Tears of the Giraffe Read online

  He turned in his chair and looked out through the other window. The view in this direction was more pleasing: across the backyard of the garage, one could see a cluster of acacia trees sticking up out of the dry thorn scrub and, beyond that, like islands rising from a grey-green sea, the isolated hills over towards Odi. It was mid-morning and the air was still. By midday there would be a heat haze that would make the hills seem to dance and shimmer. He would go home for his lunch then as it would be too hot to work. He would sit in his kitchen, which was the coolest room of the house, eat the maizemeal and stew which his maid prepared for him, and read the Botswana Daily News. After that, he inevitably took a short nap before he returned to the garage and the afternoon’s work.

  The apprentices ate their lunch at the garage, sitting on a couple of upturned oil drums that they had placed under one of the acacia trees. From this vantage point they watched the girls walk past and exchanged the low banter which seemed to give them such pleasure. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had heard their conversation and had a poor opinion of it.

  “You’re a pretty girl! Have you got a car? I could fix your car for you. I could make you go much faster!”

  This brought giggles and a quickening step from the two young typists from the Water Affairs office.

  “You’re too thin! You’re not eating enough meat! A girl like you needs more meat so that she can have lots of children!”

  “Where did you get those shoes from? Are those Mercedes- Benz shoes? Fast shoes for fast girls!”

  Really! thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He had never behaved like that when he was their age. He had served his apprenticeship in the diesel workshops of the Botswana Bus Company and that sort of conduct would never have been tolerated. But this was the way young men behaved these days and there was nothing he could do about it. He had spoken to them about it, pointing out that the reputation of the garage depended on them just as it did on him. They had looked at him blankly, and he had realised then that they simply did not understand. They had not been taught what it was to have a reputation; the concept was completely beyond them. This realization had depressed him, and he had thought of writing to the Minister of Education about it and suggesting that the youth of Botswana be instructed in these basic moral ideas, but the letter, once composed, had sounded so pompous that he had decided not to send it. That was the difficulty, he realised. If you made any point about behaviour these days, you sounded old-fashioned and pompous. The only way to sound modern, it appeared, was to say that people could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and no matter what anybody else might think. That was the modern way of thinking.

  MR J.L.B. Matekoni transferred his gaze to his desk and to the open page of his diary. He had noted down that today was his day to go to the orphan farm; if he left immediately he could do that before lunch and be back in time to check up on his apprentices’ work before the owners came to collect their cars at four o’clock. There was nothing wrong with either car; all that they required was their regular service and that was well within the range of the apprentices’ ability. He had to watch them, though; they liked to tweak engines in such a way that they ran at maximum capacity, and he would often have to tune the engines down before they left the garage.

  “We are not meant to be making racing cars,” he reminded them. “The people who drive these cars are not speedy types like you. They are respectable citizens.”

  “Then why are we called Speedy Motors?” asked one of the apprentices.

  Mr J.LB. Matekoni had looked at his apprentice. There were times that he wanted to shout at him, and this perhaps was one, but he always controlled his temper.

  “We are called Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors,” he replied patiently, “because our work is speedy. Do you understand the distinction? We do not keep the customer waiting for days and days like some garages do. We turn the job round quickly, and carefully, too, as I keep having to tell you.”

  “Some people like speedy cars,” chipped in the other apprentice. “There are some people who like to go fast.”

  “That may be so,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “But not everyone is like that. There are some people who know that going fast is not always the best way of getting there, is it? It is better to be late than the late, is it not?”

  The apprentices had stared at him uncomprehendingly, and he had sighed; again, it was the fault of the Ministry of Education and their modern ideas. These two boys would never be able to understand half of what he said. And one of these days they were going to have a bad accident.

  HE DROVE out to the orphan farm, pressing vigorously on his horn, as he always did, when he arrived at the gate. He enjoyed his visits for more than one reason. He liked to see the children, of course, and he usually brought a fistful of sweets which he would distribute when they came flocking round him. But he also liked seeing Mrs Silvia Potokwane, who was the matron in charge. She had been a friend of his mother’s, and he had known her all his life. For this reason it was natural that he should take on the task of fixing any machinery which needed attending to, as well as maintaining the two trucks and the battered old minibus which served as the farm’s transport. He was not paid for this, but that was not to be expected. Everybody helped the orphan farm if they could, and he would not have accepted payment had it been pressed on him.

  Mma Potokwane was in her office when he arrived. She leaned out of the window and beckoned him in.

  “Tea is ready, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” she called. “There will be cake too, if you hurry.”

  He parked his truck under the shady boughs of a monkey-bread tree. Several children had already appeared, and skipped along beside him as he made his way to the office block.

  “Have you children been good?” asked Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, reaching into his pockets.

  “We have been very good children,” said the oldest child. “We have been doing good things all week. We are tired out now from all the good things we have been doing.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni chuckled. “In that case, you may have some sweets.”

  He handed a fistful of sweets over to the oldest child, who received them politely, with both hands extended, in the proper Botswana fashion.

  “Do not spoil those children,” shouted Mma Potokwane from her window. “They are very bad children, those ones.”

  The children laughed and scampered off, while Mr J.L.B. Matekoni walked through the office door. Inside, he found Mma Potokwane, her husband, who was a retired policeman, and a couple of the housemothers. Each had a mug of tea and a plate with a piece of fruitcake on it.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sipped on his tea as Mma Potokwane told him about the problems they were having with one of their borehole pumps. The pump was overheating after less than half an hour’s use and they were worried that it would seize up altogether.

  “Oil,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “A pump without oil gets hot. There must be a leak. A broken seal or something like that.”

  “And then there are the brakes on the minibus,” said Mr Potokwane. “They make a very bad noise now.”

  “Brake pads,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “It’s about time we replaced them. They get so much dust in them in this weather and it wears them down. I’ll take a look, but you’ll probably have to bring it into the garage for the work to be done.”

  They nodded, and the conversation moved to events at the orphan farm. One of the orphans had just been given a job and would be moving to Francistown to take it up. Another orphan had received a pair of running shoes from a Swedish donor who sent gifts from time to time. He was the best runner on the farm and now he would be able to enter in competitions. Then there was a silence, and Mma Potokwane looked expectantly at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “I hear that you have some news,” she said after a while. “I hear that you’re getting married.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his shoes. They had told nobody, as far as he knew, but that would not be enough to stop news getting out in Botswana. It must have been
his maid, he thought. She would have told one of the other maids and they would have spread it to their employers. Everybody would know now.

  “I’m marrying Mma Ramotswe,” he began. “She is …”

  “She’s the detective lady, isn’t she?” said Mma Potokwane. “I have heard all about her. That will make life very exciting for you. You will be lurking about all the time. Spying on people.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni drew in his breath. “I shall be doing no such thing,” he said. “I am not going to be a detective. That is Mma Ramotswe’s business.”

  Mma Potokwane seemed disappointed. But then, she brightened up. “You will be buying her a diamond ring, I suppose,” she said. “An engaged lady these days must wear a diamond ring to show that she is engaged.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stared at her. “Is it necessary?” he asked.

  “It is very necessary,” said Mma Potokwane. “If you read any of the magazines, you will see that there are advertisements for diamond rings. They say that they are for engagements.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was silent. Then: “Diamonds are rather expensive, aren’t they?”

  “Very expensive,” said one of the housemothers. “One thousand pula for a tiny, tiny diamond.”

  “More than that,” said Mr Potokwane. “Some diamonds cost two hundred thousand pula. Just one diamond.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked despondent. He was not a mean man, and was as generous with presents as he was with his time, but he was against any waste of money and it seemed to him that to spend that much on a diamond, even for a special occasion, was entirely wasteful.

  “I shall speak to Mma Ramotswe about it,” he said firmly, to bring the awkward topic to a close. “Perhaps she does not believe in diamonds.”

  “No,” said Mma Potokwane. “She will believe in diamonds. All ladies believe in diamonds. That is one thing on which all ladies agree.”

  MR J.L.B. Matekoni crouched down and looked at the pump. After he had finished tea with Mma Potokwane, he had followed the path that led to the pump-house. It was one of those peculiar paths that seemed to wander, but which eventually reached its destination. This path made a lazy loop round some pumpkin fields before it dipped through a donga, a deep eroded ditch, and ended up in front of the small lean-to that protected the pump. The pump-house was itself shaded by a stand of umbrella-like thorn trees, which, when Mr J.L.B. Matekoni arrived, provided a welcome circle of shade. A tin-roofed shack, like the pump-house was, could become impossibly hot in the direct rays of the sun and that would not help any machinery inside.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni put down his tool box at the entrance to the pump-house and cautiously pushed the door open. He was careful about places like this because they were very well suited for snakes. Snakes seemed to like machinery, for some reason, and he had more than once discovered a somnolent snake curled around a part of some machine on which he was working. Why they did it, he had no idea; it might have been something to do with warmth and motion. Did snakes dream about some good place for snakes? Did they think that there was a heaven for snakes somewhere, where everything was down at ground level and there was nobody to tread on them?

  His eyes took a few moments to accustom themselves to the dark of the interior, but after a while he saw that there was nothing untoward inside. The pump was driven by a large flywheel which was powered by an antiquated diesel engine. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. This was the trouble. Old diesel engines were generally reliable, but there came a point in their existence when they simply had to be pensioned off. He had hinted at this to Mma Potokwane, but she had always come up with reasons why money should be spent on other, more pressing projects.

  “But water is the most important thing of all,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “If you can’t water your vegetables, then what are the children going to eat?”

  “God will provide,” said Mma Potokwane calmly. “He will send us a new engine one day.”

  “Maybe,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “But then maybe not. God is sometimes not very interested in engines. I fix cars for quite a few ministers of religion, and they all have trouble. God’s servants are not very good drivers.”

  Now, confronted with the evidence of diesel mortality, he retrieved his tool box, extracted an adjustable spanner, and began to remove the engine casing. Soon he was completely absorbed in his task, like a surgeon above the anaesthetised patient, stripping the engine to its solid, metallic heart. It had been a fine engine in its day, the product of a factory somewhere unimaginably far away—a loyal engine, an engine of character. Every engine seemed to be Japanese these days, and made by robots. Of course these were reliable, because the parts were so finely turned and so obedient, but for a man like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni those engines were as bland as sliced white bread. There was nothing in them, no roughage, no idiosyncracies. And as a result, there was no challenge in fixing a Japanese engine.

  He had often thought how sad it was that the next generation of mechanics might never have to fix one of these old engines. They were all trained to fix the modern engines which needed computers to find out their troubles. When somebody came in to the garage with a new Mercedes-Benz, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s heart sank. He could no longer deal with such cars as he had none of these new diagnostic machines that one needed. Without such a machine, how could he tell if a tiny silicon chip in some inaccessible part of the engine was sending out the wrong signal? He felt tempted to say that such drivers should get a computer to fix their car, not a live mechanic, but of course he did not, and he would do his best with the gleaming expanse of steel which nestled under the bonnets of such cars. But his heart was never in it.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had now removed the pump engine’s cylinder heads and was peering into the cylinders themselves. It was exactly what he had imagined; they were both coked up and would need a rebore before too long. And when the pistons themselves were removed he saw that the rings were pitted and worn, as if affected by arthritis. This would affect the engine’s efficiency drastically, which meant wasted fuel and less water for the orphans’ vegetables. He would have to do what he could. He would replace some of the engine seals to staunch the oil loss and he would arrange for the engine to be brought in some time for a rebore. But there would come a time when none of this would help, and he thought they would then simply have to buy a new engine.

  There was a sound behind him, and he was startled. The pump-house was a quiet place, and all that he had heard so far was the call of birds in the acacia trees. This was a human noise. He looked round, but there was nothing. Then it came again, drifting through the bush, a squeaking noise as if from an unoiled wheel. Perhaps one of the orphans was wheeling a wheelbarrow or pushing one of those toy cars which children liked to fashion out of bits of old wire and tin.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni wiped his hands on a piece of rag and stuffed the rag back into his pocket. The noise seemed to be coming closer now, and then he saw it, emerging from the scrub bush that obscured the twists of the path: a wheelchair, in which a girl was sitting, propelling the chair herself. When she looked up from the path ahead of her and saw Mr J.L.B. Matekoni she stopped, her hands gripping the rims of the wheels. For a moment they stared at one another, and then she smiled and began to make her way over the last few yards of pathway.

  She greeted him politely, as a well-brought-up child would do.

  “I hope that you are well, Rra,” she said, offering her right hand while her left hand laid across the forearm in a gesture of respect.

  They shook hands.

  “I hope that my hands are not too oily,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have been working on the pump.”

  The girl nodded. “I have brought you some water, Rra. Mma Potokwane said that you had come out here without anything to drink and you might be thirsty.”

  She reached into a bag that was slung under the seat of the chair and extracted a bottle.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took the water gratefully. He had just begun to feel thirsty and was regretting his f
ailure to bring water with him. He took a swig from the bottle, watching the girl as he drank. She was still very young—about eleven or twelve, he thought—and she had a pleasant, open face. Her hair had been braided, and there were beads worked into the knots. She wore a faded blue dress, almost bleached to white by repeated washings, and a pair of scruffy tackies on her feet.

  “Do you live here?” he asked. “On the farm?”

  She nodded. “I have been here nearly one year,” she answered. “I am here with my young brother. He is only five.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  She lowered her gaze. “We came from up near Francistown. My mother is late. She died three years ago, when I was nine. We lived with a woman, in her yard. Then she told us we had to go.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said nothing. Mma Potokwane had told him the stories of some of the orphans, and each time he found that it made his heart smart with pain. In traditional society there was no such thing as an unwanted child; everybody would be looked after by somebody. But things were changing, and now there were orphans. This was particularly so now that there was this disease which was stalking through Africa. There were many more children now without parents and the orphan farm might be the only place for some of them to go. Is this what had happened to this girl? And why was she in a wheelchair?

  He stopped his line of thought. There was no point in speculating about things which one could do little to help. There were more immediate questions to be answered, such as why was the wheelchair making such an odd noise.

  “Your chair is squeaking,” he said. “Does it always do that?”

  She shook her head. “It started a few weeks ago. I think there is something wrong with it.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni went down on his haunches and examined the wheels. He had never fixed a wheelchair before, but it was obvious to him what the problem was. The bearings were dry and dusty—a little oil would work wonders there—and the brake was catching. That would explain the noise.