Tea Time for the Traditionally Built People Read online

  “It's time to replace the van, Mma Ramotswe,” he had said, only a few months earlier. And then he had added, “No vehicle lasts forever, you know.”

  “I know that, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said. “But surely it's wrong to replace a vehicle that still has a lot of life left in it. That's not very responsible, I think.”

  “Your van is over twenty,” he said. “Twenty-two years old, I believe. That is about half the age of Botswana itself.”

  It had not been a wise comparison, and Mma Ramotswe seized on it. “So you would replace Botswana?” she said. “When a country gets old, you say, That's enough, let's get a new country. I'm surprised at you, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.”

  This unsatisfactory conversation had ended there, but Mma Ramotswe knew that if she reported the van to him it would be tantamount to signing its death warrant. She thought about that this evening, as she prepared the potatoes for the family dinner. The house was quiet: Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was not going to be in until later, as he had delivered one car to Lobatse and was coming back in another. The two foster children, Puso and Motholeli, were in their rooms, tackling their homework, or so Mma Ramotswe thought, until she heard the sound of laughter drifting down the corridor. She imagined that they were sharing a joke or the memory of something amusing that had happened at school that day, a remark made by a friend, a humiliation suffered by an unpopular teacher.

  The laughter suddenly broke out again, and this time it was followed by giggles. Homework had to be finished by dinner time; that was the rule, and too much laughing at jokes would not help that. Putting down her potato peeler, Mma Ramotswe went to investigate.

  “Motholeli?” she asked outside the girl's closed door.

  The giggling that had been going on inside the room stopped abruptly. Tapping lightly-Mma Ramotswe always respected the children's privacy-she pushed the door open.

  Motholeli was in her wheelchair near her small work-table, facing another girl of similar age, who was sitting in the chair beside the bed. The two had been giggling uncontrollably, as their eyes, Mma Ramotswe noticed, had tears of laughter in the corners.

  “Your homework must be very funny today,” Mma Ramotswe said.

  Motholeli glanced conspiratorially at her friend, and then looked back at Mma Ramotswe. “This is my friend,” she said. “She is called Alice.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked at the other girl, who rose to her feet politely and lowered her head. The greetings exchanged, the visitor sat down.

  “Have you done your homework, Motholeli?” Mma Ramotswe asked.

  The girl replied that it was completely finished; it had been easy she said; so simple that even Puso could have done it, and he was several years younger.

  “The reason why our homework is so simple today,” Alice explained, “is that the teacher who gave it to us is not very intelligent. She can only mark simple homework.”

  This observation set the two girls giggling again, and Mma Ramotswe had to bite her lip to prevent herself from giggling too. But she could not join in the girls' mirth at the expense of a teacher. Teachers had to be respected-as they always had been in Botswana -and if children thought them stupid, then that would hardly encourage respect.

  “I do not think that this teacher can be like that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Teachers have to pass examinations. They are very well-educated.”

  “Not this one,” said Motholeli, setting the two children off in paroxysms of laughter.

  Mma Ramotswe gave up. There was no point in trying to stop teenage girls from giggling; that was the way they were. One might as well try to stop men liking football. The analogy made her stop and think. Football. Tomorrow morning, if she remembered correctly, Mr. Leungo Molofololo had arranged to come to see her at ten o'clock. Mma Ramotswe was used to receiving well-known people, but Mr. Molofololo, by any standards, would be an important client. Not only did he have a large house up at Phulukane-a house which must have cost many millions of pula to build-but he had the ear of virtually every influential person in the country. Mr. Molofololo controlled the country's best football team, and that, in the world of men, counted for more than anything else.

  “He is just a man,” Mma Makutsi had said, after Mr. Molofololo's secretary had called to make the appointment. “The fact that he has a football team is neither here nor there, Mma. He is the same as any man.”

  But Mma Ramotswe thought differently. Mr. Molofololo was not just any man; he was Mr. Football.

  CHAPTER TWO. WALKING IS GOOD FOR YOU, AND FOR BOTSWANA

  THE NEXT MORNING, over breakfast, Mma Ramotswe announced to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni that she would be walking to work that day. She had taken the decision an hour or so earlier, in the middle of her habitual stroll around her garden, shortly after inspecting the pawpaw trees that marked the boundary between her plot and the small piece of wasteland that ran behind it. She had planted the trees herself when first she had come to Zebra Drive and the garden had been nothing, just hard earth, scrub, and sour weeds. Now the trees were laden with fruit, heavy yellow orbs that she would shortly pick and enjoy. She liked pawpaw, but neither Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nor the children did, and so these would be for her alone, a private treat, served with orange juice and topped, perhaps, with a small sprinkling of sugar.

  Beside the pawpaw trees was an acacia tree in which birds liked to pause on their journeys and in which Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had once seen a long green snake, curled around a branch, its tail hanging down like an elongated twig to be brushed against by some unwary person passing below. The sighting of snakes was an everyday occurrence in Botswana, but the unfortunate creatures were never left alone. Mma Ramotswe did not like to kill them and had thoroughly agreed with a recent public plea from the Wildlife Department that people should refrain from doing anything about snakes unless they actually came into the house. They have their place, said the official, and if there were no snakes, then there would be many more rats, and all the rats would make quick work of the patiently gathered harvest.

  That message, though, went against most people's deepest instincts. Mma Makutsi, for example, had no time for snakes, and would not hesitate to dispose of one should she have the chance.

  “It's all very well for the Government, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “Tell me, are there any snakes coming into government offices? These government people do not have to live with snakes as people do in the villages or at the cattle posts. You ask those people out there what to do about snakes and you will get a very different answer.”

  She then went on to tell Mma Ramotswe about an incident which she claimed had happened at Bobonong when she was a girl. A large snake-a mamba-had taken up residence in a tree beside a popular path. From one of its branches this snake had dropped down on an old man walking below, with tragic consequences; nobody could survive a mamba bite, least of all an old man. How did Mma Ramotswe think they dealt with the problem?

  Mma Ramotswe thought for a moment. “I think that they probably got one of the women to make up a big pot of hot porridge,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Boiling hot. That woman put a cloth on her head and balanced the pot of porridge on top of that. Then she walked under the tree and called out to the snake. Mambas think that very rude. So it dropped down into the porridge and was burned. I imagine that is probably what happened, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi stared at her, wide-eyed. “But that is extraordinary, Mma. That is it exactly. How did you guess?”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled, but said nothing. She did not tell Mma Makutsi that this story was an old one, and that she had heard it from one of her aunts, who had presumably heard it from her mother. There were many such stories, and perhaps a long time ago some of them had been true. Now they had acquired the force of truth, innocently enough, and people really believed that these things had happened.

  She looked up at her acacia tree. There could be a snake in the tree for all she knew; nature was full of snake-like shapes and colours-long, sinuous twigs and boughs, snake-coloured grass that moved in the wind
just as a snake might move. Concealment was easy. So snakes could watch us silently, their tongues flickering in and out to pick up our scent, their tiny, pitch-black eyes bright with evil; they were there, but the best way to deal with snakes was not to deal with them-Mma Ramotswe was sure of that. If we left snakes alone, then they kept away from us. It was only when we intruded on their world that they bit us, and who could blame them for that? It was the same with life in general, thought Mma Ramotswe. If we worried away at troublesome issues, we often only ended up making things worse. It was far better to let things sort themselves out.

  She moved away from the acacia tree and began to make her way slowly back to the house. It was a fine day-not too warm, but with a gentle, almost undetectable breeze that touched the skin with the lightness of a feather. Such a wind would leave the sand where it lay, unlike those hot winds, laced with dust and grit, that made the eyes water and smart. It was a good day for walking, thought Mma Ramotswe, and today would be the first day she would walk to the office and back again in the late afternoon.

  Mma Ramotswe was scrupulously honest, but this did not mean that she was above self-delusion. Had she examined her motives, then she might have been moved to confess that the real reason for walking to work was not so much a determination not to become lazy, but rather a realisation that for the time being it would be best not to use the tiny white van. If she did so, then Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would be sure to hear the noise and would insist on examining the van to see what could be done. And if he did that, then she was certain that the loyal vehicle would be condemned.

  That she did not want, and so the decision to walk to work was duly announced to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “That is very good,” he said. “If people walked to work, then they would save a lot of petrol. There would also be fewer cars on the road and not so many traffic jams.”

  “And less work for mechanics?” added Mma Ramotswe.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. “There is always enough work for mechanics,” he said. “Even if everybody walked, there would still be machines to go wrong.” He thought for a moment. “And there will always be work for mechanics fixing the bad work that other mechanics have done.”

  They looked at one another. There was no doubt about his meaning; he was forever repairing the mistakes of his apprentices, as he had recently told Mma Ramotswe. She said nothing. She was hoping that he would not say anything about the tiny white van; she would confront that problem later. There would be some solution-perhaps a discreet visit to another garage, where the van might be fixed without Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's ever knowing about it. It was even possible that the noise might disappear of its own accord; some engine noises were intermittent, the result of an occlusion of a fuel pipe, perhaps, a tiny piece of grit in the wrong place-there were many innocent explanations. With any luck, this would be the case with the current noise; one never knew with vehicles, as with life in general.

  She left home in good time. The journey from Zebra Drive to the offices of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, shared with Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, took about ten minutes or less by car, but on foot it would take at least forty minutes. Mma Ramotswe decided to allow an hour, although it would not matter too much if she took longer; her first appointment, with Mr. Molofololo, was not until eleven o'clock, and there would not be much to do before then. Mma Makutsi would have collected the mail, such as it was, and done whatever filing was left over from yesterday. There were also one or two minor cases that her assistant was working on, and she might busy herself with writing reports on these. Mma Makutsi was an enthusiastic writer of reports and maintained a bulging file labelled Incidental and Interim Reports that served little purpose in Mma Ramotswe's view, but that kept her busy at slack times. Mma Ramotswe thought of this file as Mma Makutsi's diary, but never described it as such. Her assistant, she remembered, was temperamental, and Mma Ramotswe had not forgotten that she had handed in her resignation not all that long ago. Even if she had stayed out of the office for less than a day, and had returned as if nothing had happened, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself that Mma Makutsi had no real need to work now that she was engaged to be married to Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop and, as such, a man of considerable means. So she was careful not to offend her sometimes prickly assistant, and calling the Incidental and Interim Reports file a diary would undoubtedly have been very offensive.

  The walk down Zebra Drive itself was uneventful. Her neighbour's dogs, those strange yellow dogs that Mma Ramotswe did not particularly like, barked at her as if she was any other passerby, running along the fence at the side of the neighbour's property, baring their teeth in impotent anger. She saw a curtain move in the neighbour's window and heard a shout as the dogs were called in; she waved, and the neighbour returned her greeting, a quick movement of a hand in a still-darkened room.

  At the top of Zebra Drive there was more traffic, and she had to wait a few moments before she crossed to the other side of the road. The day still had the early morning feel about it, and the air was still sharp with a whiff of wood smoke. There were small huddles of people waiting beside the road for the early minibuses to sway past and a few others walking; domestic employees, Mma Ramotswe thought-cooks, maids, nannies of children-making their way to the well-set houses in the roads near Maru-a-Pula School. One of the women she recognised, a traditionally built woman like herself, who came from somewhere near Kgale Junction and who had served Mma Ramotswe tea when she had called on the principal of Maru-a-Pula to discuss with him the possibility of her taking part in a careers fair at the school.

  “Some of the younger students have put down private detective on their careers form,” the principal explained. “So I thought that we should give them an idea of what such work entailed. And you, Mma Ramotswe, are the only private detective in Botswana, are you not?”

  “I am always happy to help the school, Mr. Taylor,” she said. “But I am not sure if this is a good idea. If I tell them that it is a good thing to be, then they will want to do this job that I am doing. But where will the work come from?”

  The principal listened carefully. “But Botswana is growing, Mma Ramotswe. There are many things happening in this country. Surely there will be work for more private detectives.”

  Mma Ramotswe thought about this as the traditionally built woman from the school kitchens poured their tea. She looked at the woman, who smiled back at her; there was much that could be said without speaking, especially amongst women. A glance, a movement of the head, a slight shift in pose-all of these could convey a message as eloquently, as volubly, as words might do. The woman wanted to say something, thought Mma Ramotswe, but could not do so in this formal setting. She looked at the woman, but the moment had passed and the principal had asked a question that needed to be answered.

  “Do you not agree with me, Mma Ramotswe?” asked the principal, passing Mma Ramotswe her tea cup. “If there is lots of business going on, then there will surely be temptations. Surely there is a need for people to look into that sort of thing.”

  “That is true, Rra,” Mma Ramotswe said. “And I am sometimes asked to check up on dishonest employees. But not all that often.” She paused. “I am mostly concerned with little things. With the small problems of people's lives.”

  “Well, you could talk about that, couldn't you?”

  She nodded; she could not say no. Life in Botswana was a matter of asking and doing. People asked one another to do things and they had to agree. Later they could ask back, and the favour would be repaid. Mma Potokwane understood that rule and never hesitated to ask for favours for the children at the orphan farm, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni knew only too well, being regularly called out to fix various pieces of machinery, including the van used to transport the children on outings. And there had been reciprocation in that case, if one counted generous slices of fruit cake as reciprocation; Mma Ramotswe would have called the cake a bribe, given Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's well-known weakness
for such treats, but reciprocation was perhaps a politer word.

  Now, just short of the corner that marked the edge of the Sun Hotel gardens, Mma Ramotswe came face-to-face with the woman who had served her tea in Mr. Taylor's office. She hesitated, as did the other woman, who had recognised her too. The traditional greetings were exchanged and then there was a moment of awkward silence. On a flamboyant tree behind a fence, a small, glossy bird watched them, the sun on its purple-black plumage.

  The silence was broken by Mma Ramotswe. “I am Precious Ramotswe. I saw you, Mma, in the office at the school. Do you remember?”

  The woman seemed pleased to have been remembered. Such people can be invisible to others. “I remember that well, Mma. You were talking to Mr. Taylor. He is a kind man.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have heard that.” She paused, searching the woman's expression. Yes, it was there. It was unmistakable. “Do you want to talk to me, Mma?”

  The woman gave a start. She was nervous. “To talk, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe reached out a hand. She did not touch the other woman, but held her hand in such a position that she could take it if she wished. “I think that you are troubled, my sister,” she said. “It is my job to listen to the troubles of others. Did you know that?”

  The woman looked down at the ground. She did not take the proffered hand, and Mma Ramotswe let it drop back to her side.

  “I know that, Mma. But I am not a rich lady. I do not have money.”

  “That does not matter,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am your sister, Mma.”

  It was her way of expressing the old bonds that had always held the country together; a subtle, usually unspoken sense of mutual interest and respect that people could forget about, but that was still there and could be invoked by those who held with the old ways. I am your sister. There was no simpler or more effective way of expressing a whole philosophy of life.