Children do not do what you want them to do, do they? They do the opposite.” She looked at the baby, at its tiny head in its heavy wool cap—even in this heat, which surely would make the child’s head too hot. A lighter, breathable cloth, white muslin and at least cooler-looking, covered the child’s face, so that only the eyes and forehead were showing. “That sounds like kgadikêgo, Mma. That is what babies get sometimes—and it makes them cry a lot.” She used the Setswana word, kgadikêgo—stomach ache.

  The woman patted her baby through the cloth of the sling. “You’re right, Mma,” she said. “They call it colic these days. It is probably that. Of course, the children themselves don’t understand.”

  “No, they don’t.” Mma Makutsi reached out to touch the baby lightly, against the cheek. The child’s small eyes watched her.

  “You want to see the nurse too?” asked the woman. “She is very good at her job, this nurse.”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. “No, I do not need to see the nurse. I was just driving past and I saw you and your baby and thought…” She stopped. What had she thought? She was not sure; it was difficult to give sympathy a specific shape. And then it came to her: “I wondered whether you lived close by, or whether you had to walk here.”

  The woman pointed. “I live that way, Mma. About four miles—maybe five. I had to walk here.”

  “That is not easy,” said Mma Makutsi. “It is not easy in the heat—especially if you’re carrying a baby.”

  “I am used to it,” said the woman. “If you’re used to something, then it is not so hard.”

  Mma Makutsi looked over her shoulder at her car. “That car has lots of room, Mma. There will be room for you and your baby. I can take you home after you’ve seen the nurse.”

  The woman stared at her in apparent disbelief. “But Mma, but…”

  Mma Makutsi touched her lightly on the forearm to stem her protestations. “My mind is made up, Mma.”

  The sunlight caught her glasses, and they flashed a warning that she was determined and would not welcome an attempt at dissuasion. Surprised, but nonetheless understanding this, the woman lowered her head and said, “You are very kind, Mma.”

  The other people waiting had listened to every word of Mma Makutsi’s conversation with the woman, and one of them, an elderly man, now said, “That lady can go in first, when the nurse is ready. Then she will not hold you up too much, Mma.”

  Another nodded, and said, “It is very hot.”

  A third said, “Yes, it is always hot. Always.”

  A few minutes later, the nurse arrived, parking her car next to Mma Makutsi’s. She nodded at the waiting patients before unlocking the clinic. Mma Makutsi sat and stared at the sky while the woman went inside; she heard the baby crying, but only briefly, and then the woman re-emerged, clutching a paper bag on which a label had been stuck.

  Mma Makutsi rose to her feet. “Everything is all right, Mma?”

  The woman smiled. “She has given me something to give to the baby. She says it will settle the stomach.”

  They walked to Mma Makutsi’s car. In the brief period during which it had been parked in the sunlight, the heat within it had built up, even with the windows left open. Mma Makutsi took a newspaper from the passenger seat, unfolded it, and spread it over the back seat to protect the woman from the hot upholstery. Then she drove back to the road and followed the woman’s directions to her house. In the driver’s mirror, she saw the baby resting on her mother’s lap. She saw a tiny hand reach out and grasp the woman’s fingers. She remembered how her own baby, Itumelang Andersen Radiphuti, had done this when he had first been introduced to his father, and how Phuti had wept with emotion and said, “He’s shaking hands with his daddy—see, that’s what he is doing—he’s shaking hands.” And she had fought back the tears too, because only a few years earlier she would never have dreamed that she would have this in her life: a kind husband who loved her—and often told her so—and a healthy baby. And a house. And cattle. And a vegetable garden. And enough dresses to wear a different one every day for three weeks if she wanted to. How had all that happened?

  It did not take long to reach the woman’s house. Years earlier, when Mma Makutsi had still been in Bobonong, a house of this size and simplicity would not have been unusual—a single room, effectively, with a sloping roof of corrugated tin and walls of distempered daub. Now, with the prosperity that the country had enjoyed, the steady economic progress that the diamond mines, cautious husbandry, and good government had brought to the country, the ranks of those still living in single-room houses—huts, really—had been steadily thinned. People now had at least two or three rooms; they had walls made of breeze blocks; they had running water or at least access to a standpipe supplied by a village borehole. And yet there were still those whom this amelioration had bypassed, and who could not afford more than the most cramped living quarters. As the woman in the back seat reached forward to tap her on the shoulder, Mma Makutsi realised that this woman was one of those who had not been invited within the fold of plenty. It was no surprise, really, as she had expected something of this sort, but she found herself drawing in her breath as she took in the meanness of her new friend’s home.

  “This is my place here, Mma. This is it.”

  Mma Makutsi nosed the car over the last few bumps of eroded track. “To your doorstep, Mma,” she said, trying to sound as cheery as she could.

  She stopped the car.

  “I would like to make you some tea, Mma,” said the woman. “There is no milk, but there is some tea.”

  Mma Makutsi looked at her watch. “I would like to say yes, Mma,” she said. “I would like that very much, but I have to go and see somebody, and she will be sitting there thinking: Where is this woman who was coming to see me? She will be thinking: This woman is a very rude woman who is always late.”

  They both laughed.

  “Maybe some other time, Mma,” said the woman.

  Mma Makutsi got out of her car to help the woman. She said, “May I hold your baby? Just for a minute or two?”

  “Of course, Mma,” said the woman. “Here she is.”

  She handed the infant to Mma Makutsi, who took her gently, a precious, fragile parcel of humanity. And as she did so, the muslin cloth that had obscured the child’s face fell away, and Mma Makutsi saw the cleft lip. Her gaze dwelt on it for a few seconds, and then passed to the woman. She had not intended that her shock should show, but it did; she could not conceal it.

  “She is going to have an operation,” said the woman. “They are going to do it down in Gaborone, at the big hospita
l there.”

  “I see, Mma. That is good. They can fix these things now, can’t they?”

  The woman inclined her head. “Yes.” Then she added, “My sister will take her there.”

  Mma Makutsi stroked the baby’s cheek. “She is very beautiful, Mma. Look at her eyes. They are lovely eyes.”

  A smile crossed the woman’s face. “They are like the eyes of my late mother.”

  “Eyes run in families,” said Mma Makutsi. “That often happens.” She paused. “Your sister, Mma? What about you? Wouldn’t it be better for you to go with her?”

  The woman did not answer.

  “How long will she be there?” Mma Makutsi pressed.

  “Five days,” said the woman. “They said five days. My sister is in Gaborone. She works in one of the big hotels, but she will be able to visit her every other day.”

  Mma Makutsi drew in her breath. “But it will be hard for a little baby not to have her mother there, Mma.”

  The woman sighed. “I cannot go, Mma. I am working at that school over there.” She pointed towards the village centre. “I am one of the cooks. The man who is in charge is very strict. He says that I can go, but I will not be paid for a whole week. And if that happens, then I cannot buy food for my family, and my brother too—he is one of those people who cannot work because something went wrong when he was being born and it is very hard for him to walk, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi held the child close to her. She felt its breath against her cheek—a tiny movement of air, like the touch of a feather. There was only one thing for her to do—and she did it.

  “I can help you, Mma. I can help you to go to Gaborone.”

  “That is kind of you, Mma. But that is not why I cannot go. There are minibuses, but I cannot go because—”

  Mma Makutsi handed the baby back. As she did so, she said, “That’s not what I meant, Mma. What I meant is that I will give you the money—the same as your wages for that week. I will give it to you. And you can stay at our place if there is no place for you to stay at the hospital.”

  The woman stared at her. “They have a place for mothers to sleep. You can sleep beside your baby.”

  “Then that is what you must do,” said Mma Makutsi.

  The woman held the baby with one arm; with the other she reached and gripped Mma Makutsi’s blouse. “Mma, you are the kindest person in this country. That is true, Mma—that is true. You are the kindest person.”

  Mma Makutsi turned away, embarrassed by the praise. “No, Mma,” she said. “You must not call me that. I am the same as everybody else. No different.”

  “But who would help some person they have just met, Mma? That is why I’m saying what I’ve just said.”

  Mma Makutsi became business-like. “I’m going to write down my telephone number, Mma. And then I shall write down our address too. This is where I work, you see.” She took a piece of paper from her bag and wrote down the details.

  The woman said, “I haven’t told you my name, Mma. I am Mma Moyana.”

  She took the paper and read what Mma Makutsi had written. She looked up in astonishment.

  “You are that detective lady? I have seen the sign often when I have gone into town. It’s that place just off the Tlokweng Road, isn’t it? Next to that garage? The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency? You’re that lady they talk about?”

  Mma Makutsi hesitated. “One of them,” she said. “There is another lady there.” She hesitated. She had to be honest. “That other lady is called Mma Ramotswe. She is the one who started the business. I am her…her associate.”

  The woman frowned. “But I have heard there is another one there, who is a very clever detective. They say she is smart, smart, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi held her breath. Had word got out about her ninety-seven per cent?

  “She is called Mma Makutsi,” said the woman. “That is what I have heard.”

  For a few moments Mma Makutsi did not say anything. But the words that the woman had just uttered hung in the air for all to see, like great letters of smoke written across the sky. She savoured the moment, and then said, struggling to keep her voice even, “Mma, you are the kind one now. Thank you for what you have said. It has made me very happy.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MY CUP HAS TOO MUCH TEA IN IT

  YOU WILL FIND HER a very polite lady,” Mma Ramotswe had said of her friend, the retired Mma Phiri. “Many people are polite, Mma—still—but there are some who are very polite. This lady is very polite.”

  Mma Makutsi nodded. She had met some of these very polite people—most of them ladies, she had to admit, although now that she thought of it there were many very polite men too. Her own husband, Phuti, was one who had a natural courtesy about him that was frequently remarked upon by others, and even her baby, Itumelang Andersen Radiphuti, showed every sign of being a very polite baby. There were many babies who grabbed at anything you offered them—snatched it, in fact—but Itumelang never did that. If you offered him his bottle of milk, he would look at you first, as if to secure your permission, as if to say, “Are you sure?” and then he would take it, in both hands, as was the polite thing to do in Botswana. You should never snatch something with a single hand, that was a lesson that parents taught their children at a very early age; but it had not been necessary, it seemed, to give Itumelang that lesson. Presumably that was because manners, although they needed to be taught, could, to a certain extent, be inherited—just as you could inherit a nose or a way of holding your head, or a preference for this food over that food. Mma Makutsi was a strong believer in the inheritance principle: nothing came from nowhere, and most of our ordinary human characteristics were handed down to us from our parents and grandparents, and indeed from the ancestors themselves—those remote, shadowy figures who lived in Botswana so long ago and whose fingerprints, faint and unobtrusive, could be seen upon the land if one cared to look for them.

  Of course, inheritance brought bad things as well as good. Violet Sephotho, for instance, was the way she was because earlier Sephothos had been the same, had been interested only in attracting the attentions of men. Mma Makutsi smiled to herself as she imagined Violet’s grandmother behaving exactly like her granddaughter, a figure bent with age but still flirting with ancient men, too old to even notice what was going on in the world about them, and certainly immune to the antics of flashy elderly women…

  But even as these delicious thoughts came to her, she found herself at the front gate of the Phiri household and calling out to those within. She could think about the Sephotho clan later on, when she could perhaps imagine what the next generation would be like—worse than Violet, presumably, because they said that in general inherited qualities got worse as the generations went by. That was especially so if there was inbreeding—if one Sephotho married a distant Sephotho cousin, for example—something allowed by the law and by custom but perhaps not the best tactic for the improvement of stock. That was something she could return to later, and perhaps discuss with Mma Ramotswe, although Mma Ramotswe, being as charitable as she was, would be more tolerant of Sephotho failings than she, Mma Makutsi, was inclined to be. Mma Ramotswe, of course, had not been at the Botswana Secretarial College at the same time as Violet, and could therefore be forgiven for not realising the full awfulness of Violet’s behaviour. There was a limit to the amount of tolerance one should show, Mma Makutsi thought; if you were excessively tolerant, unacceptable people—like Violet Sephotho—might imagine that they were all right, whereas the message that society should give to such people was an unambiguous “You are not all right!” That was the problem: not enough people were sending out that signal; not enough people were prepared to shake their heads when they looked at other, unacceptable, people. It was hard work, shaking your head like that, but it had to be done—there was no way round it. And it was hard work, too, having to get up and walk out whenever an unacceptable
person entered a room, but that, too, had to be done. There should be far more walking out, Mma Makutsi thought, and as she thought that, from down below, she imagined two thin voices affirming in unison their support for that particular proposition: Too right, Boss—count us in on that…Shoes, she thought, know what’s what. There is no confusion on the part of shoes when it comes to matters of right and wrong…

  “Mma Makutsi?” said Mma Phiri, as she opened the door. “Precious said that you would be coming, Mma. You are very welcome.”

  Mma Makutsi followed her hostess inside. She could not help but reflect on the difference between the house she was now entering and the house she had just left—between the world of Mma Phiri and that of Mma Moyana. Mma Phiri’s house had a solid feel to it: it was one of those buildings that looked as if it had always been there, as if it emanated from the very ground upon which it stood. There were some houses like that—they seemed to be in the place where they were meant to be; whereas there were other houses, constructions with a much flimsier feel to them, that looked as if they had been dropped on the landscape by some great and unseen hand, and sooner or later—probably sooner—the land would shrug them off.

  “You have a very fine house, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Phiri gestured for her guest to sit down. Even the sofa at which she pointed, an inviting, cream-coloured three-seater, looked as if it had been there forever, and that the house might have been built around it. There were some sofas that were like that—they had the air, and the confidence, of the thing that had been there first, before walls and roof and other human additions had been built around them. Phuti had a term for that quality in furniture—“permanent furniture.” That was how he described some of the items that he sold in his Double Comfort Furniture Store, and she had heard him say to prospective purchasers, “This sofa may be slightly more expensive, but it is what I call permanent. It is built to last permanently, you see. This is not a temporary sofa. This is a sofa on which your great-grandchildren will be sitting, I think.”