Tears of the Giraffe

CHAPTER SIXTEEN FAMILY

MR J.L.B. Matekoni was aware of the fact that he was standing directly under the branch of an acacia tree. He looked up, and saw for a moment, in utter clarity, the details of the leaves against the emptiness of the sky. Drawn in upon themselves for the midday heat, the leaves were like tiny hands clasped in prayer; a bird, a common butcher bird, scruffy and undistinguished, was perched farther up the branch, claws clasped tight, black eyes darting. It was the sheer enormity of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's plight that made this perception so vivid; as a condemned man might peep out of his cell on his last morning and see the familiar, fading world. He looked down, and saw that Mma Ramotswe was still there, standing some ten feet away, her expression one of bemused puzzlement. She knew that he worked for the orphan farm, and she was aware of Mma Silvia Potokwane's persuasive ways. She would be imagining, he thought, that here was Mr J.L.B. Matekoni taking two of the orphans out for the day and arranging for them to have their photographs taken. She would not be imagining that here was Mr J.L.B. Matekoni with his two new foster children, soon to be her foster children too.

Mma Ramotswe broke the silence. "What are you doing?" she said simply. It was an entirely reasonable question-the sort of question that any friend or indeed fiancee may ask of another. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at the children. The girl had placed her photograph in a plastic carrier bag that was attached to the side of her wheelchair; the boy was clutching his photograph to his chest, as if Mma Ramotswe might wish to take it from him.

"These are two children from the orphan farm," stuttered Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "This one is the girl and this one is the boy."

Mma Ramotswe laughed. "Well!" she said. "So that is it. That is very helpful."

The girl smiled and greeted Mma Ramotswe politely.

"I am called Motholeli," she said. "My brother is called Puso. These are the names that we have been given at the orphan farm."

Mma Ramotswe nodded. "I hope that they are looking after you well, there. Mma Potokwane is a kind lady."

"She is kind," said the girl. "Very kind."

She looked as if she was about to say something else, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni broke in rapidly.

"I have had the children's photographs taken," he explained, and turning to the girl, he said: "Show them to Mma Ramotswe, Motholeli."

The girl propelled her chair forward and passed the photograph to Mma Ramotswe, who admired it.

"That is a very nice photograph to have," she said. "I have only one or two photographs of myself when I was your age. If ever I am feeling old, I go and take a look at them and I think that maybe I am not so old after all."

"You are still young," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "We are not old these days until we are seventy-maybe more. It has all changed."

"That's what we like to think," chuckled Mma Ramotswe, passing the photograph back to the girl. "Is Mr J.L.B. Matekoni taking you back now, or are you going to eat in town?"

"We have been shopping," Mr J.L.B. Matekoni blurted out. "We may have one or two other things to do."

"We will go back to his house soon," the girl said. "We are living with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni now. We are staying in his house."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni felt his heart thump wildly against his chest. I am going to have a heart attack, he thought. I am going to die now. And for a moment he felt immense regret that he would never marry Mma Ramotswe, that he would go to his grave a bachelor, that the children would be twice orphaned, that Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors would close. But his heart did not stop, but continued to beat, and Mma Ramotswe and all the physical world remained stubbornly there.

Mma Ramotswe looked quizzically at Mr J.L.B, Matekoni.

"They are staying in your house?" she said. "This is a new development. Have they just come?"

He nodded bleakly. "Yesterday," he said.

Mma Ramotswe looked down at the children and then back at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

"I think that we should have a talk," she said. "You children stay here for a moment. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and I are going to the post office."

There was no escape. Head hanging, like a schoolboy caught in delinquency, he followed Mma Ramotswe to the corner of the post office, where before the stacked rows of private postal boxes, he faced the judgement and sentence that he knew were his lot. She would divorce him-if that was the correct term for the breakup of an engagement. He had lost her because of his dishonesty and stupidity-and it was all Mma Silvia Potokwane's fault. Women like that were always interfering in the lives of others, forcing them to do things; and then matters went badly astray and lives were ruined in the process.

Mma Ramotswe put down her basket of letters.

"Why did you not tell me about these children?" she asked. "What have you done?"

He hardly dared meet her gaze. "I was going to tell you," he said. "I was out at the orphan farm yesterday. The pump was playing up. It's so old. Then their minibus needs new brakes. 1 have tried to fix those brakes, but they are always giving problems. We shall have to try and find new parts, I have told them that, but..."

"Yes, yes," pressed Mma Ramotswe. "You have told me about those brakes before. But what about these children?"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. "Mma Potokwane is a very strong woman. She told me that I should take some foster children. I did not mean to do it without talking to you, but she would not listen to me. She brought in the children and I really had no alternative. It was very hard for me."

He stopped. A man passed on his way to his postal box, fumbling in his pocket for his key, muttering something to himself. Mma Ramotswe glanced at the man and then looked back at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

"So," she said, "you agreed to take these children. And now they think that they are going to stay." "Yes, I suppose so," he mumbled. "And how long for?" asked Mma Ramotswe. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took a deep breath. "For as long as they need a home," he said. "Yes, I offered them that."

Unexpectedly he felt a new confidence. He had done nothing wrong. He had not stolen anything, or killed anybody, or committed adultery. He had just offered to change the lives of two poor children who had had nothing and who would now be loved and looked after. If Mma Ramotswe did not like that, well there was nothing he could do about it now. He had been impetuous, but his impetuosity had been in a good cause.

Mma Ramotswe suddenly laughed. "Well, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni," she said. "Nobody could say of you that you are not a kind man. You are, I think, the kindest man in Botswana. What other man would do that? I do not know of one, not one single one. Nobody else would do that. Nobody."

He stared at her. "You are not cross?"

"I was," she said. "But only for a little while. One minute maybe. But then I thought: Do I want to marry the kindest man in the country? I do. Can I be a mother for them? I can. That is what I thought, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni."

He looked at her incredulously. "You are a very kind woman yourself, Mma. You have been very kind to me."

"We must not stand here and talk about kindness," she said. "There are those two children there. Let's take them back to Zebra Drive and show them where they are going to live. Then this afternoon I can come and collect them from your house and bring them to mine. Mine is more..."

She stopped herself, but he did not mind.

"I know that Zebra Drive is more comfortable," he said. "And it would be better for them to be looked after by you."

They walked back to the children, together, companionably.

"I'm going to marry this lady," announced Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "She will be your mother soon."

The boy looked startled, but the girl lowered her eyes respectfully.

"Thank you, Mma," she said. "We shall try to be good children for you."

"That is good," said Mma Ramotswe. "We shall be a very happy family. I can tell it already."

Mma Ramotswe went off to fetch her tiny white van, taking the boy with her. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni pushed the girl's wheelchair back to the old truck, and they drove over to Zebra Drive, where Mma Ramotswe and Puso were already waiting for them by the time they arrived. The boy was excited, rushing out to greet his sister.

"This is a very good house," he cried out. "Look, there are trees, and melons. I am having a room at the back."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stood back as Mma Ramotswe showed the children round the house. Everything that he had felt about her was, in his mind, now confirmed beyond doubt. Obed Ramotswe, her father, who had brought her up after the death of her mother, had done a very fine job. He had given Botswana one of its finest ladies. He was a hero, perhaps without ever knowing it.

While Mma Ramotswe was preparing lunch for the children, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni telephoned the garage to check that the apprentices were managing to deal with the chores with which he had left them. The younger apprentice answered, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni knew immediately from his tone that there was something seriously wrong. The young man's voice was artificially high and excited.

"I am glad that you telephoned, Rra," he said. "The police came. They wanted to speak to you about your maid. They have arrested her and she has gone off to the cells. She had a gun in her bag. They are very cross."

The apprentice had no further information, and so Mr J|.L.B. Matekoni put down the receiver. His maid had been armed! He had suspected her of a great deal-of dishonesty, and possibly worse-but not of being armed. What was she up to in her spare time-armed robbery? Murder?

He went into the kitchen, where Mma Ramotswe was boiling up squares of pumpkin in a large enamel pot.

"My maid has been arrested and taken off to prison," he said flatly. "She had a gun. In a bag."

Mma Ramotswe put down her spoon. The pumpkin was boiling satisfactorily and would soon be tender. "I am not surprised," she said. "That was a very dishonest woman. The police have caught up with her at last. She was not too clever for them."

MR J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe decided that afternoon that life was becoming too complicated for both of them and that they should declare the rest of the day to be a day of simple activities, centred around the children. To this end, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni telephoned the apprentices and told them to close the garage until the following morning.

"I have been meaning to give you time off to study," he said. "Well, you can have some study time this afternoon. Put up a sign and say that we shall reopen at eight tomorrow."

To Mma Ramotswe he said: "They won't study. They'll go off chasing girls. There is nothing in those young men's heads. Nothing."

"Many young people are like that," she said. "They think only of dances and clothes, and loud music. That is their life. We were like that too, remember?"

Her own telephone call to the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency had brought a confident Mma Makutsi to the line, who had explained to her that she had completed the investigation of the Badule matter and that all that required to be done was to determine what to do with the information she had gathered. They would have to talk about that, said Mma Ramotswe. She had feared that the investigation would produce a truth that would be far from simple in its moral implications. There were times when ignorance was more comfortable than knowledge.

The pumpkin, though, was ready, and it was time to sit down at the table, as a family for the first time.

Mma Ramotswe said grace.

"We are grateful for this pumpkin and this meat," she said. "There are brothers and sisters who do not have good food on their table, and we think of them, and wish pumpkin and meat for them in the future. And we thank the Lord who has brought these children into our lives so that we might be happy and they might have a home with us. And we think of what a happy day this is for the late mother and the late daddy of these children, who are watching this from above."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could add nothing to this grace, which he thought was perfect in every respect. It expressed his own feelings entirely, and his heart was too full of emotion to allow him to speak. So he was silent.