She looked at Maria. ‘I need to tell you something, Mma,’ she began. ‘I did not come about a cat.’
The woman did not seem surprised. ‘Of course you didn’t, Mma. I didn’t think that you did.’
This took Mma Ramotswe by surprise. ‘Oh…’ she said.
The woman held out her hand. ‘You are safe here, Mma. I shall not tell anybody you have come. You can trust me.’
This was a strange thing to say, thought Mma Ramotswe. But everything about this encounter so far was strange. What did Maria mean by saying that she was safe? Safe from whom?
‘You see,’ Maria went on, ‘this is a house of trust. Any woman who comes here must be able to trust anybody she meets under this roof. I insist on that, Mma. It is the basis of what we do.’
Mma Ramotswe was beginning to understand. ‘I see,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Maria. ‘We get women here who are at the end of their tethers, Mma. They will have suffered so much from people whom they once trusted, and that trust has been abused. That is why they come to us, and we never turn anybody away. Never.’
It was clear now. And it confirmed that this was the right house. Mrs had come here because she was in danger. It all made sense. ‘I see,’ said Mma Ramotswe.
Maria started to lead her towards the kitchen, but continued to talk. ‘But almost everybody who comes here starts off without telling me the whole truth. There is often a reason for that. They are so used to having to cover up, to having to say all sorts of things to the men who are tormenting them that they carry on with it. It takes time for them to be able to speak without fear – and that is when the truth will start to come out.’
‘I have not —’ began Mma Ramotswe.
Maria interrupted her. ‘No, of course you haven’t. All in good time. But you might tell me one thing: why did you come, Mma? Who was it?’
‘There is an Indian woman,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘She came to see you yesterday with her friend, Miss Rose. I have been asked —’
Maria brightened. ‘Ah, Lakshmi. She said that she knew another woman who was suffering too, and that she would pass on our details. So she has sent you.’
Mma Ramotswe frowned. The work that Maria did was good work, and she did not want to mislead her. ‘I do not really know her, Mma.’
Maria was brisk. ‘But she said to me that she told you everything. She said that she told you about what happened with her husband.’
‘She…’ began Mma Ramotswe.
Maria brushed the interjection aside. ‘I thought that the two of you were close friends, but maybe she is closer to you than you are to her. That can happen, you know, Mma. Women who are desperate for somebody to talk to can seize on people they don’t really know all that well. They can become dependent very quickly. Maybe that is what happened when you met her.’
They had reached the kitchen, and Maria now poured Mma Ramotswe a glass of water. ‘There,’ she said. ‘That will make you less thirsty.’ She paused. Mma Ramotswe, now actually thirsty, drained the glass.
‘Lakshmi told me about your husband, Mma. I was very sorry to hear about it. I said to her that you should even consider going to your brother. You have to be careful about getting other male members of the family involved, as it can lead to trouble, but since your brother —’
Mma Ramotswe put down the glass. The misunderstanding had gone on quite long enough.
‘Excuse me, Mma,’ she said firmly. ‘She was not talking about me. There is nothing wrong with my husband. He is a good man. And I have not come here because —’
Again, Maria did not let her finish. ‘Mma,’ she said, holding up a hand, ‘Mma, we understand. You are being loyal, because women are loyal – in the face of everything, they are loyal.’
Mma Ramotswe found that she had to laugh. She tried to stop herself, but she failed. Maria looked at her severely.
‘This is no laughing matter, Mma.’
No, of course not; and suddenly she was back in school, in Mochudi, on a hot afternoon. She was sitting in the classroom with the summer sun like a hammer on the tin roof and the bolts that kept the sheets of tin in place cracking loudly as the heat made them move; she was sitting at her desk with a schoolbook open in front of her, The History of Botswana, and she noticed the name of the publisher: Published by Longman, and the question occurred to her: who is this Longman? She imagined him – a tall man, much taller than those around him, carrying copies of The History of Botswana under his arm – and the thought made her begin to giggle. At first the giggles were controlled and barely audible, but then they welled up within her and began to attract attention. There is nothing funny, the teacher had snapped, glaring at her from the front of the classroom, and of course that only made it worse, for when somebody says that there is nothing funny, it only makes everything seem even funnier. Eventually she had been sent out of the classroom until she got her giggling under control, and was then admitted back in after a stern rebuke from the teacher for laughing over nothing and disturbing the whole class. But it was not nothing – it was poor Mr Longman, the publisher…
She collected herself. ‘I’m sorry, Mma. I understand. It’s just that you and I are talking at cross-purposes. I have come here because I wanted to find something out, and you have imagined that I have come here because I am being mistreated by my husband.’ She paused. ‘Is that right, Mma? I take it that this is what you do – you help people with bad husbands.’
Maria visibly stiffened. ‘What did you come to find out? Are you from the newspaper?’
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. ‘No, I am nothing like that.’
This did little to reassure Maria. ‘Then you have been sent by a man… by a husband?’
Mma Ramotswe held up her hands in protest. ‘Definitely not.’
‘Then why have you come?’
Mma Ramotswe spoke carefully. She knew that this was her chance to elicit the information she needed. At the same time, she knew that she should not deceive Maria; she would not lie.
‘I am interested in helping Lakshmi. I suspect she has suffered much.’
All that she had said was true: she was interested in helping Lakshmi.
‘She cannot be blamed,’ said Maria forcefully. ‘How can anybody blame her for that?’
Mma Ramotswe nodded understandingly. ‘I can’t,’ she said.
‘No,’ said Maria. ‘She put up with it for a long, long time. For years. And then she strikes out – which is what most people would have done well before she did – and he goes to the police and accuses her of attempting to murder him! Can you believe it, Mma?’
Mma Ramotswe sighed. ‘It is very hard to believe something like that, Mma.’ She made a quick calculation. ‘Those police over the border… ow, they’re corrupt. They were in her husband’s pocket, of course.’
She had made the right assumption.
‘Of course they were,’ said Maria. ‘He paid them, I believe. So they put her on their wanted list.’
Mma Ramotswe was thinking. Now the whole story made sense. ‘It was good of her brother to shelter her,’ she said.
‘He is a good man, I believe,’ said Maria. ‘But actually, he is her cousin.’
‘Of course. He is her cousin. Of course. Did I say brother?’
‘Yes.’
‘That is my mistake. I know he is her cousin.’ That was true: she did know now.
‘And you have been good to her too,’ continued Mma Ramotswe. ‘You have done so much.’
Maria looked down modestly. ‘We try, Mma. The support groups are very important for people in her position. They let her know that she has sisters. That makes a difference, you know, Mma.’
Mma Ramotswe inclined her head in agreement. Yes, women who suffered had to know that they had sisters – it was this that made the difference between hope and despair. And there were always sisters; no matter how difficult your situation was, there were sisters, vast legions of them – an army, in fact – who would be ready to help you. But you
had to be able to find them, to tell them of your troubles, before the help could materialise; and that was not always easy.
Maria went back to the tap to pour another glass of water, which she handed to Mma Ramotswe. ‘But now, Mma, you said something about helping her. How are you helping that poor woman?’
Mma Ramotswe took a sip from the glass of water. ‘It is a strange story, Mma. You see, I am Mma Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I am a person who helps people with their problems. Lakshmi’s cousin came to see me and told me about her, although he did not give me her name. He said he wanted me to find out who she is.’
Maria’s expression was one of puzzlement, and Mma Ramotswe told her that the story was even more complicated. She decided to tell her everything, and over the next few minutes explained what she had been asked to do, and why. Maria listened intently; at the end she sat down heavily on a kitchen chair and sank her head in her hands. ‘This is hopeless,’ she said. ‘If the immigration people find out who she is they will check her name against the list they get from the police over the border. Those police give them lists of people they’re looking for, so they can check any residence permit applications from South Africa. If the immigration people find her name on that list, they will simply send her back over the border – into the arms of the police.’
‘And of her husband,’ added Mma Ramotswe.
‘Exactly,’ said Maria.
Mma Ramotswe put down the empty glass. ‘We cannot let that happen, Mma,’ she said. ‘We cannot.’
Chapter Thirteen
The Dish of Yesterday
If Mma Ramotswe had Sengupta affairs to keep her busy, Mma Makutsi was almost entirely preoccupied with the Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. The work on the kitchen had been accomplished even more quickly than promised, as had the painting and the delivery of the tables and chairs. There was now a café, even if the paint was still not completely dry here and there, and despite the fact that some of the kitchen shelves had yet to be cut to size and put up. What mattered was that the public could be invited to begin using the café at eight o’clock the next morning. Breakfast would be available until eleven o’clock, at which point lunch would be on the menu until two. Dinner would be served from six o’clock onwards, and the café would shut its doors at nine. This was to be the pattern of the new business.
Phuti had warned Mma Makutsi about staff. ‘That is going to be your problem, Grace,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of people looking for work, but how many of these are the right person?’ He shook his head sadly, as memories returned of his own experience at the Double Comfort Furniture Store. ‘I can tell you, that’s the problem every business faces – getting staff you can trust.’
She had taken the warning seriously: Phuti knew what he was talking about when it came to running a business. And when it came to unsuitable employees, his views were, of course, coloured by the fact that he had employed none other than Violet Sephotho in the bed department of the store. That had been a complete debacle, as he had eventually discovered that Violet’s impressive sales record was entirely attributable to the unconventional and unauthorised inducements she put the way of male customers. That was a famous case, but there was also the equally awkward case of the employee who was found to be stealing furniture from the store. The size of furniture normally prevents its being stolen from under the noses of the management, but in this case the employee had been removing items of furniture piece by piece, disassembling tables and chairs and then removing them leg by leg, seat by seat, over a period of days.
‘You have to be careful, Grace,’ said Phuti. ‘You never know.’
You never know. She had pondered the words. No, one never knew, but just as you never knew what difficulties you might encounter, you also never knew about the positive things the future might hold.
‘I shall be very careful, Phuti,’ she said. ‘But I have a good chef, remember, and he is the one who has chosen the waiting staff. He has the contacts, you see.’
Phuti looked doubtful. ‘But you are the boss. You should choose these people.’
‘The chef is the one who’ll be working with them,’ she said. ‘He must have a good relationship with them.’
Phuti remained sceptical. ‘You are the manager, Grace. A manager must manage.’
‘I shall manage,’ she reassured him. ‘I am getting ready to do a lot of managing.’
Phuti had another query. ‘Have you planned the menu yet?’
‘The chef is doing that. That is his department.’
‘I see.’
She sought to reassure him further. ‘He has been working on all of this, Phuti. He has found a good waiter and a good waitress. They are very experienced, apparently. And he has written out the menu. I am going to type it up.’
She handed her husband the sheet of paper that Thomas had passed on to her. There were greasy fingerprints down the side of it – ‘That is because it is written by a chef,’ explained Mma Makutsi.
Phuti struggled to decipher the chef’s handwriting. ‘Small mouth,’ he said. ‘What is this about mouths? Small mouth, and I see he has something called big mouth.’
Mma Makutsi smiled. ‘That is the fashionable term, Phuti. Small mouth refers to the size of the portion. That is the first course, you see. You start with the small mouth and then you move on to the big mouth.’
Phuti shrugged. ‘Why doesn’t he say first course and second course?’
Mma Makutsi did not answer the question. ‘What do you think about the dishes? They are very tempting, aren’t they?’
Phuti read down the list. Under Small Mouth there were various items on toast: Scrambled Eggs on toast. Sardines and Baked Beans on toast. Cheese and Pineapple on toast. Sliced Sausages and Tomato Sauce on toast. ‘There is a lot of toast,’ he observed.
Mma Makutsi replied that this was quite normal. ‘Many people will want a quick snack,’ she said. ‘They do not want to be sitting for a long time waiting for their food to be prepared. They want food they can eat quickly and then get on with their busy lives.’ She paused. ‘These people are busy executives, you see. They are the people who are going to want toast.’
Phuti moved on to the Big Mouth list. She watched his lips move as he read – a habit of his that she always meant to talk to him about but had never broached. ‘This is a very interesting menu,’ he said at last. ‘This chef…’
‘He has a lot of experience,’ Mma Makutsi said hurriedly. ‘He trained in these big hotels – the Sun, the Grand Palm – all those big, important places.’
Phuti did not argue. ‘I’m sure he did, Grace. It’s just that some of these dishes are…’
She finished the sentence for him. ‘Unusual. Yes, they will be the talk of the town. I am quite sure of that, Phuti.’
Phuti returned to the menu. ‘What is this Dish of Yesterday?’ he asked, pointing to an item at the head of the list.
Mma Makutsi laughed nervously. ‘Oh, he told me about that when he gave me the menu. It is the leftovers from the day before.’
‘Usually menus have a dish of the day,’ said Phuti mildly. ‘I’ve never seen a dish of yesterday.’ He glanced at her reproachfully. ‘You shouldn’t tell people that they’re having leftovers, you know. People don’t like that. It’s as bad as saying “second-hand food”.’
Mma Makutsi’s eyes widened. ‘Oh no, Rra! It is nothing like that.’
‘I’m just expressing an opinion,’ said Phuti. ‘I am not one to judge these things, I am saying what I think.’