This was a familiar story to Mma Ramotswe. She had come across so many women who could not leave unworthy men because they loved them. This was quite different from those cases where women could not leave because they were frightened of the man, or because they had no place to go; some women could not leave simply because, in spite of everything that had been done to them, in spite of all the heartbreak, they stubbornly loved the man. This, she suspected, was what was happening here. Mma Tsau loved Rra Tsau, and would do so to the end.
“You love him, Mma?” she probed gently. “Is that it?”
Mma Tsau looked down at her hands. Mma Ramotswe noticed that one of them had a light dusting of flour on it; the hand of a cook.
“Eee,” said Mma Tsau, under her breath, using the familiar, long-drawn-out Setswana word of assent. “Eee, Mma. I love that man. That is true. I am a weak woman, I know. But I love him.”
Mma Ramotswe sighed. There was no cure for such love. That was the most basic thing one found out about human affairs, and one did not have to be a private detective to know that simple fact. Such love, the tenacious love of a parent or a devoted spouse, could fade—and did—but it took a long time to do so and often persisted in the face of all the evidence that it was squandered on an unworthy choice.
“I was going to say that I hadn’t come about that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I do not know your husband.”
It took Mma Tsau a few moments to take in what Mma Ramotswe had told her. When she did, she turned to look at her. She was still defeated.
“What have you come about?” she asked. There was no real curiosity in her voice now. It was as if Mma Ramotswe had come about the supply of eggs, or potatoes perhaps.
“I have come because I have heard that you have threatened to dismiss one of your staff,” she said. She did not want to suggest that Poppy had complained, and so she said, quite truthfully—in the strictest sense—that nobody had asked her to come. That was not a lie. It was more what Clovis Andersen calledan indirect statement; and there was a distinction.
Mma Tsau shrugged. “I am the head cook,” she said. “I am called the catering manager. That is who I am. I take on some staff—and push some staff out. Some people are not good workers.” She dusted her hands lightly, and for a moment Mma Ramotswe saw the tiny grains of flour, like specks of dust, caught in a slant of sunlight.
The sympathy that Mma Ramotswe had felt for her earlier was now being replaced by irritation. She did not really like this woman, she decided, although she admired her, perhaps, for her loyalty to her philandering husband. “People get dismissed for other reasons,” she said. “Somebody who was stealing food, for example—that person would be dismissed if it were found out that government food was being given to her husband.”
Mma Tsau was quite still. She reached her hand out and touched the hem of her skirt, tugging at it gently, as if testing the strength of the seam. She took a breath, and there was the rattling sound of phlegm.
“Maybe it was you who wrote that letter,” she said. “Maybe …”
“I did not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And nor did that girl.”
Mma Tsau shook her head. “Then who did?”
“I have no idea,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it had nothing to do with that girl. There is somebody else who is blackmailing you. That is what this is, you know. This is blackmail. It is normally a matter for the police.”
Mma Tsau laughed. “You think I should go to the police? You think that I should say to them:I have been giving government food to my husband. Now somebody is threatening me ? I’m not stupid, Mma.”
Mma Ramotswe’s voice was even. “I know that you’re not stupid, Mma Tsau. I know that.” She paused. She doubted that Mma Tsau intended now to do anything more about Poppy, and that meant that she could regard the matter as closed. But it left the issue of the blackmail unresolved. It was a despicable act, she thought, and she was offended that somebody might do such a thing and get away with it. She might look into it, perhaps, if she had the time, and there were always slack periods when she and Mma Makutsi had nothing to do. Perhaps she could even put Mma Makutsi on the case and see what she made of it. No blackmailer would be a match for Mma Makutsi, assistant detective at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and graduate of distinction of the Botswana Secretarial College—Mma Ninety-Seven Per Cent, as Mma Ramotswe sometimes irreverently thought of her. She could imagine a confrontation between the blackmailer and Mma Makutsi, with the latter’s large round glasses flashing with the fire of indignation and the blackmailer, a wretched, furtive man cowering in the face of female wrath.
“What are you smiling at?” asked Mma Tsau. “I do not think this is funny.”
“No,” said Mma Ramotswe, bringing herself back to reality. “It is not funny. But tell me, Mma—do you still have that letter? Could you show it to me? Perhaps I can find out who this person is who is trying to blackmail you.”
Mma Tsau thought for a moment. “And you won’t do anything about … about my husband?”
“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am not interested in your husband.” And that was true, of course. She could just imagine Mma Tsau’s husband, a lazy womaniser, being fed by his devoted wife and getting fatter and fatter until he could no longer see the lower part of his body, so large had his stomach become. That would serve him right, thought Mma Ramotswe. Being a traditionally built lady was one thing; being a traditionally built man was quite another. And it was certainly not so good.
The thought made her smile again, but Mma Tsau did not see the smile, as she was struggling with the door handle, preparing to go off and retrieve the letter which she had in her office, in one of the secret places she had there.
CHAPTER NINE
FILING CABINETS, LOCKS, CHAINS
MMA RAMOTSWE looked into her tea cup. The red bush tea, freshly poured, was still very hot, too hot to drink, but good to look at in its amber darkness, and very good to smell. It was a pity, she thought, that she had become accustomed to the use of tea-bags, as this meant that there were no leaves to be seen swirling around the surface or clinging to the side of the cup. She had given in on the issue of tea-bags, out of weakness, she admitted; tea-bags were so overwhelmingly more convenient than leaf tea, with its tendency to clog drains and the spouts of tea-pots too if one was not careful. She had never worried about getting the occasional tea leaf in her mouth, indeed she had rather enjoyed this, but that never happened now, with these neatly packed tea-bags and their very precise, enmeshed doses of chopped leaves.
It was the first cup of the morning, as Mma Ramotswe did not count the two cups that she took at home before she came to work. One of these was consumed as she took her early stroll around the yard, with the sun just up, pausing to stand under the large acacia tree and peer up into the thorny branches above her, drawing the morning air into her lungs and savouring its freshness. That morning she had seen a chameleon on a branch of the tree and had watched the strange creature fix its riveting eye upon her, its tiny prehensile feet poised in mid-movement. It was a great advantage, she thought, to have a chameleon’s eyes, which could look backwards and forwards independently. That would be a fine gift for a detective.
Now at her desk, she raised the cup to her lips and took a sip of the bush tea. She looked at her watch. Mma Makutsi was usually very punctual, but today she was late for some reason. This would be the fault of the minibuses, thought Mma Ramotswe. There would be enough of them coming into town from Tlokweng at that hour of the morning, but not enough going in the opposite direction. Mma Makutsi could walk, of course—her new house was not all that far away—but people did not like to walk in the heat, understandably enough.