‘Yes, yes, I’ll tell them about you, Rosie. But I shall be first because I am the one who is speaking, you see.’
‘Do you know India, Mma?’
In the background, the kettle, supervised by Mma Makutsi, began to make sounds of readiness – a faint whistling, like the first stirrings of the wind.
‘I’m afraid I don’t, Rra. There are many places in this world that I would like to see one day, and India is certainly one of them. It is high on my list.’ As she spoke, Mma Ramotswe reflected on the fact that she had never really been anywhere much, apart from a couple of trips over the border into South Africa, and on another occasion north to Bulawayo. That made a total of two foreign countries, but she did not think of Botswana’s neighbours as being really very foreign. And as for the list, it was hardly an active one, as she suspected that she would never be able to get away, even if she could afford the fare, and somebody would have to take care of Mr J. L. B. Matekoni and the children. And if Mma Makutsi were left in charge of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency there was always a risk that she would do something that would require sorting out later, co-director or not. Then there was another thing: even if India was on her list, there were other places that were higher up. There was Muncie, Indiana, to which Clovis Andersen, author of her vade mecum, The Principles of Private Detection, had given her an open invitation before he left Botswana; and then there was London, which she would like to visit in order to see Prince Charles if at all possible, although she was realistic about that and realised that he could well be busy when she was there and unable to fit her in to talk about the things that she had read he liked to talk about. She would like it if they could exchange notes on gardening, and she could tell him about her success with runner beans and her mopipi tree, and the difficulties of growing things when the rains were achingly slow to arrive. He would understand all that, she thought, because he had been to Botswana and had gone out into the Kalahari and she could tell that he knew; and she could see that he was a good man.
Mr Sengupta was saying something about Calcutta. ‘My family is from Bengal, you see, Mma. Perhaps you know of Kolkata, which they used to call Calcutta. I still call it that because I cannot keep up with all the changes in the world. Change this, change that – who are these people who tell us we must always be changing, Mma Ramotswe?’
Both he and Miss Rose looked at Mma Ramotswe enquiringly, as if the question were not rhetorical, but demanded an answer. Mma Ramotswe was not sure what to say; she agreed with the general sentiment, though. ‘They are tiresome people, Rra,’ she said. ‘You are right about that.’
‘But who are they?’ repeated Mr Sengupta.
Mma Ramotswe shrugged. ‘They are people who write in the newspapers or talk on the radio. They are the people who keep telling us what to think and to say.’
Mr Sengupta leaned forward in his enthusiasm. ‘Exactly, Mma! Exactly! I do not ever remember any election in which I was asked to vote for people for the job – the job of telling others what they can say and what they can’t say. Do you remember that election?’
Mma Makutsi had now made the tea and was passing a cup to Miss Rose. ‘There was no election like that,’ she contributed. ‘These are people with very long noses, that is all.’
Mr Sengupta turned to look at her. ‘Long noses, Mma?’
‘Yes, they have long noses because they poke them into other people’s business. That is why they think they can tell us what to say.’
‘I tell them to go away,’ said Miss Rose. ‘I say: go away, you people, just go away.’
This remark was greeted with silence. Then Mr Sengupta continued, ‘We should be more prepared to tell people to go away, you know. If more of us stood up and said “go away” we would have less trouble with government people and busybodies of every sort.’
‘That would teach them,’ said Miss Rose.
‘But I must get back to what I was saying,’ said Mr Sengupta. ‘As I was telling you, my family is from Bengal. My grandfather was a well-known man in Calcutta. He had a street named after him, you know, and he was very well off before he lost all his money in some political dealings with some very rotten fellows. That was a big tragedy for our family, but my father picked himself up and treated it as a challenge. He became a successful man and was able to give each of his four sons enough money to go and start a business somewhere. That is when I came to Botswana – that was thirty years ago. I was twenty-five then, Mma. I was young, but I came and started my office supplies business. It was not easy leaving India and starting up in the middle of Africa, but I did it, Mma. And the moment I arrived in this country I thought: this is a good place. This is a good place because people treat one another well and there is much work to be done. That is what I thought, Mma, and I have not changed my view.’
Mma Makutsi passed Mr Sengupta his cup of tea and he thanked her with one of his difficult-to-interpret movements of the head. ‘Then my sister came and joined us with her husband. He worked with me in the business, and started our branch up in Francistown. That did very well until he became ill and subsequently he passed over.’ He looked at his sister, who lowered her eyes.
‘I am glad that everything went well for you, Rra,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘But I am sorry about your husband, Mma. I am sorry that he is late.’
Miss Rose raised her eyes and acknowledged the expression of sympathy.
‘We lead a quiet life,’ said Mr Sengupta. ‘We are both citizens now – I took citizenship fifteen years ago, and I am very proud of it. My sister took it a bit later, but she is also proud to be a citizen.’
‘I am happy to hear that,’ said Mma Ramotswe. She was not sure where the story was going. Mr Sengupta had said that he was leading a quiet life, but not so quiet, it seemed, that he had no need to consult the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
Mr Sengupta suddenly looked grave. ‘Then something happened,’ he said. ‘Something very unexpected.’
They waited. For a full minute he sat in silence before continuing. ‘A woman came to our house,’ he said. ‘She was an Indian person, like us. She walked up to the house. We have a man at the gate. These days people like us have a man at the gate to watch out for people who think they can steal our possessions. They think that just because we are Indian we will have a lot of money and they can come and help themselves to it.’
Mma Ramotswe knew that what he said was true. There were people who preyed on others: many of them came from outside the country, she believed, but it was not only foreigners who were to blame.
‘This woman told the man at the gate that she needed to see me and that she was a friend. He let her in – it was not his fault. These men think that if one Indian person comes asking for another Indian person then she must be a relative or friend. It is natural – I am not blaming him. So this woman came to the door and my sister was the first to speak to her. You tell her, Rosie.’
Miss Rose leaned forward in her chair. ‘I had never seen her before in my life, Mma Ramotswe. She was a stranger – a complete stranger.’
‘We know most members of the Indian community here in Gaborone,’ explained Mr Sengupta. ‘You see people at weddings. The big festivals, too – Diwali and so forth. My sister will have met just about every Indian lady in the town – but not this lady, you see, Mma. Not her.’
‘So she was a visitor?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. ‘Or somebody who was working for some firm? South African maybe?’
Mr Sengupta raised a hand. ‘No, unfortunately not, Mma. It would have been simple if that had been the case, but it was not. This lady was completely without any connection in Gaborone, or the rest of Botswana, for that matter.’
‘It was as if she came from nowhere,’ said Miss Rose.
Mr Sengupta laughed. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. She is the lady from nowhere, Mma.’
From behind them, Mma Makutsi joined in the conversation. ‘She has to come from somewhere. Nobody comes from nowhere. We all come from somewhere.’
Mr Sengupta half turned in his chair to address her. ‘Yes, Mma, that is correct. So perhaps I should say of this lady that she appeared to come from nowhere.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Rose. ‘She appeared to come from nowhere. But perhaps that is just where she is from. Nowhere.’ She made an airy gesture to demonstrate the curious state of coming from nowhere.
Mr Sengupta’s head started to bob about once more. ‘We must not get confused. This lady obviously comes from somewhere, but it is not clear where that place is. And what makes this a rather unusual case is that she doesn’t seem to know where she comes from.’
‘Or her name,’ said Miss Rose. ‘Can you believe that, Mma? She doesn’t know what her name is.’
Mma Ramotswe frowned. Clovis Andersen had said something in his book about a case of his in which somebody suffered from amnesia. This person could not remember what had happened to him when he was found lying by the side of a road. He had been hit by a car, it transpired, and it was only much later he began to remember the sequence of events. ‘Was she involved in an accident?’ asked Mma Ramotswe. ‘Sometimes people cannot remember what happened to them if they have an injury to their head. It is not unknown.’
‘No, it is not,’ said Mr Sengupta. ‘And that was the first thing that I suspected. Obviously I could not send her back out onto the street, could I, Mma?’
‘Of course not.’ She knew, though, that there were people who would do exactly that in similar circumstances.
‘So I got my friend, Dr Moffat, to take a look at her,’ Mr Sengupta continued. ‘You know him, Mma?’
‘Yes, I know him.’
‘He said that there was no sign of any head injury and that she seemed to be quite healthy in other respects.’
‘Very strange,’ said Mma Ramotswe.
‘Stranger than strange,’ agreed Mr Sengupta. ‘So we told her she could stay with us. We couldn’t let an Indian lady wander around not knowing who she was – or where she was.’
‘Did she really not know where she was?’ asked Mma Makutsi. ‘Not even that she was in Gaborone?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You read about these things, but I’m sure they can’t be true. How can you forget everything?’
‘I assure you, Mma, she had no idea,’ said Mr Sengupta. ‘I am not a person who is easily fooled, you know. I asked her if she knew that she was in Botswana, and she simply looked at me blankly. Like this.’ He affected what he thought would be the look of somebody who had no idea of being in Botswana.
Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile. ‘What did Dr Moffat say about her story?’ she asked.
‘He said that he thought she was telling the truth. He said that sometimes people claim not to remember things in order to get themselves out of trouble. This lady did not appear to be lying. He said that he thought it was genuine amnesia.’
Mma Ramotswe looked pensive. ‘I assume that you want me to find out who this lady is?’
Mr Sengupta sat back in his chair. ‘That is why we are here, Mma.’
‘But why do you want to find this out, Rra? Is it for you to do that?’
Mr Sengupta sighed. ‘There are two reasons for that, Mma Ramotswe. One is that I have taken this lady into my house. And once you have done that, then you cannot walk away, can you?’
‘You cannot,’ said Mma Makutsi from behind him. ‘You cannot walk away.’
‘And the second reason,’ Mr Sengupta continued. ‘The second reason has to do with the immigration people. This lady has no papers – no passport, no driving licence, nothing. I went to see them about getting her permission to stay in the country and they kicked up a very big fuss. They said they cannot receive an application from a person with no name and no address. They said that the most likely thing is that she is from Zimbabwe and that they will have to push her back over the border.’
Mma Makutsi knew what that entailed. ‘She will be in trouble,’ she said. ‘Things are not easy there and she would have to find somebody to look after her.’
‘That’s quite right,’ said Mr Sengupta. ‘So I asked them if we could buy some time. I asked, if I engaged somebody to find out who she is, would they delay expelling her? They said that they would – provided the person I got to look into it is suitable.’
‘We are very suitable,’ said Mma Makutsi. ‘We are the only detective agency in Botswana.’
‘That is what I said to them,’ said Mr Sengupta. ‘And you’ll be happy to hear, Mma, that they said the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency would be perfectly acceptable for this enquiry.’ He paused. ‘They have given us six months. That is very good, as it gives us a lot of time to sort things out.’
Miss Rose now spoke. ‘Will you take on this case, Mma Ramotswe? Will you find out who this poor lady is?’
Mma Ramotswe did not need any time to consider. She could imagine how uncomfortable the woman’s situation would be, how confusing and frightening it must be not to know why you are where you are. Of course she would help.
‘We shall do this for you,’ she said, glancing across the room at Mma Makutsi, who nodded enthusiastically. ‘We shall do our best.’
‘We cannot guarantee results,’ chimed in Mma Makutsi, ‘but my co-director and I will do our best, Mr Sengupta.’
Co-director! It was as Mma Ramotswe had imagined it would be. There should be a new saying, she thought – after all, somebody had to be the first to coin a saying, no matter how well known and widely used it later became. This one, she thought, could become popular: Give a secretary a new title, and it sticks. She smiled at the thought. Life was like that: it revealed just how true all the sayings were. In that respect, at least, there were never any real surprises, no matter how surprising things seemed to be on the surface.
Chapter Three
The Only Purring Baby in Botswana
Mma Ramotswe returned home that evening well before Mr J. L. B. Matekoni. He had a meeting of the Mechanical Trades Association and did not get back to Zebra Drive until shortly after seven, by which time she had fed the children and was busy preparing a stew for their own dinner. It was this stew that he smelled as he walked in the back door, took off his work shoes, and went into the kitchen to greet his wife.
‘It was a long meeting,’ he said. ‘But now… that smell, Mma! That is a very fine stew.’ He sniffed at the air. ‘It is enough to make me forget all about the meeting.’
‘I have had a long day too,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘Some big things happened today – just as I told you they would.’
Mr J. L. B. Matekoni went to the fridge and took out a small bottle of beer. Mma Ramotswe did not drink, but she kept a supply of cold beers for her husband for this sort of occasion.
He sat down at the kitchen table, the opened bottle of beer before him. ‘So,’ he began, ‘this very important day of yours – I’m listening.’
She told him about the visit of Mr Sengupta and his sister.
‘I know that person,’ he interrupted. ‘He is a charitable man: the Lions Club and so on. And I seem to remember Mma Potokwani telling me that he gave her five or six boxes of notebooks and crayons for the children to use.’
‘I am not surprised to hear that,’ said Mma Ramotswe. ‘He has taken in this poor woman who has lost her memory. That is another example of his kindness, it seems.’
She retold the story of the Indian woman and her plight. Mr J. L. B. Matekoni listened intently, and shook his head in disbelief. ‘It seems very unlikely, Mma. Surely…’
‘Dr Moffat said it can happen,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’ve heard of it, of course,’ said Mr J. L. B. Matekoni, taking a sip of his beer. ‘But I’ve always thought it was one of those things that people talked about but nobody ever came across. Like tokoloshes and such things.’
He used the common word for malignant spirits – the sort of thing that people would talk about when they were frightening one another around the campfire. He knew, of course, that there were no such things as tokoloshes, but when one was alone at night, on a re
mote path perhaps, when the sounds of the bush about you were magnified by the darkness, and there were no lights nor moon for comfort, then it was only too easy to believe in the things that you did not believe in. Even the bravest among us would feel a little frightened in such circumstances, and Mr J. L. B. Matekoni knew that most of us are not quite as brave as we would like to be – although sometimes we can surprise ourselves in that regard.