Precious and Grace (9 page)

That evening when she went home, Mma Ramotswe found Motholeli and Puso busy with Fanwell's dog. Puso had resurrected an ancient floor brush and was grooming the dog, while his sister had refilled his water bowl and was feeding him scraps of bread spread with beef dripping.

Mma Ramotswe was touched by the sight. There was something particularly appealing, she thought, about children lavishing care on an animal. They were repaying, in a way, the love and care given to them; showing that the message that we should look after one another had not fallen on stony ground. A child who loved a pet was showing the love that would in due course be given to another, and that was a reassurance. Love was like rain; there could be periods of drought when it seemed that love would never return, would never make its presence felt again. In such times, the heart could harden, but then, just as droughts broke, so too could love suddenly appear, and heal just as quickly and completely as rain can heal the parched land.

“Fanwell's dog is very happy here,” said Puso. “Look at him, Mma. He is smiling.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at the dog. Puso was right: its mouth seemed fixed in a wide, gum-revealing grin.

“We should give him a name,” she said. “We cannot call him Fanwell's dog.”

“We could call him Zebra,” said Motholeli. “This is Zebra Drive and he lives here now. Zebra would be a good name for him.”

Puso agreed. “Is that all right with you, Mma?” he asked. “Can we call him Zebra?”

She had been more concerned with Motholeli's saying the dog now lived here. It is too late, she thought; Zebra is no longer temporary—he is permanent.

She left the children and went inside. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had arrived back from the garage a few minutes before her, and had put on the kettle.

“You go and sit on the verandah, Mma,” he said. “I will bring you your tea. We can talk there.”

She imagined that he would want to talk about Zebra, and about the dog's precise status. She rehearsed in her mind what she would say.
Permanent.
Perhaps that single-word answer would be best. Or she might say, “The children have decided the matter for us.” That had the merit of truth, but it seemed, in a way, to be transferring responsibility for the decision to them rather than accepting it herself. Perhaps she might say, “What alternative do we have?” And then she would wait to see if he could come up with something, which she doubted he would be able to do.

She need not have worried.

“That dog seems to have settled quite well,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni as he took his first sip of tea. “He'll be a useful guard dog.”

“Yes,” she said. She had not anticipated he would be that accepting. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni liked dogs well enough, but had expressed concern about the responsibility of keeping one. But then there had been a spate of break-ins recently—small thefts of garden tools and the like, but it was enough for him to be concerned. Cautiously, she asked, “You don't mind, do you?”

He shrugged. “Not really—these break-ins, you see…It's the one thing that will deter a burglar. You can build fences as high as you like, you can put big locks on your gates, but it is always dogs that look after your property.”

She looked into her teacup. There had been a time when locks had been virtually unknown in Botswana, when you could leave your possessions anywhere with the confidence that they would be there when you returned, when there was no point in stealing because people would see you with some item that they knew you did not own and would draw their own conclusions. That had changed, at least in the towns; it was different in the country, where the old ways still prevailed.

What would her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, make of high, locked gates? She gazed out into the yard; dusk was settling on the town, covering the trees and buildings with its gentle, cooling mantle; there was the smell of wood-smoke, of cooking somewhere. She could hear his voice:
What are these gates for, Precious? Why do these people want to close themselves off from their brothers and their sisters?
It would be hard to explain that people no longer thought of others as their brothers and sisters, although she did; she would never abandon the presumption that we were bound one to another in that way.

She moved on from the subject of the dog. She had been thinking of Mr. Polopetsi and his scheme. It seemed to her that everybody to whom she had spoken knew about it and that she was the only one who had not been approached. Had Mr. Polopetsi also confided in Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?

“Mr. Polopetsi, Rra,” she began.

He laughed. “Mr. Twenty-Five Per Cent, you mean.”

For a moment she was unable to say anything.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “He will have spoken to you about it, Mma?”

She shook her head. “No, Rra. It looks as if he's spoken to everybody else, though.”

She wondered whether Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had invested anything. Surely he would have told her about it—they kept most of their money in a joint account, but they both had separate savings accounts for the occasional individual treat. She did not think, though, that his savings account had more than a couple of thousand pula in it at present; there had been the new roof for the garage and a needy aunt up in Francistown—these were exactly the sorts of things that drained a bank account.

“You didn't…”

His laughter cut her short. “Invest in Mr. Polopetsi's great scheme? Certainly not. To begin with, he actually asked for ten thousand pula, Mma. Ten thousand pula? We don't have that at the moment and, if we did, I'm afraid I would never entrust it to Polopetsi Enterprises, or whatever it's called.”

“The Fat Cattle Club,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That's what he calls it.”

“Fat Cattle indeed,” muttered Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Does Mr. Polopetsi know anything about cattle? I know that he's very good at chemistry, but cattle…” He paused. “The trouble, Mma Ramotswe, is that everybody in this country thinks that he or she is a big cattle expert. Speak to anybody and they'll start going on about cattle. They'll tell you what's best for cattle; they'll explain to you all about the different sorts of salt licks; they'll talk for ages about breeding and horns and diseases that cattle get in their hooves, and ticks too…There's no limit to the knowledge that people have about cattle, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe knew what he meant. Cattle were at the heart of Botswana society, the ultimate unit of wealth, the form of property that people appreciated above all else. It did not matter if you had money in the bank; what really counted was the cattle, and many people measured themselves, and others, by how many they had. People were odd about cattle.

“Well,” she said, “he's already made his own twenty-five per cent. He told Mma Potokwane about it.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. “I don't believe it, Mma. Fattening cattle at the moment is a loss-making business—look at the price of feed. I had that man from Molepolole in the garage the other day. He deals in animal feeds, and he says that farmers are finding it difficult to pay him these days. He asked me for credit because his truck repair was going to be so expensive…A new differential, new suspension, and other things too.” He shook his head at the litany of cost. “An engine is not a cheap thing, Mma.” She had heard him say that so often—sometimes to his garage clients, as he broke bad news; sometimes to her; sometimes to friends. He spoke from experience, but always with sympathy.

“No, Rra, you are right: an engine is not a cheap thing.” Nothing was cheap, she thought—even the things that were said to be free. Love itself was not cheap—it came with a price tag of its own, a price tag that, at the extreme end, was a broken heart. Freedom was not cheap—its price tag was watchfulness and courage. Even fresh air, the air we breathed each day, had its price tag, it seemed—one we were only now beginning to understand and was all about not destroying the things that gave us that fresh air—the trees, the greenery.

She looked at him; she knew that she did not have to ask whether he agreed to give credit. He always did. “You helped him, Rra, I suppose.”

“Yes. How could I not?”

“No, you had to help him.” She frowned. “I am worried about Mr. Polopetsi, Rra. I'm afraid that he's going to end up in…” She had been going to say “in difficulty,” but Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni said “in prison.”

And that made her reach her decision. Her already lengthy list of things to do had just grown by one item:
Speak to Mr. Polopetsi.

C
HARLIE CAME BACK
from the funeral in his grandfather's village the following morning. He was full of village news—the sorts of stories that always emanated from such places: whose house had been attacked by termites; who had married whom; who had gone off to Lobatse and who had come back, and why. Mma Ramotswe listened patiently. She knew the appeal of such matters, and she was pleased that Charlie, belonging as he did to a generation brought up outside the villages, should be enthusiastic about what happened in such places. This was the spirit of the country being passed on—it was as simple, and important, as that. But there was business to be done, and she gently reminded him of that.

“Very interesting, Charlie,” she said. “But we have work to do. We have a pressing case: a foreign client.”

Charlie's attention was immediately engaged. “I am ready, Mma Ramotswe. I am fresh and ready to go. Whatever needs to be done—I am the one, Mma. Tell me, Mma.”

He sat before her in the client's chair, leaning forward eagerly to hear every detail. She told him about Susan's visit and the account she had given of her childhood in Botswana. Charlie nodded as she spoke; he understood.

“There are many people like that,” he said. “They come to Botswana and they fall in love—not with a person, Mma, but with a country. They like this place very much.”

“She was born here, of course.”

“Yes,” said Charlie. “That is different. But it is also the same.”

She did not press him on the distinction, but continued by telling him of Susan's specific requests. “These are not the usual sorts of things a detective agency has to look into, Charlie.”

Charlie grinned. “No, Mma, this is not about bad husbands, or wives who become too friendly with other men. It is not that sort of thing.”

From behind him, Mma Makutsi, who had been busy filing, joined in. “There is more to our work than that, Charlie.” She paused amidst a shuffling of paper. “Even if that's the only sort of thing that some people seem to think about.”

Mma Ramotswe's expression told Charlie that she did not want him to engage with Mma Makutsi. He closed his eyes briefly, as if struggling with something. “Go on, Mma. Tell me more.”

She reached for the envelope into which she had slipped Susan's photograph. “There is this,” she said, laying it on the desk between them. “This is the photo of Mma Susan as a small girl. This lady is her nursemaid.”

Charlie leaned over to examine the picture. “Then we can find her,” he said quickly. “We will show people this photo and say: ‘Who is this lady?' ”

He sat back, looking at Mma Ramotswe with the satisfaction of one who has made a brilliant suggestion. From behind him, though, came Mma Makutsi's voice.

“Done. Already done.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Mma Makutsi arranged an interview with her friend at the
Botswana Daily News.
”

“And it will be in today's edition,” said Mma Makutsi. “Phuti is going to buy a copy a bit later and drop it round.”

Charlie looked crestfallen. Mma Ramotswe gave him a glance that conveyed a complicated message, the gist of which was that for all sorts of reasons he should congratulate Mma Makutsi on her fast footwork. Charlie, for all his young man's impetuosity, was good at interpreting looks, and he complied.

“That is very good, Mma Makutsi,” he said. “That will bring very good results—I'm sure of it.”

Mma Makutsi basked in the compliment. “Thank you, Charlie. I hope so.” She paused, before adding, “And I am sure that you'll be able to find that house. You're good at those things, I think.”

There, thought Mma Ramotswe. There. A kind word, a word of encouragement or admiration, could shift the heaviest, most recalcitrant baggage.

“That photograph,” she continued, “shows a bit of the house, as you'll see. There is its verandah, with its fly gauze, you see, and there are the drainpipes round the side leading to a water tank.”

Charlie looked at the photo again. “That is one of those BHC houses,” he said.

“It was built in the late nineteen-sixties or the early nineteen-seventies, then,” said Mma Ramotswe. The Botswana Housing Commission had done much of the building of Gaborone after independence in 1966, using designs that were common in early post-colonial Africa. These houses were for the new class of senior civil servants, local or expatriate, who guided the new state through its early years. They were also for the engineers and doctors, and others who brought their skills to the task of making a country out of a large slice of land that had, for the most part, lain relatively untouched.

“So it would have been over near the old Mall,” said Charlie. “Or the Village.”

The Village was the area that lay just across the Tlokweng Road from the agency's office. Mma Ramotswe drove through it every day on her way to Zebra Drive and if the house were there, then she would expect to find it quickly. The problem, though, was that many of those earlier houses had been knocked down to make way for newer buildings—for blocks of flats in some cases, or for more prosperous homes. A number of the BHC houses remained, though, and with luck this would be one of them.

“If it's further in,” said Charlie, “then there's less chance of it still being there. Those new parts of the hospital have taken up lots of land and those new flats too, the ones on Nyerere Drive, must have been built over places like that.”

“That's right.”

He looked puzzled. “Doesn't she remember roughly where it was? She would have known where the airstrip was in those days. She would have seen the planes. Was it near there?”

“She thinks it was not far from the university,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But she can't be sure which side of the university. She says that when she drove round the other day everything seemed to have shifted.”

“There are many new roads,” said Charlie. “New roads can make a place look very different.”

“So we start from scratch,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We go down every road. Unless…” She looked at the photograph once more. “Unless there's something here that we're missing.”

“You mean some clue, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe picked up the photograph and scrutinised it. “What have we got? The lady herself? There's nothing in her clothing that tells us anything.”

Charlie, who had now left his chair to peer over her shoulder, agreed. “Nothing. Just ordinary clothes.”

“And the verandah,” continued Mma Ramotswe. “Nothing there either. Just those fly screens.”

Mma Ramotswe transferred her attention to the small area of yard that appeared in the photograph. There were aloes round the side of the verandah and then, in the background, the spreading branches of a large tree. Such trees were common in gardens in the older parts of town; where new building had been erected, they were sparser.

“What sort of tree is that?” asked Charlie, touching the photograph with a forefinger.

Mma Ramotswe saw that the leaves were just distinguishable. “Jacaranda,” she said.

“There are lots of those,” said Charlie.

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I'm afraid so,” she said. “So we shall have to start driving round and round.”

“I am very good at that, Mma. I can drive your van for you, if you like.”

Mma Ramotswe hesitated. She normally drove herself, but she knew how much Charlie liked driving. He had no car of his own, of course, and so his only opportunities to drive had come with his work in the garage—now brought to an end for financial reasons—or his work with the agency.

“Will you drive slowly?” she asked. “I know what you young men like to do.”

“I will drive at walking pace, Mma. Slow, slow. We will be overtaken by bicycles.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Perhaps not that slowly,” she said. “All I ask is that you stick to the speed limits.”

“I always do, Mma.”

She looked at him incredulously, but he held her gaze.

“Right, Charlie,” she said, rising from her chair. “Off we go. The investigation begins.”

“And I think it will be over very soon,” said Charlie. “We will find this place, Mma. I have a feeling.”

Mma Ramotswe was about to warn him about trusting feelings, but then she remembered two things. The first was that Clovis Andersen said that there were circumstances in which feelings were a useful pointer to certain information that could not be obtained through proper investigation, and the second, perhaps more persuasive, thing was that she herself trusted her feelings all the time. So instead of challenging Charlie's hunch, she simply said, “Well, we'll see,” which was incontrovertibly true, whichever way one looked at things.

They set off in the white van, with Charlie driving in an exaggeratedly careful manner, slowing down at intersections to allow for thorough assessment of any approaching vehicles, frequently looking into the driver's mirror to check for overtaking cars, and every so often glancing at Mma Ramotswe beside him to satisfy himself that she had noticed his caution.

Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile. “There's such a thing as being overcautious, Charlie,” she said after a while. “A driver who goes too slowly can cause as many accidents as a driver who goes too fast, you know.”

“I'm doing my best, Mma,” he muttered.

“So you are, Charlie,” she said, reaching out to touch him lightly on the shoulder. “You're a very thoughtful person, Rra.”

Charlie beamed with delight. “You know, Mma Ramotswe, I'm not sure that I've said thank you to you—or said thank you enough. You are my mother, Mma. You are the lady who has saved everything for me. I will be your number one, big-time fan for my whole life, Mma—right up to the time that you become late.”

“That is very reassuring, Charlie. I hope that I do not become late too soon.”

He gasped. “Oh, I would not want that, Mma. I hope that you live to just over one hundred years. Maybe one hundred and one—something like that.”

She had known several centenarians, and they had struck her as markedly content. One lived just outside Mochudi, and could be seen every morning, sitting in front of her daughter's house, enjoying the sun, still exchanging good-natured banter with passers-by. Another was a man who had served in the Second World War with the troops who had gone from the Bechuanaland Protectorate, as Botswana then was, to serve alongside the British in Italy, who had done so without question and without complaint, out of loyalty that today some might find naïve or misplaced, but had been for them something not to be questioned. People forgot about them, the African troops who had contributed to the defeat of evil, and that seemed to her to be so unjust, but then where would one end if one started to compose a list of the wrongs that this world had seen? Better perhaps, thought Mma Ramotswe, to make a list of those things that were right with the world, of people who had made life better for other people, or who had done what they had been called to do with honour and without complaint. Her list would start with the late Seretse Khama and would include Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu and Queen Elizabeth and President Carter, whom Mma Ramotswe had always admired. Then there was David Livingstone, and Moffat, his father-in-law, who had been such a friend of the Batswana and their language, and Mr. Gandhi…There were so many of these people, and one day she would update her list and see what new names should be added to it.

“I'm not sure that I'll live to one hundred,” she said. “But if I do, you'll be over eighty, Charlie.”

Charlie whistled. “I can't see myself being that old, Mma.”

“Neither can I, Charlie.” But for a moment she saw him in her mind's eye, an eighty-year-old, relying on a walking stick, chasing an elderly woman along a road, amorous to the last.

“Why are you smiling, Mma?” Charlie asked.