Alexander Mccall Smith - Ladies' Detective Agency 05 (4 page)

MMA RAMOTSWE VISITS HER COUSIN IN MOCHUDI, AND
THINKS

M
MA RAMOTSWE did not see Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that
Saturday, as she had driven up to Mochudi in her tiny white van. She planned to
stay there until Sunday, leaving the children to be looked after by Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni. These were the foster children from the orphan farm, whom Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni had agreed to take into his home, without consulting Mma Ramotswe. But
she had been unable to hold this against him, even if many women would have
felt that they should have been consulted about the introduction of children
into their lives; it was typical of his generosity that he should do something
like this. After a few days, the children had come to stay with her, which was
better than their living in his house, with its engine parts that littered the
floor and with its empty store cupboards (Mr J.L.B. Matekoni did not bother to
buy much food). And so they had moved to the house in Zebra Drive, the girl and
her brother; the girl in a wheelchair, for illness had left her unable to walk,
and the brother, much younger than she, and still needing special attention
after all that had happened to him.

Mma Ramotswe had no particular
reason to go up to Mochudi, but it was the village in which she had grown up
and one never really needed an excuse to visit the place in which one had spent
one’s childhood. That was the marvellous thing about going back to
one’s roots; there was no need for explanation. In Mochudi everybody knew
who she was: the daughter of Obed Ramotswe, who had gone off to Gaborone, where
she had made a bad marriage to a trumpet player she had met on a bus. That was
all common knowledge, part of the web of memories which made up the village
life of Botswana. In that world, nobody needed to be a stranger; everybody
could be linked in some way with others, even a visitor; for visitors came for
a reason, did they not? They would be associated, then, with the people whom
they were visiting. There was a place for everybody.

Mma Ramotswe had
been thinking a great deal recently about how people might be fitted in. The
world was a large place, and one might have thought that there was enough room
for everybody. But it seemed that this was not so. There were many people who
were unhappy, and wanted to move. Often they wished to come to the more
fortunate countries—such as Botswana—in order to make more of their
lives. That was understandable, and yet there were those who did not want them.
This is our place, they said; you are not welcome.

It was so easy to
think like that. People wanted to protect themselves from those they did not
know. Others were different; they talked different languages and wore different
clothes. Many people did not want them living close to them, just because of
these differences. And yet, they were people, were they not? They thought the
same way, and had the same hopes as anybody else did. They were our brothers
and sisters, whichever way you looked at it, and you could not turn a brother
or sister away.

Mochudi was busy. There was to be a wedding at the
Dutch Reformed Church that afternoon, and the relatives of the bride were
arriving from Serowe and Mahalapye. There was also something happening at one
of the schools—a sports day, it seemed—and as she passed the field
(or patch of dust, she noted ruefully) a teacher in a green floppy hat was
shouting at a group of children in running shorts. Ahead of her on the road a
couple of donkeys ambled aimlessly, flicking at the flies with their moth-eaten
tails. It was, in short, a typical Mochudi Saturday.

Mma Ramotswe went
to her cousin’s house and sat on a stool in the lelapa, the small,
carefully swept yard which forms the immediate curtilage of the traditional
Botswana house. Mma Ramotswe was always pleased to see her cousin, as these
visits gave her the opportunity to catch up on village news. This was
information one would never see in any newspaper, yet it was every bit as
interesting—more so, in many respects—than the great events of the
world which the newspapers reported. So she sat on a traditional stool, the
seat of which was woven from thin strips of rough-cured leather, and listened
to her cousin tell her what had taken place. Much had happened since Mma
Ramotswe’s last visit. A minor headman, known for his tendency to drink
too much beer, had fallen into a well, but had been saved because a young boy
passing by had happened to mention that he had seen somebody jump into the
well.

“They almost didn’t believe that boy,” said the
cousin. “He was a boy who was always telling lies. But happily somebody
decided to check.”

“That boy will grow up to be a
politician,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That will be the best job for
him.”

The cousin had shrieked with laughter. “Yes, they are
very good at lying. They are always promising us water for every house, but
they never bring it. They say that there are not enough pipes. Maybe next
year.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. Water was the source of many
problems in a dry country and the politicians did not make it any easier by
promising water when they had none to deliver.

“If the opposition
would only stop arguing amongst themselves,” the cousin went on,
“they would win the election and get rid of the government. That would be
a good thing, do you not think?”

“No,” said Mma
Ramotswe.

The cousin stared at her. “But it would be very
different if we had a new government,” she said.

“Would
it?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She was not a cynical woman, but she wondered
whether one set of people who looked remarkably like another set of people
would run things any differently. But she did not wish to provoke a political
argument with her cousin, and so she changed the subject by asking after the
doings of a local woman who had killed a neighbour’s goat because she
thought that the neighbour was flirting with her husband. It was a long-running
saga and was providing a great deal of amusement for everyone.

“She crept out at night and cut the goat’s throat,” said
the cousin. “The goat must have thought she was a tokolosh, or something
like that. She is a very wicked woman.”

“There are many
like that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Men think that women can’t be
wicked, but we are quite capable of being wicked too.”

“Even more wicked than men,” said the cousin. “Women are
much more wicked, don’t you agree?”

“No,” said
Mma Ramotswe. She thought that the levels of male and female wickedness were
about the same; it just took slightly different forms.

The cousin
looked peevishly at Mma Ramotswe. “Women have not had much of a chance to
be wicked in a big way,” she muttered. “Men have taken all the best
jobs, where you can be truly wicked. If women here were allowed to be generals
and presidents and the like, then they would be very wicked, same as all those
wicked men. Just give them the chance. Look at how those lady generals have
behaved.”

Mma Ramotswe picked up a piece of straw and examined it
closely. “Name one,” she said.

The cousin thought, but no
names came to her, at least no names of generals. “There was an Indian
lady called Mrs Gandhi.”

“And did she shoot people?”
asked Mma Ramotswe.

“No,” said the cousin. “Somebody
shot her. But …”

“There you are,” said Mma
Ramotswe. “I assume that it was a man who shot her, or was it some lady,
do you think?”

The cousin said nothing. A small boy was peering
over the wall of the lelapa, staring at the two women. His eyes were large and
round, and his arms, which protruded from a scruffy red shirt, were thin. The
cousin pointed at him.

“He cannot speak, that little boy,”
she said. “His tongue does not work properly. So he just watches the
other children play.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled at him, and called out
to him gently in Setswana. But the little boy might not have heard, for he
turned away without replying and walked slowly away on his skinny legs. Mma
Ramotswe was silent for a moment, imagining what it would be like to be a
little boy like that, thin and voiceless. I am fortunate, she thought, and
turned to say to her cousin, “We are lucky, aren’t we? Here we are,
traditionally built ladies, and there’s that poor little boy with his
thin arms and legs. And we can talk and he can make no sound at
all.”

The cousin nodded. “We are very lucky to be who we
are,” she said. “We are fortunate ladies, sitting here in the sun
with so much to talk about.”

So much to talk about—and so
little to do. Here in Mochudi, away from the bustle of Gaborone, Mma Ramotswe
could feel herself lapsing again into the rhythms of country life, a life much
slower and more reflective than life in town. There was still time and space to
think in Gaborone, but it was so much easier here, where one might look out up
to the hill and watch the thin wisps of cloud, no more than that, float slowly
across the sky; or listen to the cattle bells and the chorus of the cicadas.
This was what it meant to live in Botswana; when the rest of the world might
work itself into a frenzy of activity, one might still sit, in the space before
a house with ochre walls, a mug of bush tea in one’s hand, and talk about
very small things: headmen in wells, goats and jealousy.

CHAPTER FOUR

A WOMAN WHO KNOWS ABOUT HAIR

T
HAT MONDAY, Mma Ramotswe had an appointment. Most of her
clients did not bother to arrange a time to see her, preferring to drop in
unannounced and—in some cases—without disclosing their identity.
Mma Ramotswe understood why people should wish to do this. It was not easy to
consult a detective agency, especially if one had a problem of a particularly
private nature, and many people had to pluck up considerable courage before
they knocked on her door. She understood that doctors sometimes encountered
similar behaviour; that patients would talk about everything except the real
problem and then, at the last moment, mention what was really troubling them.
She had read somewhere—in one of the old magazines that Mma Makutsi liked
to page through—of a doctor who had been consulted by a man wearing a
paper bag over his head. Poor man, thought Mma Ramotswe. It must be terrible to
feel so embarrassed about something that one would have to wear a paper bag
over one’s head! What was wrong with that man? she wondered. Things did
go wrong with men sometimes that they were ashamed to talk about, but there was
really no need to feel that way.

Mma Ramotswe had never encountered
embarrassment of such a degree, but she had certainly had to draw stories out
of people. This happened most commonly with women who had been let down by
their husbands, or who suspected that their husbands were having an affair.
Such women could feel anger and a sense of betrayal, both of which were
entirely understandable, but they could also feel shame that such a thing had
happened to them. It was as if it was their fault that their husband had taken
up with another woman. This could be so, of course; there were women who drove
their husbands away, but in most cases it was because the husband had become
bored with his marriage and wanted to see a younger woman. They were always
younger, Mma Ramotswe reflected; only rich ladies were able to take up with
younger men.

The thought of rich ladies reminded her: the woman who was
coming to see her that day was undoubtedly a rich lady. Mma Holonga was
well-known in Gaborone as the founder of a chain of hairdressing salons. The
salons were successful, but what had proved even more profitable was her
invention, and marketing, of Special Girl Hair Braiding Preparation. This was
one of those mixtures which women put on their hair before they braided it; its
efficacy was doubtful, but the hair products market was not one which required
a great deal of scientific evidence. What mattered was that there was a
sufficient number of people who believed that their favourite preparation
worked.

Mma Ramotswe had never met Mma Holonga. She had seen her
picture in
Mmegi
and the
Botswana Guardian
from time to time,
and in the photographs she had noticed a pleasant, rather round face. She knew,
too, that Mma Holonga lived in a house in the Village, not far from Mr J.L.B.
Matekoni. She was intrigued to meet her, because from what she had seen in the
newspapers she had formed the impression that Mma Holonga was an unusual rich
lady. Many such women were spoilt and demanding, and frequently had an
exaggerated idea of their own importance. Mma Holonga did not seem like
that.

And when she arrived for her appointment, at exactly the right
time (which was another point in her favour), Mma Holonga confirmed Mma
Ramotswe’s advance impressions.

“You are very kind to see
me,” she said as she sat down on the chair in front of Mma
Ramotswe’s desk. “I can imagine how busy you must be.”

“Sometimes I am busy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And then
sometimes I am not. I am not busy today. I am just sitting here.”