How to Raise an Elephant

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Phiri fixed Mma Makutsi with an enquiring look. “You will see where this is going,” she said.

  Mma Makutsi looked blank. She suspected she was missing something, but she was not sure what it was. She felt a certain embarrassment now: She might be the great detective who could identify Five Roses tea, but what use was that if she then missed something rather more important?

  Mma Phiri, being too polite to embarrass her guest, immediately reassured her. “Of course, it’s not obvious at all. It’s not what anybody would expect, Mma: the real thief was that woman, Blessing. This other man, this Tefo, was her lover, even her husband for all I knew, and she had got him to take the blame. So, he pleaded guilty, and because he did so, it was difficult for me to do anything but convict him. I could have refused to accept his plea, of course, and discharged him, but the Attorney General gets very cross if a magistrate does that sort of thing.”

  Mma Makutsi nodded. “Yes, Mma, I see, I see.”

  Mma Phiri continued, “It was very clear to me, from where I was sitting…”

  “On your bench…”

  “On the bench, yes, that this was one of those situations where a strong woman has a weak man under her control. She was using him, Mma. You see that sort of thing from time to time: the man is a nothing at all, a useless, and the woman is everything.”

  Mma Makutsi noted the term “a useless.” That was a wonderful description, and she would use it herself, she thought. Every so often one came across “a useless,” and sometimes it was difficult to find just the right words to describe such a person. Now she had them: two short and pithy words—one very short and very pithy: “a useless.”

  She thanked Mma Phiri. “You have told me everything I need to know, Mma. I shall go back to Mma Ramotswe and tell her what you have said.”

  Mma Phiri saw Mma Makutsi out to her car. “You must pass on a message to your husband,” she said, as fond farewells were exchanged. “You must tell him that I sit on that sofa every day. I sit there and think how comfortable it is.”

  “More comfortable than that bench of yours,” said Mma Makutsi.

  The joke was well received. “Very much so,” said Mma Phiri, laughing. “Perhaps they should put sofas like that in the High Court for the judges there. They would be more comfortable sitting on them while they listened to the arguments of the lawyers.” She paused. “Mind you, Mma, the risk is that they would go to sleep.”

  “That would not do,” said Mma Makutsi.

  “Definitely not.”

  As she drove back to the main road, Mma Makutsi reflected with some satisfaction on the afternoon’s events. She had met two good women: one with a baby and a difficult life, and one in much more comfortable circumstances and with a life of achievement behind her. She had found out what she needed to find out. She had enlarged her vocabulary with an excellent term to use, sparingly, when other terms seemed inadequate. And now, after calling in briefly at the office, she was going to go home to a loving husband, a house with a cool verandah, and a young child who meant more to her than anything else in the world. There was a saying that expressed how she felt, but she could not quite remember what it was. It was something to do with cups running over. Cups of tea? Was it about tea? “My cup has too much tea in it”? No, that was not right, but perhaps it expressed, accurately enough, how she felt.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  SHE’S A USELESS

  EVERYTHING HAD BEEN ARRANGED with Mma Potokwane.

  “We shall arrive at about half-past eight,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni told her on the telephone. “It will just be me, Charlie, and Fanwell.”

  “And an elephant,” added Mma Potokwane.

  “Yes, and an elephant—but not a very big one, as you know.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni asked whether the stockade was ready, and he was assured that it was. “One of the older boys is a very good little carpenter,” Mma Potokwane said. “He has built a new gate, and he is fitting that right now. By tonight, everything will be ready.”

  They spent some time discussing the baby elephant’s requirements. Charlie had been feeding it on infant formula, as recommended by his friend, and a large box of this had been obtained from the supermarket. “You must have a very large baby, Rra,” said the woman at the checkout when Fanwell had made the purchase. “Looking at you, I wouldn’t have thought…”

  He had said nothing, tempting though it was to reply. The problem was that he had not been able to think of a suitable riposte.

  “That woman is very rude,” said Mma Makutsi, when Fanwell told her what had been said. “She criticises people’s choice of food all the time. She sits there scanning the items and muttering, ‘Unhealthy,’ or ‘Junk food,’ or ‘Very bad for you.’ I asked her once not to do this, and she said, ‘Don’t blame me if you die from all this stuff you’re eating.’ Can you imagine that? Those were her very words.

  “She’s a useless,” Mma Makutsi went on. “Next time she says anything like that to me, I shall tell her to her face. I shall say, ‘You’re a useless.’ That will show her.”

  Fanwell looked puzzled. “A useless what?”

  “Just a useless,” answered Mma Makutsi. “Useless in general, you see. There are some people who are like that. You look at them and you know, more or less straightaway, that they’re a useless.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had offered his truck for the purpose, but Mma Ramotswe had demurred. “You need that for work,” she said. “You cannot have clients saying that your work truck smells of elephants.”

  “She’s right, Boss,” said Fanwell. “Mma Ramotswe’s van is different. It’s very old and decrepit. Your truck is very smart.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni pointed out that he had offered to buy Mma Ramotswe a new van on more than one occasion. “I have tried to replace that van,” he said, “but I am always thwarted.”

  “There is nothing wrong with it,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Other than being very old,” said Charlie. “And having dents in the tailgate. And smelling of elephants. And having great difficulty in getting up hills if they’re at all steep. Apart from that, Mma Ramotswe’s van is fine.”

  Mma Ramotswe chided Charlie, but in a friendly tone. “It’s all very well for you, Charlie. You’re young and have no dents…yet. But you’ll learn to appreciate old things when you get a bit older yourself. You’ll begin to understand that old is not the same word as bad.”

  Charlie laughed. “I’m going to be a really cool older person,” he said. “When the time comes—many years from now—then I am going to be a seriously cool older person. They’ll say, ‘Look at him, you’d never know he was forty-two!’ ”

  Fanwell was embarrassed by Charlie’s tactlessness. “There’s nothing wrong with being forty-two,” he said, glancing at Mma Ramotswe and then at Mma Makutsi.

  “I’m not forty-two,” muttered Mma Makutsi, looking sideways at Mma Ramotswe, and adjusting her glasses as she did so.

  Charlie was now staring at Mma Makutsi. “Where did you get those retro specs from, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi began to answer. “I sent for them. They came all the way from Cape Town. I had seen…” She stopped, and in a steely voice said, “They are not retro, Charlie. They are the latest thing. Not retro.”

  Charlie disagreed. “They are retro, Mma. Those are exactly the glasses that retro people wore fifty years ago. There are many glasses like that in the museum.” An idea came to him. “Perhaps it was the Cape Town Museum that sent them up to you.”

  Fanwell laughed, but was silenced by a look from Mma Makutsi. “I’m not going to argue with you, Charlie,” she said. “These are not retro glasses. They are the latest thing, and I feel sorry for anybody who can’t recognise the latest thing when they see it.”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I think we should not be arguing about glasses and such things,” she said. “Charlie, Mma Makuts
i’s glasses are very fashionable, and anyway it is very rude to call another person’s glasses retro. That is not what we do in this country.”

  Fanwell turned to Charlie. “Say sorry, Charlie. Just say sorry to Mma Makutsi. If she wants to wear old-fashioned glasses, then that is her business.”

  Mma Makutsi pursed her lips. “They are not old-fashioned.”

  Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet. “I think we should go and pick some leaves and grass to put in the van for the elephant. We want it to be comfortable while we are taking it to Mma Potokwane’s place.”

  They went outside. Mma Makutsi had to get home to see Itumelang before he was put to bed, and so she left the rest of them there. “Be careful,” she called out as she drove away.

  Mma Ramotswe waved, and stood for a moment, enjoying the gentle warmth of the evening sun. Soon it would fall below the horizon, a glowing red ball, sinking over the great Kalahari. It was a time of day that never failed to enchant her. In an hour or so, the African night would be upon them, immeasurable, velvet. On such a night might her husband and the two young men drive quietly down a bumpy dirt road, carrying a small elephant, a scrap of elephant-kind, to a secret destination under the starlit sky. She shivered.

  * * *

  —

  MR. J.L.B. MATEKONI drove Mma Ramotswe home in his truck before returning to the garage. During his brief absence, Charlie and Fanwell had scoured the neighbouring tract of scrub bush for vegetation with which to line the van. They had managed to find several branches of young acacia plants, twisted off the trunk and lying on the ground; these they purloined for their purposes, and then uprooted tufts of grass to lay beside them. After Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni returned, they waited until it was dark before setting off for Charlie’s uncle’s place, where Charlie’s young cousin had been instructed to make sure that all was ready for the next stage of the journey. The baby elephant had been moved, and was now tethered by a foreleg to an iron ring that for some reason was set into a wall of the house. Nobody had ever worked out its purpose, but now, at long last, it was proving its usefulness.

  Charlie’s uncle was relieved to see that the elephant was being taken away. He had expressed his concerns about its being on his property, pointing out that there were bound to be municipal regulations—somewhere or other—forbidding the keeping of elephants on urban land. “They’re bound to have passed some law on this,” he said. “Otherwise everybody would be keeping elephants. There must be a law—and I don’t want to find myself suddenly put in jail for breaking it.”

  Planks had been loaded into the van and these were now taken out to provide a ramp for the elephant to be led up inside. They were stout—the strongest planks that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could lay his hands on—but even so they sagged under the weight of the little creature. And there was an anxious moment, too, when the baby elephant took his first step onto the van’s tailgate; but it bore the burden and was soon fastened in position, with Charlie and the elephant safely ensconced inside.

  “We’re ready, Boss,” Charlie shouted from the back, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, with Fanwell beside him in the cab, started the engine. Soon they were out on the road, heading back towards the Tlokweng Road.

  “Would we be arrested if the police stopped us?” asked Fanwell nervously.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was unsure. “I suspect we’re breaking some law or other,” he said. “But what else can we do?”

  “Nothing,” said Fanwell. “And it’s not against the law, surely, to do something when there…” He paused to order his thoughts. “When there’s nothing else you can do.”

  “I’ve never broken the law,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni mused. “Not once—as far as I’m aware.”

  Fanwell whistled. “I thought everybody had, Boss—at some time or another. Not major things, of course, but little offences. Speeding, for instance.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t counting that sort of thing,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Sometimes you can’t help going too fast. You’re driving along and suddenly they spring a speed limit on you. And before you know it, the police step out in front of you and say—”

  Suddenly Fanwell gripped his forearm. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni remonstrated with him. “Fanwell, I’m driving. Don’t grab my arm—” He broke off, seeing the police car up ahead and the two officers signalling for him to draw in to the side of the road.

  “We’re finished, Boss,” muttered Fanwell. “Somebody must have warned them to expect us.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni brought the van to a halt immediately before the policemen. One shone a light through the windscreen, playing the beam across their faces. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wound down the driver’s window. As one of the policemen approached him, he greeted him politely. The policeman mumbled a response—not discourteously, but almost—and then held out a hand. “Your driving licence, Rra.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni extracted the licence from his wallet, and passed it to the officer.

  The policeman examined the licence and then looked at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. A slight smile played about his lips. “You’re the man from Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors?” he asked.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “I am that man, Rra.”

  The policeman made a signal to his colleague, who had been shining the beam of his flashlight on the van’s registration plate. It was a sign that said, “Don’t bother.”

  “You have a sister up in Francistown?”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni hesitated. “She is a half-sister. Sister by a different father.”

  The policeman nodded. “Yes. She is married to the son of my uncle, who is married to my aunt.”

  Fanwell frowned in an effort to work this out, but Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni simply said, “Ah, I see.”

  “I have seen her up there, Rra,” the policeman continued. “When I was last there, she told me about your garage. She said that if I ever needed a car fixed, you were the man to do it.”

  “That was very kind of her, Rra. We do our best for the cars that people bring us.”

  “My aunt will be very pleased to hear that I have met you,” said the policeman. “Not much happens up there and she is very interested in what is happening elsewhere.”

  “That is very good,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He was being polite, but he was keen to be on his way. It seemed obvious now that this was a random check, and that the policeman was nothing but friendly. “You must tell her that I was asking after her.”

  The policeman smiled. “You don’t think you could step out and we could have a photo together. I could send it up to her through my phone so that she will know that we’ve met. She’ll like that.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni opened his door and got out of the van. The policeman handed his phone to his colleague, who then took a photograph of the two of them standing side by side. The policeman had draped an arm around Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s shoulder in a gesture that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought perhaps a bit too friendly for so brief an acquaintanceship, but he did not object.

  And it was at this point, just after the photograph had been taken, examined, and approved of, that the baby elephant in the back of the van chose to issue a plaintive call. It was a strange sound—an incipient version of the trumpet of a fully grown elephant—and it was not one that could be easily identified.

  The policeman raised his head sharply. “What was that, Rra?” he asked.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked around him. “What was what, Rra?”

  “That sound. There was a sound. It came from your van.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was struggling, but after a moment or two he said, “Ah yes, that sound.”

  The policeman waited. “Well, Rra: What was it?”

  “That was…that was a…” He knew he was floundering, and this knowledge made things no easier.

  Fanwell now called out from the passenger seat. “We must hurry, Boss. He is feeling worse.”

&
nbsp; The policeman peered into the cab. “Who’s feeling worse?”

  Fanwell gave a toss of the head in the direction of the closed back of the van. “In there. Our poor friend with his infectious disease. We’re taking him to hospital, but we should hurry. It’s infectious vomiting, Rra.”

  The policeman drew back sharply. “Why are you not using an ambulance?” His tone, so friendly before, was now accusing.

  “It is too infectious,” shouted Fanwell. “They do not want the ambulance people to get it too.”

  The policeman took a further step back. He hesitated for a moment, evidently torn between duty to investigate and self-protection. Self-protection won. “You should go,” he said gruffly, and signalled to his colleague to allow the van to pass.

  “It was very good to meet you, Rra,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “And don’t worry. You have not been near him. You will be fine.”

  They set off again. As they drew away, Fanwell burst out laughing, as did Charlie from the back of the van. He had listened to the exchange while struggling to keep the baby elephant from uttering further trumpet calls. This he had achieved by feeding it with its formula from a large bottle and teat.

  “That was very funny, Rra,” said Fanwell. “Did you see his face? When I mentioned infectious vomiting, he looked as if he’d been pricked with a large pin.”

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked severe. “It is not a good thing to lie, Fanwell—especially to the police.” But then the serious look on his face slowly slipped, and he, too, laughed. And they were laughing again, although over something else altogether, when, only a mile or so from the Orphan Farm, the baby elephant decided to shift its weight from one side of the van to the other. It did this so quickly that the van, not known for its robust suspension, swerved sharply to the left. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni struggled to steer it back on course, but the front wheels were now in loose gravel and slid sideways into a wide drainage ditch at the side of the road. Brakes were applied, but the vehicle’s momentum was such that it tipped over and travelled the last few yards into the ditch on its side.