Morality for Beautiful Girls

CHAPTER NINE AT THE ORPHAN FARM

THE ORPHAN farm was some twenty minutes’ drive out of town. Mma Ramotswe had been there on several occasions, although not as frequently as Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who paid regular visits to deal with bits and pieces of machinery that seemed always to be going wrong. There was a borehole pump in particular that required his regular attention, and then there was their minibus, the brakes of which constantly needed attention. He never begrudged them his time, and they thought highly of him, as everybody did.

Mma Ramotswe liked Mma Potokwane, to whom she was very distantly connected through her mother’s side of the family. It was not uncommon to be connected to somebody in Botswana, a lesson which foreigners were quick to learn when they realised that if they made a critical remark of somebody they were inevitably speaking to that person’s distant cousin.

Mma Potokwane was standing outside the office, talking to one of the staff, when Mma Ramotswe arrived. She directed the tiny white van to a visitors’ parking place under a shady syringa tree, and then invited her guest inside.

“It is so hot these days, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “But I have a very powerful fan in my office. If I turn it on to its highest setting, it can blow people out of the room. It is a very useful weapon.”

“I hope that you will not do that to me,” said Mma Ramotswe. For a moment she had a vision of herself being blown out of Mma Potokwane’s office, her skirts all about her, up into the sky where she could look down on the trees and the paths and the cattle staring up at her in astonishment.

“Of course not,” said Mma Potokwane. “You’re the sort of visitor I like to receive. The sort I don’t like are interfering people. People who try to tell me how to be the matron of an orphan farm. Sometimes we get these people. People who stick their noses in. They think they know about orphans, but they don’t. The people who know the most about orphans are those ladies out there.” She pointed out of her window, to where two of the housemothers, stout women in blue housecoats, were taking two toddlers for a walk along a path, the tiny hands firmly grasped, the hesitant, wobbly steps gently encouraged.

“Yes,” went on Mma Potokwane. “Those ladies know. They can deal with any sort of child. A very sad child, who cries for its late mother all the time. A very wicked child, who has been taught to steal. A very cheeky child who has not learned to respect its elders and who uses bad words. Those ladies can deal with all those children.”

“They are very good women,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The two orphans whom Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and I took say that they were very happy here. Only yesterday, Motholeli read me a story which she had written at school. The story of her life. She referred to you, Mma.”

“I am glad that she was happy here,” said Mma Potokwane. “She is a very brave girl, that one.” She paused. “But I did not ask you out here to talk about those children, Mma. I wanted to tell you about a very strange thing that has happened here. It is so strange that even the housemothers cannot deal with it. That is why I thought that I would ask you. I was phoning Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to get your number.”

She reached across her desk and poured Mma Ramotswe a cup of tea. Then she cut into a large fruitcake which was on a plate to the side of the tea tray. “This cake is made by our senior girls,” she said. “We train them to cook.”

Mma Ramotswe accepted her large slice of cake and looked at the rich fruit within it. There were at least seven hundred calories in that, she thought, but it did not matter; she was a traditionally built lady and she did not have to worry about such things.

“You know that we take all sorts of children,” continued Mma Potokwane. “Usually they are brought to us when the mother dies and nobody knows who the father is. Often the grandmother cannot cope, because she is too ill or too poor, and then the children have nobody. We get them from the social work people or from the police sometimes. Sometimes they might just be left somewhere and a member of the public gets in touch with us.”

“They are lucky to get here,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Yes. And usually, whatever has happened to them in the past, we have seen something like it before. Nothing shocks us. But every now and then a very unusual case comes in and we don’t know what to do.”

“And there is such a child now?”

“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “After you have finished eating that big piece of cake I will take you and show you a boy who arrived with no name. If they have no name, we always give them one. We find a good Botswana name and they get that. But that is usually only with babies. Older children normally tell us their names. This boy didn’t. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have learned how to speak at all. So we decided to call him Mataila.”

Mma Ramotswe finished her cake and drained the dregs of her tea. Then, together with Mma Potokwane, she walked over to one of the houses at the very edge of the circle of buildings in which the orphans lived. There were beans growing there, and the small yard in front of the door was neatly swept. This was a housemother who knew how to keep a house, thought Mma Ramotswe. And if that was the case, then how could she be defeated by a mere boy?

The housemother, Mma Kerileng, was in the kitchen. Drying her hands on her apron, she greeted Mma Ramotswe warmly and invited the two women into the living room. This was a cheerfully decorated room, with pictures drawn by the children pinned up on a large notice board. A box in one corner was filled with toys.

Mma Kerileng waited until her guests were seated before she lowered herself into one of the bulky armchairs which were arranged around a low central table.

“I have heard of you, Mma,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. “I have seen your picture in the newspaper. And of course I have met Mr J.L.B. Matekoni when he has been out here fixing all the machines that are always breaking. You are a lucky lady to be marrying a man who can fix things. Most husbands just break things.”

Mma Ramotswe inclined her head at the compliment. “He is a good man,” she said. “He is not well at the moment, but I am hoping that he will be better very soon.”

“I hope so too,” said Mma Kerileng. She looked expectantly at Mma Potokwane.

“I wanted Mma Ramotswe to see Mataila,” she said. “She may be able to advise us. How is he today?”

“It is the same as yesterday,” said Mma Kerileng. “And the day before that. There is no change in that boy.”

Mma Potokwane sighed. “It is very sad. Is he sleeping now? Can you open the door?”

“I think that he’s awake,” said the housemother. “Let us see anyway.”

She arose from her chair and led them down a highly polished corridor. Mma Ramotswe noticed, with approval, how clean the house was. She knew how much hard work there would be in this woman; throughout the country there were women who worked and worked and who were rarely given any praise. Politicians claimed the credit for building Botswana, but how dare they? How dare they claim the credit for all the hard work of people like Mma Kerileng, and women like her.

They stopped outside a door at the end of the corridor and Mma Kerileng took a key out of her housecoat pocket.

“I cannot remember when we last locked a child in a room,” she said. “In fact, I think it has never happened before. We have never had to do such a thing.”

The observation seemed to make Mma Potokwane feel uncomfortable. “There is no other way,” she said. “He would run off into the bush.”

“Of course,” said Mma Kerileng. “It just seems very sad.”

She pushed the door open, to reveal a room furnished only with a mattress. There was no glass in the window, which was covered with a large latticework wrought-iron screen of the sort used as burglar bars. Sitting on the mattress, his legs splayed out before him, was a boy of five or six, completely naked.

The boy looked at the women as they entered and for a brief moment Mma Ramotswe saw an expression of fear, of the sort one might see in the eyes of a frightened animal. But this lasted only for a short time before it was replaced by a look of vacancy, or absence.

“Mataila,” said Mma Potokwane, speaking very slowly in Setswana. “Mataila, how are you today? This lady here is called Mma Ramotswe. Ramotswe. Can you see her?”

The boy looked up at Mma Potokwane as she spoke, and his gaze remained with her until she stopped speaking. Then he looked down at the floor again.

“I don’t think he understands,” said Mma Potokwane. “But we speak to him anyway.”

“Have you tried other languages?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwane nodded. “Everything we can think of. We had somebody come out from the Department of African Languages at the university. They tried some of the rarer ones, just in case he had wandered down from Zambia. We tried Herero. We tried San, although he’s obviously not a Mosarwa to look at. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe took a step forward to get a closer look at the boy. He raised his head slightly, but did nothing else. She stepped forward again.

“Be careful,” said Mma Potokwane. “He bites. Not always, but quite often.”

Mma Ramotswe stood still. Biting was a not uncommon method of fighting in Botswana, and it would not be surprising to find a child that bit. There had been a recent case reported in Mmegi of assault by biting. A waiter had bitten a customer after an argument over shortchanging, and this had led to a prosecution in the Lobatse Magistrate’s Court. The waiter had been sentenced to one month’s imprisonment and had immediately bitten the policeman who was leading him off to the cells; a further example, thought Mma Ramotswe, of the shortsightedness of violent people. This second bite had cost him another three months in prison.

Mma Ramotswe looked down at the child.

“Mataila?”

The boy did nothing.

“Mataila?” She stretched out towards the boy, ready to withdraw her hand sharply if necessary.

The boy growled. There was no other word for it, she thought. It was a growl, a low, guttural sound that seemed to come from his chest.

“Did you hear that?” asked Mma Potokwane. “Isn’t that extraordinary? And if you’re wondering why he’s naked, it’s because he ripped up the clothes we gave him. He ripped them with his teeth and threw them down on the ground. We gave him two pairs of shorts, and he did the same thing to both of them.”

Mma Potokwane now moved forward.

“Now, Mataila,” she said. “You get up and come outside. Mma Kerileng will take you out for some fresh air.”

She reached down and took the boy, gingerly, by the arm. His head turned for a moment, and Mma Ramotswe thought that he was about to bite, but he did not and he meekly rose to his feet and allowed himself to be led out of the room.

Outside the house, Mma Kerileng took the boy’s hand and walked with him towards a clump of trees at the edge of the compound. The boy walked with a rather unusual gait, observed Mma Ramotswe, between a run and a walk, as if he might suddenly bound off.

“So that’s our Mataila,” said Mma Potokwane, as they watched the housemother walk off with her charge. “What do you think of that?”

Mma Ramotswe grimaced. “It is very strange. Something terrible must have happened to that child.”

“No doubt,” said Mma Potokwane. “I said that to the doctor who looked at him. He said maybe yes, maybe no. He said that there are some children who are just like that. They keep to themselves and they never learn to talk.”

Mma Ramotswe watched as Mma Kerileng briefly let go of the child’s hand.

“We have to watch him all the time,” said Mma Potokwane. “If we leave him, he runs off into the bush and hides. He went missing for four hours last week. They eventually found him over by the sewerage ponds. He does not seem to know that a naked child running as fast as he can is likely to attract attention.”

Mma Potokwane and Mma Ramotswe began to walk back together towards the office. Mma Ramotswe felt depressed. She wondered how one would make a start with a child like that. It was easy to respond to the needs of appealing orphans—of children such as the two who had come to live in Zebra Drive—but there were so many other children, children who had been damaged in some way or other, and who would need patience and understanding. She contemplated her life, with its lists and its demands, and she wondered how she would ever find the time to be the mother of a child like that. Surely Mma Potokwane could not be planning that she and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni should take this child too? She knew that the matron had a reputation for determination and for not taking no for an answer—which of course made her a powerful advocate for her orphans—but she could not imagine that she would try to impose in this way, for in any view it would be a great imposition to foist this child off on her.

“I am a busy woman,” she started to say, as they neared the office. “I’m sorry, but I cannot take …”

A group of orphans walked past them and greeted the matron politely. They had with them a small, undernourished puppy, which one of them was cradling in her arms; one orphan helps another, thought Mma Ramotswe.

“Be careful with that dog,” warned Mma Potokwane. “I am always telling you that you should not pick up these strays. Will you not listen …”

She turned to Mma Ramotswe. “But Mma Ramotswe! I hope that you did not think … Of course I did not expect you to take that boy! We can barely manage him here, with all our resources.”

“I was worried,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am always prepared to help, but there is a limit to what I can do.”

Mma Potokwane laughed, and touched her guest reassuringly on the forearm. “Of course you are. You are already helping us by taking those two orphans. No, I wanted only to ask your advice. I know that you have a very good reputation for finding missing people. Could you tell us—just tell us—how we might find out about this boy? If we could somehow discover something about his past, about where he came from, we might be able to get through to him.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “It will be too difficult. You would have to talk to people near where he was found. You would have to ask a lot of questions, and I think that people will not want to talk. If they did, they would have said something.”

“You are right about that,” said Mma Potokwane sadly. “The police asked a lot of questions up there, outside Maun. They asked in all the local villages, and nobody knew of a child like that. They showed his photograph and people just said no. They knew nothing of him.”

Mma Ramotswe was not surprised. If anybody wanted the child, then somebody would have said something. The fact that there was a silence probably meant that the child had been deliberately abandoned. And there was always the possibility of some sort of witchcraft with a child like that. If a local spirit doctor had said that the child was possessed, or was a tokolosi, then nothing could be done for him: he was probably fortunate to be alive. Such children often met a quite different fate.

They were now standing beside the tiny white van. The tree had shed a frond on the vehicle’s top, and Mma Ramotswe picked it up. They were so delicate, the leaves of this tree; with their hundreds of tiny leaves attached to the central stem, like the intricate tracing of a spider’s web. Behind them was the sound of children’s voices; a song which Mma Ramotswe remembered from her own childhood, and which made her smile.

She looked into Mma Potokwane’s face; a face which said, in every line and in every expression: I am the matron of an orphan farm.

“They are still singing that song,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwane smiled. “I sing it too. We never forget the songs of our childhood, do we?”

“Tell me,” said Mma Ramotswe. “What did they say about that boy? Did the people who found him say anything?”

Mma Potokwane thought for a moment. “They told the police that they found him in the dark. They said that he was very difficult to control. And they said that he had a strange smell about him.”

“What strange smell?”

Mma Potokwane made a dismissive gesture with a hand. “One of the men said that he smelled of lion. The policeman remembered it because it was such a strange thing to say. He wrote it down in his report, which came to us eventually when the tribal administration people up there sent the boy down to us.”

“Like lion?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “Ridiculous.”

Mma Ramotswe said nothing for a moment. She climbed into the tiny white van and thanked Mma Potokwane for her hospitality.

“I shall think about this boy,” she said. “Maybe I shall be able to come up with an idea.”

They waved to one another as Mma Ramotswe drove down the dusty road, through the orphanage gates, with their large ironwork sign proclaiming: Children live here.

She drove slowly, as there were donkeys and cattle on the road, and the herd boys who looked after them. Some of the herd boys were very young, no more than six or seven, like that poor, silent boy in his little room.

What if a young herd boy got lost, thought Mma Ramotswe. What if he got lost in the bush, far from the cattle post? Would he die? Or might something else happen to him?