“I have some photographs which may interest you,” Mrs. Moffat said after a while. “There are some photographs of Mochudi in those days. You will know the people in them.”
She went off into the living room and returned with a large cardboard box.
“I have been meaning to put these into albums,” she said, “but I have never got round to it. I shall do it one day, maybe.”
“I am the same,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I will do these things one day.”
The photographs were taken out and examined, one by one. There were many people Mma Ramotswe remembered; here was Mrs. de Kok, the wife of the missionary, standing in front of a rosebush; here was the schoolteacher from the primary school giving a prize to a small child; here was the doctor himself playing tennis. And there, in a group of men in front of the kgotla, was Obed Ramotswe himself, wearing his hat, and the sight made her catch her breath.
“There,” said Mrs. Moffat. “That’s your father, isn’t it?”
Mma Ramotswe nodded.
“You take that,” said Mrs. Moffat, handing her the photograph.
She accepted the gift gratefully and they looked at more photographs.
“Who is this?” asked Mma Ramotswe, pointing to a photograph of an elderly woman sitting at a table in a shady part of a garden, playing cards with the Moffat children.
“That is the doctor’s mother,” said Mrs. Moffat.
“And this person standing behind them? This man who is looking at the camera?”
“That is somebody who comes to stay with us from time to time,” said Mrs. Moffat. “He writes books.”
Mma Ramotswe examined the photograph more closely. “It seems that he is looking at me,” she said. “He is smiling at me.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Moffat. “Maybe he is.”
Mma Ramotswe looked again at the photograph of her father which Mrs. Moffat had given to her. Yes, that was his smile; hesitant at first, and then broader and broader; and his hat, of course.… She wondered what the occasion had been, why these people were standing outside the gate of the kgotla, the meeting place; the doctor would know, perhaps, as he must have taken the photograph. Perhaps it was something to do with the hospital; people raised money for it and had meetings about it. That might have been it.
Everybody in the photograph was smartly dressed, even under the sun, and everybody was looking at the camera with courtesy, with an attitude of moral attention. That was the old Botswana way—to deal with others in this way—and that was passing, was it not, just as the world and the people captured in this photograph were passing. She touched the photograph with her finger, briefly, as if to communicate with, to touch, those in it, and as she did so, she felt her eyes fill with tears.
“Please excuse me, Mma,” she said to Mrs. Moffat. “I am thinking of how this old Botswana is going away.”
“I understand,” said Mrs. Moffat, reaching out for her friend’s arm. “But we remember it, don’t we?” And she thought, yes, this woman, this daughter of Obed Ramotswe, whom everybody agreed was a good man, would remember things about the old Botswana, about that country that had been—and still was—a beacon of light in Africa, a country of integrity and generosity in both the simple and the big things.
THAT EVENING the typing class went particularly well. Mma Makutsi had planned a test for her students, to determine their speed, and had been pleasantly surprised by the results. One or two of the men were not very good—indeed, one of them was talking about giving up but had been persuaded by the other members of the class to persist. Most, however, had worked hard and were beginning to feel the benefits of practice and the expert tuition provided by Mma Makutsi. Mr. Bernard Selelipeng was doing particularly well and, entirely on the basis of merit, had attained the highest words-per-minute score in the class.
“Very good, Mr. Selelipeng,” said Mma Makutsi as she looked at his score. She was determined to keep their professional relationship formal, although as she spoke to him, she felt a warm flush of feeling for this man who treated her with such respect and admiration. And he, in turn, treated her as his teacher, not as his girlfriend; there was no familiarity, no assumption that he would be given special treatment.
After the class ended and she had locked the hall, Mma Makutsi went outside and found him, as they had agreed, sitting in his car, waiting for her. He suggested that they go to the cinema that evening, and afterwards to a café for something to eat. This idea appealed to Mma Makutsi, who relished the thought that rather than going to the cinema by herself, as was often her lot, she would this time be sitting with a man, like most of the other women.
The film was full of silly, rich people living in conditions of unimaginable luxury, but Mma Makutsi was barely interested in it and scarcely followed what was happening on screen. Her thoughts were with Mr. Bernard Selelipeng, who, halfway through the performance, slipped his hand into hers and whispered something heady into her ear. She felt excited and happy. Romance had arrived in her life at last, after all these years and all that waiting; a man had come to her and given her life a new meaning. That impression—or delusion—so common to lovers, of personal transformation, was strong upon her, and she closed her eyes at the sheer pleasure and happiness of it all. She would make him happy, this man who was so kind to her.
They went to a café after the cinema and ordered a meal. Then, sitting at a table near the door, they talked about one another, as lovers do, their hands joined under the table. That is where they were when Mma Ramotswe came in, with Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Mma Makutsi introduced her friend to Mma Ramotswe, who smiled and greeted him politely.
Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni did not stay long in the café.
“You are upset about something,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to Mma Ramotswe as they made their way back to the van.
“I am very sad,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have found something out. But I am too upset to talk about it. Please drive me back to my house, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. I am very sad.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FINDING TEBOGO
YES, THOUGHT Mma Ramotswe, the world can be very discouraging. But we cannot sit and think about all the things that have gone wrong, or could go wrong. There was no point in doing that because it only made things worse. There was much for which we could be grateful, whatever the sorrows of this world. Besides, dwelling on the trials and tribulations of life was time-consuming, and ordinary duties still have to be performed; livings have to be earned, and in the case of Mma Ramotswe, this meant that she had to do something about Mr. Molefelo and his conscience. It was over a week since she had found Mma Tsolamosese, which had been the easy part; now she had to find Tebogo, the girl who had been so badly treated by Mr. Molefelo.
The information she had was slender, but if Tebogo had become a nurse, then she would have been registered, and might be registered still. That would be a starting point, and then, if Mma Ramotswe found nothing there, she still had various other lines of enquiry. Tebogo had come from Molepolole, Mma Ramotswe had been told. She could go there and find somebody who knew the family.
It did not take her long to exhaust the nursing route. Once she had found the civil servant in charge of nurse training, it had been easy to ascertain whether anybody of that name had been registered as a nurse in Botswana. There had not, which meant that Tebogo had either not trained or, having been trained, had not completed her registration. Mma Ramotswe was thoughtful; it might be that the consequences of Tebogo’s involvement with Mr. Molefelo had had much greater repercussions for her life than she had imagined. People’s lives are delicate; you cannot interfere with them without running the risk of changing them profoundly. A chance remark, a careless involvement, may make the difference between a life of happiness and one of sorrow.
A trip out to Molepolole would not be unwelcome and would give Mma Ramotswe the chance to speak to several old friends whom she knew out there. One, in particular, a retired bankteller, knew everybody in the town and would be able to
tell her about Tebogo’s family. Perhaps Tebogo herself would be living there now, and Mma Ramotswe would be able to visit her. That would require tact, particularly if she was married. She might not have told her husband about the baby, and men can be possessive and unreasonable about these things. They, of course, did not have to bear the children; they did not have to carry the babies around on their backs for the first few years; they did not have to attend to the daily, hourly, minute-by-minute needs of the baby, and yet they could have very strong views on the subject of babies.
She chose a fine morning for the trip out to Molepolole, a morning when the air was crisp and clean and the sun not too hot. As she drove, she thought of the events of the last few days, and in particular of the disturbing discovery she had made of Mma Makutsi’s involvement with Mr. Bernard Selelipeng. She had been shocked by what she had found out, and the following morning her dismay had been compounded when Mma Makutsi had talked at some length about Mr. Selelipeng and about how well suited they were.
“I would have told you about this earlier,” she said to her employer. “But I wanted to be sure first that this was going to last. I did not want to come to you and say that I had found the right man for me, and then to have to tell you, one week later, that it was all off. I did not want that.”
As Mma Makutsi spoke, Mma Ramotswe’s sense of foreboding grew. There was much to be said in favour of honesty; she could tell Mma Makutsi right now what the truth of the matter was, and indeed not to do so would be to shelter her from information which she had the right to know. Would she not feel more betrayed, wondered Mma Ramotswe, if she were to find out that she, Mma Ramotswe, had known all along and not warned her that Mr. Selelipeng was married? If one could not get this information from a friend and colleague, then from whom might one expect it? And yet, to tell her now would be so brutal, and it would also preclude the possibility of doing something in the background to ease the pain of discovery—whatever that something might be.
She would just have to think about it further, although she knew that at the end of the day there was inevitably going to be disappointment for Mma Makutsi, who could not be protected forever from the truth about Mr. Bernard Selelipeng. But then, she thought, did she know? She had assumed all along that he would have misled her into thinking that he was single, or divorced, but it might be that Mma Makutsi knew full well that there was a wife and family in the background. Was this likely? If a person was desperate enough, she might well be prepared to take any man who came along, even one who was married. Now that she came to think of it, she knew of many cases where women had been quite prepared to consort with married men in the full knowledge of their matrimonial status, hoping, perhaps, to prise the man away from his wife or even calculating that this would never happen but at least they would have some fun along the way. Men would do the same thing, too, although they seemed less willing to share a woman with another man. But Mma Ramotswe certainly knew of cases where men had conducted affairs with married women, fully aware of the fact that the woman would never leave her husband.
Would Mma Makutsi do this, she wondered. She remembered the awkward conversation she had had with her not all that long ago, when Mma Makutsi had remarked despairingly on the fact that it was no use trying to meet men in bars because they were all married. This suggested that she considered such men to be out of bounds. And yet, faced with such a man, particularly with a charming one with a centre parting and a winning smile; might she not, in such circumstances, decide that even if he was married, this was nonetheless her chance? Time was ticking by for Mma Makutsi; soon younger men would no longer consider her, and then she would be left with only the possibility of an old man. Perhaps she did feel desperate; perhaps she was fully aware of the situation in which Mr. Bernard Selelipeng found himself. But no. No, thought Mma Ramotswe, she was not. She would not have spoken to me with that enthusiasm had she known this was a relationship that could not go any further. She would have been guarded, or resigned, or even sad; she would not have been enthusiastic.
Mma Ramotswe was pleased that she had to put such troubling thoughts to one side, as she had now arrived in Molepolole and had driven the tiny white van over the rutted track that led to the house of her old friend Mma Ntombi Boko, formerly deputy chief teller of the Standard Bank in Gaborone, a position from which she had retired at the age of fifty-four to take up residence in Molepolole and to run there the local branch of the Botswana Rural Women’s Association.
She found Mma Boko at the side of her house, under a canvas awning which she had erected to create an informal shady porch. A small brick oven had been built there, and on the top of this was a large blackened saucepan.
Mma Boko’s greeting was warm. “Precious Ramotswe! Yes, it is you! I can see you, Mma!”
“It is me,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have come to see you.”
“I am very glad,” said Mma Boko. “I was sitting here stirring this jam and thinking: Where is everybody today? Why has nobody come to talk to me?”
“And then I arrived,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Just in time.” She knew that her friend was gregarious, and that a day without a chance to have a good gossip was a trial for her. Not that the gossip was at all malicious; Mma Boko spoke ill of nobody but was nevertheless extremely interested in what others were doing. Impressed by the orations that she gave at funerals, where people were entitled to stand up and speak of the doings of the deceased, friends had tried to persuade her to stand for the legislature, but she had declined, saying that she liked to talk about interesting things, and that there was never any talk of interesting things in Parliament.
“All they do is talk about money and roads and things like that,” she had said. “Those are important things, and somebody has to talk about them, but let the men do that. We women have more important things to talk about.”
“No, no, Mma!” they said. “That is precisely the wrong attitude. That is what men want us to think. They want us to think that these important things they discuss are not really important to women. But they are! They are very important. And if we let the men talk about them and decide them, then suddenly we wake up and find out that the men have made all the decisions, and these decisions all suit men.”
Mma Boko had considered this carefully. “There is some truth in that,” she had said. “In the bank the decisions were made by men. They did not ask me first.”
“You see!” they said. “You see how it works. They are always doing this, the men. We women must stand up on our legs and talk.”
Mma Ramotswe examined the jam which Mma Boko was making, and took the small spoonful which her friend offered her.
“It is good,” she said. “This is the best jam in Botswana, I think.”
Mma Boko shook her head. “There are ladies here in Molepolole who make much better jam than this. I will bring you some of their jam one day, and you will see.”
“I cannot believe it will be better,” said Mma Ramotswe, licking the spoon clean.
They sat down and talked. Mma Boko told Mma Ramotswe of her grandchildren, of whom she had sixteen. They were all clever, she said, although one of her daughters had married a rather unintelligent man. “He is kind, though,” she said. “Even if he says very stupid things, he is kind.”
Mma Ramotswe told her about Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s illness, and how he had been nursed back to health by Mma Potokwani. She told her about the move to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the sharing of the offices, and of how well he had been handled by Mma Makutsi. She told her about the children; how Motholeli had been bullied and how Puso had been through a difficult patch.
“Boys do go through times like that,” said Mma Boko. “It can last for fifty years.”
Then they talked about Molepolole and about the Botswana Rural Women’s Association and about its plans. Eventually, after these multitudinous subjects had been exhausted, Mma Ramotswe asked Mma Boko the question which had brought her out on the visit.
“There is a girl,”
she began, “or was a girl—she is a woman now—called Tebogo Bathopi. About twenty years ago she came to Gaborone from Molepolole to train to be a nurse. I am not sure if she ever managed to finish—I do not think that she did. Something happened to her in Gaborone which somebody now wants to set right. I cannot tell you what that thing was, but I can tell you that the person involved is very serious about righting what he now sees was a wrong. He means it. But he does not know where this girl is. He has no idea. That is why I have come to you. You know everybody. You see everything. I thought you could help me to find out where this woman is, if she is still alive.”
Mma Boko laid down the spoon with which she had been stirring her jam.
“Of course she is still alive,” she said, laughing. “Of course she is still alive. She is now called Mma Tshenyego.”
Mma Ramotswe’s surprise showed itself in a broad smile. She had not imagined that it would be this easy, but her instinct to ask Mma Boko had proved correct. It was always the best way of finding out information; just go and ask a woman who keeps her eyes and ears open and who likes to talk. It always worked. It was no use asking men; they simply were not interested enough in other people and the ordinary doings of people. That is why the real historians of Africa had always been the grandmothers, who remembered the lineage and the stories that went with it.
“I am very glad to hear that, Mma,” she said. “Can you tell me where she is?”
“Over there,” answered Mma Boko. “She is right there. At that house over there. Do you see it? And look, there she is herself, coming out of the house with one of the children, that girl, who is sixteen now. That is her firstborn, her first daughter.”
Mma Ramotswe looked in the direction in which Mma Boko was pointing. She saw a woman coming out of the house, together with a girl in a yellow dress. The woman threw some grain to the chickens in the yard, and then they stood and watched the chickens peck away at the food.