Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THERE ARE ALWAYS RED HERRINGS

MMA RAMOTSWE knew that she would worry about Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni no matter how hard she tried not to. Concern for those whom one loved was an inescapable feature of this life- and it was impossible to imagine a world without such concern. But she did wish that he would not come home from Lobatse so late; that he would put his foot down and refuse to work beyond, say, five o'clock, which would mean that he would be back by half past six, well in time for his dinner, and she would not have to sit there and imagine what might have happened to him on the road home. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would not change, though, and if a friend needed him to work late, then he would always do it.

When she got back to the office that day, she had not only paid a visit to Harry Moloso's scrapyard, but, having dropped Fanwell at the garage, she had gone on to interview one of the names on the list. This was the newest member of the team, the physical education teacher. The interview had left her none the wiser, and she was keen to hear what Mma Makutsi had discovered in her conversation with Oteng Bolelang. She felt that this investigation was not going to get anywhere, and she needed to talk to Mma Makutsi about it. Her assistant had expressed doubts-and perhaps these were better placed than she had imagined.

The solution to both the anxiety and the need to discuss the case was neatly provided by an invitation to dinner.

“I am going to be eating by myself this evening,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The children are both staying with friends tonight- they like to do that, you know. They like to sleep over at their friends' houses. I think that they like to try different beds!”

“I remember that as a child,” Mma Makutsi said. “I had a friend whose house was better than ours. I always liked going to sleep there. The food was better too.”

“Everybody else's food always is,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Especially when you are a child. Everybody else always has a better life than your own. Their parents are nicer. Their house has more comfortable furniture. And so on.”

Mma Makutsi nodded. In her case, of course, everybody else's house really had been better, as the Makutsis did not have much money and this meant their home contained very little furniture. Now, of course, it was different; she had her salary and the money which Phuti gave her. And when she married-if that ever happened-then she would be even more comfortable. Perhaps Mma Ramotswe could come and sleep at her house then. They would have a large guest room with a big double bed and red curtains and…

“I wonder if you would like to eat with me tonight,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I could make some nice stew, and we could talk. You could bring Phuti if you wanted.”

“He cannot come,” said Mma Makutsi quickly-rather too quickly? Mma Ramotswe asked herself-”but I would like that very much.” She was pleased to receive this invitation from Mma Ramotswe, as there was now no food at all left in the house. Yesterday the choice had been between shoes and groceries, and she had chosen shoes. As a consequence Phuti had enjoyed a very frugal meal-”Is there going to be a main course?” he had asked at the end, and she had been obliged to report that the kitchen cupboard was bare. “I almost bought more food,” she said, “but…” The but presaged a story of temptation and fall- a shoe story, in fact-but Phuti had not pressed her and the tale remained untold.

The two women agreed on a time and Mma Ramotswe dropped in at the supermarket on the way home to make sure that she had the necessary supplies. She knew what Mma Makutsi's favourites were, and she would make sure these were on the menu. Mma Makutsi liked chicken, especially if it was smothered in garlic, and she enjoyed ice cream served with tinned South African pears. Mma Ramotswe did not particularly like either of these-certainly she avoided garlic and she found that the slightly grainy texture of pears set her teeth on edge. But she would provide both for Mma Makutsi's sake.

Mma Makutsi arrived at the house early. She had been invited for six o'clock, and arrived at ten to six. “It is always polite to arrive early,” she said. “I have read that ten minutes is about right.”

Mma Ramotswe looked doubtful. She read the same magazines as did Mma Makutsi, and she was sure that the advice she had seen was the direct opposite of what Mma Makutsi had just claimed. She would have to be careful, though, as Mma Makutsi did not always welcome contradiction or correction. In fact, she never welcomed either of these.

“I am not sure,” said Mma Ramotswe as she ushered her visitor into the kitchen. “Are you certain that it's not, perhaps, a little bit the other way round? I'm not sure, of course, Mma. But why would they tell you to arrive early?”

“Because it's polite,” said Mma Makutsi. “That is why, Mma. There are some things that are polite, and there are some things that are rude. It is polite to arrive ten minutes early.”

Mma Ramotswe pursed her lips. Mma Makutsi might be a person of firm views, and she might be somebody whom one would normally treat with great care, being slightly given to explosive reactions, but was it right to allow her to go through life believing something so clearly misguided as this? Mma Ramotswe thought not.

“Well, Mma, perhaps we should just think about it a bit.”

“No need,” said Mma Makutsi firmly, lowering herself onto a chair at the kitchen table. “The rules of good behaviour are firm, Mma, as you well know. We know that it is wrong to take a present with one hand-we know that. It is just there, that rule, at least in Botswana. There may be countries where they have not heard of this-I know that-but I am not talking about such places. I am talking about Botswana. We cannot question these things.”

Mma Ramotswe took a pan down from the shelf. “Yes,” she said. “You are right, Mma, about these things. I would never say that you are wrong.”

“Good,” said Mma Makutsi.

“But at the same time,” Mma Ramotswe went on, “it is possible to look at these rules and see what lies behind them. That tells us why they exist. The reason for the rule against taking a present with one hand is that it looks as if you don't really appreciate the present-that you can only be bothered to use one hand to take it. That is why that one is there.”

Mma Makutsi was silent.

Mma Ramotswe took the opportunity to continue. “And the rule about calling out Ko, ko before you go into a person's house is also there for a reason. If you do not call out in that way, then you may find the person who lives in the house without their clothes on or busy with something else. You never know what you will see in another person's house.”

Again Mma Makutsi said nothing. Emboldened, Mma Ramotswe moved on to the subject of arriving early. “Now, if we think about the rule as to when you should arrive…”

Mma Makutsi broke her silence. She spoke loudly-and in a tone of authority. “That rule says ten minutes early, Mma Ramotswe. That is what it says.”

“But let us look at that, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Why should you arrive ten minutes early?”

“Because of the rule.”

“No. What is the reason behind the rule, Mma? If you arrive ten minutes early, then do you not think that it might be awkward for the person you're going to see? Not always, of course, but sometimes.”

“No,” said Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe tried again. “You see, that person may not have finished cooking… She may have to look for a saucepan, or something like that. She may have to get things out of the fridge…” She made her way towards the fridge and took out the pieces of chicken she had set aside for their dinner.

Mma Makutsi looked unconvinced. “I still think that it is better to be early, Mma. And that is why the rule is: always arrive ten minutes early.”

Mma Ramotswe decided that this was not an argument she could win. She would have to wait until the matter came up again in print-only then would it be possible to present Mma Makutsi with evidence capable of persuading her that she was wrong.

“Well, maybe there are two views on this,” Mma Ramotswe suggested mildly.

Mma Makutsi nodded vigorously. “Yes. A right one and a wrong one, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe turned away to hide a smile. She had to admire Mma Makutsi; so many people these days had no idea of what they believed and were quite happy to bend with whatever wind was blowing. Mma Makutsi was not like that.

She changed the subject. “We need to talk about the Molofololo case,” she said. “I have to get this chicken on the stove, but we can talk while I am cooking.”

“And I can help you,” offered Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe gave her assistant the task of peeling the potatoes while she relayed to her what she had learned at Big Man Tafa's house.

“So far,” she began, “we know this: Big Man Tafa, the goalkeeper, wants to be captain. He thinks that Rops is past his best and should retire…”

“To the cattle post,” interjected Mma Makutsi.

“Yes, that is what his wife said. But there is more.”

Mma Makutsi, having peeled the first potato, held it up against the light. “They must have talked a lot, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe explained that she had also talked to an informant on the street. “I learned that Big Man Tafa does not like Mr. Molofololo. He said that he is always interfering. And then I learned that Big Man owes money. At least ten thousand pula.”

Mma Makutsi made her disapproval clear. “Ten thousand pula! That is a lot, Mma. That gives him a very powerful motive, don't you think?”

Mma Ramotswe agreed, but pointed out that the person with the most obvious motive by no means always acts upon it. Motives, she reminded Mma Makutsi, could be what Clovis Andersen described as red herrings. She remembered the very passage, which she quoted to Mma Makutsi. Always remember that life is never what we think it will be. There are always red herrings and their job is to mislead you. Never forget that!

“So you don't think that it's Big Man Tafa?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe looked thoughtful. “No, I do not think it's him, Mma. There are many reasons for it to be him, but I do not think it is.”

“Why not?”

“Because he doesn't smell guilty,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You know how it is, Mma? Your nose tells you a lot of things. We must listen to our noses.” She was silent for a moment, again weighing Big Man in the balance. No, it was not him. “No, Mma, Big Man is full of ambition, and he does not like Rops very much. But when I suggested to him that somebody was throwing matches away, I could tell that he was genuinely shocked. The nose, you see.”

Mma Makutsi found her eyes drawn inexorably to her employer's nose. It was not an exceptional nose in any way, and she wondered why it should have a greater ability than any other nose in this respect. But she thought that Mma Ramotswe was right; noses were useful and they did tell us a lot.

“And the teacher?” she asked. “What did your nose say about him?”

Mma Ramotswe tapped the side of her nose. “My nose was very clear on that one. The teacher is a very honest man.”

Mma Makutsi approved of this. “Teachers should be honest. It is a great pity, Mma, that these days teachers are just like everybody else. I do not think that is right.”

Mma Ramotswe had views on that-she had great respect for teachers-but she did not want to get into a discussion of that just now. “Not only was he honest,” said Mma Ramotswe, “he was very fit. He took me to show me the new school gymnasium-a very fine room, Mma, with some ropes for children to swing on and a trampoline, Mma. He invited me to step onto the trampoline while we talked.”

Mma Makutsi shrieked. “You didn't agree, did you, Mma?”

“I'm afraid that I did,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I got onto it with him, and he started to bounce. That made me start to bounce up and down too. We talked that way.”

Mma Makutsi said that she would have liked to have seen that. “I would not have laughed at you, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “But I would still have liked very much to see that. Did you find anything out about him?”

“Only that he is very keen,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He likes everybody on the team-he had no bad words for anybody, and he even praised Mr. Molofololo. He said that he was very grateful to him for having given him a place on the team. And then he said that he was sure that the team would start to win again soon, especially since he was now on it. He said that he would make it his business to see that they won in future.”

“He's the one,” said Mma Makutsi. “All the others have motives. He has none. He must be the one.”

“I wish it were that simple,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And no, Mma, he is definitely not the one. My nose told me that. Again it was my nose.”

Mma Makutsi wondered what her own nose had told her about Oteng Bolelang. Her meeting with him had been a very unsatisfactory one, she told Mma Ramotswe, although she had learned that he suspected that Big Man Tafa could not see very well.

“What a strange thing,” Mma Ramotswe exclaimed. “Did he actually say that, Mma?”

“Yes. He said that he had tested Big Man's sight by throwing him a pencil and Big Man had not caught it because he could not see well enough.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Or because he wasn't ready for it, don't you think, Mma? If I suddenly threw you something, would you be able to catch it?”

Mma Makutsi pondered this. Mma Ramotswe was probably right. We did not expect people to throw things at us and therefore were not prepared. It was not surprising, then, if we failed to catch them.

“And there's another thing,” said Mma Ramotswe. “People are always accusing players-and referees-of not being able to see. When I was at the Stadium, I heard people shouting out, Where are your glasses, Ref? I thought it very rude.”

“It is a very rude game altogether,” said Mma Makutsi.

“And did you learn anything else, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi told her about Oteng Bolelang's comments on Mr. Molofololo. “Apparently he is always changing everything. Outfits. Colours. Tactics. Even telephone numbers.”

Mma Ramotswe made a clucking sound. “He is not popular with his players, you know, Mma. And you know what that means?”

Mma Makutsi peeled the last of the potatoes and dropped it into the saucepan of water that Mma Ramotswe had placed in the sink. “What does it mean, Mma?”

“It means that all of them probably have a motive,” said Mma Ramotswe. She sounded discouraged. If every player had a motive, then how could they possibly single out the player who was responsible for the team's bad performance? And there was another possibility to consider: What if none of the players was responsible, and the reason for the decline of the team lay elsewhere? No, this was not going to be an easy case, and as she turned the chicken pieces in their oil, she wondered again whether this was not one of those cases that they would have been far wiser to have refused. Having a high success rate depends on the ability to say no to hopeless cases, wrote Clovis Andersen. Once again, Clovis Andersen was right. He always was. Always.

They sat at the table and ate their chicken and potatoes. They had talked enough about the Molofololo case and were happy to speak about other things now. Mma Ramotswe was wary of raising the subject of Phuti and Violet Sephotho, but Mma Makutsi did that herself.

“I talked to Phuti when he came to eat last night,” she said.

Mma Ramotswe waited. “And?”

“And I said to him: How is Violet Sephotho doing in the shop? And he said, She is very good at her job-first class, in fact. So I said, Oh, I see. So she is a natural saleslady, is she? And he said to me, Yes, on the first day she sold four beds, and on the second she sold three. Then yesterday she sold two more. That is very good.”

“It seems that there are many people needing new beds,” Mma Ramotswe observed.

“So it seems. And then I said to him: Does she have far to travel to get to her work? And he looked at me in a surprised way-you know how his nose wrinkles when he is puzzled?-and then he said, No, she does not live too far away. So I said, Does she walk home then? And he said, That is a very strange question. Why are you so interested in this Violet person?”

“Surely he can tell,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Surely he can see what sort of woman she is?”

“Men are not very good at that, Mma,” Mma Makutsi said. “We all know how they cannot tell these things. And so I said, Did I not see her in your car?”

Mma Ramotswe held her breath. “And he said?”

Mma Makutsi popped a small piece of potato into her mouth. “And he said, Yes, I drove her home on that first day She said that she had to be back in good time to cook a meal for her sick aunt.” Mma Makutsi made her disbelief apparent.

“It is possible,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I had an aunt who was not very well and…”

“Oh, anything is possible, Mma Ramotswe. It's just that I cannot imagine Violet cooking for a sick aunt. But I can imagine her telling Phuti a story like that so that he thinks, This is a kind girl who is cooking for her aunt. I can imagine that all right.”

The important thing, thought Mma Ramotswe, was how Phuti had reacted to Mma Makutsi's questioning. Did he sense that she was concerned about Violet?

“I don't think so,” said Mma Makutsi. “But I am still very worried, Mma. What if she succeeds in making him fonder of her? What then? He is a good man, but even a good man can fall for a glamorous woman. That is well known.”

“That is very well known,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. “Look at Adam. Look how he fell for Eve.”

“Just because she had no clothes on, he fell for her,” said Mma Makutsi.

“That sometimes helps,” said Mma Ramotswe.

They both laughed. And then it was time for pears and ice cream, and the conversation shifted to talk about the first time that either of them remembered eating ice cream. “I was eight,” said Mma Ramotswe. “My father took me into Gaborone and he bought me an ice cream. I have never been so excited, Mma. It was a very great day for me.”

She closed her eyes. She was standing next to her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, that great man, and he was handing her an ice cream. He was wearing his hat, his battered old hat that he wore until the day he went into hospital for the last time. And he smiled at her from underneath the brim of that old hat, and the sun was behind him, high in the sky, and the ice cream tasted sweeter and purer than anything else she had ever tasted in her life. She would give anything-anything-to have her father back with her, just for a day, so that she could tell him about how her life had been and how she owed everything to him and to his goodness to her. It would not take long to tell him all that-about the same amount of time it takes to eat an ice cream or to walk the length of Zebra Drive. Not long.

Mma Ramotswe opened her eyes again, to see that Mma Makutsi was staring up at the ceiling. “Why do you think we like ice cream so much, Mma?” Mma Makutsi asked. “Or is that one of those questions that we can never answer?”

“I think it is,” said Mma Ramotswe, looking down at the table. There was one large helping of ice cream left-or two small ones. There was no doubt in her mind what was the right thing to do. “You must have that ice cream,” she said, reaching across for Mma Makutsi's plate. She hoped that Mma Makutsi would say, “No, we must share it, Mma.”

But Mma Makutsi did not. “Thank you very much, Mma,” she said. “You are very kind.”

SHE DROVE MMA MAKUTSI home in the blue van, dropping her off outside her lightless house. The evening was warm; night had brought little relief from the heat of the day, and the leaves of Mma Makutsi's two pawpaw trees, dark shapes against the moonlit sky, were drooping, as if with sheer exhaustion. The hot months were not easy-they drained the country of its energy, its vitality, crushing animals, people, plants under a sky that at times seemed like one great oven. And then, as the whole land became drier and drier and, in bad years, the cattle began to die, nature would relent, would remember that it was the time for rain. Great rain clouds, purple bank stacked upon purple bank, would appear above the horizon and then sweep in over the land with their longed-for gift of water. The temperatures would drop as the land breathed again; brown would become green; and the hearts of everything living would be filled with relief and gratitude. But that had not happened yet; it was still oppressively hot… and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was still not back from Lobatse.

Mma Ramotswe looked at her watch as she drove away from Mma Makutsi's house. It was almost twenty to ten; their easy, woman-to-woman conversation had made the time pass quickly. Twenty minutes to ten; if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had finished work at eight o'clock-and surely it would have been unreasonable for them to keep him beyond that time-then he should have been back by nine fifteen. Of course he would have had to run Charlie home, and that could take, what? Fifteen minutes, perhaps. There was not much traffic at this hour, and none of those frustrating waits at traffic lights and intersections. If he had reached Game City at half past nine, allowing for a few minutes' delay at the police roadblock near the Mokolodi turn-off, then with fifteen minutes to get to Charlie's house and back… quarter to ten, then. But you always had to allow ten minutes or so leeway, so that meant that ten o'clock would be the latest she should expect him back. Now, if she took ten minutes to drive from Mma Makutsi's place back to Zebra Drive, then she should arrive back at the house at roughly the same time as he did.

She glanced in her rear-view mirror. Mma Makutsi had switched on a light, a single bulb outside her front door, and was waving. Goodnight, Mma: I am grateful to you. I am grateful to you for being my assistant and having all those peculiar ideas and insisting on them. I am grateful to you for being who you are: for standing up for ladies with large glasses and a bad skin and for everybody else who has had to battle to get where they have got. And most of all I am grateful to you for being my friend, Mma; I am grateful to you for that. That is the best thing that anybody can be to anybody else-a friend.

Her thoughts returned to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Somewhere in this country, somewhere in Botswana that day, somebody had been given news that would end their little world. Somebody, some unknown person somewhere, was being told that somebody else was not coming back. And all that stood between that poor person and oneself was chance, and luck, and forces that we would never master or understand. What if it was she who would be the recipient of such news this night? No, she could not think about that, she would not. But it could happen, couldn't it?

She turned into Zebra Drive. Her hands were shaking now, and inside her, in that strange, indefinable region where the physical side of dread makes its presence known, she felt a sense of dreadful imminence, a rawness.

Her gate appeared before her, and beyond that, in the beam of the headlights, the four small pillars of her verandah. She swung the van round to negotiate the turn into the short drive and as the beam of the lights moved round she saw the back of the truck, the lights still glowing red. The other vehicle's lights went off, but it was now illuminated in her headlights, and she saw Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni step out and dust off his trousers, as he always did when he alighted from his truck. And she stopped her van where it was, some yards short of its normal place at the side of the house, and she got out and ran to him, the lights of the van still burning-to show the world, if anybody was walking in that darkness along Zebra Drive, if anybody cared to look, the reunion, after one day away, of a man and his wife, of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, returned safely from Lobatse, the finest mechanic in Botswana, and Mma Ramotswe, his wife, who loved him more dearly than she had ever loved anybody else before, with the possible exception of Obed Ramotswe, her father, retired miner, fine judge of cattle, now late.