Kalahari Typing School for Men (17 page)

Mma Ramotswe thought that this sounded reasonable, but then what could they do? They had tried to be kind to him and give him more attention, but that seemed to have no effect.

“I think,” said Mma Potokwane, “that it is time for Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to start giving him some rules to live by. He needs to show him limits. Other boys will have fathers or uncles to do that. They need it.” She paused, watching the effect of her words on Mma Ramotswe. “He needs to be more of a father, I suspect. He needs to be stronger. His trouble is that he is such a gentle, kind man. We all know that. But that might not be what that little boy needs.”

Mma Ramotswe became very thoughtful. “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni must be firmer?”

Mma Potokwane smiled. “A bit. But what he needs to do is to take the boy out with him in his truck. Take him out to the lands, to see the cattle. Things like that.”

“I shall tell him,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwane put her teacup down and looked out of the window again. A group of children was playing under a shady jacaranda tree. “You can find out every thing you want about children by watching them play,” she said. “Look at those children over there. You’ll see that the boys are playing together, pushing one another over, and the girls are watching. They will want to join in, but they won’t know how to do it, and they’re not very rkeen on that rough game. See? Can you see what’s happening?”

Mma Ramotswe looked out. She saw the boys—a group of five or six of them—engaged in their physical play. She saw one of the girls pointing at the boys and then stepping forward to say something to them. The boys ignored her.

“See,” said Mma Potokwane. “If you want to understand the world, just look out there. Those boys are just playing, but it’s very serious to them. They’re finding out who the leader is going to be. That tall boy there, you see him, he’s the leader. He’ll be doing the same thing in ten, twenty years’ time.”

“And the girls?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Why are they just standing there?”

Mma Potokwane laughed. “They think the game is silly, but they would like to join in. They are watching the boys. Then they will work out some way of spoiling the boys’ fun. They will get better and better at that.”

“I am sure that you are right,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“I think I am,” Mma Potokwane said. “We had somebody out from the university, you know. This person called herself a psychologist. She had studied in America, and she had read many books about how children grow up. I said: just look out of the window. She did not know what I meant, but I think that you do, Mma Ramotswe.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I do.”

“You don’t have to read a book to understand how the world works,” Mma Potokwane continued. “You just have to keep your eyes open.”

“That’s true,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. But she had her reservations about Mma Potokwane’s assertions. She had a great respect for books herself, and she wished that she had read more. One could never read enough. Never.

Y
OU WERE
very brave back there,” said Mma Ramotswe to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as they travelled back from the orphan farm. “It is not easy to stand up to Mma Potokwane, and you did it.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “I didn’t think I would have the courage. But when I looked at the old pump, and heard it make those strange sounds, I decided that I just would not do it again. After all those repairs. There is a time to let a machine go.”

“I watched her face as you told her,” said Mma Ramotswe. “She was very surprised. It was as if one of the children had spoken back to her. She had not expected it.”

In spite of her surprise, though, Mma Potokwane had given in remarkably quickly. There had been a halfhearted attempt to persuade Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to change his mind and to fix the pump—“just for one last time”—but when she realised that he was adamant, she had switched to the question of who could be
persuaded to pay for a new one. There was a general-purpose fund, of course, which was more than capable of footing the bill, but this would be drawn upon only when there was no other way of meeting the cost. Somewhere there would be somebody who might be persuaded that it would be an honour to have a pump named after them; that was always a good way of getting funds. Some people liked to do good by stealth, discreetly and anonymously providing funds, but others liked to do their charitable works in the glare of as much publicity as Mma Potokwane could arrange. This did not matter, of course: the important thing was to get the pump.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had not left the orphan farm without making a positive contribution. Although he had brought bad tidings about the pump, he had nonetheless spent an hour attending to a timing problem in the engine of the old blue minivan used to transport the orphans. Again, this could not be kept going indefinitely, and he wondered when he would have to announce its end to Mma Potokwane, but for the time being he could keep it on the road with judicious tinkering.

While he worked on the van, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane had occupied themselves by visiting some of the housemothers. Mma Gotofede had been consulted about her recipe for fruitcake and had written it out for Mma Ramotswe and given her one or two tips on how to ensure the right consistency and moisture level. Then they had seen the new laundry, and Mma Potokwane had demonstrated the efficiency of the steam irons which they had recently acquired.

“The children must always look neat,” she had explained. “A neat child is happier than a scruffy child. That is a well-known fact.”

It had been a good visit, and in the truck on the way back, after they had discussed the pump, Mma Ramotswe judged the
time right to raise with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni the issue of Puso’s behaviour. It would be a difficult message to convey. She did not want Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to think that she was criticising him, or that Mma Potokwane had done so, but she had to encourage him to play a greater role in the boy’s life.

“I talked to her about Puso,” she ventured. “She was sorry to hear that he had been difficult.”

“Was she surprised?” he asked.

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “Not at all. She said that boys are difficult to raise. She said that men need to spend time with boys, to help them. If they do not, then boys can be confused and difficult. Somebody must spend more time with Puso.”

“Me?” he said. “She must mean me.”

Mma Ramotswe wondered whether he was angry; it was hard to tell with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She had seen him angry on one or two occasions, but he had controlled himself so well that one might have missed it.

“I suppose so,” she said. “She suggested that you could do more things with him. In that way he would think of you more as his father. It would be good for him.”

“Oh,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I see. She must think that I am not a good father, then.”

Mma Ramotswe did not like to lie. She was a stout defender of the truth, but there were occasions on which a slight embroidering of reality was necessary in order to save another from hurt.

“Not at all,” she said. “Mma Potokwane said that you were the best father that boy could ever wish for. That’s what she said.”

It was not, but it could have been said by Mma Potokwane. If she did not think this, then why had she been so keen to send the children to him in the first place? No, this was not a lie; it was an
interpretation
.

It had the hoped-for effect. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni beamed with pleasure and scratched his head. “That was a kind thing for her to say. But I shall try to do more with him, as she suggests. I shall take him for rides in the truck.”

“A good idea,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly. “And maybe you can play some games with him. Football, perhaps.”

“Yes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I shall do all these things, starting this very evening. I shall do them.”

When they returned to Zebra Drive, while Mma Ramotswe prepared the evening meal, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni took Puso for a ride in his truck to look at the dam, taking him onto his lap and allowing him to steer the wheel as they bumped along a back track. On the way home, they stopped at a café for potato chips, which they ate in the cab of the truck. Then they returned, and Mma Ramotswe noticed that both were smiling.

THE NEXT
day at the shared premises of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, everybody’s mood, if not elevated, was at least buoyant. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni felt considerable satisfaction at having prompted the purchase of a new pump at the orphan farm, and was happy, too, with the progress he had made in communicating with Puso. Mma Ramotswe shared his pleasure in this and was further cheered when the morning post brought three cheques from clients who had been stalling in their payments. The younger apprentice had about him an air of quiet serenity, as if he had seen a vision, thought Mma Ramotswe, although she could not work out what could have made him look so pleased with himself. The older apprentice was strangely silent—although in no sense grumpy. Something had happened to him, too, thought Mma Ramotswe,
although again she could not imagine what it was, unless, in his case, it had been the discovery of some breathtakingly beautiful girl who had stunned him into silence and contemplation.

The younger apprentice would very much have liked to spread the good news of the miracle which they had witnessed at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors the previous afternoon. He could not do this—not at the garage at least—because of the compromising circumstances in which the miracle had occurred. To announce that prayer had caused the malfunctioning hydraulics to work would entail admitting that they had wrongfully used the equipment in the first place. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would probably not be so interested in how the car came down as he would be in how it came to be up in the air, and this would lead to a reprimand, at the very least, or possibly to a docking of pay, which he was entitled to do under their apprenticeship contract in the event of serious wrongdoing. So the apprentice could not announce that something special had happened, nor claim the credit for having caused this event. He would have to wait until the following Sunday, when he would be able to reveal to the congregation at the church, to the brothers and sisters who would be interested in this sort of thing, that prayer had brought immediate and concrete results.

The older apprentice was naturally sceptical about such things, but he had been astonished by what appeared to be a clear connection between a prayed-for event and the event itself. If his younger colleague could do this, then did it mean that every thing else that he did was equally valid? This had alarming implications, as it meant that he would have to pay some attention to his predictions of divine wrath should he, Charlie, not change his ways. That was a sobering thought.

Mma Ramotswe also noticed that there was something different about Mma Makutsi. It could have been that she had new rshoes and a new dress, both of which could do a great deal for a
person’s mood, but she thought that there was something more to it than that. What struck her was a certain demureness that appeared to have crept into her manner, and for this there was usually only one explanation.

“You are happy today, Mma,” she said casually, as she entered the details of the cheques in her cash-received book.

Mma Makutsi made an airy movement with her right hand. “It is a nice day. We have received those cheques.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Yes,” she said. “But we have received cheques before, and they have not had this effect on you. There is something more, isn’t there?”

“You’re the detective,” said Mma Makutsi playfully. “You tell me what it is.”

“You have met a man,” said Mma Ramotswe plainly. “That is how people behave when they have met a man.”

Mma Makutsi seemed deflated. “Oh,” she said.

“There,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I knew it. I am very pleased, Mma. I hope that he is a nice man.”

“Oh he is,” enthused Mma Makutsi. “He is a very handsome man. With a moustache. He has a moustache and his hair is parted in the middle.”

“That is interesting,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I like moustaches, too.” She wondered whether Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would be persuaded to grow a moustache, but decided that it was unlikely. She had heard him talking to the apprentices about the need for mechanics to be clean-shaven; it was something to do with grease, she imagined.

She waited for Mma Makutsi to enlarge on her description, but she sat at her desk, busying herself with a sheaf of garage bills. So she returned to her cash book.

“He has a very nice smile, too,” Mma Makutsi suddenly added. “That is one of the nice things about him.”

“Oh yes?” said Mma Ramotswe. “And have you been out dancing with him? Men with moustaches can be good dancers.”

Mma Makutsi lowered her voice. “We haven’t actually been out together yet,” she said. “But that will happen soon. Maybe tonight.”

MR. BERNARD
Selelipeng was the first student to arrive that evening, knocking at the door of the hall a good twenty minutes before the class was due to start. Mma Makutsi had already been there for half an hour, setting out the papers for the evening’s exercises and touching up the chalked-in finger diagram on the blackboard. A group of Boy Scouts had met in the hall that afternoon, and one of the Scouts had traced finger marks over Mma Makutsi’s drawing of the typewriter keyboard, necessitating some repairs to the third finger on the right hand and the little finger on the left.