Of course, there was much less of that sort of thing than there used to be, but it still existed, and its effects could be potent. If you heard that somebody had put a curse on you, then however much you might claim not to believe in all that mumbo-jumbo, you would still feel uneasy. This was because there was always a part of the human mind that was prepared to entertain such notions, particularly at night, in the world of shadows, when there were sounds that one could not understand and when each one of us was in some sense alone. Some people found this intolerable, and succumbed, as if life itself simply gave out in the face of such evil; and when this happened, it served only to strengthen the belief of some that such things worked.
She looked at the relative, and saw his terror. She put her arms around him and whispered something. He looked at her, hesitated, and then whispered something in return.
Mma Ramotswe listened. On the roof, a small creature, a lizard perhaps, scuttled across the tin, making a tiny tapping sound. Rats did that, thought Mma Ramotswe; made such a sound at night in the rafters, which could wake up a light sleeper and leave her tossing and turning in the small hours of the morning.
The relative finished, and Mma Ramotswe moved her arms. She nodded, and placed a finger against his lips in a gesture of conspiracy.
“We don’t want him to know,” he said. “Some of us are ashamed of this.”
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. No, she thought, one need not be ashamed about such a thing. Superstitions persist. Anybody—even the most rational people—can be a little worried about things like that. She had read that there are people who throw salt over their shoulder if they spilled some, or who would not walk under ladders, or sit in any seat numbered thirteen. No culture was immune to that sort of thing, and there was no reason for African people to be ashamed of such beliefs, just because they did not sound modern.
“You need not feel ashamed,” she said. “And I shall think of some way of dealing with this. I shall think of some tactful way.”
“You are very kind, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “Your late father would have been proud of you. He was a kind man too.”
It was the most generous remark that anybody could possibly have made, and for a moment Mma Ramotswe was unable to respond. So she closed her eyes and there came to her, unbidden, the image of Obed Ramotswe, standing before her, holding his hat in his hands, and smiling. He was there for a moment, and then the image faded and was gone, leaving her alone, but not alone.
THAT WAS NOT the only encounter Mma Ramotswe had at Mokolodi that day. From the workshop she walked up the path to the restaurant next to the office. A few visitors, clad in khaki with field guides stuffed into pockets, sat at tables set out on the platform in front of the restaurant. At one table, a woman smiled at Mma Ramotswe and waved, and she returned the greeting warmly. It pleased her to see these visitors, who came to her country and seemed to fall head over heels in love with it. And why should they not do this? The world was a sad enough place and it needed a few points of light, a few places in which people could find comfort, and if Botswana was one of these, then she was proud of that.Ifonly more people knew , thought Mma Ramotswe.If only more people knew that there was more to Africa than all the problems they saw. They could love us too, as we love them.
The woman stood up. “Excuse me, Mma,” she said. “Would you mind?”
She pointed to her friend, a thin woman with a camera around her neck. Such thin arms, thought Mma Ramotswe, with pity; like the arms of a praying mantis, like sticks.
Mma Ramotswe did not mind, and gestured to the woman to stand beside her while the other woman took her camera from its case.
“You can stand here with me, Mma,” she said to the woman.
The woman joined her, standing close to her. Mma Ramotswe felt her arm against hers, flesh against flesh, warm and dry as the touch of human flesh so often and so surprisingly is. She had sometimes thought that this is what snakes said about people:And, do you know, when you actually touch these creatures they aren’t slimy and slippery, but warm and dry?
She moved, so that they were now standing arm in arm: two ladies, she thought, a brown lady from Botswana and a white lady from somewhere far away, America perhaps, somewhere like that, some place of neatly cut lawns and air conditioning and shining buildings, some place where people wanted to love others if only given the chance.
The photograph was taken, and the thin woman with the camera asked if she might hand over the camera and in turn stand beside Mma Ramotswe, to which Mma Ramotswe readily agreed. And so they stood together, and Mma Ramotswe took her arm too, but was afraid that she might break it, so fragile it seemed. This woman was wearing a heavy scent, which Mma Ramotswe found pleasant, and she wondered whether she might one day be able to wear such a perfume and leave a trail of exotic flowers behind her, as this thin woman must.
They said goodbye to one another. Mma Ramotswe noticed that the first woman was fumbling with the camera as she gave it back to her friend. But she managed to get it back into its case, and as Mma Ramotswe walked away, this woman followed her and took her aside.
“That was very kind of you, Mma,” she said. “We are from America, you see. We have come to your country to see it, to see animals. It is a very beautiful country.”
“Thank you,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am glad that …”
The foreign woman reached out and took her hand. Again there was this feeling of dryness. “My friend is very ill,” she said, her voice lowered. “You may not have noticed it, but she is not well.”
Mma Ramotswe cast a glance in the direction of the thin woman, who was busying herself with the pouring of orange juice from a jug on their table. She noticed that even the lifting of the jug seemed an effort.
“You see,” went on the other woman, “this trip is a sort of farewell. We used to go everywhere together. We went to many places. This will be our last trip. So thank you for being so kind and having your photograph taken with us. Thank you, Mma.”
For a moment Mma Ramotswe stood quite still. Then she turned and walked back to the table, to stand beside the woman, who looked up at her in surprise. Mma Ramotswe went down on her haunches, squatting beside the thin woman, and slipped an arm around her shoulder. It was bony beneath the thin blouse, and she was gentle, but she hugged her, carefully, as one might hug a child. The woman reached for her hand, and clasped it briefly in her own and pressed it, and Mma Ramotswe whispered very quietly, but loudly enough for the woman to hear, The Lord will look after you, my sister , and then she stood up and said goodbye, in Setswana, because that is the language that her heart spoke, and walked off, her face turned away now, so that they should not see her tears.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
YOU WILL BE VERY HAPPY IN THAT CHAIR
MMA MAKUTSI LOOKED at her watch. Mma Ramotswe and Mr Polopetsi were away on their trip to Mokolodi—she had felt slightly irritated that Mma Ramotswe should have chosen him to accompany her rather than herself; but she should not begrudge him the experience, she reminded herself, particularly if he was in due course to become her own assistant, an assistant– assistant detective. With the two of them gone for the rest of the afternoon and everything in the office, filing and typing, up-to-date, there was no real reason for her to stay at her desk now that it was four o’clock. In the garage itself, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had finished the work he had been doing on a customer’s persnickety French car and had sent the apprentices home. He would probably stay for an hour or so and clear up; if the telephone went, then he could answer it and take a message. It was unlikely to ring, though, as clients very rarely got in touch in the late afternoon. The morning was the time of important telephone calls, as it was at the start of the day that people plucked up the courage to contact a private detective; for an act of courage was what it often was, an admission of a troubling possibility, something suppressed and not thought about, something fretted over and dreaded. The morning brought the strength to tackle such matters; the dying hours of the day were hours of defeat and resignation.