How to Raise an Elephant

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Yes, that is me, Mma. I’m that lady.” She brushed her hands against the side of her skirt. “It is a messy business, gardening.”

  “And being a detective too, I imagine,” said Mma Matlapeng.

  Mma Ramotswe had not been prepared for the quick retort. She looked at Mma Matlapeng. She was a well-educated woman, obviously.

  “Yes, you’re right, Mma. Being a detective can be a bit demanding sometimes. There are times I think: Is this really what I want to do?”

  Mma Matlapeng nodded. “We all think that, Mma, wouldn’t you say? If you don’t say that, then you must have your eyes closed—that’s what I believe, anyway.”

  Again, the comment was a thought-provoking one. Was this what one should expect from people who suddenly stepped out of a bush? The thought made Mma Ramotswe smile.

  She said, “I’ve been meaning to come over and say hello, Mma. I’m sorry. I have been very busy and I wasn’t sure when you moved in. I saw your furniture arrive, of course, the other day, but I was not sure whether you were there too.” It was not strictly true; there had been those raised voices, but she did not want to mention that. By saying that she was not sure whether they had arrived, she was allowing her neighbour to believe that she had not heard the row.

  Mma Matlapeng made a gesture to reassure her that there had been no breach of comity. “No, Mma, you need not apologise. We only came a couple of days ago. And I should have come over to see you, but…but…” She shrugged. “There is so much to do when you move house. Everything is in the wrong place.”

  Mma Ramotswe asked her if she had everything she needed. “If I can help you at all, Mma, while you are settling in, just let me know.” She paused. “And there is always tea, you know. Even at this time of day, there is always tea.”

  Mma Matlapeng clapped her hands together. “That was exactly what I was thinking, Mma. It has been a long day and there is a lot of gardening to do, but that is no excuse for not having a cup of tea.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. “Will you come over to my house, Mma? I have plenty of tea.”

  * * *

  —

  SEATED ON MMA RAMOTSWE’S VERANDAH, nursing a mug of tea—two spoons of sugar, well stirred—Mma Matlapeng began the conversation. “This is our second move in four years, Mma. Two moves in four years. We are very popular with the removal company.”

  “They do not like people to stay where they are,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. “I have seen their advertisements. They say, ‘Isn’t it time you moved?’ I don’t think that’s helpful, Mma. It makes people who would otherwise be quite happy where they are think: Oh dear, I’m not moving enough. That’s the danger, Mma.”

  “Rental property,” said Mma Matlapeng. “We rent, you see. We have a house down in Lobatse, but we rent that out now that our work brings us up to Gaborone.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes. And if you rent, they often won’t give you a lease for more than a year or two because the owner wants to get back into the house, or wants to sell it, or something else. That’s why we moved from the last place. We were on the edge of the village, back there near the old Gaborone Club—you know that place. And the people who owned the house wanted it for their daughter, who had just got married. She was a very self-satisfied young woman, Mma. Entitlement is what they call it. She was entitled.”

  “Spoiled?” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Definitely, oh definitely. One hundred per cent spoiled. Doting parents.” Mma Matlapeng sighed. “I have met many of those, Mma. I’m a teacher, you see.”

  Mma Ramotswe was not surprised. There was something about Mma Matlapeng’s manner that pointed in that direction; and her voice too: she spoke beautifully, with a clear diction that stood out in a time when so many people rushed their words. Mma Ramotswe could not understand that: there was plenty of time in the world for us to say everything we wanted to say. We did not need to hurry to get it out.

  “Yes,” continued Mma Matlapeng. “I’m teaching at that school just round the corner. You know the place?”

  “I have two children there,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They are foster children, but they have been with us for a long time. They are my children now.”

  Mma Matlapeng nodded. “That is kind of you, Mma. I have taught some foster children before, and they were very happy with their homes.”

  “And do you…” Mma Ramotswe began.

  “I have two daughters,” said Mma Matlapeng. “They are twins. They are twenty-three now. The years, Mma…”

  “The years go very quickly. Close your eyes, and a year has gone. Just like that.”

  “My daughters are both nurses, Mma Ramotswe. They are working out at the hospital at Molepolole. They trained together and now they are working on the same ward. They are inseparable.”

  “You must be proud of them, Mma. Two nurses. That is a very fine job.”

  “Oh, I am very proud of them,” said Mma Matlapeng. “Not everybody can be a nurse. It requires a very special sort of character. You have to be patient. You have to be kind. You have not to mind too much if people are difficult because they’re feeling ill or frightened. You have to be able to take all of that.”

  “And your girls can?”

  Mma Matlapeng nodded. “They don’t mind. They have always been like that.”

  Mma Ramotswe noticed that Mma Matlapeng had finished her tea. She topped up her cup. “And you, Mma?” she enquired. “What do you teach?”

  “Mathematics,” replied Mma Matlapeng. “I teach mathematics to the older children.” She paused. “Yes, that is what I do, Mma.”

  “And your husband, Mma?”

  “He is an accountant,” said Mma Matlapeng.

  Mma Ramotswe noticed a change in her tone. You could always tell how somebody felt about somebody else by the way they spoke. There was warmth or coldness according to the state of the heart.

  Now Mma Matlapeng continued, in the same, suddenly flat tone, “He is a big bankruptcy man. If you are going to go bankrupt, you go to see him. He takes over. He fires all the staff and sells the stock and, bang, you’re bankrupt.”

  Mma Ramotswe was silent. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency did not make much profit. In fact, at the end of some months, when she steeled herself to look at the books, it seemed that her business had made no profit at all. Rra Matlapeng no doubt would confirm that if he came round and took a look, then, as his wife had just said, it would be a case of “Bang, you’re bankrupt!”

  Mma Matlapeng sipped at her tea. “He is away on business now. He is up in Francistown. Somebody up there is going bankrupt. Bang.”

  Mma Ramotswe clicked her tongue sympathetically. “So many businesses spend all their time on the edge of bankruptcy,” she said. “My own little agency…” She sighed. “We stay afloat, but sometimes I think we are sinking.”

  Mma Matlapeng’s reply took her by surprise. “We’re all sinking, Mma. Even those of us who are floating, are sinking.”

  Mma Ramotswe was not sure how to respond. To a certain extent, she thought, what Mma Matlapeng said was true: nobody was getting any younger, and that meant that most of us were slowing down, even if imperceptibly. And there was also gravity to be considered: as you went through life, the effects of gravity seemed to get more and more and more pronounced; you felt that, you really did. But even if this were all true, there was no cause to dwell on it, and certainly no reason to say that we were all sinking.

  She smiled at her guest. “I don’t know about that, Mma,” she said. “If we stopped swimming, we would certainly sink—but we’re not going to stop swimming, are we?”

  Mma Matlapeng had been about to say something more, but this remark brought her up short. “That’s an interesting way of putting it, Mma,” she said. “If we stopped swimming…” Her voice trailed off. “Stopped swimmi
ng…”

  Mma Ramotswe felt emboldened. Mma Matlapeng was better educated than she was. She had left school at sixteen, whereas Mma Matlapeng must be a university graduate, with a degree in mathematics, of all subjects. That was impressive by any standards: there were people with degrees that did not involve all that much work, but mathematics…So, with the respect that Batswana people feel for education, Mma Ramotswe stood in some awe of a mathematics teacher, but when it came to knowing how to cope with life, then she had no reason to defer to anybody. And now she had said something that had clearly impressed Mma Matlapeng, for all that she had a degree in mathematics. So she said, “Yes, life is like…” She paused. The swimming metaphor had come without much thought, but its further development was not proving easy.

  “Like swimming?” Mma Matlapeng suggested.

  Mma Ramotswe hesitated. That was not what she had been going to say. She had never learned to swim, and she was not sure now why she should say that life was like swimming. It was possible that it was, but on the other hand there were probably many other things that life was like—once you started to think about it.

  “Life is like a river,” she said at last.

  Mma Matlapeng nodded. “I suppose it is. Yes, it is a river, I suppose.” She looked at Mma Ramotswe, as if waiting for more, but nothing was said.

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at her hands. She stole a glance at Mma Matlapeng. She had learned in life not to make too many snap judgements of people—that, she thought, was one of the main lessons we learned as we got older—but she still found that her initial instincts were often correct. People revealed their characters to you without too much encouragement; you simply had to listen. Or they might do so even without saying very much: in the expression on their face; in the look in their eyes. Eyes, in particular, were revealing. A malevolent disposition always showed in the eyes, in the way in which the light shone out of them. If that light was gentle, if it reassured you, then you could be confident that the person within was of that temper. But if it was hard, if it was hostile, then you could count on there being a character to match within.

  For a second or two she watched Mma Matlapeng as her neighbour reached forward to pick up her mug of tea. Their eyes met, very briefly, and the light that she saw in the other woman’s was unmistakable.

  Mma Ramotswe said, “My husband is away too. Not away away—not in Francistown or anywhere like that—but out in Tlokweng. I am going to have dinner by myself, Mma. I have a chicken in the pot.”

  Mma Matlapeng smiled. “I smelled it, Mma. I sat here thinking: Mma Ramotswe is going to have chicken for her dinner. She is very lucky.” She took a sip of her tea. “Perhaps I should be a detective—like you, Mma.”

  They laughed.

  “Anybody can be a detective,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I had no training. But not everybody can be a teacher of mathematics, I think. Certainly not me.”

  Mma Matlapeng was modest. “It is not all that difficult, Mma. Numbers always behave according to some simple rules. Learn those rules and—bang!—you are doing mathematics.”

  Mma Ramotswe noticed the bang. It was the third time Mma Matlapeng had used the word. There had been two bankruptcy bangs, and now there was a mathematics bang.

  Mma Matlapeng referred back to what had been said about training. “Somebody must have taught you something, Mma,” she said. “Nobody does a job without at least some training.”

  “I had a book,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There is a very good book on the subject by somebody called Clovis Andersen. He is an American. I know him, actually. He came to Botswana once and my assistant and I met him. Mma Makutsi. She works with me. We both met Mr. Andersen.”

  “And this book tells you everything you need to know?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes. He sets out a lot of rules.”

  “Propositions?”

  “Yes, you can call them propositions. They are all about what you should do when investigating a matter for your client. Often they are simply rules of common sense—about how to draw a conclusion, that sort of thing.”

  “Logic?” suggested Mma Matlapeng.

  “Yes. He talks about that, Mma. About not judging people before you have evidence. About not believing what you want to believe rather than paying attention to what your eyes or ears tell you.”

  Mma Matlapeng said that this all sounded very sensible to her. Then she sniffed at the air and said, “Chicken is one of my favourites. My grandmother used to make us chicken on Sundays. We went to her house and she had a big pot of chicken and she always gave me and my brother the feet.”

  They both knew what that meant. Chicken feet were the favourite part of the chicken in Botswana.

  “You must have been happy,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Matlapeng turned to her. “Happy?”

  “Yes, you must have been happy at your grandmother’s house. With the chicken for lunch, and your grandmother. What else do we need to be happy?”

  Mma Matlapeng smiled, and Mma Ramotswe saw that the smile was rueful. She made her decision. “Mma,” she said, “I have a whole chicken in the pot, but there is only one of me. My husband will not be back until, oh, ten o’clock—maybe even later. I have made him a beef sandwich. Will you help me eat my chicken?”

  “But, Mma, that is very kind of you. I did not mean to ask you…When I said that chicken was my favourite dish, I was just thinking. You know how you do, when you smell something, you think about it and may say something? You do not mean to say, ‘Can I have some of your food?’ I would not say that, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe assured her that she had not thought that—not for a moment. “One chicken is too much for one person,” she said. “You should not eat a whole chicken.” It was what she had planned to do, but you should always be prepared to change your plans, she told herself. And if the plans had been slightly greedy plans, then you would always feel better after you had changed them.

  “Then I will help you, Mma.”

  “That is very kind of you, Mma.”

  Mma Matlapeng looked at her watch. “I will go home and get out of these gardening clothes. They are very dusty. Then I will come back.”

  “We will eat in the kitchen,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is easier that way.”

  “The best place to eat,” said Mma Matlapeng, as she rose to her feet.

  * * *

  —

  THEY SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, the pot of chicken between them. The conversation had flowed easily, and Mma Ramotswe had found that her initial impression of Mma Matlapeng was confirmed. She liked her, and found herself wondering whether this was the same woman whom she had heard shouting at her husband. Was this courteous and engaging woman the same person who had been hurling insults, including that colourful comparison with an anteater? It was hard to imagine that, and yet, as she had found time and time again in the course of her professional duties, one should never be surprised by anything one found out to be going on in a marriage.

  Mma Matlapeng told her more about her background. Her father, she said, had been a school inspector. He was a graduate, in history, of Fort Hare, and could have had a career in politics but had had no stomach for arguments.

  “He could never see why people couldn’t co-operate,” she said. “He said that he could see good points in all the different parties, and yet they were always running one another down.”

  Mma Ramotswe agreed with that. She thought it ridiculous that party leaders refused to recognise that their opponents could get at least some things right. “And they are so quick to insult one another,” she said. “I can’t stand hearing people insult one another, Mma…” She stopped herself. She had not intended to stray onto that ground.

  Fortunately, Mma Matlapeng did not appear to notice.

  “He knew Seretse Khama,” she said. “He could have been Minister of Education in his gove
rnment, I think, but he wanted to stay in the civil service. He was a civil service man at heart.”

  “I would not like to be in the government,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You would have no peace, I think. Problems, problems, problems—every day. That is what it’s like being in the government. You have all these problems and then there are all those people waiting to find fault with what you’re doing. You get no thanks.”

  Mma Matlapeng was of the same view. “If they came to me tomorrow and asked me to be minister of something or other, I would say no. I wouldn’t hesitate—I would just say no.”

  “That would be best,” said Mma Ramotswe. Then she asked, “Are you happy in your job, Mma? Do you like teaching mathematics?”

  Mma Matlapeng shrugged. “I like most of it. Most people like some bits of their jobs and not others. I like it when I get through to some of the kids. Maybe a child who has not been doing well—who has a confidence problem, maybe—and then you show them that they can actually do mathematics rather well, and then you see their face light up and you know that you’ve got through to them. That is a very special moment.”

  “It must be,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “I had a boy, fourteen, maybe fifteen; he was not doing very well in my mathematics class, and so I gave him some extra time in the afternoon. And I managed to get out of him what was bothering him—what was holding him back. You know what it was, Mma? It was his own father. His own father was telling him that he was stupid and would never be any good.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “There are some very unkind parents,” she said. “I don’t know why they bother to have children.” She paused. “What did you do, Mma?”

  “I let him talk to me. Sometimes half the problem with these children is that nobody ever listens to what they want to say. So I sat there and let him tell me. I heard the lot, Mma. All about his father making him feel small. And the father sounded like a thoroughly nasty piece of work—one of these people who step all over other people. You know the sort.”

  “I do,” said Mma Ramotswe, and thought, inevitably, of Violet Sephotho.