The girl looked out. There was a light off in the distance somewhere, maybe at the airstrip itself, but apart from that there was only darkness. The house looked away from the town, not towards it, and beyond the edge of the garden there was only scrub bush, trees and clumps of grass, and thorn bushes, and the odd red mud outcrop of a termite mound.
She felt alone. There were two other sleepers in that house: her younger brother, who never woke up at night, and the kind man who had fixed her wheelchair and who had then taken them in. She was not frightened to be here; she trusted that man to look after them—he was like Mr Jameson, who was the director of the charity that ran the orphan farm. He was a good man, who thought only about the orphans and their needs. At first, she had been unable to understand how there should be people like that. Why did people care for others, who were not even their family? She looked after her brother, but that was her duty.
The housemother had tried to explain it to her one day.
“We must look after other people,” she had said. “Other people are our brothers and sisters. If they are unhappy, then we are unhappy. If they are hungry, then we are hungry. You see.”
The girl had accepted this. It would be her duty, too, to look after other people. Even if she could never have a child herself, she would look after other children. And she could try to look after this kind man, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and make sure that everything in his house was clean and tidy. That would be her job.
There were some people who had mothers to look after them. She was not one of those people, she knew. But why had her mother died? She remembered her only vaguely now. She remembered her death, and the wailing from the other women. She remembered the baby being taken from her arms and put in the ground. She had dug him out, she believed, but was not sure. Perhaps somebody else had done that and had passed the boy on to her. And then she remembered going away and finding herself in a strange place.
Perhaps one day she would find a place where she would stay. That would be good. To know that the place you were in was your own place—where you should be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A PROBLEM IN MORAL PHILOSOPHY
THERE WERE some clients who engaged Mma Ramotswe’s sympathies on the first telling of their tale. Others one could not sympathise with because they were motivated by selfishness, or greed, or sometimes self-evident paranoia. But the genuine cases—the cases which made the trade of private detective into a real calling—could break the heart. Mma Ramotswe knew that Mr Letsenyane Badule was one of these.
He came without an appointment, arriving the day after Mma Ramotswe had returned from her trip to Molepolole. It was the first day of Mma Makutsi’s promotion to assistant detective, and Mma Ramotswe had just explained to her that although she was now a private detective she still had secretarial duties.
She had realised that she would have to broach the subject early, to avoid misunderstandings.
“I can’t employ both a secretary and an assistant,” she said. “This is a small agency. I do not make a big profit. You know that. You send out the bills.”
Mma Makutsi’s face had fallen. She was dressed in her smartest dress, and she had done something to her hair, which was standing on end in little pointed bunches. It had not worked.
“Am I still a secretary, then?” she said. “Do I still just do the typing?”
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “I have not changed my mind,” she said. “You are an assistant private detective. But somebody has to do the typing, don’t they? That is a job for an assistant private detective. That, and other things.”
Mma Makutsi’s face brightened. “That is all right. I can do all the things I used to do, but I will do more as well. I shall have clients.”
Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath. She had not envisaged giving Mma Makutsi her own clients. Her idea had been to assign her tasks to be performed under supervision. The actual management of cases was to be her own responsibility. But then she remembered. She remembered how, as girl she had worked in the Small Upright General Dealer Store in Mochudi and how thrilled she had been when she had first been allowed to do a stock-taking on her own. It was selfishness to keep the clients to herself. How could anybody be started on a career if those who were at the top kept all the interesting work for themselves?
“Yes,” she said quietly. “You can have your own clients. But I will decide which ones you get. You may not get the very big clients … to begin with. You can start with small matters and work up.”
“That is quite fair,” said Mma Makutsi. “Thank you, Mma. I do not want to run before I can walk. They told us that at the Botswana Secretarial College. Learn the easy things first and then learn the difficult things. Not the other way round.”
“That’s a good philosophy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Many young people these days have not been taught that. They want the big jobs right away. They want to start at the top, with lots of money and a big Mercedes-Benz.”
“That is not wise,” said Mma Makutsi. “Do the little things when you are young and then work up to doing the big things later.”
“Mmm,” mused Mma Ramotswe. “These Mercedes-Benz cars have not been a good thing for Africa. They are very fine cars, I believe, but all the ambitious people in Africa want one before they have earned it. That has made for big problems.”
“The more Mercedes-Benzes there are in a country,” offered Mma Makutsi, “the worse that country is. If there is a country without any Mercedes-Benzes, then that will be a good place. You can count on that.”
Mma Ramotswe stared at her assistant. It was an interesting theory, which could be discussed at greater length later on. For the meantime, there were one or two matters which still needed to be resolved.
“You will still make the tea,” she said firmly. “You have always done that very well.”
“I am very happy to do that,” said Mma Makutsi, smiling. “There is no reason why an assistant private detective cannot make tea when there is nobody more junior to do it.”
IT HAD been an awkward discussion and Mma Ramotswe was pleased that it was over. She thought that it would be best if she gave her new assistant a case as soon as possible, to avoid the buildup of tension, and when, later that morning, Mr Letsenyane Badule arrived she decided that this would be a case for Mma Makutsi.
He drove up in a Mercedes-Benz, but it was an old one, and therefore morally insignificant, with signs of rust around the rear sills and with a deep dent on the driver’s door.
“I am not one who usually comes to private detectives,” he said, sitting nervously on the edge of the comfortable chair reserved for clients. Opposite him, the two women smiled reassuringly. The fat woman—she was the boss, he knew, as he had seen her photograph in the newspaper—and that other one with the odd hair and the fancy dress, her assistant perhaps.
“You need not feel embarrassed,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We have all sorts of people coming through this door. There is no shame in asking for help.”
“In fact,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “It is the strong ones who ask for help. It is the weak ones who are too ashamed to come.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. The client seemed to be reassured by what Mma Makutsi had said. This was a good sign. Not everyone knows how to set a client at ease, and it boded well that Mma Makutsi had shown herself able to choose her words well.
The tightness of Mr Badule’s grip on the brim of his hat loosened, and he sat back in his chair.
“I have been very worried,” he said. “Every night I have been waking up in the quiet hours and have been unable to get back to sleep. I lie in my bed and I turn this way and that and cannot get this one thought out of my head. All the time it is there, going round and round. Just one question, which I ask myself time after time after time.”
“And you never find an answer?” said Mma Makutsi. “The night is a very bad time for questions to which there are no answers.”
Mr Badule looked at her. “You are very right, my sister. There is n
othing worse than a nighttime question.”
He stopped, and for a moment or two nobody spoke. Then Mma Ramotswe broke the silence.
“Why don’t you tell us about yourself, Rra? Then a little bit later on, we can get to this question that is troubling you so badly. My assistant will make us a cup of tea first, and then we can drink it together.”
Mr Badule nodded eagerly. He seemed close to tears for some reason, and Mma Ramotswe knew that the ritual of tea, with the mugs hot against the hand, would somehow make the story flow and would ease the mind of this troubled man.
I AM not a big, important man, began Mr Badule. I come from Lobatse originally. My father was an orderly at the High Court there and he served many years. He worked for the British, and they gave him two medals, with the picture of the Queen’s head on them. He wore these every day, even after he retired. When he left the service, one of the judges gave him a hoe to use on his lands. The judge had ordered the hoe to be made in the prison workshop and the prisoners, on the judge’s instructions, had burned an inscription into the wooden handle with a hot nail. It said: First Class Orderly Badule, served Her Majesty and then the Republic of Botswana loyally for fifty years. Well done tried and trusty servant, from Mr Justice Maclean, Puisne Judge, High Court of Botswana.
That judge was a good man, and he was kind to me too. He spoke to one of the fathers at the Catholic School and they gave me a place in standard four. I worked hard at this school, and when I reported one of the other boys for stealing meat from the kitchen, they made me deputy-head boy.
I passed my Cambridge School certificate and afterwards I got a good job with the Meat Commission. I worked hard there too and again I reported other employees for stealing meat. I did not do this because I wanted promotion, but because I am not one who likes to see dishonesty in any form. That is one thing I learned from my father. As an orderly in the High Court, he saw all sorts of bad people, including murderers. He saw them standing in the court and telling lies because they knew that their wicked deeds had caught up with them. He watched them when the judges sentenced them to death and saw how big strong men who had beaten and stabbed other people became like little boys, terrified and sobbing and saying that they were sorry for all their bad deeds, which they had said they hadn’t done anyway.
With such a background, it is not surprising that my father should have taught his sons to be honest and to tell the truth always. So I did not hesitate to bring these dishonest employees to justice and my employers were very pleased.
“You have stopped these wicked people from stealing the meat of Botswana,” they said. “Our eyes cannot see what our employees are doing. Your eyes have helped us.”
I did not expect a reward, but I was promoted. And in my new job, which was in the headquarters office, I found more people who were stealing meat, this time in a more indirect and clever way, but it was still stealing meat. So I wrote a letter to the General Manager and said: “Here is how you are losing meat, right under your noses, in the general office.” And at the end I put the names, all in alphabetical order, and signed the letter and sent it off.
They were very pleased, and, as a result, they promoted me even further. By now, anybody who was dishonest had been frightened into leaving the company, and so there was no more work of that sort for me to do. But I still did well, and eventually I had saved enough money to buy my own butchery. I received a large cheque from the company, which was sorry to see me go, and I set up my butchery just outside Gaborone. You may have seen it on the road to Lobatse. It is called Honest Deal Butchery.
My butchery does quite well, but I do not have a lot of money to spare. The reason for this is my wife. She is a fashionable lady, who likes smart clothes and who does not like to work too much herself. I do not mind her not working, but it upsets me to see her spend so much money on braiding her hair and having new dresses made by the Indian tailor. I am not a smart man, but she is a very smart lady.
For many years after we got married there were no children. But then she became pregnant and we had a son. I was very proud, and my only sadness was that my father was not still alive so that he could see his fine new grandson.
My son is not very clever. We sent him to the primary school near our house and we kept getting reports saying that he had to try harder and that his handwriting was very untidy and full of mistakes. My wife said that he would have to be sent to a private school, where they would have better teachers and where they would force him to write more neatly, but I was worried that we could not afford that.
When I said that, she became very cross. “If you cannot pay for it,” she said, “then I will go to a charity I know and get them to pay the fees.”
“There are no such charities,” I said. “If there were, then they would be inundated. Everyone wants his child to go to a private school. They would have every parent in Botswana lining up for help. It is impossible.”
“Oh it is, is it?” she said. “I shall speak to this charity tomorrow, and you will see. You just wait and see.”
She went off to town the next day and when she came back she said it had all been arranged. “The charity will pay all his school fees to go to Thornhill. He can start next term.”
I was astonished. Thornhill, as you know, Bomma, is a very good school and the thought of my son going there was very exciting. But I could not imagine how my wife had managed to persuade a charity to pay for it, and when I asked her for the details so that I could write to them and thank them she replied that it was a secret charity.
“There are some charities which do not want to shout out their good deeds from the rooftops,” she said. “They have asked me to tell nobody about this. But if you wish to thank them, you can write a letter, which I will deliver to them on your behalf.”
I wrote this letter, but got no reply.
“They are far too busy to be writing to every parent they help,” said my wife. “I don’t see what you’re complaining about. They’re paying the fees, aren’t they? Stop bothering them with all these letters.”
There had only been one letter, but my wife always exaggerates things, at least when it concerns me. She accuses me of eating “hundreds of pumpkins, all the time,” when I eat fewer pumpkins than she does. She says that I make more noise than an aeroplane when I snore, which is not true. She says that I am always spending money on my lazy nephew and sending him thousands of pula every year. In fact, I only give him one hundred pula on his birthday and one hundred pula for his Christmas box. Where she gets this figure of thousands of pula, I don’t know. I also don’t know where she gets all the money for her fashionable life. She tells me that she saves it, by being careful in the house, but I cannot see how it adds up. I will talk to you a little bit later about that.
But you must not misunderstand me, ladies. I am not one of these husbands who does not like his wife. I am very happy with my wife. Every day I reflect on how happy I am to be married to a fashionable lady—a lady who makes people look at her in the street. Many butchers are married to women who do not look very glamorous, but I am not one of those butchers. I am the butcher with the very glamorous wife, and that makes me proud.
I AM also proud of my son. When he went to Thornhill he was behind in all his subjects and I was worried that they would put him down a year. But when I spoke to the teacher, she said that I should not worry about this, as the boy was very bright and would soon catch up. She said that bright children could always manage to get over earlier difficulties if they made up their mind to work.
My son liked the school. He was soon scoring top marks in mathematics and his handwriting improved so much that you would think it was a different boy writing. He wrote an essay which I have kept, “The Causes of Soil Erosion in Botswana,” and one day I shall show that to you, if you wish. It is a very beautiful piece of work and I think that if he carries on like this, he will one day become Minister of Mines or maybe Minister of Water Resources. And to think that he will get there as the grandson
of a High Court orderly and the son of an ordinary butcher.
You must be thinking: What has this man got to complain about? He has a fashionable wife and a clever son. He has got a butchery of his own. Why complain? And I understand why one might think that, but that does not make me any more unhappy. Every night I wake up and think the same thought. Every day when I come back from work and find that my wife is not yet home, and I wait until ten or eleven o’clock before she returns, the anxiety gnaws away at my stomach like a hungry animal. Because, you see, Bomma, the truth of the matter is that I think my wife is seeing another man. I know that there are many husbands who say that, and they are imagining things, and I hope that I am just the same—just imagining—but I cannot have any peace until I know whether what I fear is true.
WHEN MR Letsenyane Badule eventually left, driving off in his rather battered Mercedes-Benz, Mma Ramotswe looked at Mma Makutsi and smiled.
“Very simple,” she said. “I think this is a very simple case, Mma Makutsi. You should be able to handle this case yourself with no trouble.”
Mma Makutsi went back to her own desk, smoothing out the fabric of her smart blue dress. “Thank you, Mma. I shall do my best.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes,” she went on. “A simple case of a man with a bored wife. It is a very old story. I read in a magazine that it is the sort of story that French people like to read. There is a story about a French lady called Mma Bovary, who was just like this, a very famous story. She was a lady who lived in the country and who did not like to be married to the same, dull man.”
“It is better to be married to a dull man,” said Mma Makutsi. “This Mma Bovary was very foolish. Dull men are very good husbands. They are always loyal and they never run away with other women. You are very lucky to be engaged to a …”