The Miracle at Speedy Motors

CHAPTER SIXTEEN MR. SEKAPE REVEALS SOME PECULIAR VIEWS

SHE HAD TO DECIDE. She could tell Mma Sebina first that she had found her brother, or she could speak to the brother, to this Mr. Sekape, and reveal to him that he had a sister. The two possibilities raised quite distinct issues. Mma Sebina had asked her to find relatives for her; Mr. Sekape had not. So while it would be no shock to Mma Sebina if Mma Ramotswe came up with a brother, that might not be the case with Mr. Sekape. He would have got up that morning in the belief that he had no sister, and by the time he went to bed he would do so in the knowledge that he did have one. That would be a major change in his circumstances.

And yet that, surely, was what life was like. There would inevitably be certain days when things changed dramatically—days when we received bad news or good, which could dictate the shape of the rest of our lives. That had happened to her on that day, that fateful day, when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had proposed to her, on the verandah of the house, as the sun went down. She had started that day without a fiancé and ended the day with one. And in Mma Makutsi’s case there must have been a day, some time ago, when she had begun the day as an ordinary student of the Botswana Secretarial College and ended it as the college’s most distinguished graduate in its entire history.

The news that one had a sister surely should be good news. It was possible that there were some people who did not want a sister, but she felt that there was no reason to assume that Mr. Sekape would be one of these. Most people would be concerned that a newly discovered relative would make some sort of claim on them—a perfectly reasonable concern in a country where there was strong pressure to look after relatives. But Mma Sebina showed every sign of being quite well off, and she would not be asking Mr. Sekape for money. So there was no reason to hold back from telling him.

But what swayed her most was the fact that Mma Sebina might not be back until the following day, and Mma Ramotswe, quite simply, felt that she could not wait that long. The discovery was so thrilling that she wanted to tell somebody; no bearer of such momentous news could be expected to wait. So that decided that: she would go to the bank just before lunchtime and speak to Mr. Sekape during his lunch hour. That would give him time to compose himself again for the start of the afternoon’s business.

She parked the tiny white van near the museum; a shady place under a tree had just been vacated, and she nosed into that, ignoring the knocking sound which continued to come from the engine. She would have to speak to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni about that when he came back, unless…she spoke to him first about the whining sound that his own truck seemed to make. If one had a mote in one’s eye, then talking about the mote in another’s could preclude discussion of one’s own. She switched off the ignition and sat quite still as she contemplated the idea that had just occurred to her. If she managed to distract Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s attention from her van, then she could speak to Charlie about fixing it in his spare time. Charlie would not say anything about her having to get a new one, and, if he did, she could ignore his advice. And then if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni raised the subject, the tiny white van would be in good health again and there would be no awkward discussions about replacing it.

Cheered by the thought of this neat solution, Mma Ramotswe locked her van and crossed the road to the back of the Standard Bank. She looked at her watch anxiously; it was a few minutes before one, and she hoped that Mr. Sekape had not gone off for his lunch early. Even if he had, she would be able to find out where he had gone and seek him out there. But it would be easier to get him here, in the mall, where she could take him off to the President Hotel verandah a few yards away and make her disclosure.

She entered the bank. A security guard at the entrance looked her up and down and nodded to her.

“You have decided that I am not a bank robber,” said Mma Ramotswe.

The guard laughed. “You are right, Mma,” he said. “Bank robbers do not look at all like you. They’re…” He tailed off, and looked to Mma Ramotswe for help.

Mma Ramotswe understood. “You’ve never seen one, Rra? No? That’s just as well, I think. We do not go in for bank robbers in Botswana.”

The guard looked relieved. “I suppose I know what to do, which is nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe did not conceal her surprise, and the guard continued: “I have been told that I must not try to disarm anybody who comes to rob the bank. I have to bear in mind the safety of the customers. That is the first thing I must do.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “That is probably best, Rra. And anyway, here in Botswana if anybody came to rob the bank you’d probably know exactly who they were. You could simply threaten to tell their mothers. That would put a stop to any bank robbery.”

The guard clapped his hands together. “Exactly, Mma! So my job is…is…” He could not bring himself to say unnecessary; nobody can be expected to admit that his job is unnecessary.

“Ceremonial,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Your job is ceremonial.”

“That is what it is. Thank you, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe acknowledged his thanks and moved on into the bank. Nearer pay day, at the end of the month, there would be long lines of people waiting for the tellers; now there were just a few customers at each of the windows. She looked around, made her way across the floor to a desk bearing a large Enquiries sign, and asked for Mr. Sekape.

The woman behind the desk picked up a telephone and spoke a few words into the receiver. “He will come down,” she said. “He is upstairs, Mma. But you have caught him just before he goes out for lunch.”

Mma Ramotswe took a few steps backwards and waited. It is my job, she told herself; I am just doing my job. But the significance of what she was about to tell Mr. Sekape made her heart beat faster, her mouth feel dry.

SHE TOLD HIM that she had some news for him, that it was not bad news, but that she would need to talk to him outside. Could he join her out in the square? As they walked, they could talk. He was not to be alarmed; it was something that she thought he would be happy to hear.

He was not alarmed, nor even surprised by her request. In a country where news was often conveyed by messenger, it was not unusual for a stranger to announce that there was something they needed to discuss. There were a hundred things that might be talked about on such an occasion: difficulties with marriage negotiations, problems over the custody or education of a child, matters relating to cattle; it could be anything.

“It’s getting hotter,” said Mr. Sekape as they moved out from the shade of the bank building. “There will be more rain soon, I think.”

“I hope so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I was on the Lobatse Road the other day and there was a lot of green. And the dam too—I have read in the newspapers that the level is getting higher.”

“That is all very good,” said Mr. Sekape. “This is all very good news.”

But it is not this news that you have brought me, Mma, he thought. You have not come to talk about the rains.

She glanced at him sideways, taking in the neat appearance, the black trousers with the thin leather belt, the polished shoes. He was exactly as she had imagined he would be, a mid-level employee of the bank, doing well, heading for promotion to branch manager at some point. Such lives were quietly and correctly led to the very edge of the grave; lives of caution and respectability, with few high points and moments of excitement. She allowed her glance to move to his left hand: no ring. That was not conclusive, of course, but it was surprising; she would have expected a ring.

They walked slowly up the centre of the square that opened up in front of the President Hotel. Traders had set out their wares on the large concrete flagstones that covered the square, the goods ranged out carefully on sheets of plastic or sacking: roughly made sandals, wooden carvings, lines of glistening sunglasses. They passed a dealer in traditional medicines who had created small piles of herbs, roots, barks, crushed leaves. Mma Ramotswe looked down and saw a root that she recognised, that she had been given to chew as a girl, which worked, she thought, for something that she had forgotten about—a sore stomach, perhaps. She leaned down and asked the woman selling the herbs whether that was for the stomach and the woman nodded. “You have a pain, Mma? In your stomach?”

“I have no pain, Mma. But I know that is a good thing, that one. It is very good.”

Mr. Sekape said nothing. He wanted to hear what she had to say to him; he was not interested in old roots.

Mma Ramotswe straightened up. “You were adopted, Rra,” she said. “Mma Potokwane has told me.”

Mr. Sekape stopped, and stiffened. “That is true, Mma. I was very small. I was looked after by a lady who lived right here in Gaborone. She was a teacher at the secondary school. She became my mother.”

“And her husband?”

He shook his head. “He was late by the time she took me. He worked for the government, in the Ministry of Education. She had a small pension from them, but her own job was a good one. She gave me everything.”

They started to walk again. His initial stiffness of manner when she had first raised the matter of his adoption had eased, and he began to talk more freely. “She is late now. Three years ago. I still miss her, because I carried on living in her house right up to the end. Now I have that house to myself.”

Mma Ramotswe made a sympathetic sound, something between yes and I see. “You must miss her.” And she thought of her own father, whom she missed.

And that was what she was thinking—of Obed Ramotswe and of her father’s cousin, who had, all those years ago, given her a root to chew for a sore stomach—when Mr. Sekape stopped, and touched her lightly on the arm, and asked, “What is it, Mma? What have you come to tell me?”

And now that the moment had come, she replied, without thinking of how she might put it, “I have come to tell you that you have a sister, Rra. I do not think that you know about her, but you have a sister.”

She heard him catch his breath. She saw his hand go to his face, to somewhere near his mouth, and then drop again.

“Yes, Rra. This lady, your sister, has come to me and asked me to find her family. And I have found you.”

At first he said nothing. He turned his face away, to look in the direction of the government buildings at the other end of the square, and she thought, this is not welcome news for him, but then, when he turned back to face her, there was no mistaking the emotion within him. His voice cracked as he spoke; he stopped to compose himself. “You have found me a sister, Mma? You have found her?”

“I have, Rra. I can take you to her. I can take you to her…” She shrugged. “Tomorrow, maybe. Or the day after. I can do that.”

He was looking down at the ground. Behind him, two women were walking slowly across the square, carrying bags stuffed with purchases. One of the women looked up, and Mma Ramotswe recognised her; a friend of Sister Banjule at the Anglican hospice, who had nursed Mma Makutsi’s brother in his final days; by these bonds of friendship are we linked, one to another.

“Dumela, Mma Ramotswe.”

“Dumela, Mma.” Mma Ramotswe did not know the other woman’s name, but it did not matter; the two passed on and she was left with Mr. Sekape, who looked up.

“No, Mma,” he said. “Please take me today. Please take me now. I cannot wait.” He looked about him. “I must buy her a present. I must…”

He seemed flustered, and Mma Ramotswe took his hand. “There will be plenty of time for that, Rra. A whole lifetime, don’t you think?”

MMA RAMOTSWE would have liked to have had more time to arrange the meeting with Mma Sebina, but Mr. Sekape was insistent. They could not wait, he said, because anything could happen; there could be a road accident, there could be a storm, and the meeting might never take place; none of us, he said, can be completely sure of seeing the next day. And what a waste of her hard work it would be, he said, if this sister were to be snatched away from him just when he had discovered her. That, thought Mma Ramotswe, was perhaps being somewhat pessimistic; neither of them was aged, neither of them seemed afflicted by ill health; one day, surely, would not matter. But she did not voice these objections. She might have hoped to give Mma Sebina more warning, to give her time to get used to the existence of a brother, but she could not say no to Mr. Sekape in his almost boyish enthusiasm, because if she did, it crossed her mind, the disaster that he feared might just occur. There might be an accident, and then…

It was because he was a man, she thought, that he could not wait; men were not very good about keeping presents, but wanted to open them immediately. Women could wait, could enjoy the slow build-up of excitement. We are different, she thought; we are definitely different. Whatever people said about everybody being the same, it simply was not true. There were profound and obvious differences between men and women and the ways in which they viewed the world. These existed; they simply did.

Mr. Sekape returned to the bank and excused himself for the afternoon. Then, travelling together in the tiny white van, they made their way back to the agency.

“My assistant will look after you while I go to look for your sister,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I hope that I can find her quickly and bring her to you.”

“You will find her quickly,” said Mr. Sekape. “I have a feeling that you will find her very quickly.”

Mma Ramotswe took her eyes off the road briefly to look at him. “I hope so,” she said. He was like a schoolboy, she thought; as impetuous as a schoolboy. And what else? She had ascertained in their earlier conversation that there was no wife, which was unusual. He was obviously not hard up, and he had a house. Why, then, no wife? She knew that it was often hard for women, with the shortage of men, but if a man had a bit of money and a house, then he could take his pick of suitable women, who would be only too pleased to marry him.

She remembered her policy of asking. Time and time again she had proved the proposition that if one wanted the answer to anything, then one should simply ask. It was simple, and she wondered whether the police were sufficiently aware of the attractions of such an approach. If they were investigating a crime they should simply stop and ask, “Who did this?” and they would surely be given the answer—perhaps even from the criminal himself, who might just stand up and say, “I did it, Rra.” Or perhaps not.

“Did you never want to get married, Rra?” she asked, as she negotiated their way round the traffic circle near the football stadium.

Mr. Sekape looked out of the window. For a few moments she thought that he was not going to answer, but then, transferring his gaze to his hands, folded upon his lap, he said, “No. Never. Not once, Mma. Never.”

It was a clear enough answer, thought Mma Ramotswe. Some answers were evasive and ambiguous; this was not.

Coming out of the traffic circle, she brought the van back onto a straight course. There was that noise again, that knocking; it seemed to get louder when she pressed her foot on the accelerator pedal, and retreated when she took it off.

“Why not, Rra?”

Unlike her earlier question, which had been thought about before being asked, this question slipped out. It was not the sort of question that she would normally ask; she would not have liked anybody to ask her, before she became engaged to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, why she was not married. And after their engagement, she certainly resented being asked—as she sometimes was—why the engagement was lasting so long and no firm date had been set for the wedding.

Mr. Sekape continued to study his hands. “It’s because I do not like women,” he said. “That is why. I do not like them. Sorry, Mma, but you asked me. So now I am telling you. They are always talking, talking, talking. Asking you this thing. Asking you that. That is why I do not like them.”

The tiny white van swerved, very slightly, but still swerved, as Mma Ramotswe tightened her grip on the wheel. She wanted to say, but did not, “I think I should tell you, Rra—this sister I’ve found for you—she’s a woman. You do know that, don’t you?”