The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon (14 page)

‘No, no, Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. I am not thinking of ordinary things. I am thinking of when you were ill. Some years ago – remember?’

He stopped in his tracks. ‘Oh…’

Mma Potokwani was looking at him intently. ‘People get depressed, Rra – it is very common. One of the housemothers here had that happen to her just a few months ago. She sat and sat and thought about problems. One of the children came to me and said that the mother cried too much and sometimes could not manage to heat up their dinner. I knew what the trouble was.’

‘And this lady – how is she now?’

‘Good as new,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘I took her to the doctor and they knew what was wrong. It was the same thing that happened to you.’

‘That was thanks to Dr Moffat,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni.

‘Yes,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘He is very kind.’

‘But I do not think she’s depressed,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. ‘She is eating as much as ever. She is keeping the house very well. She has no trouble with her sleeping. Dr Moffat told me that if you’re depressed you usually do none of those things.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked Mma Potokwani.

‘I am very sure, Mma. She is still laughing. When I was depressed I did not do any laughing.’

They resumed their walk. They were now near the patch of grass and dust where a group of children were playing football. They were all wearing the khaki shorts and shirts of the classroom, but were barefoot. Two teams of six, running and wriggling with all the energy that young boys can muster, battled over a somewhat deflated old leather ball, urging each other on exuberantly and raising a cloud of dust that darted about the pitch like a tiny, localised tornado.

Mr J. L. B. Matekoni called out encouragement, and Mma Potokwani gave a good-natured wave of her hand.

‘Boys,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. ‘Their batteries never seem to run down, do they, Mma?’

‘No,’ said the matron. ‘They’re on the go all day. Non-stop. I think that…’ She broke off and turned to look at Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. ‘Batteries, Rra.’

He made a gesture towards the boys. ‘Yes, look at them…’

‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Not the boys’. Mma Ramotswe’s batteries.’

He took a little while to reply. Then he said, ‘Her batteries are run down? Is that what you’re saying, Mma?’

‘You see, Rra, women have to do so much. They have to run a house. They have to look after children. They have outside jobs to go to as well. Nearly every woman has three or four jobs altogether if you add everything up.’

He understood that. ‘We men often just have one.’

‘That is so, Rra. You men work hard, but it is often only at one job.’ She paused. ‘Not that I’m criticising men, you understand, Rra. It’s just that sometimes it all gets too much for women and it would help a great deal if their husbands could be a little bit more modern.’

‘More modern, Mma?’

She tried to explain. ‘Modern husbands support their wives more. They help around the house. They pay more attention to their wives. They try to look a bit smarter for their wives, too. That helps, you know. If men go around looking very run-down and scruffy, then that is not nice for their wives. A modern husband takes that into account.’

‘Oh.’

‘And there’s another thing,’ said Mma Potokwani, warming to her theme. ‘A modern husband is more sensitive. He knows how his wife is feeling.’

‘I see.’

‘Not that I am looking at you when I say any of this, Rra.’

‘No. That is good.’

‘Except it might be an idea – just an idea, Rra – if you were to think about these things and see how you might become a bit more modern.’

He looked down at the ground. He would not claim to be modern and had never considered whether he might be at fault in that regard. But he had come for Mma Potokwani’s advice, and he knew from his own experience of advising people about their cars that advice, once sought, should be followed if at all possible.

‘I have been reading in the newspaper about a course,’ said Mma Potokwani. ‘It might help if you could go on that.’

‘I have heard of that course,’ he said, guardedly. Mma Ramotswe had told him about it after the woman in the baby supplies shop had mentioned it to her.

‘Do you think you might try it?’ asked Mma Potokwani. ‘If you took that, it could help Mma Ramotswe a lot. She would be very much cheered up by having a modern husband.’

He made up his mind. ‘You’re right, Mma Potokwani. I shall find out about this modern husbands course and go on it. It will make a big difference, I think.’

Mma Potokwani was pleased. ‘If you were able to take my husband too,’ she said with a sigh, ‘that would be very good. But I’m afraid there are some men who are too old-fashioned to benefit from courses like that.’

Mr J. L. B. Matekoni thought this was true. He enquired where the course was held, and Mma Potokwani explained that she believed it was held in the evening in one of the buildings at the university. ‘I’m sure they will find you a place, Rra,’ she said. ‘I have heard that they turn nobody away, not even the most unpromising men. All men can benefit, Rra.’

He went over those words in his mind.
All men can benefit
. It would make a wonderful slogan for anything – even for a beer advertisement. But he stopped this train of thought, as he suspected that modern husbands did not allow themselves to think such things, at least not in public.

I
f Mma Ramotswe had felt at all defeated – and she had, after all, found herself in tears at her desk – then that feeling was a temporary one. It was not in her nature to be morose or to engage in self-pity; she saw these things in others and was always sympathetic to those who felt that the world was in some respect too much for them, but was herself rarely in anything but an equable state of mind. So while the sight of her in a momentary low state was enough to trigger alarm in Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe was, within a matter of minutes, back to normal. Yes, she was missing Mma Makutsi, and yes, it was not easy to run a detective agency by yourself and with nobody to bounce ideas off, but these setbacks were minor irritations compared with the lot of so many other people; and anyway, they were not destined to last. Mma Makutsi had said that she did not intend to take a long maternity leave, and even in the time that she was away Mma Ramotswe could still consult her on any matter on which she needed advice. And she would do that, she decided, over the next day or so: she would visit Mma Makutsi and see what she made of the troublesome case of the young man who claimed to be Liso Molapo and who might or might not be lying.

That thought gave her pause. The young man might be lying – that was certainly possible – but there was another aspect of the situation that had not occurred to her. If Liso was telling the truth, then did that necessarily mean that he was the real Liso Molapo? Or could it be that he was not lying, but still was not the person he said he was? That could be the case if he
believed
himself to be Liso Molapo, having been told that this was who he was, but all the while he was actually somebody else altogether? The possibility was enough to make her head ache, but now it had come to her, she had to think it through.

This, she told herself, was how it might work: eighteen years ago, Edgar Molapo’s brother – the one who lived in Swaziland – has a son, and he and his wife call this boy Liso. Then, in a terrible accident of the sort that is always happening on those mountainous Swazi roads, Liso loses his life. The father, in his misery, takes under his wing the child of one of the women working in his hotel. This woman has more children than she can manage – four or five, perhaps – and the grieving parents informally adopt one of these children and call him by the name they had given to their own son. Liso is replaced by a new Liso, who at the same time is Liso but is not Liso. Edgar, of course, thinks that the child is his nephew, and treats him accordingly. But he is not… or is he? If Edgar thought of him as Liso Molapo, his nephew, then when he made provision for him in his will, he was thinking of that actual child. And if that were so, then why should the young man who was treated as Liso Molapo not benefit from something that was meant for him – as a person, rather than as a name?

It was a possibility, she felt, but only a remote one, and it did not really bring her any closer to a solution. The problem with being a private detective was that people expected you to provide them with a clear-cut answer to their query. Sometimes that could be done, and Mma Ramotswe was able to provide a full account of exactly what happened, but there were many occasions on which that simply was not possible and a more tentative answer was all that could be given – or no answer at all. Some matters remained obstinately unresolved because that was what life was like. Not all the uncertainties we faced were capable of being resolved – there were many strings left untied; there were many events that happened and could not be explained; there were many injustices that remained injustices because we could not find out who had perpetrated them, or who could rectify them. As a child she had believed that wrongs would always be righted, that somehow the world would not let the innocent suffer, but now she realised that this was not true. Old oppressors were replaced by new ones, from another distant place or from right next door. Old lies were replaced by new ones, backed up by old threats. There had been so much suffering in Africa, and nobody had done a great deal to stop it. In some places the suffering continued: through wars fought by child soldiers, crying behind their guns; through famine and disease, quick to take root in the shanty towns that perched on the edge of plenty. People waited for intervention, for rescue, but it never came – or only rarely, and then too late. Contemplating this vast human suffering, you might be tempted to shrug your shoulders, but you could not. You had to try, thought Mma Ramotswe – you had to try to sort things out for others and point them in the direction of the truth that they were so anxious to find.

Now that she had resolved to talk to Mma Makutsi about the Molapos, the decision seemed to relieve her of the anxiety that had been building up around the case. And there were other everyday things to occupy her time and her mind, including the shopping. Men might believe that food appeared miraculously in the kitchen, but women, Mma Ramotswe included, knew better than that. They could hardly forget that there was a lot of trudging around shops to be done, and the choosing of this item rather than that one, which sometimes involved squeezing things to determine ripeness, or sniffing them to gauge freshness. This, she had noticed, was not something that men tended to do; they did not squeeze things in shops.

She decided that she would do some shopping and at the same time collect the mail, a task usually performed by Mma Makutsi. Letters were placed by the post office in serried banks of private boxes, each opened by the owners with small keys entrusted to them by the postal authorities. She could check her box, and the box rented by Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, before going on to the nearby shops. Then, if she felt in the mood – and that morning she thought she did – she could have a cup of coffee at the Equatorial and watch what was happening around the market stalls – which was always something interesting if one enjoyed people-watching, which she did.

Her walk from the post boxes to the supermarket took her directly past the premises of the Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon. As she approached, she saw that Mma Soleti was standing in the doorway, looking out at the concourse. Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She had not come up with any further advice for Mma Soleti and she felt vaguely guilty that she had not been able to offer her more comfort when she had received her threat. But what could she do? It probably really was best to ignore things like that, as the issuer of such a threat wanted a reaction and might lose interest if the victim did nothing. Yet if you were on the receiving end of hatred, inaction might seem a rather weak response. People wanted others to do something; to express their outrage, and not merely to say, as Mma Ramotswe had said, that they should let it be.

She took a deep breath and steeled herself. It would be easy to stick to the other side of the concourse and thus avoid Mma Soleti, but she could not do that. She would do her duty, which was to speak to her and find out whether anything else had happened. If another threat had been sent, then it might provide some clue as to the motives of the sender; or, of course, it might not, and in that case her advice would have to be the same.

The beautician had seen her and beckoned to her from her doorway. Mma Ramotswe waved back and began to make her way over towards the salon. Greetings were exchanged before Mma Soleti said, ‘You should come inside, Mma – it is too hot to stand outside.’

Mma Ramotswe looked up at the sky. ‘The rains will be here any day, Mma. We shall not have to wait long now.’

‘It is still too hot,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘And besides, there is something I need to talk to you about, Mma.’

Mma Ramotswe followed her into the salon. All the devices of Mma Soleti’s trade – the creams and oils, the astringents and the unguents – were laid out neatly on trays, and at the foot of the treatment couch a pristine white towel had been folded and placed ready for use. But there was no sign of any customers.

Mma Ramotswe knew, from experience, how tact was required when one commented on the slow pace of another’s business. And so she chose her words carefully. ‘It’s good to have time to get everything ready, isn’t it, Mma?’ she said. And then added, ‘I’m sure you’ll be busy later on.’

Mma Soleti gestured for her guest to sit down. ‘There have been no clients for three days, Mma. Three days! I have been here every morning at eight to open up. I have stayed until one minute past five each day, and there have been no clients – not one, Mma.’

Mma Ramotswe made a sympathetic clicking sound. She remembered such days in the first months of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency’s existence. She remembered the leaping of the heart when it looked as if somebody might enter the door, a potential client, and then the awful sense of let-down when the passer-by proved to be just that – a passer-by.

‘And it’s not because they don’t need beauty treatments,’ continued Mma Soleti, before adding, with some solemnity, ‘I believe that the need has never been greater.’

Mma Ramotswe puzzled as to the meaning of this last remark. Were people looking worse than before? Had there been some sudden and terrible deterioration in the general standard of looks – a widespread communal sagging of chins and stomachs? Was it something to do with the temperatures being endured in this late part of the hot season – an endemic drying out of skin and a melting of muscle into pools of flab?

Mma Soleti made a frustrated gesture towards her stacks of supplies. ‘What’s the use of all this expensive stuff, Mma, if there is nobody to apply it to?’

‘That is a great pity, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘This beautiful salon and no clients… It is a great shame.’ She paused. ‘Do you think people are holding on to their money? Is it to do with that?’

Mma Soleti was shaking her head vigorously. ‘No, it has nothing to do with money. It is because of the rumours that are being spread.’

‘Rumours about your salon, Mma?’

‘Yes. People are saying some very wicked things about my salon. Would you go to a beauty salon that everybody said bad things about?’

Mma Ramotswe said that no business could survive a whispering campaign. At the back of her mind was a precise example, but what was it? It took a moment or two, but then she remembered. ‘That restaurant,’ she said. ‘The one that everybody used to say was so good. The one that had that very traditionally built chef.’

Mma Soleti looked confused. ‘What has this got to do with restaurants, Mma?’

‘I was thinking of another business that had this problem, Mma. It was a restaurant out on the road to Molepolole. Somebody said that they were serving dogs as beef. They said they were going out at night and catching people’s dogs. The next day the dogs would be on the menu, but not as dogs, of course. Now they were cattle.’

Mma Soleti’s eyes widened. ‘That is a very wicked thing to do,’ she said. ‘I’m glad that I never went to that place.’

Mma Ramotswe found it hard not to laugh. ‘Hold on, Mma,’ she said. ‘You’ve fallen into the same trap as everybody else. You believed a rumour.’

‘But you said —’

‘No, Mma, I said that those poor people whose business collapsed were the victims of a made-up story.’

Mma Soleti wrinkled her nose. ‘I would not like to eat dog,’ she said.

‘Some people like it,’ observed Mma Ramotswe. ‘I would not like to eat dog either, but then you know, some people do.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘Dogs are meant to be our friends, and you shouldn’t eat your friends.’

‘As a general rule, you should not,’ said Mma Ramotswe. She sensed that the conversation was drifting – just as it sometimes did when she was in discussion with Mma Makutsi, who might suddenly start talking about what happened in Bobonong or at the Botswana Secretarial College, or something of that sort, while all the time you were hoping to talk about the matter in hand.

‘What have they been saying about your salon, Mma?’

The question brought pain. ‘It is very unkind,’ said Mma Soleti. ‘And it’s untrue too. They say that I put the wrong cream on somebody and her face came off – actually peeled right off. That is what they have all been saying.’ She waited for the enormity of the defamation to sink in before she continued. ‘Your face can’t peel off, Mma. It isn’t possible. People who know about faces will know that.’

Instinctively, Mma Ramotswe raised a hand to her cheek as if to reassure herself that it was still there. There would be a lot to peel off in her case, not that there was any danger of that ever happening – if Mma Soleti were to be believed.

‘I heard the story from the woman who sells vegetables over on the other side of the road,’ Mma Soleti went on to explain. ‘She said that she heard it from two different people. They both said, “Don’t ever go to that place – there is a woman now who has no face left because of her.” That is what she said, Mma. She said that she was only telling me about it because she thought I should know what people were saying.’

Mma Ramotswe shook her head in disbelief. ‘People can be very foolish,’ she said. ‘They believe everything they hear; they don’t ask themselves whether it can be true.’

‘And then I have a daughter, Mma, as you might know,’ continued Mma Soleti. ‘She came home from school crying. She said that there were girls whispering the same story to each other, looking at her and sniggering. The children said that somebody had found this woman’s face in a bucket. She was very upset.’

‘This is very bad, Mma,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But I don’t think you should leap to any conclusions.’

‘I have not leapt to any conclusions,’ retorted Mma Soleti. ‘All that I am saying is that it is the same person – it is the same person who sent me the feather. That is the person who has started this wicked rumour about my salon.’ She looked at Mma Ramotswe defiantly. ‘There can be no doubt about that, Mma.’

‘That is a conclusion, Mma,’ ventured Mma Ramotswe, thinking of what Clovis Andersen said in the very first chapter of
The Principles of Private Detection
. He wrote:
You wouldn’t leap on to the first bus or train that came along without knowing its destination, would you? Find out the evidence first, examine the possibilities, and then see if you have grounds to draw a conclusion
. It was sound advice – like all the advice that Clovis Andersen offered in his book. What a nice man he was, too, thought Mma Ramotswe nostalgically. And to think that she and Mma Makutsi had actually
met
him, had sat with him drinking tea – a man who had written a
book
had sat talking to them and had been so courteous in his manner. That was what Americans were really like, she reflected. Not some of the Americans you saw on the cinema screens who were always shouting at people and chasing one another in cars – not those Americans, but the Americans like Clovis Andersen who listened politely and spoke without shouting.