The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

CHAPTER SIX GO IN PEACE; STAY IN PEACE

MR J.L.B. MATEKONI had seen crises before. Usually these involved mechanical matters—distraught owners feeling desperate about cars which were needed for some important occasion; the non-arrival of spare parts; the eventual arrival of spare parts, but the wrong ones—there were many ways in which difficult situations could arise in a garage, but he had found that the best response to these was the same in every case. He would sit down and consider the situation carefully. Not only did this help to identify the solution to the problem, but it also gave him the opportunity to remind himself that things were not really as bad as they seemed; it was all a question of perspective. Sitting down and looking up at the sky for a few minutes—not at any particular part of the sky, but just at the sky in general—at the vast, dizzying, empty sky of Botswana, cut human problems down to size. It was not possible to tell what was in that sky, of course, at least during the day; but at night it revealed itself to be an ocean of stars, limitless, white in its infinity; so large, so large, that any of our problems, even the greatest of them, was a small thing. And yet we did not look at it like that, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thought, and that made us imagine that a blocked fuel feed was a disaster.

He had not wanted Charlie to hand in his resignation, but when the apprentice had asked him about the possibility of using that car as a taxi, he had resisted the temptation to refuse him point-blank. That at least would have solved the problem in the short term. It would have put an end to his immediate plans to start a taxi service, but it would not have scotched the young man’s hopes. So he had agreed to the proposition and had watched Charlie’s face light up. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had his reservations about the feasibility of the idea; there was scant profit to be made from taxis unless one over-charged—which some taxi drivers did—or drove too quickly—which all taxi drivers did. Charlie now had his driving licence, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had little confidence in his driving ability and had once stopped him and taken over when they were travelling together to pick up a consignment of parts and he had let Charlie take the wheel of the truck.

“We are not in a hurry,” he said. “Those parts are not going anywhere. And there are no girls to impress.”

The apprentice had sat in the passenger seat, shoulders hunched. He had been silent.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you off,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “But that is my job. I have to advise you. That is what an apprentice-master has to do.”

That conversation came back to him now. If he were really serious about his duties, he would have warned Charlie of the folly of not completing his training. He would have spelled out to him the risks of starting one’s own business; he would have told him about cash-flow problems and the difficulty of getting credit. Then he would have gone on to warn him about bad debts, which presumably even taxi drivers encountered when people fled the car without paying or when, at the end of a journey, they confessed they did not have quite enough money to pay the fare and would five pula do?

He had done none of this, he reflected; he had said nothing. But his failure, and Charlie’s departure, were not the end of the world. If the taxi service did not work, then Charlie could always come back, as he had done the last time he had given up his apprenticeship. That had been when he had gone off with that married woman and had come back, his tail between his legs, when that affair had come to its predictable end. That showed how these young men worked, he thought. They bounced back.

Mma Makutsi’s departure, however, was a more serious matter altogether. Mma Makutsi resigned shortly before tea-time, when he and Mr Polopetsi came into the office, their mugs in their hands, expecting to find the tea already brewed. Instead they found Mma Ramotswe sitting at her desk, her head sunk in her hands, while Mma Makutsi was putting the contents of a drawer into a large plastic bag. Mma Makutsi looked up as the men entered the room.

“I have not made tea yet,” she said. “You will need to put the kettle on yourselves.”

Mr Polopetsi glanced at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; he stood in some awe of Mma Makutsi, and he was wary of her moods. “She is a changeable person,” he had explained to his wife. “She is very clever, but she is changeable. One moment it’s this; the next moment, it’s that. You have to be very careful.”

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni glanced at Mma Ramotswe, but she, looking up, merely nodded in the direction of the kettle.

Mma Makutsi continued to busy herself with her task of emptying the drawer. “The reason why I did not put on the kettle is that I have resigned.”

Mr Polopetsi gave a start. “From making tea?”

“From everything,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “So I suspect that you will be doing more investigating, Rra, now that I am going. I hope that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni will be able to release you from your duties in the garage.”

The effect on Mr Polopetsi of this remark was immediate. If he had wished to conceal his eagerness to occupy Mma Makutsi’s position, then this wish was overcome by his sheer and evident pleasure at the thought of doing more investigative work. And Mma Makutsi, sensing this, decided to take the matter further. “In fact,” she went on, slamming the drawer shut, “why don’t you take over my desk right now? Here, try this chair. You can put it up a bit by turning this bit here. See. That is for short people like you, Rra.”

Mr Polopetsi put his mug down on Mma Makutsi’s desk and moved over to examine the chair. “That will be fine,” he said. “I can adjust it. It looks as if it needs a bit of oil, but we have plenty of that in the garage, don’t we, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?”

It was meant to be a joke, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled weakly, and dutifully. He glanced again at Mma Ramotswe, who was now glaring at her assistant on the other side of the room. It seemed to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that the most tactful thing to do would be to leave the office, and he turned to Mr Polopetsi. “I think that we should have tea a bit later, Rra,” he said. “The ladies are busy.”

“But Mma Makutsi…,” Mr Polopetsi began, but was silenced by a stare from Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who had already started to move towards the door. Picking up his mug, Mr Polopetsi followed him out of the door and back into the garage.

Mma Ramotswe waited until the door had been closed before she addressed Mma Makutsi. “I am very sorry,” she said. “I am very sorry if I have offended you, Mma Makutsi. You know that I have a lot of respect for you. You know that, don’t you? I would never deliberately be rude to you. I really would not.”

Mma Makutsi, who had risen to her feet as the two men left, was reaching down for her bag. She straightened up and hesitated for a few moments before she spoke. It seemed as if she was looking for exactly the right words. “I am aware of that, Mma,” she said slowly. “I know that. And I am the one who has been rude. But I have made up my mind. I have decided that I am fed up with being number two. I have always been number two, all through my life. I have always been the junior one. Now I am going to be my own boss.” She paused. “It’s not that you are a bad boss. You are a very good one. You are kind. You do not tell me what to do all the time. But I want to be able to speak as I wish. I have never been able to do that—ever. All my life, up in Bobonong, down here, I have been the one who has to watch my tongue and be careful. Now I do not want that any more. Can you understand that, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe did. “I can see that. You are a very intelligent woman. You have a piece of paper to prove it.” She pointed to the framed diploma above Mma Makutsi’s desk; the words ninety-seven per cent clearly legible even from afar. “Don’t forget to take that, Mma,” she said.

Mma Makutsi looked up at the diploma. “You could easily have got one of those yourself, Mma,” she said.

“But I didn’t,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You did.”

There was silence for a moment.

“Do you want me to stay?” asked Mma Makutsi. There was an edge of uncertainty in her voice now.

Mma Ramotswe opened her hands in a gesture of acceptance. “I don’t think that you should, Mma,” she said. “You need a change. I would love you to stay, but I think that you have decided, haven’t you, that you need a change.”

“Maybe,” said Mma Makutsi.

“But you will come back and see me, won’t you?”

“Of course,” said Mma Makutsi. “And you will come to my wedding, won’t you? You and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? There will be a seat for you in the front row, Mma Ramotswe. With the aunties.”

There was nothing more to do other than to retrieve the framed diploma from its place on the wall. When it was taken down, there was a white patch where it had been hanging, and they both saw this. Mma Makutsi had been there that long; right from the beginning, really, those humble days in the original office, when chickens came in, uninvited, and pecked at the floor around the desks.

Their words of farewell were polite—the correct ones, as laid down in the old Botswana customs. Tsamaya sentlê: go well. To which the reply was, Sala sentlê: stay well; mere words, of course, but when meant, as now, so powerful. Mma Ramotswe could tell that Mma Makutsi was regretting her decision and did not want to go. It would have been easy to stop this now, to suggest that while Mma Makutsi was replacing the diploma, she, Mma Ramotswe, would start to make the tea. But somehow it seemed too late for that. Sometimes one knew, as Mma Makutsi clearly did, when it was necessary to move on to the next stage of one’s life. When this happened, it was not helpful for others to hold one back. So she allowed Mma Makutsi to leave, did nothing to stop her, and it was not until she had been gone for ten minutes or so that Mma Ramotswe began to weep. She wept for the loss of her friend and colleague, but also for everything else that she had lost in this life, and of which, unexpectedly, she was now by a flood of memories reminded: for her father, that great man, Obed Ramotswe, now late; for the child she had known for such a short time, such a precious time; for Seretse Khama, who had been a father to the entire country and who had made it one of the finest places on this earth; for her childhood. She wanted everything back, as we do sometimes in our irrationality and regret; we want it all back.