The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN WE DECEIVE OURSELVES, OR ARE DECEIVED

NOW MMA MAKUTSI,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I want you to tell me about your case. That small woman…” “Teenie.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I suppose she doesn’t mind. But why do people put up with names like that? Sometimes we Batswana are not very kind in the names we give ourselves.”

Mma Makutsi agreed. There had been a boy in Bobonong whose name meant the one with ears that stick out. He had lived with this and had seemed unconcerned. It was also true; his ears did stick out, almost at right angles to his head. But why land a child with that? And then there was that man who worked in the supermarket whose name when translated from Setswana meant large nose. His nose was large, but there were people with much larger noses than his and it was only because of his name that Mma Makutsi felt her eyes drawn inexorably to that dominating feature. It was tactless and unkind.

“I don’t think she minds being called that, Mma,” she said. “And she is very small. She’s also…” She trailed off. There was something indefinably sad about Teenie, with her pleading look. She wanted something, she felt, but she was unsure what it was. Love? Friendship? There was a loneliness about her, as there was about some people who just did not seem to belong, who fitted in—to an extent—but who never seemed quite at home.

“She is an unhappy one,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have seen that woman. I do not know her, but I have seen her.”

“Yes, she is unhappy,” said Mma Makutsi. “But we cannot do anything about that, can we, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “We cannot make all our clients happy, Mma. Sometimes, maybe. It depends on whether they want to know what we tell them. The truth is not always a happy thing, is it?”

Mma Makutsi picked up a pencil on her desk and idly started a sketch on a piece of paper. She found herself drawing a sky, a cloud, an emptiness, the umbrella shape of an acacia tree, a few strokes of the pencil against the white of the paper. Happiness. Why should she see these things when she thought of happiness?

“Are you happy, Mma Ramotswe?” Her pencil moved against the paper. A pot now, a cooking pot, and these were the flames, these wavy lines below. Cooking. A meal for Phuti Radiphuti, for the man who had given her that diamond, to show that he loved her, and who did; she knew that. A girl from Bobonong, with a diamond ring, and a man who had a furniture shop and a house. All that has come to me.

“I am very happy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have a good husband. I have my house on Zebra Drive. Motholeli, Puso. I have this business. And all my friends, including you, Mma Makutsi. I am a very happy woman.”

“That is good.”

“And you, Mma. You are happy too?”

Mma Makutsi put down her pencil. She looked down at her shoes, the green shoes with sky-blue linings, and the shoes looked back at her. Come on, Boss. Don’t beat about the bush. Tell her. She felt a momentary irritation that her shoes should speak to her like this, but she knew that they were right.

“I am happy,” she said. “I am engaged to be married to Mr Phuti Radiphuti.”

“Who is a good man,” interjected Mma Ramotswe.

“Yes, who is a good man. And I have a good job.”

That was a relief to Mma Ramotswe, who nodded enthusiastically.

“As an associate detective,” Mma Makutsi rapidly added.

Mma Ramotswe was quick to confirm this. “Yes. An associate detective.”

“So I have everything I need in this life,” concluded Mma Makutsi. “And I owe a lot of that to you, Mma. And I am thankful, really thankful.”

There was not much more to be said about happiness, and so the conversation reverted to the subject of Teenie and her difficulties. Mma Makutsi told Mma Ramotswe of her visit to the printing works and of her meeting with the people who worked there. “I spoke to all of them,” she said. “But they knew who I was—word got out very quickly after I had been identified. They all said that they did not know anything about things going missing. They all said that they could not imagine anybody stealing from the works. And that was it.” She paused. “I’m not sure what to do now, Mma. There is one person whom Teenie suspects, and I must say that he seemed very shifty when I saw him.”

Mma Ramotswe was intrigued. “Was that your instinct, Mma?”

“Oh yes,” Mma Makutsi replied. “I know that you shouldn’t judge by appearances. I know that. But…”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But. And it’s an important but. People tell you a lot from the way they look at you. They cannot help it.”

Mma Makutsi remembered the man in the office and the way he had looked away when she had been introduced to him. And when he raised his eyes and met her gaze, they darted away again. She would never trust a man who looked that way, she thought.

“Maybe he is the one,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But what can we do? Set some sort of trap? We have done that before in these cases, haven’t we? We have put something tempting out and then found it in the possession of the thief. You could do that.”

“Yes. Well…”

Then Mma Ramotswe remembered. Mma Potokwane had said something about this problem, had she not, on the picnic? There had been a child who was stealing from the food cupboard. And Mma Potokwane had solved the problem. Children, of course, were different, but not all that different when it came to fears and emotions.

“There is a story Mma Potokwane told me,” said Mma Ramotswe thoughtfully. “She said that at the orphan farm they had a child who stole. And they solved the problem by giving the child the key to the cupboard. That stopped it.”

Mma Ramotswe had half-expected Mma Makutsi to reject the idea out of hand. But her assistant seemed interested. “And that worked?” Mma Makutsi asked.

“No more thievery,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The child had never known what it was like to be trusted. Once he was trusted, he rose to the challenge. Now, your shifty man at the printing works. What if he were put in charge of supplies? What if this Teenie person showed him that she trusted him?”

Mma Makutsi looked down at her shoes. Give it a try, Boss! She thought for a moment. “Maybe, Mma,” she said. She sounded tentative at first, but then continued with growing conviction, “Yes. I’ll suggest that he’s put in charge of supplies. Then one of two things will happen: he’ll stop thieving because he’s trusted, or…or he’ll take everything. One of those things will happen.”

That was not the spirit of Mma Potokwane’s story, thought Mma Ramotswe, but one had to acknowledge Mma Makutsi’s realism. “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It will decide matters one way or the other.”

He’ll steal the lot, Boss, whispered Mma Makutsi’s shoes.

CHARLIE REAPPEARED that afternoon. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was involved with a gearbox and the younger apprentice was engaged in a routine draining of oil. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who saw him first, stood up and wiped his hands on a paper towel. Charlie, standing at the entrance to the garage workshop, made a halfhearted gesture of greeting with his right hand.

“It’s me, Boss. It’s me.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni chuckled. “I’ve not forgotten who you are, Rra! You have come back to see us.” He looked behind Charlie, out onto the open ground in front of the garage. “Where’s the Mercedes-B…?” His voice died off at the end of the question. There was no Benz, no car.

Charlie’s demeanour gave everything away—in the way his eyes dropped, in the misery of his expression, in his utterly defeated posture. The younger apprentice, who had come over to stand next to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, looked nervously at his employer. “Charlie’s back,” he said, and tried to smile. “You see, Rra. He’s come back now. You must give him his job back, Rra. You must. Please.” He tugged at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s sleeve, leaving a smudge of grease on the cloth.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni glanced at the grease marks. It was maddening. He had told these boys time and time again not to touch him with their greasy fingers, and they always did it, always, tapping him on the shoulder, grabbing his arm to show him something, ruining his overalls, which he always tried to keep as clean as possible. And now this foolish young man had left his fingerprints on him again, and this other, even more foolish young man had probably succeeded in destroying an old but perfectly serviceable Mercedes-Benz. What could one do? Where could one start?

He addressed Charlie, his voice low. “What happened? Just tell me what happened. No this, no that. No, It wasn’t my fault, Rra. Just what happened.”

Charlie shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “There was an accident. Two days ago.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took a deep breath. “And?”

Charlie shrugged. “I could not even get it brought here,” he said. “The police mechanic looked at it. He said…” He moved his hand in a gesture of helplessness.

“A write-off?” asked the younger apprentice.

Charlie moved a hand up to cover his mouth. From behind his fingers, his voice was muffled. “Yes. He said that it would cost far more than it was worth to try to fix it. Yes, it’s a write-off.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked up at the sky. He had brought these boys here, he had done his best, and everything they did, everything, went wrong. He asked himself if he had been like this as a young man, as prone to disaster, as incapable of getting anything right. He had made mistakes, of course; there had been several false starts, but nothing ever approaching the level of incompetence that these young men so effortlessly achieved.

He felt a sudden urge to shout at Charlie, to seize him by the lapels of his jacket and shake him; to shake him until some sense came into that head of his, full, as it was, with thoughts of girls and flashy clothes and the like. It was tempting, almost overpoweringly so, but he did not. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had never laid an angry hand on another and would not start now. The dangerous moment passed.

“I was wondering, Boss,” Charlie began. “I was wondering if I could come back here.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni bit his lip. This was undoubtedly his chance to get rid of Charlie, if he wished to do so, but he realised, just as the possibility entered his head, that he was, in fact, relieved to have him back, even in these difficult circumstances. The car was still covered by his own insurance, but with the deductible element he would still be left out of pocket on its loss—almost to the tune of five thousand pula, he imagined. That was five thousand pula which Charlie’s accident would cost him, and the young man would never have any means of paying that back. But these boys were part of the life of the garage. They were like demanding relatives, like drought, like bad debts—things that were always there, and to which one became accustomed.

He sighed. “Very well. You may start again tomorrow.”

The younger apprentice, overjoyed, seized Mr J.L.B. Matekoni by the arm and squeezed hard. “Oh, Boss, you are such a kind man. You are so kind to Charlie.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni said nothing. He carefully extricated himself from the young man’s grip and walked back into the workshop. There were more grease stains where the younger apprentice had held him. He could have fumed about those, but did not. What was the point? he thought. Some things just are.

He went into the office, where he found Mma Ramotswe dictating a letter to Mma Makutsi, who was writing it down in shorthand. He stood in the doorway for a moment, until Mma Ramotswe signalled that he should come in.

“It’s nothing private,” she said. “Just a letter to somebody who has not paid his bills.”

“Oh?” he said. “And what do you say?”

“If you do not pay the outstanding bill by the end of next month, we shall be obliged…” She paused. “That is as far as we got.”

“We shall be obliged to…,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Take action,” offered Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is what we shall do.” She laughed. “Not that we ever take action. But there we are. As long as people think that you’re going to do something, that’s enough.”

“Bad debts are a very big problem,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He was about to add “just like bad apprentices,” but he did not. Instead, with the air of one conveying very mundane news, he said, “Charlie’s back. Car crashed. Written off. He’s coming back.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was watching Mma Makutsi as he gave this news, and when he looked over in the direction of Mma Ramotswe, he saw that she too was looking at her assistant. He knew of Mma Makutsi’s difficulties with the apprentices, and particularly with Charlie, and he imagined the impending return would not be well received. But Mma Makutsi, aware of their scrutiny, did not react sharply. There was a moment, perhaps, when the lenses of her large round glasses seemed to flash, but this was only because a movement of her head caused them to catch the light; not a sign. And when she did speak, it was quietly.

“That is a great pity for him,” she said. Then she added, “So that is the end of the No. 1 Ladies’ Taxi Service.” It was a simple epitaph, pronounced without any sense of triumph, without any suggestion of I told you so. As Mr J.L.B. Matekoni remarked to Mma Ramotswe over dinner that night, it was a kind thing for Mma Makutsi to have said, worthy, he suggested, of top marks.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Ninety-seven per cent. At least.”

They were seated alone at the table, Motholeli and Puso having eaten earlier and gone to their rooms to complete their homework.

“Poor boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He was so looking forward to it all. But I’m afraid that I always thought it would end this way. Charlie is Charlie. He is the way he is, like the rest of us.”

Yes, thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; like the rest of us. I am a mechanic; that is what I am; I am not something else. I suppose I have my ways which annoy other people—my keeping those engine parts in the spare room, for instance—that annoys Mma Ramotswe. And I do not always wash out the bath after I have used it; I try to remember, but sometimes I forget, or I am in a hurry. Things like that. But we all have some things we are ashamed of.

He looked at Mma Ramotswe. One of the things he was ashamed of was thinking that she could ever take up with another man, that she would leave him. He had tried to put those ideas out of his head because he knew that they were both unfounded and unfair. Mma Ramotswe would never deceive him—he knew that—and yet somewhere in the back of his mind those unsettling thoughts lurked, nagging, insistent. And then there had been that photograph. He had tried not to think about it, but he found that he just could not help it; try not to think of something and see how hard it is, he thought. There was Mma Ramotswe with another man, and the man had his arm about her. The camera had recorded it and he had found it. How could he not think about that?

Mma Ramotswe was buttering a piece of bread. She cut the bread into two pieces and popped one of them into her mouth. When she looked up from her task, she saw that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was staring at her, with that look that he sometimes had, a slightly sad, confused look. She swallowed; a crumb tickled. “Is there something wrong?” she asked.

He shook his head, in false denial, and turned away, embarrassed. “No, nothing is wrong.” But then he thought, But there is something wrong. There is.

He closed his eyes. He had decided to say something because he could not keep this within him any longer. But he was unable to look at her while he spoke. “Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “Would you ever leave me?”

She had not anticipated anything like that. “Leave you?” she asked incredulously. “Leave you, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?” And oddly, inconsequentially, she thought: Leave you to go where? To Francistown? To Mochudi? Into the Kalahari?

He kept his eyes closed. “Yes. For another man.”

He opened his eyes slightly, just to catch a glimpse of the effect of his words. What he had said surprised even himself, and he wondered what effect it would have on Mma Ramotswe.

“But of course not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am your wife, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. A wife does not leave her husband.” She paused. That was not true. Some wives had to leave their husbands, and she had done precisely that when she had broken up with her first husband, Note Mokoti. But that was different. “Of course I would never leave you,” she went on. “I have no interest in other men. None at all.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni opened his eyes. “None?”

“No. Only you. You are the one. There is no man like you, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. There is no man who is as good, as kind.” She stopped and reached out to take his hand. “That is well known, by the way.”

He could not meet her gaze. He felt so ashamed of himself; but he was also touched by what she had said—for a man might easily imagine himself unloved—and he did not think it was untrue. But there was still that photograph.

He rose to his feet, gently pushing away her hand, and went across the room to pick up the small canvas bag which he sometimes took with him to the garage. He took out an envelope and felt within it for the photograph.

“There is this,” he said. “There is this photograph. It was in the camera. That office camera.”

He pushed the photograph over the table towards her. Frowning, she picked it up and examined it. She looked puzzled at first—he was watching her expression closely, with anxiety, with dread—but then she smiled. Her smile struck him as callous, hurtful; that she should smile at, make light of such a thing as this. He felt doubly betrayed.

“I had forgotten about that,” she said. “But now I remember. Mma Makutsi took it shortly after we had bought the camera. It was taken outside the shop where we bought it. You know that place, just outside the Mall. Look, there is that bit of wall at the back.”

He glanced at where she was pointing. “And that man?”

“I have no idea who he was,” she said.

His voice was barely a whisper. “You do not even know his name?”

“No. And I don’t know hers either.”

“Whose?”

“Hers. The woman in the picture. The woman who looks like me. Or so Mma Makutsi told me. They ran that shop, you see, those two people. And Mma Makutsi whispered to me while we were buying the camera, Look, Mma, that lady is your double. And I suppose she did look a bit like me, and when we mentioned it, they thought so too. They laughed, and so we decided to try the camera out. We took that photograph, and forgot about it.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni reached out and took the photograph. He peered at it. The woman looked like Mma Ramotswe, it was true; but on closer examination, of course it was not her. Of course not. The eyes were different; just different. He put down the photograph. He had been blind. Jealousy, or was it fear, had made him blind.

“You were worried,” she said. “Oh, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, I can understand now. You were worried!”

“Only a little bit,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “But now I am not.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at the photograph again. “It’s interesting, isn’t it,” she said. “It’s interesting how we can look at things and think we see something, when it really isn’t there at all.”

“Our eyes deceive us,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He was feeling waves of relief, like that relief which follows a flood in a dry land after rains, sudden, complete, overwhelming; he felt that, but could not find the words for his emotions, and so he said again, “Our eyes deceive us.”

“But our hearts do not,” said Mma Ramotswe.

A silence followed this remark. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thought, simply, Yes. But Mma Ramotswe thought: Is that really so, or does it merely sound right?