CHAPTER FIVE
THEY GO TO THE HOSPITAL
THE RADIPHUTI AUNT had a face which was markedly too wide for her thin body; like a watermelon on sticks, Mma Makutsi had thought when Phuti had first shown her a photograph of her; but she had not said that, of course, remarking, instead, “You are lucky to have an aunt who loves you so much, Phuti.” The impression of disproportion conveyed by this mismatch between head and body was exacerbated by feet which appeared considerably too big for the relatively spindly legs that went up into a skirt made of the brown print fabric favoured by the more conventional sort of middle-aged woman in Botswana. Mma Makutsi had only met her once before, and then briefly, but recognised her and pointed her out to Mma Ramotswe.
“That is Phuti’s aunt. That is her. That lady there.”
Mma Ramotswe looked in the direction indicated by Mma Makutsi. The aunt was sitting under a tree in the grounds of the hospital. Another woman, accompanied by a young girl, sat at the other end of the bench placed there. A village dog, emaciated and flyblown, lay at the girl’s feet, somnolent in the growing heat of the morning, its mouth open, its preternaturally long tongue exposed to the sun.
Mma Ramotswe gestured for Mma Makutsi to follow her, although her assistant seemed anxious about doing so.
“We will speak to her,” she said. “Come.”
Mma Makutsi was hesitant. “She said that we should not come here until she told us. She said that …”
Mma Ramotswe gripped Mma Makutsi’s arm. “You are the fiancée, Mma! You are almost Mrs. Radiphuti! You are the one who should be at his bedside. He will want to see you, Mma, not his aunt.”
They walked towards the aunt, who turned as they approached and fixed them with a discouraging stare. Mma Ramotswe retained her grip on Mma Makutsi’s arm. “Never be put off by rudeness, Mma,” she whispered. “It is the rude person who is rude, not you.”
This advice, puzzling at first, encouraged Mma Makutsi. “You are right,” she whispered back. “I am not afraid of this woman. I am not afraid of a great big melon.” She looked furtively at Mma Ramotswe, momentarily embarrassed by the childish nature of the insult. It was the sort of thing that Charlie would say, and not a fitting remark for the fiancée of the owner—virtually—of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop and an assistant private detective. But Mma Ramotswe had not heard, or had chosen not to hear.
The aunt glared at them as they came up to her. “You should not be here, Grace Makutsi,” she said sharply, rising to her feet. “Did they not tell you that I would say when you could come? Did Gaethele not give you my message?”
She did not wait for an answer to her question, but continued, “And now you are bringing the whole world. This woman here, what business has she?” She gestured dismissively towards Mma Ramotswe. “Did anybody give you permission to bring her? This is not a cattle show, you know.”
The sheer rudeness of this welcome made Mma Makutsi start; Mma Ramotswe felt it in her arm, a shocked movement.
“Dumela, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly, extending the traditional greeting. “I hope you have slept well.”
Even the aunt, in all her bristling hostility, could not overcome the ancient habit; she returned the greeting gruffly, but then immediately turned again to Mma Makutsi. “Well? Did Gaethele give you my message?”
Mma Ramotswe intercepted the question. “I think he did, Mma. But Mma Makutsi is the fiancée, you see, and I was the one who said to her that she should come to the hospital. I was the one.”
The aunt stood quite still, absorbing this provocative piece of information. Then, without looking at Mma Ramotswe, she said to Mma Makutsi, “Who is this large person, Mma?”
“I am Precious Ramotswe,” said Mma Ramotswe evenly. “Mma Makutsi works for me.”
Mma Makutsi would have preferred it if Mma Ramotswe had said “works with me,” but did not feel that this was the time for concern over status, important though such questions might be.
The aunt now looked at her adversary directly. Mma Makutsi was right, thought Mma Ramotswe; she does look like a melon. “So you are that woman,” said the aunt. “I have heard of you and your detective nonsense. I do not want to think about such business now. The important thing is this: my Phuti is having a big operation. He is in there now. Now, now, while we speak. And I do not want him to see people until he is strong enough. That is all, Mma.”
She stopped, and fixed Mma Ramotswe with the stare of one who has given a full and perfectly reasonable explanation.
“Have you spoken to the doctor?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She sounded neither angry nor offended; her tone was perfectly even.
“Yes, yes,” snapped the aunt. “I have spoken to them and signed a piece of paper. They told me all about the operation that they would have to do. It is very sad.”
Mma Makutsi caught her breath. “Why sad?”
“Any operation is sad,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “It is sad for the person having an operation. Sad for the system. That is well known.”
The aunt raised an eyebrow. There was something triumphant in her expression. “They gave me all the details,” she said. “The doctor was very kind. He was Ghanaian. They are always kind, those people from that place.”
Mma Ramotswe probed. “Maybe you could tell Mma Makutsi what he said. She is the fiancée, so she has the right to know.”
The aunt moved her head slightly, as if to ease the pressure on her narrow shoulders. “Fiancée? What is a fiancée, Mma? A fiancée is not a permanent person; an aunt, an uncle, they are permanent. Forever. You see?”
Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi. Her assistant was looking down at the ground, avoiding the aunt’s gaze.
“But she will be Mrs. Radiphuti,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly. “She will be his wife very soon.”
For a few moments there was complete silence. The conversation had been followed by the woman and the girl on the bench; understood by the woman, incomprehensible to the girl. The dog had opened its eyes when they had arrived, but had closed them again. A small cluster of flies had gathered at its nostrils, but it seemed inured to their presence.
Then the aunt spoke. “Not now,” she said. “Not any more, I think.”
Mma Makutsi’s head jerked up. Mma Ramotswe’s grip on her arm tightened.
“Yes,” said the aunt, her eyes revealing her evident enjoyment. “Phuti will not wish to marry you now, I’m afraid. Not after this operation.”
Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath; it was involuntary, but quite audible. She understood that it was his legs that had been damaged; what was this?
“The doctor told me,” said the aunt. “He told me that Phuti’s right leg is very badly damaged. All crushed, he said, like the wood you break up to make a fire. They cannot repair it, and they are going to have to cut it off. There. Just below the knee.”
Mma Makutsi closed her eyes, and for a moment Mma Ramotswe thought that she was going to collapse there where they were standing. She helped her to the bench. “Sit down, Mma. Just sit down.”
The aunt’s satisfaction in the situation seemed to be growing. She now became brisk and businesslike. “The doctor said that he thought that they would be able to make a good flap of skin. They will not have to take skin from anywhere else. That is good. And then he will have to come to my house, and I will look after him.” She paused. “I do not think that marriage will be a good idea now, Mma. And anyway, you will not want to marry a man who has only one leg, will you? You will find another man—there are plenty of men with two legs.”
As Mma Makutsi settled herself on the bench, the woman at the other end moved over to her side, quickly, instinctively. “Do not be sad, my sister,” she said. “You must not be sad. Your husband will not die.”
Mma Makutsi looked at the woman, who now took her hand in hers. “It does not matter that they will take one leg from him. It does not matter. He will be alive, won’t he?”
Mma Makutsi nodded. “Thank you, Mma.”
“And this lady,” whispered the woman. “She is like a skinny cow. No man will want to live with her. Even a man with one leg will run away from such a woman. You can tell that.”
Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. “I have heard what you said,” she told the aunt. “And I do not think you should speak like that. It is not true, and it is unkind. Mma Makutsi will wait here with me, and with this good lady here.” She gestured to the other woman on the bench, who nodded her agreement. “And then when the operation is over she will go to sit with Phuti until he wakes up. I shall explain all this to Dr. Gulubane, who is an important doctor in the hospital here. I know him well, Mma, and I am sure that he will sort everything out if you start to make trouble.” She paused. “Do you understand what I have said to you?”
The aunt glanced about her. The mention of authority had unnerved her, and she was outnumbered; even the young girl was staring at her with undisguised hostility. She reached for a bag that she had placed beside the bench and began to walk away. “Phuti will be very cross when I tell him about this,” she said over her shoulder. “I can tell you that.”
Mma Ramotswe hesitated for a moment, and then she walked briskly after the retreating aunt. “Excuse me, Mma,” she said.
The aunt ignored her.
“I know that you’re feeling very sad,” Mma Ramotswe persisted. “I know that you love Phuti very much, and this must be very hard for you.”
The aunt’s step faltered.
Mma Ramotswe reached out to touch the other woman’s arm. “And from what I have heard, he is very fond of you too. He is a good man.”
The aunt stopped. Mma Ramotswe heard her breathing, a slightly raspy sound; to hear the breathing of others, such a vulnerable, intimate sound, was the most powerful reminder of their humanity—if one listened.
“You have heard that he is fond of me, Mma? You have heard that?”
Mma Ramotswe had not, but she reasoned that she could infer it from what Mma Makutsi said about Phuti’s regular visits to the aunt’s house; and from such information to a conclusion of fondness, and from that to a report of fondness, was not too large a step. To tell the strict truth was the best policy in general but not always, particularly when the happiness of an insecure and lonely, even if misguided, woman was at stake.
“Yes, I have heard it,” she said. “And I think that you should think very carefully about what I am going to tell you, Mma.”
The aunt was looking at Mma Ramotswe intently now. The watermelon-shaped head gave a small nod.
“Phuti is a good man,” Mma Ramotswe went on. “I have already told you that. And there is something that we need to remember about good men. They have room in their hearts for more than one person, you know. So if Phuti has a wife …”
“She is his fiancée,” muttered the aunt.
“But she will be his wife, and what I was trying to tell you is that I am sure that he will still be very fond of you and look after you when he is married.”
The aunt looked doubtful. “How do you know this? How do you know what he will feel?”
“I know it because I know Mma Makutsi very well,” she said. “I know that she is the sort of woman who will make sure that he does his duty. She will not allow him to forget about you.”
The aunt stared at her. “You are sure of that?”
“Of course I am sure. We can ask her right now if you like.”
The aunt looked back towards Mma Makutsi. “Why?”
“Because each of you has a heavy heart,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And feeling angry makes a heart even heavier.”
The aunt made a strange sound with her teeth: a sucking-in of air. Then she made her decision.
“I do not wish to talk to you any more, Mma. Thank you very much. Goodbye.”
CHAPTER SIX
HOW TO LOVE YOUR COUNTRY AGAIN
PHUTI RADIPHUTI’S OPERATION took place on a Friday morning. Mma Makutsi spent the latter part of the afternoon at his bedside before being ushered out by a nurse and making her way home by minibus. She felt physically exhausted but also, curiously, elated: this came from sheer relief at the fact that Phuti was still alive, and also from the emotion that she had felt when he had taken her hand and held it tightly. That, she felt, could only be a wordless affirmation of the fact that nothing had changed.
“A word of warning,” said the doctor as he took Mma Makutsi aside. “He won’t necessarily have taken in what has happened to him. Sometimes it’s not until quite a bit later that a person in his position comes to terms with the loss of a limb. You have to be ready for that.”
This warning, sobering though it was, had not succeeded in dampening Mma Makutsi’s pleasure at the operation’s success. She had seized upon such positive words as the doctor had uttered: there had been enough skin for a very good flap; the compromised tissue was relatively low down the leg—just a couple of handbreadths above the ankle; a temporary prosthetic device could be fitted in a month or so and then they could get just the right artificial leg later on; his vascular system was fundamentally healthy, and there should be no reason why there should be any complications. There was a lot to be relieved about.
Later on that night, though, in the quiet, sleepless hours, doubts returned. The aunt had implied that everything would be different now that Phuti had lost a leg—but why? The posing of the question brought a range of possible answers. Phuti had never been particularly confident. This might destroy his confidence altogether, and if that happened then he might not wish to marry. He might become depressed, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been, and Mma Makutsi knew what depression could do to a person’s ability to make even the smallest decision, let alone a decision about a wedding date. And finally there was the aunt with the watermelon-shaped head; she had now shown her hand, and could be counted on to use all her wiles—and Mma Makutsi imagined that these might be considerable—to prise Phuti away from her and take him back into the fold of his family. There were all sorts of unpleasant possibilities, and in the small hours of the morning these loomed larger and larger.
By Saturday morning, Mma Ramotswe had heard of the operation’s success. She too had been going over various possibilities; in particular she had been thinking of the threat posed by the aunt. Mma Ramotswe had gone out of her way to reassure her, but when the other woman had simply brushed her off she realised that this was one of those people with whom there simply could be no dealing. They were few and far between, thankfully, but when you encountered one of them it was best just to recognise what you were up against, rather than to hope for some miraculous change of mind, some Road to Damascus improvement.
At least Phuti was alive and well, by all reports firmly embarked on the road to recovery, and Mma Ramotswe could get on with the day’s activities without too much brooding and anxiety. Saturday was her favourite day of the week, and usually followed the same set pattern. There would be shopping to do at the Riverside Pick and Pay, one of the highlights of the week with important decisions to be made about vegetables and cuts of meat. The children liked to accompany her on these outings; she had to watch them carefully, or the shopping trolley would be filled with garishly packaged boiled sweets and chocolate, all carefully tucked under healthier produce.
“If you really want your teeth to drop out,” Mma Ramotswe scolded, “then buy lots of those things. But if you still want to be able to chew anything when you’re thirty, don’t.”
She realised, though, that such a threat meant nothing to them, particularly to Puso, for whom the idea of being thirty was inconceivable. Motholeli was a bit more prudent—she had seen how a world could draw in—but her younger brother, not yet ten, felt himself immortal. That would change, of course, but traces of that attitude, she thought, lasted well into adult life, and had to. The realisation of our mortality came slowly, in dribs and drabs, until we bleakly acknowledged that everything was on loan to us for a short time—the world, our possessions, the people we knew and loved. But we could not spend our time dwelling on our mortal
ity; we still had to behave as if the worst would not happen, for otherwise we would not do very much, we would be defeated and give up.
That Saturday the children would not be going to the supermarket, as they had things to do with friends. Motholeli was going with her Girl Guide group to Mokolodi, for a nature talk from Mma Ramotswe’s friend Neil Whitson, and Puso was accompanying a friend and his parents to their farm. So Mma Ramotswe did her shopping by herself, hesitating by the sweet-biscuit shelves and surrendering to temptation; succumbing further at the bakery section, where she purchased a dozen sugar-dusted doughnuts; and exposing a final weakness on the way out when she paused at the newspaper counter and bought two expensive packets of ostrich biltong.
Her next call was the President Hotel, in the centre of town, where she sat at her normal table, the one on the left-hand side of the veranda, looking out over the open square below. The waiter, who knew her well, brought over a pot of red bush tea unasked, and a large fruit scone. She sat back in her chair and contemplated both with satisfaction. The world was an imperfect place—as the events of the last few days had demonstrated—but within that vale of tears there were many sites and times of quietude and contentment, and this place and this moment on the veranda was one such.