“Thamaga is a good place, and I was very happy there. I went to school and I was good at the things that they taught us. I can write, Mma. I can read too. I am not an illiterate. I have a Bible in the bedroom that I know a lot of by heart. I have read it many times. I can say much of it without reading. ‘In the beginning …’”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes, I have heard that.” And added, quickly, “Tell me what happened to you, Mma. Out in Thamaga. What happened?”
The old woman looked at her in surprise. Her eyes, Mma Ramotswe noticed, were unusually moist round the edges, as are the eyes of one who has looked too long into the smoke of a wood fire, smarting. “Nothing happened to me in Thamaga, Mma. Nothing.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “In all those years, Mma?”
The old woman's face creased with amusement. “I suppose that things happened. It's just that when you are living in a village, it seems at the time that there is nothing happening. You know how it is. There is the hot season. Then there are the rains. Then it gets cold. And then the hot weather starts again.
“And children are born,” she went on, “and they grow up and go away and more children are born. That is what happens in a place like Thamaga.”
Mma Ramotswe knew what she meant. It had been the same in Mochudi when she was a girl. Something had happened in her life because she had come to Gaborone and started the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, but there were those who had stayed. Nothing much had happened in their lives, and yet were they unhappier for that? She did not think so.
“I was married when I was sixteen,” said the old woman. “I did not really want to get married because I would have liked to have been a nurse, or an assistant to a nurse. They took girls at the Scottish hospital in Molepolole, the Livingstone Hospital. You know the place, Mma?”
“I know it,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Dr. Merriweather's hospital. When he was there. He is late now, but people still love him. Late people are still loved, aren't they, Mma?”
“Yes, they are. You are right. And that is the place. I could have gone there and they would have trained me, but my senior uncle was against it. He said that if I became a nurse I would go and work in South Africa and never come back, and then who would look after him and the others? So they made me marry. I think that they were interested in the cattle they would get for me too. In the lobola.
“There was a young man who was the nephew of a friend of my senior uncle—my own father was late, you see. So they introduced us—they brought this young man to the house and they sat and watched as we talked. The young man was very shy and he could not talk about anything. He looked at me as if he was trying to say, Sorry, this is not my idea. When he looked at me in that way, I knew that I would be able to love him. I did not like men who never thought about how a woman was feeling. This one was thinking of me. So I said to my senior uncle that he had found a very good young man and that I would behave as a good wife should and he should not worry that they would ask for their cattle back. That is what my uncle was really worried about, Mma.
“We were married and then almost straightaway my husband went off and got a job in Gaborone as a government driver. They were looking for drivers then, as the Government had just found diamonds and they had money to spend on cars. They bought many cars with the diamond money and they needed men to drive them.
“He was very popular with the government people, and they made him a Driver Class One. This meant that he could drive big government cars and not just the cars of small officials. Now and then he drove Seretse Khama himself, Mma, and then he also sometimes drove President Masire if the President's own driver was not well. President Masire used to like to talk to him about ostriches because he was very interested in them—the President was—and my husband knew something about ostriches. He did not like ostriches very much, but he never told the President that. That would have been rude, Mma.
“While he was doing all this driving for the Government, Mma, I stayed behind in Thamaga and brought up the children. We had two sons and two daughters. One of them was the mother of Fanwell. She is late now. The other girl is married to a man on that side”—she pointed in the direction of the border—“and we do not see her very much. There is something wrong, I think, but she will not say what it is. She is not happy, Mma. One of the boys went to Maun and worked in one of those places up there. He became late, and so did his wife. That meant that their children came to me. The other one went to Francistown. He is a clerk, a very important clerk, but he does not send us any money, Mma. Not one thebe.
“While I was staying in the village with my own children, all those years ago, my husband found another woman in Gaborone. I knew about that, Mma, but I said nothing. Some of my friends said to me that I should go and find that woman and poison her, but I said no, I would not do that. I have never poisoned anybody, Mma, and I would not poison even this bad woman who was seeing my husband and taking him away from me. Have you ever poisoned anybody, Mma? I do not think you have! When I see you I do not think: That is a poisoner. I do not think that, Mma.
“And then, Mma, after many years in Gaborone, my husband became late. And that is when I found out that he had had a child by this other woman, and that child, when she was fifteen, had her own child, who is one of those smaller children you have met here. And then she had another one. They are the granddaughters of that bad woman. Their own mother just went away. She left the girls with some neighbours and told them to get in touch with me because she had heard that I was the grandmother.
“So I had to come to Gaborone and sort out all these grandchildren who had nobody to look after them. I found this place, Mma—which may be small but is very comfortable. There is enough room for all of us if we are careful how we move about and do not bump into one another too much.
“When I was in Thamaga, Mma, I earned some money as a potter. You know that they have a pottery out there? You have seen their work, maybe. I was one of the ladies who made pots, very good pots, Mma. So when I came to Gaborone I thought that I could make some pots and sell them out at that shop, Botswana-craft; you may have seen it, Mma. They are kind people there, and they are very happy to take your work if they can sell it. They take some of my pots, but not too many, and I only earn a few pula from each one. Who wants Botswana pots these days, Mma, when there are so many other things for people to buy? And it is also hard to get the right dye here in Gaborone, Mma. Out there in Thamaga we had all the things that we needed—we just had to go and find them. We had good clay. We had many fine dyes from red earth and from plants that we knew. All of that was just given to us by God, and we did not have to pay for it. Here in Gaborone, there is nothing that is free, even the things that God gives to Botswana. Somebody comes along and puts a price on them. Then they say, No, that is twenty pula that one, and that one is fifty, and so on. One day they are going to put a price on the air itself, Mma, and say, No, you cannot breathe unless you give us forty pula for the air. Do you think air is free?”
She became silent. Mma Ramotswe looked into her eyes. The whites were a strange colour, slightly ochre perhaps; burst blood vessels, perhaps, a long time ago; rust; the dust of many years. Any of these could be the explanation.
The old woman drew breath. “Fanwell is such a good boy” she said. “He works very hard in the garage, and do you know something, Mma? Every pay-day he gives me all the money he gets from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Every pula. That is how we live, Mma—all of us. It is only Fanwell's money that we have, and the few pula that I make from my pots. That is what keeps us, Mma. All of us.”
Mma Ramotswe sat quite still. All of us. Until you hear the whole story, until you dig deeper, and listen, she thought, you know only a tiny part of the goodness of the human heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PUSO MEETS ROPS THOBEGA,
BIG HERO
OF COURSE it was not good news that Mma Ramotswe received from Fanwell. But the next day was Saturday, and she put the whole matter out of her mind for the ti
me being. The tiny white van was still working—just—and as long as she crawled along, the protests from the engine were not too loud. So she did not change her plans for that day, which, unusually for a Saturday, involved a work engagement, and a most unusual one at that.
The previous morning, Mma Ramotswe had received a telephone call from her new client, Mr. Leungo Molofololo.
“When are you going to start working on my case, Mma Ramotswe?” the businessman had asked.
“Very soon, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe, glancing at Mma Makutsi as she spoke. The glance had a meaning for her assistant, who immediately inserted a piece of paper into her typewriter and began typing noisily.
“As you can probably hear, Rra,” she said, “the office is rather busy at the moment. But I shall start on your case as soon as I can.”
It was a genuine excuse; Mma Ramotswe had been busy, but she never expected clients to understand that. She knew how special each of us is to ourselves, and how inconceivable it is to us that somebody else's concerns should be more pressing than our own. And the richer people were, she had noticed, the more difficult it became for them to understand that there were other people with hopes and plans of their own, however small these might seem from the heights occupied by rich people. Perhaps to them we look like ants, thought Mma Ramotswe; and she imagined, for a moment, a rich person looking down and saying, That ant there, that traditionally built ant, is Mma Ramotswe. And that one scurrying around over there, that ant with big glasses, is Mma Makutsi.
Mr. Molofololo, though, proved not to be like that. He said that he understood that she was busy and that his matter would have to take its place in the queue. To which Mma Ramotswe replied, “It is a very small queue, Rra, and your case is near the top of the list now.”
“In that case, Mma Ramotswe,” said Mr. Molofololo, “I hope that you will be able to come with me to a football match tomorrow. We are playing a big, important game at the Stadium, and a great deal is at stake.”
Mma Ramotswe thought quickly. Her Saturdays were something of a ritual. She always went to the President Hotel for tea in the morning, and then, after a quick shopping trip, she would return and make lunch. In the afternoon she would have a nap, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni also sometimes did, before getting up to make biscuits for tea. It was a very satisfactory way of spending a Saturday, and the prospect of attending a football match did not strike her as being very attractive. On the other hand, Puso might come too; he was always talking about soccer, although she never paid much attention to what he said about it. Many of the things that boys and men said were like that, she felt; important enough to them, but not all that important to girls and women.
“I will come to the match, Rra,” she said, and then, thinking quickly, she added, “Would you be able to send a car to collect me? My own van is … is temporarily out of order.”
“I shall get my driver to collect you at two o'clock,” said Mr. Molofololo.
“And my foster son?” said Mma Ramotswe. “May he come too?”
“You will both be the guests of Mr. Leungo Molofololo,” said Mr. Molofololo. “Guaranteed.”
Mma Ramotswe thanked him and gave him directions to the house. Then, before they said goodbye, she asked what he thought were the prospects for the match. There was hesitation at the other end of the line; just that silence that, on the telephone, always signals, I am thinking. Eventually he answered. “The game will be stolen from us, Mma,” he said. “Everybody knows that we are the stronger team. But the game will be stolen.”
There was only one word for what Mma Ramotswe heard in his voice, and that was sorrow. And as she rang off, she said to Mma Makutsi, “Mma, have you noticed how things that are really not very important can become very important? A football match? What is it? A game. But to men it is the beginning and end of the world.”
“Not to all men,” said Mma Makutsi primly. “Phuti Radiphuti has no time for football. He says that it is just a waste of time.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “But surely Phuti has something that is important to him,” she said, adding quickly, “Apart from you, Mma. You are very important to him.”
Mma Makutsi acknowledged the compliment. “Phuti likes collecting model aeroplanes,” she said. “That is important to him.”
Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile. “That must be very interesting,” she said. “There are not many men, I think, who do that.”
“Oh there are, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “There are four other men in Gaborone who are interested in model aeroplanes; actually, three of them are still boys. They come to Phuti's house and show each other their planes. They enjoy that very much.”
“Everybody needs a hobby,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Particularly men. They need hobbies because they do not have enough to do. We women always have too much to do and do not have to spend our time watching football or playing with … collecting model aeroplanes.”
“You are right, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “The whole world is on the shoulders of women. How does that song go? Do you remember that song?”
Mma Ramotswe did, and she sang a snatch of it then and there, improvising the words, which were all about how one is on the shoulders of the other but that there is no pain in this, and nobody would have it otherwise.
THE KALAHARI SWOOPERS?” asked Puso. “Are you sure, Mma?”
The small boy's reaction—something between incredulity and sheer delight—had not surprised Mma Ramotswe when she told him that they were to be the guests of no less a person than the owner of the team.
“His driver will pick us up,” she said. “So I want you to have a bath beforehand and put on your best shirt—the red one, I think—so that you will be smart when you meet the captain.”
This news was almost too much for Puso to absorb. The captain of the Kalahari Swoopers, Rops Thobega, was something of a hero. Even Mma Ramotswe, who knew nothing about football, had heard all about Rops Thobega and his doings. He was one of the more senior players in Botswana football, having been a professional player since his late teens. Now, at the age of thirty, he was getting to the point where younger men were breathing down his neck, but he was still one of the most popular and appreciated of players, and recently had even been praised in Parliament for his initiatives with delinquent youths. “No boy behaves badly if he spends enough time on the football pitch,” he was quoted as saying. “Give me a young man who is coming up before the courts and I will change him.”
A vain promise, some said, but it had been one that he had delivered upon. In particular, he had turned round three young men who had been facing jail and who had become strong football players. Now all three of them were in a team—admittedly a weak team, but they had given up on their bad behaviour.
“Rops Thobega?” asked Puso breathlessly. “Will I meet him, Mma?”
“I think there is a good chance,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We are the guests of Mr. Leungo Molofololo, and he said something about introducing us to the players.”
“That is very exciting, Mma,” said Puso. “I will take my football and ask him to sign it.”
Such was his excitement that Puso was ready a full two hours before Mr. Molofololo's driver was due to collect them. Then, in the comfort of the large Mercedes-Benz that had been sent by Mr. Molofololo, they drove the short distance to the Stadium. It was a hot afternoon, and it would have been preferable to have the windows of the car closed in order to allow the cooling system to operate, but Puso insisted on opening his so that passers-by could see him sitting in the car. Mma Ramotswe smiled. She was pleased to see the boy get such a thrill from the outing.
They were greeted at the Stadium by one of Mr. Molofololo's officials, who led them into a room at the back of the seating area. There they found Mr. Molofololo and, sitting opposite, wearing football shorts and shirt, Rops Thobega himself. Mr. Molofololo glanced up when Mma Ramotswe entered, and he gestured for her to take the vacant seat beside him.
“Rops and I always have a talk before a game,”
Mr. Molofololo said after the introductions had been made. “We talk about strategy.”
“I should not interrupt you,” said Mma Ramotswe, glancing at Puso, who was standing at her side, staring intently at Rops. “There is a young man here …”
Rops looked at Puso and smiled. “Who wants me to sign his football?”
Puso stepped forward, holding the ball out to Rops, who took it and signed. “Work hard at school, young man,” the great football player said. “Play football. Eat healthily. Be polite. Do your best. Understand?”
Puso nodded.
“Good advice,” said Mr. Molofololo. “But now, Mma Ramotswe, I want to bring Rops in on this. He's the captain, you see.”
“I knew that,” said Mma Ramotswe. She smiled at Rops. “Everybody knows about you, Rra.”
The captain inclined his head graciously. “And everybody knows about you, Mma Ramotswe.”
She glanced at Mr. Molofololo. If everybody knew about her, then it was going to be difficult for her to work on this case discreetly. And certainly there would be no possibility of her pretending to be what she was not, as Mr. Molofololo had suggested earlier. “Do they, Rra? What do they know about me?”
The captain stood up and flexed his arms. Then he put one foot in front of the other and rocked gently, stretching the muscles of his legs. “They know that you are the private detective lady who has that place on the Tlokweng Road. Near the garage. They know about that.”
“Do they, Rra?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Do you think that everybody knows that? Everybody?”
Rops stopped his exercise. “No, I am exaggerating, Mma. I happen to know that because I remember everything I read in the newspaper. But I do not think that there will be all that many people who will remember that sort of thing.”