Precious and Grace

  Mma Ramotswe waited, but nothing more was said. So she said, “Children are often difficult, Mma. I think we all were ourselves, were we not? And then they grow up.”

  Rosie shook her head. “Some are like that, Mma. Others are bad.”

  “Are there really bad children, Mma?”

  Mma Rosie seemed surprised that the question was even asked. “Of course there are. There are many.”

  “I see.”

  Rosie looked pointedly at her watch. “I am on a shift here,” she said. “I can’t stand outside talking all day.”

  “Of course not, Mma. You’ve been very kind.” Mma Ramotswe paused. “I should like to buy some fat cakes, though.”

  Rosie nodded. “The other lady will look after you.”

  “And perhaps you’ll change your mind,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Rosie shook her head. “I never change my mind, Mma.”

  Back inside the bakery, Mma Ramotswe asked for half a dozen fat cakes. These were taken from the tray and placed in a brown paper bag. Smudges of grease appeared through the paper, promising delight ahead. She paid the woman behind the counter and returned to her van. Just one, she thought; she would eat just one fat cake at this stage, and then perhaps she would have another later on, after she had spoken to Mma Makutsi—a reward for the completion of a task that she suspected would not be easy.

  She sat in the van and took a single fat cake out of the packet. It did not last long. She hesitated. It had not been a particularly large fat cake—a bit undersized, in fact—and that, surely, was justification for having another one. This second one, she told herself, is yesterday’s fat cake. She had not eaten one yesterday, when she might well have done so. This one, therefore, did not count, and a third would not count either, as there had been no fat cake on the day before yesterday. But the line would have to be drawn there. Firmly.

  She finished the third fat cake and licked the last traces of sugar off her fingers. She felt pleasantly full: three small fat cakes was not excessive, but was enough to take the edge off your hunger and equip you for whatever lay ahead. Whatever lay ahead…She reached forward to place the key in the ignition, but then stopped herself. The concern she had felt in the latter part of her conversation with Rosie returned, and now it was accompanied by an even more disturbing thought. What if both she and Mma Makutsi were wrong? What if this case were about something else altogether?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DO NOT BE AFRAID TO PROFESS FORGIVENESS

  “THESE ARE VERY SMALL CABBAGES,” said Mma Makutsi. “But when the rain comes they will grow so quickly, Mma Ramotswe. You’ll see.”

  They were standing in the vegetable patch that Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti had carved out of the virgin bush that was their yard. Or rather, that had been created by the man who worked in their garden, a taciturn man in a battered hat, who now stood respectfully to one side while his employer showed her visitor his handiwork.

  “Mr. Moepi is very good with cabbages,” said Mma Makutsi, nodding in the gardener’s direction. “What do they say of people who are good at growing things? That they have green fingers? Like leaves. Like grass. Green fingers.”

  The gardener looked down at his shoes.

  “He is very modest,” continued Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe glanced in Mr. Moepi’s direction. Mma Makutsi had a tendency to talk about people in their presence as if they were not there. “The garden is looking very good, Rra,” she said, smiling at him. “Even in these dry conditions you are getting somewhere with it.”

  “Yes, he is,” said Mma Makutsi. “And he is going to grow a lot of beans this coming season—just like Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.”

  The gardener shifted from foot to foot.

  “Now we can go inside,” said Mma Makutsi. “We can leave Moepi to water the cabbages. We take water from the outlet pipe in the kitchen. It’s our washing-up water that we use. Moepi wastes nothing in this garden, do you, Rra?”

  The gardener adjusted his hat.

  “No, you see he doesn’t,” said Mma Makutsi.

  They began to make their way towards the house. “He is a very good gardener,” said Mma Makutsi. “He doesn’t speak very much, as you can see, but he is very good at growing things. He comes from Lobatse. He used to have a job in the hospital for mental illnesses. He was a gardener there.”

  “Oh yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think the patients like to work in the gardens. It helps them to get better.”

  “In some cases,” said Mma Makutsi. “In other cases it is not much help. Mr. Moepi told me that one of the patients hit him over the head with a rake.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Yes. But these things happen, Mma. Nobody is to blame.”

  Mma Ramotswe assured Mma Makutsi that she had not been thinking in terms of blame.

  “You see,” continued Mma Makutsi, “if you’re confused you may not know what you’re doing. It’s like being asleep. Then you wake up and you find you’ve done something you didn’t mean to do.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “That must be true, Mma. It must be very sad for these people.”

  They reached the house. Itumelang, Mma Makutsi said, was sleeping, but Mma Ramotswe could peek in on him if she wished.

  “I’d love that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But first, Mma, we must talk. You and I must talk.”

  Mma Makutsi stiffened. “About this Mma Susan business?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded.

  They were on the verandah; Mma Makutsi indicated a corner where three chairs were ranged around a table. “We can sit there, Mma. It’s a good place to talk.”

  Once seated, Mma Ramotswe took a deep breath and began. “I need to tell you something, Mma Makutsi,” she began. “I think I’ve been wrong.”

  Mma Makutsi, who had been frowning, now smiled. “About that Mma Rosie? Yes, Mma, I thought you were wrong. I am sometimes wrong myself, you know, and I’d be the first to admit it, but this time I thought, Mma Ramotswe is wrong. That’s what I thought, Mma.”

  “But not about Mma Rosie,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “Or maybe wrong about her as much as I was wrong about Mma Susan. She is the one I may be most wrong about.”

  This confused Mma Makutsi. “Mma Susan? Why are you wrong about her?”

  Mma Ramotswe sat back in her chair. “Of course I may be wrong in thinking I’m wrong. That’s also possible, Mma.”

  “No, I think you’re right,” said Mma Makutsi. “I think you’re right about you thinking you’re wrong.”

  They looked at one another for a moment, and then Mma Ramotswe laughed. “You never know, do you, Mma?” she said. “You never know when being wrong is right.”

  “No, that’s never…,” replied Mma Makutsi. “It’s never right to be wrong.” She paused, and looked up at the ceiling for inspiration. “Of course, it may be wrong to be right—”

  Mma Ramotswe interrupted her. “Or, rather, to think you’re right when you’re wrong.”

  “That’s it, Mma. That’s what I was trying to say.”

  They both sat in silence for a moment as they gathered their thoughts. Then Mma Ramotswe said, “You see, Mma Makutsi, it suddenly struck me that Mma Susan might not have liked Mma Rosie.”

  She watched for Mma Makutsi’s reaction: sometimes Mma Makutsi rejected her notions out of hand, but this did not happen now. “Not liked her? Perhaps…But why, Mma? Why do you think that?”

  Mma Ramotswe recalled the visit to the house on Zebra Drive. “When I took her to see my neighbour’s house, she didn’t seem all that interested in much of it. She hardly looked at the living room, you know. But when it came to the servant’s block—where Mma Rosie would have lived—well, that was different.”

  “In what way, Mma?”

  “Her whole attitude changed, Mma. She became tense. You know how people are when they find themselves in a place that…” She struggled to find the right words. “…in a place that’s…” It came to her suddenly.
“In a place that’s painful to them.” That was the word; that was exactly right, and now it became clear to her. There had been pain—a long time ago—but the memory of that pain had now come back.

  She had not been sure how Mma Makutsi would respond to this; she had very little evidence, after all, to justify the inference. But she need not have worried.

  “But that’s it!” exclaimed Mma Makutsi. “But that’s what happened, Mma. That woman was cruel to her. She’s come to…”

  “Confront her?” suggested Mma Ramotswe.

  “Exactly, Mma. That’s exactly what she’s come to do. She’s come to confront her. I felt unhappy about both of them, you know, Mma. I didn’t like that Mma Susan because I thought she was not telling the truth about something. And I didn’t like that Mma Rosie because I thought she wasn’t telling the truth either.”

  “But you thought she was lying about being Mma Rosie,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Isn’t that different, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi did not think so. “No, it was the same sort of thing, Mma. That’s what counted—it was the same sort of thing.”

  They were silent for a moment as they considered the implications of what had just been said. At last Mma Makutsi spoke. “Some people who look after children are cruel, Mma. Aren’t they? It happens.”

  “Yes, it does. And it can leave very deep scars, Mma. Very deep.”

  Mma Makutsi nodded. “I had a teacher once who was like that. I was a little girl then and there was a teacher at the school who was very strict. He had a stick and he used to beat the boys—he did not beat the girls, but we were very frightened, Mma. We thought he might beat us too one day, but he didn’t have time to do that. He was too busy beating the boys.”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “There used to be far too much beating…In fact, Mma, any beating is too much. There should be no beating at all.”

  “But that is not the way the world is,” said Mma Makutsi. “There is still beating going on. There are still people who beat others because they think it’s the right thing to do.”

  She was still thinking about the teacher. “You know, Mma Ramotswe,” she continued, “when I came down to Gaborone, I still sometimes remembered how frightened we had been. I thought of that teacher with his stick. And then, when I went up to Bobonong one time, I saw him in the street outside the general store and I wanted to go up to him and say, ‘Where is your big stick now, you big bully?’ That’s what I wanted to do. And I also thought: Wouldn’t it be good to have a big stick and to beat him?”

  “Did you go up to him?”

  Mma Makutsi nodded. “Yes, I walked up to him and said that I was pleased to see him and I hoped he was well.”

  “While all the time you wanted to beat him with a big stick?”

  “Yes, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I think that was better, you know. I think it’s better not to beat people with big sticks, even if they deserve it.”

  Mma Makutsi looked rueful. “I sometimes still think about getting a stick and going back up there to beat him.”

  “But you never will, you know, Mma Makutsi.”

  “Probably not.”

  Mma Makutsi was still puzzled over Susan’s motivation. “I can’t quite understand it, Mma. It’s one thing for me to go up to Bobonong, but for that lady to come all the way from Canada…”

  “Oh, that will not be the only reason,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that Mma Susan has done this because she’s unhappy about something else. She’s unhappy about that man she loved and who doesn’t love her any longer. She is very unhappy about that. And she may be unhappy about her childhood in general—about all sorts of things—and she may not have many people to blame; except for one or two, of course. And so she wants to say something to these people.”

  “So she thinks she can make everything better by meeting somebody who was cruel to her?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “That seems very odd, Mma.”

  Mma Ramotswe replied that people were odd. “Never be surprised by anything people can do, Mma. They are capable of doing many, many odd things.”

  “So now we’re going to have to tell her that we have found the woman she wanted us to find?” Mma Makutsi asked. “We are going to have to take her to speak to her?”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “That is a very difficult question, Mma. And I’m not sure of the answer.”

  “I’m not sure either,” said Mma Makutsi. “So what do we do, Mma?”

  “Nothing,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Nothing yet.”

  “But we will have to say something.”

  “Yes, but we need to think very carefully about what we say. And to start with, we may say nothing—and also do nothing, Mma Makutsi. Sometimes doing nothing is the same as doing something, if you see what I mean.”

  “No,” said Mma Makutsi. “I do not.”

  “Well, if you do nothing, then somebody may feel the need to do something, and that means that you’re getting something done by doing nothing. It’s just that it’s done by somebody else, you see.”

  Mma Makutsi thought about this. Then she said, “I suppose that applies to the making of tea, Mma. That doesn’t happen by itself—somebody has to make it.”

  “You are very right, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And do you know—I have some fat cakes in my van.”

  “Then I shall put on the kettle while you fetch the fat cakes,” said Mma Makutsi. “I haven’t had a fat cake for quite a while, you know.”

  Mma Ramotswe said nothing, but realised, of course, that saying nothing implied something, and that was the inescapable conclusion that she had, very recently, consumed more than one fat cake.

  —

  THAT WAS FRIDAY. On Saturday Mma Ramotswe went with Motholeli and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to watch Puso playing soccer for his school team against a nearby school. It was a rout for Puso’s team, with bruised knees and tears afterwards, and a man-to-man talk from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni on the need to be a good loser. An ice cream repaired the psychological damage and a sticking plaster the physical; then there was shopping to be done and the evening meal to prepare. None of this activity allowed much time for thought, although occasionally Mma Ramotswe found herself wondering about Susan and whether she should trust the strong instinct she had developed that something was wrong there. On Sunday there was little time for brooding about work either: there was the morning service at the Anglican Cathedral opposite the Princess Marina Hospital, followed by a parish breakfast at which it was Mma Ramotswe’s turn to be one of the cooks. She dozed off at one point in the sermon, but felt that she was by no means alone in this, as when she looked about her—as one does after an unscheduled public sleep—she noticed at least three others whose heads were nodding. It was the warmth of the day, of course, rather than what the Bishop was saying. He was talking about forgiveness, which was a subject on which Mma Ramotswe had views. She was in favour of it, and when the Bishop talked about the teaching of forgiveness to children—she was fully awake at that point—she felt as if she might rise to her feet and voice her agreement. That had happened once when a visiting clergyman had been talking about charity; his words had been punctuated at intervals by increasingly loud “hear! hear!”s from a member of the congregation seated in the back row. Seemingly indifferent to the looks of disapproval from neighbouring pews, this person had continued his voluble support for the preacher until, at the end of the sermon, he had announced loudly: “I couldn’t have put it better myself!” That had led to laughter, and laughter had defused the tension that had built up until then.

  But now, as the Bishop spoke, she restricted herself to just the merest nodding of the head in agreement. “Somebody asked me the other day,” he said, “when we should start teaching children about forgiveness. That is the question she asked.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling, so high above her in this new cathedral, and at the electric fans suspended from the ceiling, stirring the air so ineffectively with their sluggis
h blades.

  “I was surprised by the question,” continued the Bishop, “because I think that forgiveness is one of the first things. Forgiveness is at the heart of the way we live our lives—or should be. So when we teach our children about the things they need to know about the world—about how not to touch fire, about how to wash their hands or put on their shoes; yes, even about the map of our world, about where Africa is, and Botswana, about where the Limpopo runs or the Okavango, about where the great Kalahari lies—all these things, we should also remember to teach them about forgiveness. We must teach them that when another person wrongs us—hurts us, perhaps—we should not strike back, but should be ready to forgive. We must teach them that if we do not forgive then we run the risk of being eaten up with hatred inside, and that hatred is like acid, that it will gnaw and gnaw away. That is why forgiveness must be taught right at the beginning, when we are teaching about these first things.”

  Yes, thought Mma Ramotswe. Yes. This is all true. This is all very true.

  “And yet,” he went on, “who talks about forgiveness these days, other than the people who come to this place, or to places like this? What politician, what public person, do we hear standing up and saying that we must forgive? The message we are more likely to hear is one of blame, of how this person or that person must be held to account for something bad that has happened. It is a message of retribution—that is all it is—a message of pure retribution, sometimes dressed up in concern about victims and public safety and matters of that sort. But if you do not forgive, and you think all the time about getting even, or punishing somebody who has done you a wrong, what are you achieving? You are not going to make that person better by hating or punishing him; oh no, that will not happen. When we punish somebody, we are often just punishing ourselves, you know. If people lock others away, they are simply increasing the amount of suffering there is in the world; they may think they are diminishing it, but they are not. They are adding to the burden that suffering creates. Of course, sometimes you have no alternative but to do it—people must be protected from harm—but you should always remember that there are other ways of changing a man’s ways.