The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (25 page)

Mma Ramotswe explained about the fostering of Puso and Motholeli. “I am their mother now,” she said. “Their own mother is late.” She paused. “And I have a late baby, Mma. It is a long time ago now.”

“But it is never long ago when that happens,” said Pelenomi. “I have a late child too, Mma. Mpho had a sister. She was never well. God took her back.”

There was a silence—a moment of shared loss. Then Pelenomi asked why Mma Ramotswe had come to see her. “It is something to do with that cattle business?” she asked.

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “It is very difficult, Mma. I am not sure how to talk to you about this.”

They were standing outside the entrance to her single-roomed servants’ quarters—not much more than a whitewashed shack. Pelenomi now invited Mma Ramotswe inside and sat down—with the natural grace of one accustomed to sitting on the floor. Mma Ramotswe lowered herself to the ground. One should not forget how to sit on the floor, she thought—never, no matter what happened in one’s life, no matter where one’s life journey took one. A president, she believed, should be able to sit on the floor with as much ease as the humblest herdsman.

“What have you found, Mma?” asked Pelenomi.

“I was at the school, Mma.”

Pelenomi stiffened. “At the school? Why?”

“I wanted to speak to Mpho. I didn’t want adults to be around him when we spoke. I’m sorry, Mma, I didn’t ask your permission—I hope you don’t mind. I thought he was a witness, you see.”

“He did not see anything. He is just a boy.”

Mma Ramotswe said nothing for a moment. Then she said, “He told me that he did it, Mma.”

There was no mistaking Pelenomi’s surprise. “Mpho told you that, Mma? Oh, that is just a child speaking, Mma. A child says the first thing that comes into his mind. You should not listen to a child. My son did not do anything, Mma. Nothing.”

Her voice had risen towards the end of this, as her indignation grew. It was as Mma Ramotswe had imagined—the loyal mother refusing to accept that her son could have done something like that. But what was said next was less than expected.

“No, it is not my son, Mma. It is … it is another person altogether.” She paused. “I know who it is, Mma. I know.”

Mma Ramotswe watched her carefully. This woman was not lying.

“Who then, Mma? Mr. Fortitude Seleo?”

Pelenomi’s lip curled. “Not that man. He could not do a thing like that. He is too busy walking around smiling at people.”

There was bitterness in this last remark.

“That is better than scowling at them, I think, Mma. But that is neither here nor there. If it is not Seleo, then who is it?”

“It is another man altogether. I cannot name him, Mma. I’m sorry.”

“But why did Mpho say that it was him? I saw his face when he told me, Mma. I could tell that he was very upset. A child does not make these things up.”

The answer came quickly.
“Because he thought it was me, Mma. He thought that his mother had done it. He was frightened for his mother. That is why he told you it was him. A child does not want his mother to go to prison.”

“Why did he think it was you?”

“Because he saw something. And I told him. I had to tell him something.”

“What did he see?”

Pelenomi was now becoming flustered, and was clearly regretting allowing herself to be pushed into a corner by Mma Ramotswe’s questions. “There are some things that children see …”

“What did he see, Mma?”

“He saw some blood. He saw a handkerchief with blood on it.”

A small insect moved slowly across the floor, a spider perhaps, making Mma Ramotswe move her legs slightly. Pelenomi watched the movement.

“I keep this house clean, Mma,” she muttered.

“I’m sure you do. There are ants everywhere. It is not your fault. But what about this handkerchief, Mma?”

The misery came through Pelenomi’s voice. “It was the handkerchief of the man who had done that thing to the cattle. He was in this house after he had done it. Mpho was asleep—he never wakes up. He saw the cloth in the morning.”

“And he thought it was yours?”

Pelenomi nodded. “I told him it was mine. I told him that Moeti had done some bad thing to me and that I had taken my revenge on his cattle. That is why he lied to protect me.”

Unless,
thought Mma Ramotswe,
you are lying to protect him.

There was a knock on the door, a voice muttering
Ko! Ko!

Pelenomi looked up in alarm and began to scramble to her feet.
Moeti?
wondered Mma Ramotswe. The door opened before she could reach it and a man stepped into the room. He stood for a moment, confused by the unexpected presence. It was not Moeti. Oreeditse Modise, the teacher at the school.

He’d come in with the confidence of one entering the house of his lover. And that, Mma Ramotswe decided at that moment, was
exactly what he was. She did not have to think about it: the dwarf was the lover of Mpho’s mother. And more than that: he was the man who had attacked the cattle. Of course he was; why else had he and his secretary exclaimed their outrage over the incident with such forcefulness? That had been an act: he was the perpetrator, and the secretary must somehow have come into that information. But why had he done it? Pelenomi had given a clue to that in saying that she had made up a story about her being a victim of Moeti. Well, she had not made it up; she was. And Modise had avenged her in the way they knew would cause maximum distress to Moeti.

They looked at each other wordlessly. Then Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and dusted off her skirt. “I mustn’t stay, Mma,” she said. “Now that you have another visitor.”

The teacher was staring at her. She met his gaze.

“I have been looking into this cattle problem,” Mma Ramotswe said quietly. “Now I must go. But there are a few questions I would like an answer to. Please think carefully before you give me your reply.”

Pelenomi and Modise exchanged glances. Then Modise nodded. “What are these questions, Mma?”

“My questions,” began Mma Ramotswe, “are these ones, Rra. Would I be right in thinking that this very bad thing that has happened here will not happen again? Would I be right in thinking that if I were to tell Moeti that everything is over, that not one more of his cattle will suffer, then there would be no more of this sort of thing happening? Would I be right in thinking that the person who did this would realise that I could go to the police if I wanted to and insist that they sorted it all out? Would that person—whoever he might be—also understand that there is no excuse for settling one wrong with another?”

There was a further exchange of glances between Modise and
Pelenomi. Then he spoke: “I think you would be right, Mma. I am sure of it.”

“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then that is the end of that, I think.”

SHE LEFT THE VAN
where it was and walked over to the Moeti farmhouse. She found him in his living room, listening to the Radio Botswana news. He greeted her cheerfully and offered her a cold beer, which she declined.

“I hoped that you might have celebrated with me, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “But I can drink your beer too! A bigger celebration for me.”

She was puzzled. “Celebrating, Rra?”

“Yes. Celebrating your solving the issue of my poor cattle.” He reached for a beer from a tray on his side table. “Here goes, Mma Ramotswe. Here’s to the top detective who sorts everything out one hundred per cent. Here’s to you!”

“You are happy, Rra?” she said lamely.

“Happy? Yes, of course I am. Seleo came to see me. Not to complain this time but to tell me that he had arranged for the fencing work to start on Tuesday. So no more trespassing by his cattle. But he did something else—to make up for all my inconvenience. He has given me six months’ supply of cattle-lick for my cattle.”

Mma Ramotswe was at a loss as to what to say.

“I think what happened was that you must have put the fear of God into him, Mma. Once he realised that the country’s top detective was on to him, he must have caved in and decided to apologise. And there’s another thing, Mma. He gave me the cash value of the cattle he did that terrible thing to. A good price. So I am happy now to say that it is all over. We can be good neighbours again. That is the Botswana way, and that is what I want.”

Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling. She had no idea what to make of this, but she knew that whichever way one looked at it, this was an entirely satisfactory outcome. She might not be completely certain who carried out the attack on the cattle, but the issue was well and truly put to bed. It was not Mpho, she thought; and although until a few moments ago she had thought it was the teacher, that conclusion had now been called into question. Pelenomi had effectively blamed Modise, but if he had done it, why had Seleo acted as he had? She had advised him to make some sort of friendly approach to Moeti and to give him a gift of cattle-lick. He had then gone further than that—much further—and had more or less acknowledged his guilt by compensating his neighbour for the loss of his cattle. Why would he do that? Unless, of course, he was trying to protect the real culprit—the teacher? But what possible reason could he have to do that?

She continued to stare up at the ceiling. Perhaps everybody is lying, she thought. And as she thought this, she remembered a passage from Clovis Andersen.
There are some cases where everybody tells lies,
he wrote.
In these cases you will never know the truth. The more you try to find out what happened, the more lies you uncover. My advice is: do not lose sleep over such matters. Move on, ladies and gentlemen: move on.

She continued to think about it as she drove home. She was now inclined to acquit Mr. Seleo, who was exactly as the security guard had described him. He was a good man who had decided to see whether a generous approach to his neighbour would heal their rift. And it had. No, it was not him. It was the teacher, then—the jealous lover who resented the way Mr. Moeti had treated the woman he loved. Or—and she kept coming back to this possibility—it really had been Mpho, that poor little boy who was desperate for attention and filled with anger at the man who had harmed his mother in some unspoken way. And the mother had then so
engineered things that Mma Ramotswe would think it was the teacher, in order to cover for her son … or for herself.

These questions occupied her mind all the way back to Gaborone. She was sure that it was one of the three: Mpho, his mother, or the teacher. The mother had been genuinely surprised at Mpho’s confession, and that pointed to his innocence. If it was not the boy, then, it was the mother, or the teacher. Of the two, she favoured the teacher as the culprit; the attack itself did not seem to be the work of a woman. She was not sure why she felt that; she just did. A woman knows what another woman will do, she thought.

But then, as she reached the edge of the city, she suddenly smiled and said to herself: “Does it really matter? The milk is spilled. It will not be spilled again.” There would be no further attacks—that was clear, and the damage had been set right by one who was not responsible for it. All that was lacking was the punishment of the one responsible. But punishment often did not do what we wanted it to do. If the teacher were to be denounced, he could lose his job and then Mpho and his mother could lose the man who was their one chance of something better. There was no reason for her to bring that about.

This thought of milk brought tea to her mind. She needed tea—a large cup of it—and that was what she would make when she returned home to Zebra Drive. She would say to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni: “A dreadfully difficult case, Rra, all sorted out now. But don’t ask me to explain how it worked out, Rra. There are some things that are just too hard to explain, and I think that this is one of them.”

Perhaps she would say that. Perhaps. But she was not sure whether she would
think
that, as she was now reaching a firmer conclusion. The teacher did it. It
was
him. Yes, definitely. Or perhaps …

 
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
 
 SHE CRIED FOR JOY

W
HEN HE READ ALOUD
the wedding invitation Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had said, “At long last the elder Mr. Radiphuti and the late Mrs. Radiphuti have pleasure in inviting you to the wedding of their beloved Phuti Edgar Radiphuti, to Grace Makutsi, Dip. Sec. RSVP.”

He had corrected himself immediately. “It doesn’t actually say
at long last,
Mma Ramotswe. That was me. It just says
The elder Mr. Radiphuti,
and so on.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I see that the invitation is also from the late mother,” she said. “I’m not sure whether that wording is quite right, but that does not matter. The important thing is, as you say, that at long last those two are getting married.” She also had some doubt about putting RSVP so close to Dip. Sec. as some people—perhaps some of the older country guests—might interpret RSVP as a qualification and wonder what it was.

These were little things, though, as Mma Ramotswe pointed out. What counted was that on that particular Saturday, Mma Makutsi was to become Mrs. Phuti Radiphuti; that the weather was behaving itself, with no unexpected storm to disrupt proceedings
; that the bus bringing the Makutsi guests down from Bobonong had made the journey with no greater disaster than a flat tyre just outside Mahalapye; and that all the arrangements for the wedding feast had gone as smoothly as could possibly be hoped for.