She looked out over the square, twenty feet or so below the raised veranda of the hotel. It was a typical bustling Saturday-morning scene, with shoppers and strollers moving lazily between the various traders who had their wares spread out on groundsheets and on pieces of newspaper about them. A display of cheap sunglasses, examined with admiration by two young men and a woman in an unflattering yellow trouser suit; a stout woman selling dresses from a mobile rack; a cobbler conjuring sandals out of strips of rough leather—Mma Ramotswe marvelled at the ingenuity of the sellers in making attractive displays out of cheap merchandise. That is how we live, she thought, by selling things to one another, or by working, as she did, to make money to buy things from these people who were so keen to sell them. Not all the things we bought we needed; very few of them, perhaps, especially when it came to fancy shoes and dresses. How many outfits did you really need? she wondered. On the other hand, when you saw something you liked, then it so often seemed that you needed it, and in a sense, if you believed that you needed something, then you really did. She sighed. This was economics, and try as she might, she had been unable to make much sense of economics beyond the simple truism, so often stressed by her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, that one should not spend more money than one actually had. And yet, when one read the newspapers, that is exactly what so many economists seemed to recommend that people do. It was all very puzzling.
The fruit scone disappeared rather more quickly than she would have liked. The red bush tea, though, lasted: a single pot might be eked out over an hour, giving ample time to absorb what was happening below in the square and to plan the rest of the day. A Saturday-afternoon sleep, perhaps; there was a great deal to be said for that, especially in hot weather, when nobody would wish to be out in the sun until at least four o’clock. Then, with the sun beginning to sink, it might be cool enough to venture out into the garden and inspect the plants. On particularly hot days—as today was proving to be—they could look so discouraged, as if every drop of moisture had been sucked out of them by the dry air. But they had their ways: the plants in her garden were native to Botswana, and knew about heat and dust and how to make the most of every drop of rain that came to them. These were the waxy-leaved plants of the Kalahari, the mopipi trees, the strange, spiky aloes that sent up their red flowers in fierce defiance of the creeping brown of drought and aridity.
“Mma?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by a woman who had appeared at her side.
“Are you Mma Ramotswe, Mma?”
Mma Ramotswe looked up at the other woman. The stranger was older than her, but only by a decade or so. She was of traditional build herself, but her figure was largely concealed by the folds of a generously cut shift dress made out of a flecked green fabric. It was like a tent, thought Mma Ramotswe—a camouflage tent of the sort that the Botswana Defence Force might use. But I do not sit in judgement on the dresses of others, she told herself, and a tent was a practical enough garment, if that is what one felt comfortable in.
“I am Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “Would you like to sit down, Mma? There is probably enough tea in the pot if we get the waiter to fetch another cup.”
“Oh, I cannot drink up all your tea, Mma,” said the woman. “But I will sit down. I am Mma Felo.”
Mma Ramotswe inclined her head. She had heard of the name; the Felos had a hotel somewhere, she thought, and quite a few cattle too. They were influential people. “I have heard of your name,” she said. “There is a hotel …”
The woman nodded. “That is us. It is very hard work, though, Mma. Never buy a hotel, Mma Ramotswe, unless you like working day and night.”
“I will not buy one,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I already have a business.”
“Yes,” said Mma Felo. “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I have driven past your place—and your husband’s garage too.”
Mma Ramotswe wondered where the conversation was going. It was not unusual for people to approach her like this, circumspectly, indirectly, before the request for help was made. Was Mma Felo about to do the same? Mma Ramotswe waited, and then she said, tentatively, “Is there anything I can do to help you, Mma?”
Mma Felo’s reaction was unexpected. She seemed to find this very amusing. “Oh no, Mma! My goodness, I do not need to be seeing detectives! Certainly not!”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Well, you never know, Mma. Lots of people seem to need my help. I did not mean to give you a fright.”
Mma Felo assured her that she had neither taken offence nor been frightened. “I do not want anything of you, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “No, I just thought that I would say hello.”
“That is very kind, Mma.”
Mma Felo nodded. “I try to be a kind person, Mma. I have a lot of money, you know, and I am always giving it away. This cause, that cause. A school needs something. Can you buy it, Mma? This person needs an operation over in South Africa and there is no money. Can you help with the bus fare, Mma? And so on. It is never-ending.” She paused. “And of course there is our friend, Mma Potokwane. I know that you know her, Mma. She has spoken to me about you.”
Mma Ramotswe now remembered that Mma Potokwane had also spoken to her about Mma Felo. She had said something about her kindness; so that was true, even if Mma Felo mentioned it herself.
“I often used to see you, Mma,” went on Mma Felo. “You used to drive past our place, past the hotel. You had that small van. That small white van.”
Mma Ramotswe lowered her eyes. It was still raw, that place in her memory. “I had such a van, Mma.”
Mma Felo spoke gently. “Mma Potokwane told me about it. She said that you were very sad when the van was sold. She said that your husband made you do it.”
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, that’s not really true, Mma. My husband is a mechanic, as you know, and he had been saying for a long time that the van was getting a little bit old. He was probably right. He didn’t make me do it—it was just that we couldn’t fix it. That was all. We sold it for scrap, for spare parts or something like that. It went up north.”
“To my nephew,” said Mma Felo. She looked at Mma Ramotswe. “He is very good with his hands, you know. He is one of those natural mechanics.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled, in spite of the memory of her van, in spite of that pain. “I know about such people, Mma. I married one.”
Mma Felo agreed. Her own car had been repaired by her nephew on more than one occasion, and he had fixed her fridge, and washing machine, and many other small things about the house. “Everything would fall to pieces without such people,” she said. “The whole country would fall apart, bit by bit.”
For a moment Mma Ramotswe imagined a Botswana without mechanics, without people like Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Felo’s nephew. Nothing would work, and it would be like living full-time at some remote cattle post, where there was only sky and bush and the sweet smell of the cattle; where water would have to be fetched from remote wells where the bucket-winding mechanisms would eventually fail; where the roads would disappear because there would be no tractors and no graders to repair them. There were places like that in Africa—places where the mechanics had gone, or had never been in the first place; where the wind blew in dusty eddies about decaying buildings and broken masonry and signs that had long since ceased to be intelligible; where people had simply given up, had worked hard, perhaps, and dreamed, and then just given up. That was not Botswana, of course, but one had to be watchful.
“You are right about that, Mma,” she said. “We would miss people like that.”
She thought for a moment. It would be terrible if all mechanics were to be lost, but it would be unbearable if one mechanic, in particular, were to go. But that was a morbid thought, and she put it out of her mind; she and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni were intending to grow old together, not for some time yet, of course, but at some distant point in the future. They would go to a village somewhere—Mochudi, perhaps—and sit under a tree on two stools and watch the cattle walk
past. She could do crochet, perhaps, making tablecloths for other women to sell outside the Sun Hotel in Gaborone, and talk to grandchildren. Even if they would not be grandchildren by blood, the children of Motholeli and Puso would be grandchildren as far as she was concerned. They would play at her feet, and she would cook for them and sing to them the songs that she had forgotten at the moment but which she would learn again by the time she became a grandmother. Yes, that was an intriguing idea. Modern people had forgotten the old songs—the songs that the grandmothers of Botswana used to know; she could set up a course to teach them those songs again so that they could sing them to their grandchildren when they came along. Mma Ramotswe’s Refresher Course in the Old Botswana Culture; that’s what it could be called. Or they could call it How to Love Your Country Again. And Mma Makutsi could be an instructor too, in the old typing skills, perhaps, keeping alive the memory of typewriters when people had thrown them out in favour of computers. And shorthand, a skill that her assistant said was being learned by fewer and fewer people, even at the Botswana Secretarial College itself; she was sure that Mma Makutsi would not want that to be lost.
THAT WAS SATURDAY. On Sunday she went to the Anglican cathedral with the children, leaving Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni lying in bed, enjoying his one long sleep of the week. When she returned she would make him his Sunday breakfast, which consisted of boerewors and eggs and wedges of bread. “A man’s breakfast,” he would say, smiling. And Mma Ramotswe would nod in agreement, but with the unexpressed mental reservation that there were plenty of traditionally built women who would relish a breakfast exactly like that, if it were not for the guilt they would feel afterwards.
Puso went off with the younger children to the Sunday school run in the general-purpose room of the cathedral; Motholeli, too old to be taught with the younger ones, had been enrolled as a helper. She helped to hand out the books, and to assist the small children in drawing their pictures of biblical stories. “No,” she said, “the sea in this story is not coloured blue. That is ordinary sea. This is the Red Sea.” And a red crayon would be selected and used to give a vivid shade to the parted waves, tiny hands fumbling with the strokes.
In the place that she always occupied, halfway down and at the end of a pew, a good spot from which to observe, Mma Ramotswe cast an eye over the congregation. There were no surprises, although she did not recognise one couple sitting towards the back, the man heavy-jowled, the woman wearing a blue hat and a shawl in a clashing pink colour—not a good combination, thought Mma Ramotswe, even if well intentioned. The Mma Makutsi School of Fashion, she thought wryly, and then immediately took back the uncharitable observation, remembering where she was. But it was true: Mma Makutsi did not have good colour sense, and should not wear spots. Mma Ramotswe had been thinking for some years of saying something to her about that, but it was difficult. You could not say, A lady who has a blotchy skin, Mma, should not wear spotted blouses. You could not. And even if you were more tactful, saying something like, Spots are nice, Mma, but I think that in your case stripes might be better, there would still be the chance that the person to whom the advice was offered might ask why. Then, if you were truthful, you would have to explain. If you were truthful …
Mma Ramotswe did not believe in lying, but she did believe that there were occasions when one had to say things that were not completely true. We all do that, she thought, looking up at the cathedral roof: we all have to say things that are not strictly true in order to protect others from hurt. So she had to tell Mma Makutsi that she thought Phuti Radiphuti handsome, even when others would not; that, of course, had been in response to a direct question from her assistant, who suddenly said to her one morning, “Don’t you think that Phuti is a very handsome man, Mma?” What could she do? So she said, “Of course he is, Mma; he is so kind too.” The remark about his kindness was completely true, but that was not what Mma Makutsi was talking about, and she persisted. “Yes, he’s very kind, Mma Ramotswe, but he is also very handsome. It is unusual, I think, to find people who are both handsome and kind. Don’t you agree?”
Mma Ramotswe had been slightly irritated by this line of questioning. What about Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni? she might have asked. What about him? Phuti was not the only kind man in Botswana; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was widely known for his generosity, and was often taken advantage of for precisely that reason. Mma Potokwane, for instance, was always asking him to fix things at the orphan farm—old vehicles, a tractor, the boilers, the water pump—the list seemed endless. And so too was the list of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s good works, done without complaint or thought of reward, but noted, she believed, by everybody. Perhaps she should start writing a list in a book: The Good Works of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni; it was not an entirely fanciful idea, as she could give it to the children later on, when they were older, and they could remember what a fine man their foster father was. She wished that she had such a memento of her own father, the late Obed Ramotswe—a scrapbook, perhaps, with photographs and observations by people who knew him. But there was nothing like that; just memories, of a man looking at her and smiling in the way he did; of a voice that was gravelly and well used, but which contained all that wisdom, all that experience, of people, of cattle, of a country that he had loved so dearly. All that. All that.
People were standing up and had begun to sing. She had been thinking, allowing her mind to wander, and had not noticed that the choir had started to come in. She stood up and watched them as they walked past: Mma Mopoti in good voice, as usual, the head chorister and pillar of the Mothers’ Union. Mma Ramotswe would have to phone her and reply to the invitation to address the Mothers’ Union meeting next month on “The Life of a Private Detective in Botswana.” The title had been suggested by Mma Mopoti, who was widely known for her ability to recite family genealogy, navigating the intricate byways of cousinage that linked just about everyone with everyone else. Mma Ramotswe would accept the invitation; she had to, as Mma Mopoti had pointed out to her that they were distant cousins “way, way back,” and one could not say no to a distant cousin, no matter how far back the link was.
The members of the choir took their seats and the service began. Mma Ramotswe made an effort to follow the proceedings, but there seemed to be so much to distract her, and she abandoned her attempt. This was evidently to be a morning for thinking; no harm in that, and she was not the only one, she suspected, looking about her. And Mma Mopoti herself, sitting there with the choir, had closed her eyes and seemed to be nodding off. She looked off to her right; there was that kind Indian family from Kerala, who had invited her to their daughter’s wedding, along with seven hundred other guests; they loved their weddings, those people—almost as much as the Batswana loved theirs.
Her gaze moved on, and she spotted Mma Mateleke and her husband sitting just a few rows away. She thought it was strange that she had not noticed them before, as she usually exchanged greetings with her friend when she came in. Mma Mateleke was looking down at her hands, rubbing at something—a patch of irritable skin, Mma Ramotswe thought. And of course she could work out where that came from: nurses and midwives had to put that strong antiseptic on their hands—it could hardly do their skin any good. She had met a nurse who had had to find another job for that reason—scrubbing up for the operating theatre had made her hands bleed. She had ended up working in a bank, and had done well, handling money, which did not hurt the skin, but was every bit as dangerous as anything else one might handle.
Mma Mateleke stopped rubbing at her hand and glanced at her husband. Mma Ramotswe watched. Rather to her surprise, she saw that it was not an affectionate look. So Mma Mateleke was cross with Herbert Mateleke—that was interesting. But why? Wives could be cross with their husbands for so many reasons, ranging from the big sins of husbands (drinking too much, becoming violent, looking at other women) to the small sins that men committed so casually (not helping in the house, leaving clothes on the floor, forgetting birthdays and anniversaries, talking about football all the time). Herbert Mate
leke was a mild man, rather mousy in his manner; it was difficult to picture him committing any of the big sins. And yet, and yet … Mma Ramotswe had been in practice as a private detective long enough to know that it was often the mild and inoffensive men who behaved most outrageously. Herbert Mateleke might look mild, but he might be having an affair with some blowsy woman somewhere, somebody like Violet Sephotho. Now that was a thought: Herbert Mateleke and Violet Sephotho! No, it was impossible, and she should not even think such thoughts, especially in the cathedral, and especially when the visiting priest was about to speak.
She would try to listen; she really would.
“My brothers and my sisters,” the visitor began, “we are seated here with those we know and those we do not know. But even those we do not know are not strangers. We are united with them in a community which is brought together by one thing, and that one thing is love. It is that love that we profess before one another here today, and it is that love which joins many millions of people throughout the world, wherever gatherings such as that which we attend today take place. That is a sea of love. It touches on the shores of all. There is no place where you cannot see it, even if for some, for the poor and the oppressed, it seems far away, in the distance.
“There are people who say that what we are doing here has no meaning. That it is superstition, that it is wishful thinking. Wishful thinking? It is not that; it is not. Is it wishful thinking to say to yourself and to others that we must love one another? Is it wishful thinking to say that we must forgive others, so that love might grow within our hearts? Is it wishful thinking to imagine that it is only through an effort to love others that a hard and unhappy world may be transformed into a world of kindness and compassion? I do not think that it is.
“There are many creeds and beliefs; there are many ways of leading your life; there are many roads to oneness with the world. But there are other ways, too, and these are all about us. There are those who worship money and success. There are those who do not care about the suffering of others, as long as they are all right. There are those who think that science and mastery of the physical world will bring us happiness and save us at the end of the day. I cannot agree with any of these. I do not think that science alone will deliver us from the consequences of our greed and our stupidity—it is science that has made the very things that are poisoning our world. I do not think that material success will necessarily make us happier—the faces of the rich tell us that; I do not think that a big car or a big house makes a big man. I think that the measure of whether a life has been a good one is how much love there has been in that life—love both given and received.