The Miracle at Speedy Motors

CHAPTER ELEVEN A CONVERSATION ABOUT THE PAST

MMA RAMOTSWE had a living to be earned, of course: more than one, if one took into account Mma Makutsi’s salary as an associate detective and the contribution which the agency made to Mr. Polopetsi’s pay as a part-time helper, mostly in the garage but sometimes in the agency. That could change, thought Mma Ramotswe: if it was true that Mr. Polopetsi was the author of the anonymous letters, as she feared he was, he would have to go. Her earlier decision that she might respond to his treachery with love—a solution which had seemed attractive in that moment of peace on the hillside at Mochudi—had been replaced by a more realistic assessment of the situation. She did not relish the thought of dismissing him, but she saw no real alternative. One could not harbour a snake in the bosom of a business, no matter how charitable one felt, and no matter how understanding one was.

But now the immediate task was to attend to a matter that would bring in fees to keep everybody alive. Mma Sebina’s case was problematic: she could be lying, but so far Mma Ramotswe only had the word of that strange woman in Otse who claimed to have been present at the birth. Faced with these starkly contradictory testimonies, Mma Ramotswe had decided to work on the assumption that Mma Sebina was telling the truth and that the mother had done so too. Two testimonies to one; simple arithmetic, if nothing else, pointed in that direction. Of course, if she found somebody else who had light to throw on the mystery, then that might tip matters the other way. For all she knew, further inquiries might make the score two all, but time would settle that uncertainty.

At least she had the names of some more of the elder Mma Sebina’s friends, and that gave her something to work on. She had set Mma Makutsi to work on the tracing of these people—a task which her assistant always performed quickly and effectively, principally through resort to the Botswana telephone directory, but also through the judicious use of a cousin in the tax office. This cousin was happy to reveal the addresses of taxpayers to Mma Makutsi, whom she had long admired. So when Mma Ramotswe had given her the names of the friends of Mma Sebina’s mother, it had taken Mma Makutsi not much more than a day to come up with a neatly typed list of names and addresses. There had been four names on the list; three had been traced, and only one still had a question mark pencilled in against it. Of the three names for which an address had been found, two were in Gaborone: one lived in a flat near the new magistrates’ court, the other in a house a few blocks away from the Grand Palm Hotel. Both had telephone numbers.

On the morning after her trip to Mochudi, Mma Ramotswe left the office to seek out the woman who lived near the Grand Palm Hotel. She had had a short discussion with Mma Makutsi before she left, but it had touched only briefly on the Sebina case. Mma Makutsi was more concerned about the ruined bed and the imminent return to town of Phuti Radiphuti.

“He will be back tomorrow, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “And the first thing he will ask is: How is the new bed? And what will I say to that? It is no longer? Is that what I will say?”

“We must tell him before he asks,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And remember, I have offered to do this thing for you. I will go to see him and tell him what happened.”

Mma Makutsi winced. “Oh, Mma…”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “For goodness’ sake, Mma Makutsi! It is only a bed. There are many beds in this country. There are millions of beds…”

She stopped. Were there millions of beds in Botswana? Was that, perhaps, an exaggeration?

Mma Makutsi noticed the hesitation. Be Accurate had been the motto of the Botswana Secretarial College, and she could not let this wild statement pass. “I think that there are less than two million people in this country,” she said. “And not everyone has a bed. There are some people who have no bed at all, and then there are all those people who share a bed. So there are not millions of beds, Mma Ramotswe. There are maybe…”

Charlie had come in at this point, bearing the mug from which he drank his tea. “Beds?” he said. “What is all this about beds?”

“We are having a private conversation about beds,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “This is women’s talk. It is none of your business.”

Charlie made a face. “You and that Phuti man—have you got one bed or two?”

Mma Makutsi’s eyes widened in anger. “That is none of your business!”

“Just asking,” said Charlie.

“You should not ask these personal questions,” said Mma Ramotswe gently. “It is not polite, Charlie.”

Charlie shrugged. “Modern people talk about these things quite freely,” he said. “You ladies must be more up to date.”

Mma Ramotswe shook a finger at him, but playfully. “You are a naughty boy, Charlie.”

“He is a stupid boy,” muttered Mma Makutsi.

“I am a man,” said Charlie. “I am not a boy. And anyway, Mma, talking of beds, I saw a bed just like yours the other day. You know, the one that got ruined in the rain. The one with the heart. I saw one on sale. Cheap, cheap. Shop-soiled, I think, but very cheap.”

Mma Makutsi, who had turned to look pointedly away during this exchange, now spun round. Where was this bed? she demanded. And the price? Charlie told her, and she looked thoughtful.

Mma Ramotswe, grasping the situation, shook her head. “It is better to tell the truth,” she said. “It is always better, Mma.”

Mma Makutsi pursed her lips. “Except sometimes,” she muttered.

She spoke so softly that Mma Ramotswe did not hear what she said. And she had things to do before she left to speak to the woman who lived near the Grand Palm Hotel.

THERE ARE NOT enough trees in this part of town, thought Mma Ramotswe, as she searched for somewhere to park her tiny white van. That was the trouble with those new developments: the first thing that builders did when they arrived to start their work was to cut down all the trees. Then, even if they planted new trees, it would take years before there was enough shade to cover a person, let alone a vehicle. Some people resorted to shade netting, which provided shelter from the sun, but ultimately there was nothing to beat the shade provided by a tree; leafy, natural shade that made patterns on the ground.

She settled for the grossly inadequate cover provided by a small thorn tree that had somehow escaped the builders’ notice. Then, checking the plot number on the fence against the number on her piece of paper, she pushed open the gate and called out Ko, Ko, as was polite, before entering. Of course, these days one might have to walk up the path uninvited and call out again at the door, but Mma Ramotswe preferred to do things in the proper way. And this morning her call resulted in the appearance of a woman at the side door of the house. She was drying her hands on a small towel; caught in the midst of housework. She was much older than Mma Ramotswe—by thirty years or so—and there was a stiffness to her movements as she beckoned her visitor to come up the path.

Mma Ramotswe introduced herself. “You do not know me, Mma. I am Precious Ramotswe.”

The woman listened attentively, with the manner that older people have with names. She belonged to a Botswana where names meant something, connected people with places, cousins, events; even with cattle.

“Ramotswe? There was an Obed Ramotswe in Mochudi, I think. He…”

“Was my father. He is late now. My father.”

The woman lowered her eyes in sympathy. “I am sorry. He was a good man.”

Mma Ramotswe felt proud, as she always did when somebody remembered her father. Invariably they used the expression good man; and he was. He was the best of men.

The woman invited her into the kitchen and moved an old enamelled kettle onto the ring of a stove. “I will make tea, Mma,” she said. “Then we can talk. We can talk about your father. He knew my late husband’s brother. They were friends.”

“I think I heard your name mentioned, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Mapoi. It seemed a bit familiar. That is why. My father and your late brother-in-law.”

“No, he is not late, that one. My husband is late, but his brother is not late. He is living down near Lobatse. I never see him because he is scared to travel. He says that buses crash too often, so he stays down there. We get more frightened as we get older, Mma. Or that’s what I sometimes think. More and more frightened—of everything.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. It was true, she thought. But why? Because we had seen so many things go wrong in our lifetime? Would she end up like that, afraid to travel in a bus?

Mma Mapoi gestured to a chair, and Mma Ramotswe accepted the invitation. It was a traditional chair, strung with strips of cured hide threaded through holes bored into the hard-wood frame and then criss-crossed to provide a comfortable seat. It was a chair that harked back to a simpler Botswana, to a Botswana of sweet-breathed cattle by the side of the road, of morning air spiced with the smoke of wood fires; who would need more of a chair than that?

“I have come here because I am a detective,” said Mma Ramotswe. “No, don’t be alarmed. I am not a police detective. I am just somebody who finds things out for people.”

“Missing people?” asked Mma Mapoi.

“Yes, Mma. That is exactly what I do. In this case, I am looking for relatives for somebody. There is a woman called Mma Sebina…”

“There was a Mma Sebina,” Mma Mapoi corrected her. “She is late, I’m afraid. Sometimes it seems that everyone is late.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “We all become late, sooner or later. But her daughter—”

Mma Mapoi clapped her hands together. “Of course, Mma. I was forgetting her daughter. I have not seen her recently, you see. I was very friendly with her mother. Is the daughter well?”

Mma Ramotswe assured her that the daughter was well. “But I have to tell you, Mma,” she went on, “that there is one thing that is bothering her. She thinks that she is not really the daughter of her late mother. She thinks that she is the daughter of another mother.”

Mma Mapoi received this news in silence. She looked at the kettle, which had not yet boiled. Then she looked down at her hands, which were resting, folded, in her lap. Mma Ramotswe’s eyes were drawn to the hands and saw the signs of years of hard work: the cracked skin from scrubbing; the scars from the kitchen knife, little nicks; the worn-down nails.

“She is,” said Mma Mapoi eventually.

“She is the daughter of another mother?”

Mma Mapoi lifted her head. “Yes. Another mother.”

So it is true, thought Mma Ramotswe. Three testimonies to truth; one to falsehood. That woman in Otse, the woman with the chair in the tree, was making things up. Perhaps I should have been readier to discount the tale of one who had a chair in a tree.

“Do you know who that mother was, Mma?”

Mma Mapoi dropped her gaze again. The kettle was now boiling, but she seemed uninterested in it. Mma Ramotswe wondered if she should offer to make the tea, but decided against it. They would wait. She looked at Mma Mapoi. She had not expected her to know, because it seemed that it would be a bit too much to hope for. But obviously she did know; if she did not, she would have said so.

“Do you know her name, Mma?” she prompted. “Or even where she came from?”

Mma Mapoi cleared her throat. “I know who that woman was,” she said. “I did not know her personally, but I knew exactly who she was.”

“I am glad,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is important for the younger Mma Sebina to know. When you do not know where you have come from…”

Mma Mapoi suddenly rose to her feet to attend to the kettle. She checked herself in a moment of pain; her joints. “Is it important, Mma? Are you sure that it’s important?”

“I think so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “People who are adopted want to know these days, I think. They used to hide these things, but not now.”

Mma Mapoi poured the hot water into a small brown teapot. The smell of the tea, Tanganda, Mma Ramotswe thought, drifted across the room. It was time, thought Mma Ramotswe; and tea made it easier to talk, much easier.

“But what if there really is something to hide?” said Mma Mapoi, her voice raised unnaturally. “What then, Mma?”

It will be marriage, thought Mma Ramotswe. The real mother would have been a young girl, perhaps, the father maybe even unknown. That would have been an issue in the past, but not now, not any more. She began to reassure Mma Mapoi that this would probably not disturb Mma Sebina, but the older woman cut her short.

“No, no, Mma. It’s not that. No. That is nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe waited.

“It is something very bad, Mma,” said Mma Mapoi. “I don’t know if I should tell you.” She paused. “If I do, will you tell her?

Will you tell the daughter?”

Mma Ramotswe was uncertain how to deal with this. She had been asked by Mma Sebina to find out about her real family and she did not know how she could agree not to pass on any information she came by. And yet, if it was something terrible, then how could she be sure that Mma Sebina would want to know? Mma Ramotswe began to explain to Mma Mapoi about her duty to her client. She could not undertake to keep anything from her; did Mma Mapoi understand? Rather to her surprise, Mma Mapoi said that she did understand; she understood perfectly well.

“I leave it up to you,” Mma Mapoi said. “You can decide. But do not tell her until you have thought about it very carefully, Mma. You do not want her to be unhappy, do you?”

“No. Of course not.” Mma Ramotswe waited. Mma Mapoi had poured the tea now and was cradling her cup in her hands. Then she looked up at Mma Ramotswe.

“The mother—the real mother—was a very young woman, Mma. She was just sixteen, I think. And she already had one child before she had this girl. Her first-born was a boy. Then she had a daughter.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded her encouragement. “I see. Two children.”

“Yes, two children. And then…then, Mma, this young woman killed her husband with a hoe. That is what happened.”

Mma Ramotswe had not been prepared for this. Botswana was a peaceful place, and people did not kill their husbands, or not very often. That happened elsewhere, she thought.

Mma Mapoi was watching her intently. “I can see that you are shocked, Mma,” she said quietly. “It was a terrible thing. I think that he was a very bad man, that husband—he beat her, I think, and she decided that she had had enough. That sometimes happens.”

Yes, thought Mma Ramotswe, it did. And she understood. There were men who beat women; she had been married to one, to Note Mokoti, all those years ago. Had she stayed with him, might she have ended up disposing of him? It seemed inconceivable, but in a moment of utter desperation anybody, she imagined, might do anything.

Mma Mapoi continued with her story. “The police came and took her away. She did not deny that she had killed this man, and they took her to the High Court in Lobatse. Mma Sebina—the mother—told me all about this. They knew why she had done it, and I think that the judge felt sorry for her, but she still had to go to prison. But she became late there after a year, I think—she was ill. And that made those children orphans.”

“Where did they go? Was there a grandmother?”

Mma Mapoi shook her head. “No. There was nobody. Nobody knew where that woman was from, and the late husband’s family would have nothing to do with the children of the woman who had killed their son.”

Mma Ramotswe made a sympathetic clicking with her tongue. Without a grandmother, children in that position would be the responsibility of a village—if they had a village.

“So they took them to that place at Tlokweng,” said Mma Mapoi. “That is where they went. Then Mma Sebina took the girl. She could not take the brother. She could not feed two more mouths, she said.”

Mma Mapoi went on to say something about the cost of food and how difficult it was to feed growing children, with their appetites. Boys were worse than girls, she said, and they always wanted meat, and meat was so expensive these days, unless you had your own chickens, of course…But Mma Ramotswe had stopped listening. The orphan farm at Tlokweng; and there was a boy. I’ve found your brother, she thought.

“Thank you, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You have told me something very important. And I don’t think we need to tell Mma Sebina about what her mother did. We can keep that a secret, as long as we can tell her that she has a brother.”

Mma Mapoi seemed relieved. “It would be better that way,” she said. “My friend never wanted her daughter to know. I am sure of that.”

“Then we can respect her wishes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is always better to respect the wishes of somebody who is late.”

“Oh yes,” said Mma Mapoi. “That is much better. Otherwise they might punish us from up there.”

Mma Ramotswe sipped at her tea. “Possibly,” she said. But there was disbelief in her voice; she did not think that those who were late, or the ancestors themselves, would wish punishment upon us, no matter what our transgressions. It was far more likely that there would be love, falling like rain from above, changing the hearts of the wicked; transforming them.