“Mma Makutsi,” he began, “there is something I should like to ask you.”
Mma Makutsi put down her knife and fork and smiled at him. “You may ask me anything,” she said. “I am your fiancée.”
He swallowed. It would be best to be direct. “Are you a feminist?” he blurted out. His nervousness made him stumble slightly on the word “feminist,” making the letter “f” sound doubled or even tripled. His stammer had been vastly improved since his meeting with Mma Makutsi and her agreeing to marry him, but occasions of stress might still bring it out.
Mma Makutsi looked a bit taken aback by the question. She had not been expecting the topic to arise, but now that she had been asked there was only one answer to give.
“Of course I am,” she said simply. Her answer given, she stared at him through her large, round glasses; again she smiled. “These days most ladies are feminists. Did you not know that?”
Phuti Radiphuti was unable to answer. He opened his mouth to speak, but words, which had recently been so forthcoming, seemed to have deserted him. It was an old, familiar feeling for him; a struggle to articulate the thoughts that were in mind through a voice that would not come, or came in fits and starts. He had imagined a future of tenderness and mutual cherishing; now it seemed to him that he would face stridency and conflict. He would be swept aside, as he had been swept aside in that dream; but there would be no waking up this time.
He looked at Mma Makutsi. How could he, who was so cautious, have been so wrong about somebody? It was typical of his luck; he had never been noticed by women—it would never be given to him to be admired, to be looked up to; rather, he would be the target of criticism and upbraiding, for that is what he imagined feminists did to men. They put them in their place; they emasculated them; they derided them. All of this now lay ahead of Phuti Radiphuti as he stared glumly at his fiancée and then down again at his plate, where the last scraps of food, a mess of potage in a sense, lay cooling and untouched.
CHAPTER FIVE
MORE CONVERSATIONS WITH SHOES
THIS IS A VERY BUSY DAY,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, wiping his hands on a small piece of lint. “There are so many things that I have to do and which I will not have the time to do. It is very hard.” He raised his eyes up to the sky, but not before casting a glance in the direction of Mma Ramotswe.
She knew that this was a request. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was not one to ask for a favour directly. He was always willing to help other people, as Mma Potokwane, matron of the orphan farm, knew full well, but his diffidence usually prevented him from asking others to do things for him. There was sometimes a call for help, however, disguised as a comment about the pressures which were always threatening to overcome any owner of a garage; and this was one, to which Mma Ramotswe of course would respond.
She looked at her desk, which was largely clear of papers. There was a bill, still in its envelope but unmistakably a bill, and a half-drafted letter to a client. Both of these were things that she would happily avoid attending to, and so she smiled encouragingly at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
“If there is anything I can do?” she asked. “I can’t fix cars for you, but maybe there’s something else?”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni tossed the greasy scrap of lint into the waste-paper basket. “Well, there is something, Mma,” he said, “now that you ask. And although it has something to do with cars, it doesn’t involve actually fixing anything. I know you are a detective, Mma Ramotswe, and not a mechanic.”
“I would like to be able to fix cars,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Maybe some day I will learn. There are many ladies now who can fix cars. There are many girls who are doing a mechanic’s apprenticeship.”
“I have seen them,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I wonder if they are very different from …” He did not finish the sentence, but tossed his head in the direction of the workshop behind him, where the two apprentices, Charlie and the younger one—whose name nobody ever used—were changing the oil in a truck.
“They are very different,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Those boys spend all their time thinking about girls. You know what they’re like.”
“And girls don’t spend any time thinking about boys?” asked Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.
Mma Ramotswe considered this for a few moments. She was not quite sure what the answer was. When she was a girl she had thought about boys from time to time, but only to reflect on how fortunate she was to be a girl rather than a boy. And when she became a bit older, and was susceptible to male charm, although she occasionally imagined what it would be like to spend time in the company of a particular boy, boysas a breed did not occupy her thoughts. Nor did she talk about boys in the way in which the apprentices talked about girls, although it was possible that modern girls were different. She had overheard some teenagers—girls of about seventeen—talking among themselves one day when she was looking for a book in Mr Kerrison’s new book shop, and she had been shocked by what she had heard. Her shock had registered in her expression, and in the dropping of her jaw, and the girls had noticed this. “What’s the trouble, Mma?” said one of the girls. “Don’t you know about boys?” And she had struggled for words, searching for a reply which would tell these shameless girls that she knew all about boys—and had known about them for many years—while at the same time letting them know that she disapproved. But no words had come, and the girls had gone away giggling.
Mma Ramotswe was not a prude. She knew what went on between people, but she believed that there was a part of life that should be private. She believed that what one felt about another was largely a personal matter, and that one should not talk about the mysteries of the soul. One should just not do it, because that was not how the old Botswana morality worked. There was such a thing as shame, she thought, although there were many people who seemed to forget it. And where would we be in a world without the old Botswana morality? It would not work, in Mma Ramotswe’s view, because it would mean that people could do as they wished without regard for what others thought. That would be a recipe for selfishness, a recipe as clear as if it were written out in a cookery book:Take one country, with all that the country means, with its kind people, and their smiles, and their habit of helping one another; ignore all this; shake about; add modern ideas; bake until ruined.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s question about whether girls thought about boys hung in the air, unanswered. He looked at her expectantly. “Well, Mma?” he asked. “Do girls not think about boys?”
“Sometimes,” said Mma Ramotswe nonchalantly. “When there is nothing better to think about, that is.” She smiled at her husband. “But that is not what we were discussing,” she continued. “What is this thing that you want me to do?”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni explained to her about the errand he wished her to carry out. It would involve a trip to Mokolodi, which was half an hour away to the south.
“My friend who dealt with the cobra,” he said. “Neil. He’s the one. He has an old pickup down there, a bakkie, which he kept for years and years. And then …” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni paused. The death of a car diminished him, because he was involved with cars. “There was nothing much more I could do for it. It needed a complete engine re-bore, Mma Ramotswe. New pistons. New piston rings.” He shook his head sadly, as a doctor might when faced with a hopeless prognosis.