Mma Makutsi stared at the shoes. It was typical of shoes to be so uncaring. They never made any constructive suggestions. They just censured you, crowed at you, rubbed it in; revenge, perhaps, for all the indignities to which they themselves were subjected. Dust. Neglect. Cracking leather. Oblivion.
THEY WERE SILENT as they left Gaborone, with the brooding shape of Kgale Hill to their right, and the road stretching out, undulating, to their front. Mma Ramotswe was silent because she was looking at the shape of the hills and remembering how, all those years ago, she had travelled this road on the way to stay with her cousin, who had been so good to her. And there had been unhappy journeys too, or journeys that had been happy and had become unhappy later on their being remembered. Those were the trips she had made, down this very road, with her former husband, Note Mokoti. Note used to play his trumpet in hotels down in Lobatse, and Mma Ramotswe had accompanied him on these engagements, her heart bursting with pride that she was the wife of this popular and talented man. She had accompanied him until she had realised that he did not want her to come with him. And the reason for that was that he had wanted to pick up women after the concerts, and he could not do that with his young wife there. She remembered this, and thought about it, and tried to put it from her mind; but the unhappy past has a way of asserting itself and sometimes it is best just to let such thoughts run their course. They will pass, she told herself; they will pass.
Beside her, in her own silence, Mma Makutsi was mulling over the brief exchange that she had had with Mma Ramotswe on the subject of feminism. Mma Ramotswe had been right—she was sure of that—and she had inadvertently frightened Phuti Radiphuti. It had been so foolish of her. Of course she believed in those things which the feminists stood up for—the right of women to have a good job and be paid the same amount as men doing the same work; the right of women to be free of bullying by their husbands. But that was all just good common sense, fairness really, and the fact that you supported these goals did not make you one of those feminists who said that men were finished. How could they say such a thing? We were all people—men and women—and you could never say that one group of people was less important than another. She would never say that, and yet Phuti Radiphuti now probably imagined that she would.
They passed a man asking for a ride, waving his hand up and down to stop a well-disposed vehicle. Other cars were driving past regardless, but Mma Ramotswe believed that this was not the old Botswana way and made an elaborate set of hand signals to indicate to him that they were shortly going to turn off. The tiny white van swerved as she did so, and for a moment it must have seemed to the man that they were intending to run him down, but he understood and acknowledged them with a friendly wave.
“People say that these days you should not stop for people like that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But how can they be so heartless? Do you remember when my van broke down and I had to get back to town in the darkness? Somebody stopped for me, didn’t they? Otherwise I could still be out here at the side of the road, even now, getting thinner and thinner.”
Mma Makutsi was glad to be distracted from her morbid thoughts of engagements broken on the grounds of undisclosed feminism. She laughed at Mma Ramotswe’s comment. “That is one way to go on a diet,” she said.
Mma Ramotswe threw her a sideways glance. “Do you think that I need to go on a diet, Mma?” she asked.
“No,” said Mma Makutsi. “I do not think that you need to go on a diet.” She paused, and then added, “Others may, of course.”
“Hah!” said Mma Ramotswe. “You must be thinking of those people who hold that it is wrong to be a traditionally built lady. There are such people, you know.”
“They should mind their own business,” said Mma Makutsi. “I am traditionally built too, you know. Not as traditionally built as you, of course—by a long way. But I am not a very thin lady.”
Mma Ramotswe said nothing. She was not enjoying this conversation, and she was glad that the turn-off to Mokolodi had now appeared. Slowing down, she steered the van off the main road and onto the secondary road that ran alongside for a short way until it headed off into the bush. As the van turned, an observer would have noticed that it listed markedly to one side, Mma Ramotswe’s side, while Mma Makutsi’s side was higher—an appearance that would have confirmed what had just been said by Mma Makutsi. But there was nobody to see this; only the grey lourie on the acacia branch, the go-away bird, which saw so much but confided in none.
CHAPTER SIX
HOW TO DEAL WITH AN ANGRY OSTRICH
THE ARRIVAL OF Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi at Mokolodi Game Reserve would normally be an occasion for the barking of dogs and for laughter and the shaking of hands. Mma Ramotswe was known here—her father’s brother, her senior uncle, was also the uncle (by a second marriage) to the workshop supervisor. And if that were not enough, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s cousin’s daughter worked in the kitchen at the restaurant. So it was in Botswana, almost everywhere; ties of kinship, no matter how attenuated by distance or time, linked one person to another, weaving across the country a human blanket of love and community. And in the fibres of that blanket there were threads of obligation that meant that one could not ignore the claims of others. Nobody should starve; nobody should feel that they were outsiders; nobody should be alone in their sadness.
Now, though, there was nobody on duty at the gate, and they drove in quietly. They parked near an acacia tree. Several people had already had the same idea, as shade was always sought after, and cars competed with one another to find relief from the sun. The tiny white van, by virtue of its size, was able to nose into a space between two large vehicles, leaving just enough room for Mma Ramotswe to get out of her door and, by breathing in, to squeeze through the space between the van and the neighbouring vehicle. It was a tight squeeze, and it brought back to her the subject of her earlier conversation with Mma Makutsi. If she went on a diet, there would be fewer occasions like this where she would find that the passages and doorways of this world were uncomfortably narrow for a person of traditional build. For a moment she was stuck, and Mma Makutsi was poised to render help, but then with a final push she was free.
“People should think a bit more of others when they park their cars,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There is enough room in Botswana for everybody’s car. There is no need for all this crushing.”
Mma Makutsi was about to say something, but did not. Mma Ramotswe had chosen that spot to park, and the owners of the two other cars might well take the view that she, not they, was the cause of the crush. She did not say this, though, but smiled in a way that could have signalled agreement or merely polite tolerance. Mma Ramotswe’s views were, in general, very balanced, and Mma Makutsi found no difficulty in agreeing with them. But she had discovered that when it came to any matter connected with the tiny white van, then her otherwise equable employer could become quite touchy. As she stood and watched Mma Ramotswe squeezing herself through the gap between the vehicles, she remembered how a few weeks ago she had asked Mma Ramotswe how two large scratches and a dent had appeared on the side of her van. She had been surprised by the vigour with which Mma Ramotswe denied the evidence.
“There is nothing wrong with my van,” she said. “There is nothing wrong.”
“But there is a big scratch here,” said Mma Makutsi. “And another one here. And a dent. Look. There it is. I am putting my finger on it. Look.”