The Miracle at Speedy Motors

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN THERE ARE MANY MIRACLES

IT WAS HER,” said Mma Makutsi as she filled Mma Ramotswe’s cup with tea and placed it on her desk, with rather more force, perhaps, than normally. “Of course it was her! Charlie was sure it was the same woman who had dropped off the letter. You heard him, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe lifted the cup to her lips and looked down into the dark, red-brown liquid. It seemed troubled; when Mma Makutsi made tea in a bad mood, the tea reflected this. She sighed. She did not like to quote Clovis Andersen too often, but this, surely, was an occasion when the words of The Principles of Private Detection were particularly apposite.

“Clovis Andersen,” Mma Ramotswe began, “says that you should never rely entirely on an identification. I remember his exact words, Mma Makutsi. The human memory plays all sorts of tricks. You may think that you remember correctly, but you might not. Remember that people are very similar to one another—we all have arms and legs and noses, and these can look very, very alike. That’s what he says, Mma.”

Mma Makutsi listened in silence. She was not one to argue with Clovis Andersen, but in this case, even if Charlie’s identification were to be discounted, Violet Sephotho was such an obvious suspect. The only matter to be sorted out was motive, and that, when one started to think about it, was clear enough. Envy. The last time the paths of the two women had crossed, Violet had shown herself to be envious of Phuti. She disparaged him, of course, and made fun of his awkwardness and his speech impediment, but the fact remained: Phuti was well off. Violet would have loved to have married a rich man, but presumably had failed. For her to see Mma Makutsi, whom she despised, with a rich fiancé on her arm must have been more than she could bear. And the hostile references to Mma Ramotswe? A smokescreen intended to conceal the real target: Mma Makutsi, fiancée of the proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop—and of a very large herd of cattle.

Mma Makutsi was so sure that Violet was the author of the letters that it frustrated her that Mma Ramotswe should not grasp this point. But in this she was mistaken: Mma Ramotswe did, in fact, think that it was Violet; it was just that she was reluctant to say that it had been established that she was the culprit. This point was now explained to Mma Makutsi.

“I agree, you know,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It was probably Violet Sephotho. The glasses were nothing to do with the case. And the reason why I believe that Charlie really was correct is this: Charlie looks at women very carefully. He studies them—we have all seen that. And he said something very significant, Mma. He said that when he saw her pushing the trolley in the supermarket—he saw her from behind, remember—he was more convinced than ever. He said that…well, it’s a bit indelicate, Mma, but I have to say it. He said that it was the same bottom.”

Mma Ramotswe’s embarrassment appeased Mma Makutsi, who let out a whoop of laughter. “That boy! That is all he ever thinks of. But this time, he was right. Good for Charlie!”

It was a tiny compliment—good for Charlie—the sort of thing that might be said without really meaning anything, but it was the first time Mma Ramotswe had heard Mma Makutsi say something positive about the apprentice, and she was struck by it. Something had happened; some sandbank of animosity had shifted, even if slightly.

Mma Makutsi brought her back to the matter in hand. “But what do we do, Mma Ramotswe?”

“We write to Violet,” she said. “We send a letter, which I shall dictate after I have finished my tea.”

Mma Makutsi showed her satisfaction at this. “Oh, that is a very good idea, Mma. We can inform her that we have handed the letters over to the police. We can also say that we have consulted our lawyers and that they are preparing a case against her. And we can tell her that we are not surprised to hear that the letters were written by such a silly, cowardly person, who was a disgrace to the Botswana Secretarial College—a complete disgrace.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, Mma. I don’t think we shall do that. Thank you, but no.” She picked up her cup and drained the last of the tea from it. I’m going to need all the support of this tea, she thought, as after this letter I am going to have to go and see Mma Sebina.

Mma Makutsi readied her notebook. “I am ready, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe cleared her thoat. “Dear Violet,” she began. “We met in the supermarket. You know who I am, but I do not think that we know one another well. I am sorry that I have not had the chance to get to know you better, but maybe in the future that will happen.

“I believe that you wrote me some letters. I know that you claim that you did not do this, but I think that there is enough evidence to satisfy me, at least, that it was you.

“I am writing now to say sorry to you. The only reason why anybody should have written those letters was that I—and my assistant, Mma Makutsi—must have done something in the past to make you feel angry with us. If we have done that—and I do not know what it could be—then I want you to know that I am very sorry for making you feel that way about us. You should not have written to us in the way you did, but I am still saying sorry for anything we have done, Mma, and I am asking you to accept that apology.

“I think, by the way, that I knew your aunt, the one who lived for some years in Mochudi and is now late. Sephotho is not a common name, so my late friend must have been your relative. I remember that she always spoke very highly of one of her nieces who was doing very well in Gaborone, and that must have been you! Your aunt was very proud of you, as I recall.

“Yours sincerely, Precious Ramotswe.”

Mma Ramotswe finished. She lifted her gaze up to find Mma Makutsi, her pencil suspended in mid-air, staring at her. “You can’t say that, Mma Ramotswe. Violet Sephotho is—”

“Is a woman like you and me, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Who can feel bad about herself, the same as everyone. And who wants to be loved, the same as everyone. So saying what I have just said is better, far better, than making her feel even less loved than she is.”

She looked at Mma Makutsi, whose pencil still remained poised. “Did you get all of that, Mma Makutsi?”

The pencil descended again to the notepad and made further squiggles across the page.

“We won’t hear again from Violet Sephotho,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly. “That is the end of that.”

She paused. She could see that Mma Makutsi was not convinced.

“You don’t agree?” Mma Ramotswe asked.

Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Why will she stop? There is something that made her do that. That something will not have gone away.”

“Yes, there is something that made her do it,” Mma Ramotswe said. “It is called envy, and it can make people do very strange things, Mma. She is envious of you because you have everything that she does not. You did so well at the Botswana Secretarial College with your ninety-seven per cent. How does a fifty per cent—”

“At the most,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “Sometimes even less. Forty-two per cent once, I think.”

“There you are,” said Mma Ramotswe. She knew how hard it had been for Mma Makutsi: the younger woman had started with so little, had fought for everything she had; had lived with her bad skin, lived with her large glasses, lived with everything. And even now that she had something which many women would dearly love—a kind husband, or almost, with his own business—she could not believe that anybody would be envious of her.

“It’s your Phuti too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He has given you a position, security. Violet has none of that and she resents you for it. She wants to put you down. That’s why she wrote.”

“But she wrote to you, Mma Ramotswe. Your name was on the envelope.”

“Of course she did. That is because that would cover her tracks. She wrote to me and had you in her sights at the same time. I would probably be just as bad in her eyes. Good husband. A nice house. Cattle.” She paused. “And that is why we must answer her hatred with love. I can’t say whether it will change her in her heart—it probably won’t. But if it makes her feel even just a little bit better about herself, she will be less envious.”

Mma Makutsi laid aside her pencil and stared across the room at her employer. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again. There was much she wanted to say, but even these few moments of contemplation of what Mma Ramotswe had said had shown her that everything that she, Mma Makutsi, would have said was wrong. Mma Ramotswe was right: evil repaid with retribution, with punishment, had achieved half its goal; evil repaid with kindness was shown to be what it really was, a small, petty thing, not something frightening at all, but something pitiable, a paltry affair. So she picked up her pencil, opened a drawer in her desk, and dropped the pencil inside. “I think you’re probably right, Mma,” she said, through tight lips. “You usually are in these matters, because you are a kind lady. But I wish that you were wrong. Which you aren’t. But I still wish it.”

THE LETTER TO VIOLET was an easy task by comparison with what now lay before Mma Ramotswe. She had managed to contact Mma Sebina by telephone and had told her that she needed to see her with some important information.

“About my brother?” asked Mma Sebina brightly. “He is coming to see me tonight. We are going to go to the cinema together.”

Mma Ramotswe swallowed. If she were to be completely honest, then the answer to that would be no, it is not about your brother, because he is not your brother. But she could not; the truth could be too cruel on occasion, and this was one such. And yet that same truth would have to be disclosed very soon.

“It is about your brother,” she said. “Yes, it is, Mma.”

And now she was standing in front of Mma Sebina’s gate and calling out Ko! Ko! And there was Mma Sebina coming out of her front door, wiping her hands on a piece of kitchen towel, and waving to her.

“Mma Ramotswe! You must come in and try what I have just baked. Some banana bread, Mma. It’s a special recipe. Kenneth told me he liked it.”

“Kenneth?”

“My brother. That is his first name. Kenneth Sekape.”

Mma Ramotswe looked down at the ground, and Mma Sebina noticed.

“Is there something wrong?” There was panic in her voice.

“There’s something wrong, Mma. Oh, you have come to give me bad news…”

She started to wail, the wail of the bereaved, the widow, that heart-rending inimitable cry that signified the sudden, overwhelming onset of a grief. Mma Ramotswe reached forward and seized Mma Sebina by the arm, pulling her towards her. “No, Mma! It is not that! Mr. Sekape is all right. It is not that, Mma.”

Mma Sebina strangled her cries. She stared mutely at Mma Ramotswe. “Then…”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head, as if trying to make sense of some confusion within her. “It is all my fault. I should have checked up on what Mma Potokwane told me. She has too much to remember, Mma. She can get things mixed up.”

Mma Sebina frowned. “What is mixed up?”

Mma Ramotswe took a deep breath. Now, very suddenly, she felt herself acutely aware of where she was—standing in front of Mma Sebina’s house, under a sky from which the rain clouds had cleared and which was now empty, blue, limitless. And across which a bird of prey was describing huge, lazy circles. She thought it strange that at a moment like this one should notice such things, but she had heard that one did; as a person facing death may suddenly find that he is looking at some humdrum object in his room, and seeing its beauty.

“Mr. Sekape is not really your brother, I’m afraid, Mma. Mma Potokwane got things mixed up.” She would tell her in due course that there had been a brother and that he was late. Now was not the time, though, as she had caused Mma Sebina quite enough distress already.

Mma Ramotswe had half expected another wail, and was prepared for it. Instead she saw an expression of curiosity come over the other woman’s face. It was curiosity, but it was also a look of pleasurable discovery, as if the information that had just been given to her was not disappointing but welcome.

“So he is not my brother,” she said.

“No. He is not. I’m so sorry, Mma.”

Mma Sebina fingered the crumpled piece of kitchen towel that she had been carrying. “I am glad about that,” she said.

It took a moment or two, but then the realisation came to Mma Ramotswe. Of course, of course. “Oh, Mma,” she said. “I’m sorry that he proved to be one of those men who have a low opinion of women. I knew it was going to be difficult for you. I knew it. So, yes, you must be glad that such a man is not your brother.”

Mma Sebina looked at her in puzzlement. “But he does like women,” she said. “He said that he liked me very much. And…”

“Yes?”

“Well, Mma Ramotswe. What you have told me is very good news because…well, because I like Kenneth very much. I like him…more than one would normally like a brother. Well, more as one would like a man who might become a husband. Of course I could not think that while he was still my brother, and I thought that he would just be a very good friend. But now…”

“And what about him?”

Mma Sebina looked away. “I think that he will be pleased too, Mma. I think he will be very pleased.”

Mma Ramotswe felt the tension of the meeting ebb away. She had expected it to be painful and instead it had become an occasion of pleasure, of complicity in a future romance.

Mma Sebina now took Mma Ramotswe by the arm and steered her towards the door. “Let us go and try some of that banana bread, Mma,” she said. And then she added: “It’s strange, isn’t it? I consulted you to find me a family, and you went out and found me a husband.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled at this. It seemed a bit premature for Mma Sebina to be thinking in terms of marrying Mr. Sekape, but one thing was very clear: she was a woman with a mission, and in Mma Ramotswe’s view, women with a mission usually achieved it, as many men in Botswana—and elsewhere, she imagined—had found out.

Over the cup of tea and the generous slice of banana bread, Mma Ramotswe tackled the last matter that she knew she had to raise with Mma Sebina. It was simpler, now that the information about the mistake had been so easily dealt with, but it would still require tact.

“There is something else I know, Mma,” she said. “There is something about the reason why you were taken in by Mma Potokwane in the first place. I have found that out and I think that you may want to know it.”

“About my mother?” said Mma Sebina.

“Yes. It is about your mother.”

Mma Sebina lowered her eyes. “Is it something that—” She broke off. Then: “Would it make me feel bad about her?”

Mma Ramotswe thought about this. “It might,” she said. “But if you knew this thing, it would still be possible for you to forgive her.”

“Even though she is late? She is late, isn’t she?”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “She is late. But it is still possible to forgive people who are late, you know. It’s important to do that sometimes.”

“Then I forgive her,” said Mma Sebina. “I forgive my mother for…”

“For…”

Mma Sebina raised a hand. “No, please don’t tell me, Mma. I would prefer not to know. And I forgive her whatever it is, even if I do not know.”

“Then I am sure that wherever she is, she is pleased, Mma. I am sure, by the way, that she loved you a great deal. And I am sure that the thing that happened was not something she would have wished to happen.”

“I am sure that is true,” said Mma Sebina.

They drank their tea. There is a final thing, Mma Ramotswe suddenly thought; a final, final thing. The woman who had kept a chair in the tree: Why had she been so adamant that Mma Sebina was not adopted? She claimed, after all, to have witnessed her birth; why would she have said that?

“There was a friend of your mother’s,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“I saw her when I went down to Otse. She has a tree—”

“And a chair hanging up in the tree?” interrupted Mma Sebina. “Oh dear.”

“Why do you say that, Mma?”

“Because that poor lady lives in a world of dreams,” said Mma Sebina. “She is famous for that. And if she told you that she used to have a tomato stall, and that the Minister of Agriculture awarded her a prize for the tomatoes—that is all nonsense, Mma. I’m sorry to say. All nonsense. But she’s harmless, and if she wants to sit under that tree with the chair hanging in it, then there are worse ways of spending one’s time.”

Mma Ramotswe had to agree with this. There were. Considerably worse ways.

MR. J.L.B. MATEKONI arrived home the following morning, unannounced. Mma Ramotswe had not expected him until the next afternoon, but his truck pulled up outside the gate while Mma Ramotswe was taking her early morning walk about the garden. The plants were doing well with the recent rains, and she was examining a shrub which she had planted a few days before, and thinking about Mma Makutsi, when she heard the horn sound and she looked up to see his truck.

She ran towards the gate. He waved from the cab, and so did Motholeli, sitting beside him. Then she pulled the gate open and the truck passed through. She saw the layer of dust on the window, through which Motholeli looked at her, smiling. She saw the spattering of red mud thrown up against the mudguards; they had travelled through rain.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stepped out. “We left very early,” he said. “I woke up at three and I decided that we would leave then. It is easier driving in the cool of the day.”

“Of course.” She looked at his face, searching. She knew the answer, but she still looked. People had sometimes defied the worst predictions of medical science; it had happened.

He dropped his gaze to the ground, and she knew. She knew immediately.

“I’m sorry, Rra.”

His lips moved slightly, but she could not hear what he was saying. She glanced at Motholeli through the mud-streaked glass; she was stuffing something into a bag; she was absorbed.

“And how is she dealing with this?” Mma Ramotswe whispered.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked up at her, and she saw that his eyes were moist. Men can cry. Mechanics. Any man.

“She is being very brave. It’s as if nothing has happened.” His voice broke off for a moment. Then, “She says that it was worth going. That she is glad that we tried.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I will help her out of the truck,” she said. “You must be very tired. You go in and have a shower. All that dust, Rra. All that dust.”

There was much to do. Motholeli was insistent that she wanted to get back to school that morning, in spite of having got up so early. “I want to see my friends again,” she said. “I want to tell them about Johannesburg.”

After breakfast, Mma Ramotswe helped her into the tiny white van and loaded the wheelchair in the back. Then she drove off to the school and parked outside the main gate. They were early and there were no children about, just the man who swept the playground, moving slowly backwards and forwards, his brush raising a small cloud of dust with each stroke. Along the line of the gate, the grass, encouraged into growth by the heavy rains, was dark green, lush.

They sat there, waiting for other children to arrive.

“That grass,” said Mma Ramotswe, pointing to the fence. “Look at it. That would keep some cattle very happy. But there are no cattle in town these days. I remember when there were, you know. Lots of cattle. People just brought them into town with them to keep an eye on them. And I remember when we had telephones that everybody had to share—if you were lucky enough to have a telephone in the first place—party lines. When you spoke, other people could pick up their phone and listen too. You had to be careful.”

“I would not have liked that,” said Motholeli.

“You got used to it,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You can get used to anything, you know.” She had not intended to say that, and it was only afterwards that she realised that Motholeli might have misunderstood her, might have taken it badly. You can get used to anything—even a wheelchair, not being able to walk, even that. She had not meant to say it.

She glanced sideways at the little girl. Motholeli was looking at her hands, examining her fingernails.

“I am used to it now, Mma. I am used to…what has happened to me. You must not worry about me.”

Mma Ramotswe reached out and put a hand on her knee. “I did not want you to go. I was worried that it would come to nothing. I wasn’t at all sure about that doctor.”

“He tried,” said Motholeli. “And the people in Johannesburg tried too. They had all sorts of machines. But then they said that they could not do anything. I heard them. They said it to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, but I overheard them. And he was crying.”

“Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was crying?”

“Yes. He was.” She finished her examination of her nails and began to wind down the car window. “I don’t want anybody to cry for me. There is no need. I am happy. I will carry on being happy.”

A small boy on a bicycle had now arrived at the front gate. He dismounted with grave caution; the bicycle, gleaming in the morning sunlight, was brand-new.

“Look at him,” said Motholeli. “He is very proud of his bicycle.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is proud.” She turned to Motholeli. “And I am proud too, Motholeli. I am a very, very proud lady.”

WHEN SHE RETURNED to Zebra Drive, she found Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni still sitting at the kitchen table, the breakfast plates all about him. He had the air of a man who had been defeated over something, who had been proved wrong.

“So,” she said. “That is over.”

He did not look at her, but traced a pattern on the tablecloth with a finger. “I’m sorry, Mma,” he said. “You were right. I should not have believed those people. And I still have to pay them. I have taken a loan. It is very bad.”

She looked at him, this man whose generous heart she had never doubted once, not once, in all the time she had known him; this man who had become her husband and of whom she was so proud.

“No, there is no need for a loan,” she said gently. “I have sold cattle. There is easily enough money.”

“I cannot…”

“You can. She is my child too.”

He raised his head; there was so much in his eyes, she thought: disappointment, embarrassment, regret—and tiredness too. “I was stupid to believe that a miracle might be possible. I was so foolish.”

Mma Ramotswe sat down at the table and took his hand. “It is not at all foolish to hope for miracles,” she said. “No, it is not foolish, Rra. Not foolish at all. There are many miracles.”

He asked her what she meant, and she explained. There had been a miracle at Speedy Motors while he was away. A woman had looked for somebody to be her family and she had found him. That was a miracle. And Mma Makutsi had paid tribute to Charlie—was that not another miracle? And there had been these life-giving rains, which had made Botswana turn from brown to green and would make the cattle fat within days. All of these were miracles, were they not? Of course one might still wish for further miracles. There was that ominous knocking sound in the tiny white van; if that were to vanish, then that would be another most welcome miracle.

But one had to be careful, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself: one should not ask for too many things in this life, especially when one already had so much.