Tea Time for the Traditionally Built

CHAPTER FIVE. THERE IS PLENTY OF WORK FOR LOVE TO DO

THERE WAS NO QUESTION the next morning of Mma Ramotswe's being able to make the journey into the office by foot. It was difficult enough, in fact, for her to walk to the bathroom without limping when she got out of bed shortly before six o'clock, such was the discomfort of the blister on her right foot. The plaster that Dr. Moffat had put on the day before had peeled off during the night, leaving the angry skin uncovered. That could be remedied, of course: she kept a supply of plasters in the bathroom cupboard, mainly for Puso, who was always scratching himself on thorns and nails and other things that lay in wait for passing boys. At least he had not broken anything, unlike his friend at school, an appealing boy with a wide smile, who was always appearing with an arm in a sling or an ankle in plaster. That boy fell from trees, Puso explained. “He is always climbing, Mma, and then he falls down and breaks when he hits the ground. He does not mind, though. He is a very brave boy and he will join the Botswana Defence Force when he is twelve, I think.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “You cannot join the Botswana Defence Force when you are twelve,” she said. “You have to be much older. Eighteen, I think. Something like that. And being a soldier is not just a matter of climbing trees.”

“It helps, though, doesn't it?” argued Puso. “If you can climb trees, you can hide when you see the enemy coming.”

Mma Ramotswe shook a finger in mock disapproval. “I do not think that is what a brave soldier is meant to do, Puso.” She paused. He had said when you see the enemy coming. But Botswana had no enemies, a fact which was a source of both relief-who would want enemies?-and pride. Her country had never been aggressive, had never espoused violence, had never taken sides in the squabbles of others. She wondered how people could sleep if they knew that somebody, in their name, was dropping bombs on other people or breaking into their homes and taking them away somewhere. Why did they do it? Why was it necessary to kill and maim other people when the other people would be just the same as yourself-people who wanted to live with their families and go to work in the morning and have enough to eat at the end of the day? That was not much to ask of the world, even if for many the world could not grant even that small request.

The contemplation of the greater suffering of the world, though, did not stop one's own small blister from hurting, and Mma Ramotswe's right foot now throbbed painfully as she lifted it onto the edge of the bath. She looked at the site of the pain, touching the skin gently, as one might touch the branch of a thorny acacia. The skin felt hot and was taut as a drum where fluid had built up underneath. She wondered whether she should take a needle to the tiny bubble and burst it, releasing the pressure and easing the pain. But she had always been taught to leave the body to sort itself out, to absorb or expel according to its own moods, its own timetable of recovery. So she simply applied another plaster, which seemed to help, and went down the corridor to make her morning cup of red bush tea.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was still asleep. Mma Ramotswe was always the first to arise in the morning, and she enjoyed the brief private time before the others would get up and start making demands of her. There would be breakfast to prepare, children's clothes to find, husband's clothes to find too; there would be a hundred things to do. But that lay half an hour or so ahead; for the time being she could be alone in her garden, as the sun came up over the border to the east, beyond Tlokweng, hovering over the horizon like a floating ball of fire. There was no finer time of day than this, she thought, when the air was cool and when, amidst the lower branches of the trees, there was still a hint, just the merest hint, of translucent white mist.

She looked past her vegetable garden, her poor, struggling vegetable garden, to the house itself. That building, she thought, contains my people; under that roof are the two foster children, Motholeli and Puso, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, my husband. And, parked outside the kitchen, to complete her world, was her tiny white van, still there but not necessarily forever. She took a sip of her tea. Nothing was forever; not her, not Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, not the house, not even Botswana. She had recently read that scientists could work out exactly when everything would come to an end and the earth would be swallowed up by the sun-or was it by some other planet?-and there would be nothing left of any of us. That had made her think, and she had raised the issue with her friend, Bishop Trevor Mwamba, over tea outside the Anglican Cathedral, one Sunday morning after the seven thirty service in English and just before the nine thirty service in Setswana. “Is it true,” she had asked, “that the sun will swallow up the earth and that will be that?”

Trevor had smiled. “I do not think that this is going to happen in the near future, Mma Ramotswe,” he had replied. “Certainly not by next Tuesday, when the Botswana Mothers' Union meets. And, frankly, I don't think that we should worry too much about that. Our concern should be what is happening right now. There is plenty of work for love to do, you know.”

There is plenty of work for love to do. That was a wonderful way of putting it, and she had told him that this could be the best possible motto for anybody to have.

She finished her tea and began to walk back into the house. There is plenty of work for love to do. Yes. There was breakfast to be made, and letters to be answered, and the problems in clients' lives to be sorted out. There was quite enough to do without worrying about the sun consuming the earth. Yes, one should not worry too much, but then she looked at her van and thought: How long will I be able to keep you going? One more day? One more week? And then how are we going to say goodbye, after so many years? It would be like losing a best friend, a faithful companion- it would be every bit as hard as that.

Mma Ramotswe had an anxious moment when she turned the key in the van's ignition that morning, but it was an anxious moment that lasted just that-a moment. Obediently, and without making any suspicious noise, the engine started, and she began to drive off slowly. She breathed a sigh of relief; perhaps the problem really had been temporary-no more, as she had previously considered, than some piece of grit in the cogs that made up the gearbox or the… she could not think of the name of any of the other moving parts, but she knew that there were levers and springs and things that went up and down; any of those could have been half stuck. But as she began to drive down Zebra Drive, taking great care not to go too fast, the van resumed its protests. There was what sounded like a hiccup, and then the loud blast of a backfire, and following hard on that there was the familiar knocking sound. Her heart sank. The tiny white van was dying.

But just as soon as she reached this bleak conclusion, a way out presented itself to her. She would follow Dr. Moffat's advice. Fanwell, the younger of the two apprentices, was approachable and knew how to keep a secret. She would ask him to look at the van after work. She would drive him back to his house, and he could have a look at it there. Neither Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nor Charlie need ever know about this visit, and if Fanwell could deal with the problem, then nobody need ever be any the wiser.

She had her chance to speak to the apprentice later that morning.

“I'm going to stretch my legs,” she said to Mma Makutsi. “I have been sitting down for too long.”

Mma Makutsi looked up from a letter she was reading. “That is a very good idea, Mma. If you do not stretch your legs, the blood sinks down to the feet and there is not enough for the brain. That is why some people are so stupid. They are the ones who have too much blood in their feet.”

Mma Ramotswe stared at her assistant. “That is an interesting theory, Mma. But I am not sure that it is quite true. I know some very clever people who sit down all the time. Look at them up at the University of Botswana. They spend most of the time sitting down, but they are very clever. They clearly have enough blood for their brains. No, Mma, I don't think that has anything to do with it.”

Mma Makutsi had pouted. “You should not argue with science, Mma,” she muttered. “Many people have made that mistake.” It had looked for a moment as if she was going to say something else, but she did not. So Mma Ramotswe left the office and made her way round to the front of the garage.

The two apprentices were standing underneath a car that had been raised for inspection. Charlie was pointing at something with a screwdriver, and Fanwell was peering up into the undercarriage of the car, a region of pipes and cables not unlike the intestines of a living creature, and as vulnerable, she thought with a shudder.

Fanwell turned to look at Mma Ramotswe, and she beckoned him discreetly to join her.

“Will you come for a little walk with me?” she said. “Charlie can take care of that car.” It would be a short walk, she thought, as she still had her blister, even though it had stopped throbbing.

Fanwell glanced over to Charlie, who nodded to him. Mma Ramotswe occasionally asked the apprentices to run errands for her, and he imagined that this was what she wanted of him.

They walked away from the garage towards the piece of scrubland that lay immediately behind the building. This was the edge of the town, half bush, half suburb, where cattle sometimes wandered, bringing with them their sounds of the true countryside, the sound of cattle bells. Here hornbills might perch on branches and contemplate the bustle of the Tlokweng Road before flying away again, in long swooping curves that led from tree to tree. Here small gusts of wind, the sort of wind that came from nowhere in particular, might briefly blow scraps of paper or the occasional plastic bag, lifting these bits of detritus half-heartedly before dropping them again and moving on. Here paths would begin and lead off into the deeper bush before disappearing altogether at the foot of the hills to the south of the town.

“I wanted to talk to you, Fanwell,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I wanted to ask you a favour.”

The young man looked at her nervously and then glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the garage. He was not as confident as the older apprentice, and he usually relied on Charlie to answer for both of them.

“Don't worry,” soothed Mma Ramotswe. “It's not a big favour. Or, maybe it is a bit big. Not too big, but a bit big.”

“I will always help you, Mma,” said Fanwell uncertainly. “You can ask me. I will do my best.”

Mma Ramotswe touched him gently on the forearm. “Thank you, Fanwell. It is my van. I need you to look at my van.”

They stopped walking. The apprentice looked at her in puzzlement. “Your van?”

“My van is very ill,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There is something very badly wrong with it.”

Fanwell thought for a moment. “Have you spoken to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni about it? He is the man, Mma. There is nothing that he cannot fix.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. He was right to say that there was nothing that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could not fix, but that was not the same thing as saying that there was nothing that he would not fix. There comes a time in the life of machinery, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was fond of saying, when it is right to say goodbye. That had happened eventually with the water pump at the orphan farm; he had insisted that he could no longer fix the ancient machine, dating back to the days of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Mma Ramotswe was in no doubt that this is what he thought of the tiny white van. In his view, its time had clearly come.

She explained the difficulty to Fanwell. “So,” she said, “if I am to keep my van, then I must have it fixed by somebody else. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would just get rid of it.”

“But he would see me,” the apprentice protested. “If I took your van into the garage, he would see it and know what I was doing.”

“Of course he would,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That's why I would like you to take a look at it at home. At your place.”

Fanwell frowned. “But I haven't got the tools I need there. I haven't got an inspection pit. There is nothing.”

“Just look at it,” pleaded Mma Ramotswe. “Could you not just look at it? You wouldn't need many tools for that. A few spanners maybe. Nothing more.”

Fanwell scratched his head. “I don't know, Mma. I don't know…”

“I could drive you home,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then you could look at it and let me know what you think. Maybe it is just a small thing, which you could fix very easily. I will pay you, of course.”

Fanwell hesitated. He was notoriously impecunious and the prospect of a bit of pin money was very attractive. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe I could look. I can't guarantee anything, though, Mma.”

“None of us can guarantee anything, Fanwell,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Not even that the sun will come up tomorrow.”

Fanwell smiled. “Would you like to bet on that one, Mma Ramotswe?” he asked. “Ten pula?”

WHEN THE TIME CAME to leave the office that evening, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was out on a call, and so there was no need for discretion.

“I am going to drive Fanwell back to his place,” Mma Ramotswe announced to Mma Makutsi. “I can drop you off first, Mma, and then go on to Old Naledi, where he lives.”

“And what about me?” asked Charlie, who had overheard the conversation from outside the door. “Why are you taking him and not me, Mma? What is wrong with me?”

“There is a lot wrong with you, Charlie,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “I have been making a big list these last few years, and it is now about three pages long.”

“I was talking to Mma Ramotswe,” Charlie called out. “I was talking to the lady who is the boss. It is best to talk to the man who is selling the cow and not to the cow itself.”

Mma Makutsi's eyes flashed in anger. “Are you calling me a cow, Charlie? Did I hear you right? Are you saying that I am a cow?” She turned to Mma Ramotswe in outrage. “Did you hear that, Mma? Did you hear what he said?”

Mma Ramotswe made a placatory gesture. “I do not think you two should fight. And you must not say things like that, Charlie. It is very rude to call another person a chicken.”

“A chicken? I did not call her a chicken. I called her a…”

“Well, there you are,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You've admitted it.”

Charlie was silent.

“And I'll drive you home some time next week. I promise you. It will be your turn then. Now it is Fanwell's.”

They closed up the office and walked over to the tiny white van. The blister had stopped troubling her; it had burst, she thought, and walking was comfortable again. If only all our troubles were like that; and perhaps they were. Perhaps the trick was to do what was necessary to deal with them, to put a plaster on them and then forget that they were there.

Mma Makutsi got into the passenger seat while Fanwell climbed into the back. Then, as they set off, Mma Makutsi launched into a description of what she was planning to cook for Phuti Radiphuti that evening. She would make a stew, she said, which had the best Botswana beef in it, the very best. She had been given the meat by a cousin who had slaughtered it himself and who said that he knew the parents and the grandparents of the animal in question. “And they were all delicious, he said, Mma. He said that they were a very delicious family.”

Mma Ramotswe dropped Mma Makutsi off at her house and Fanwell came to take her place in the passenger seat. As they drove off, he listened very carefully to the engine note, frowning in concentration as Mma Ramotswe took the van up to the speed at which the noise became noticeable.

“That is a very bad sound, Mma,” he said. “Very bad.”

Mma Ramotswe had been expecting this verdict, but she urged him not to make up his mind before he had actually looked at the engine. “It could be a temporary noise,” she ventured. “Don't you think that it could be a temporary noise, Fanwell?”

He did not. “It is permanent,” he said. “That is a very permanent noise, Mma Ramotswe.”

They turned off the main road and began to travel into the heart of Old Naledi, the sprawling collection of meagre houses, some not much better than shelters, that stood cheek by jowl with the rest of well-set Gaborone. By the standards of African shanty towns elsewhere, it was princely, with standpipes for fresh water and lighting along the bumpy roads, but it was still the most deprived part of town and if one was looking for poverty in an otherwise prosperous country, then this was the place to find it.