“We shall go shopping, Mma Makutsi,” she announced after Boitelo had taken her leave. “We shall go downtown.”
Mma Makutsi looked up from her desk. She was working on a rather complex matter at the moment, the pursuit of a debtor on behalf of a firm of lawyers. The debtor, a Mr Cedric Disani, had established a hotel which had gone spectacularly bankrupt. It was thought that he had extensive holdings in land, and they now had a list of properties from the land register and were trying to work out which were owned by companies in which he had an interest. It was one of the most testing cases Mma Makutsi had ever been allocated, but at least it had a fee attached to it—a generous one—and this would make up for all the public-spirited work which Mma Ramotswe seemed to be taking on.
“Yes, yes,” urged Mma Ramotswe. “You can leave those lists for a while. It will do us both good to get downtown and do some shopping. And maybe we’ll have some ideas while we’re about it. I always find that shopping clears the head, don’t you agree, Mma?”
“And it clears the bank account,” joked Mma Makutsi as she closed the file in front of her. “This Mr Cedric Disani must have done a bit of shopping—you should see how much he owes.”
“I knew a lady of that name once,” said Mma Ramotswe. “She was a very fashionable lady. You used to see her in very expensive clothes. She was a very fancy lady.”
“That will be his wife,” said Mma Makutsi. “The lawyers told me about her. They said that Mr Disani put a lot of things in her name so that his creditors cannot touch them. They said that she still drives around in a Mercedes-Benz and wears very grand clothing.”
Mma Ramotswe made a clucking sound of disapproval. “Those Mercedes-Benzes, Mma—have you noticed how whenever we come across them in our line of work they are driven by the same sort of people? Have you noticed that, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi replied that she had. “I would never get a Mercedes-Benz,” she said. “Even if I had the money. They are very fine cars, but people would talk.”
Mma Ramotswe, halfway to the door, paused and looked at Mma Makutsi. “You saidEven if I had the money , Mma. Do you realise that?”
Mma Makutsi looked blank. “Yes,” she said. “That is what I said.”
“But, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Don’t you realise that now you could have a Mercedes-Benz if you wanted one? Remember who you’re going to marry. Phuti Radiphuti is very well off with that Double Comfort Furniture Shop of his. Yes, he is well off—not that I really like the furniture that he sells in that shop, Mma. Sorry to say that, but it’s not really to my taste.”
Mma Makutsi looked at Mma Ramotswe for a moment, and swallowed hard. It had not occurred to her that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni might fail to inform her of his purchase of the new chair, but now it struck her that this was precisely what had happened. And when he eventually came to explain that he had bought a chair, he would reveal, no doubt, that she had taken him there and had encouraged him to make the purchase. She was uncertain as to whether she should tell Mma Ramotswe herself; whether she should make a clean breast of it, or whether she should let matters take their natural course.
“So you would never buy a chair there?” she asked innocently. “Not even if it was on sale? Say, fifty per cent off?”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Not even ninety-seven per cent off, Mma. No. I’m sure that the furniture is very good, it’s just that it’s not for me.”
Nor for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, thought Mma Makutsi ruefully. But what was this about a Mercedes-Benz? Why did Mma Ramotswe think that she might buy a Mercedes-Benz? It was an impossible thought … and yet, it was true that Phuti was quite a rich man; perhaps she should get used to being the wife of a man who even if not very wealthy was nonetheless comfortably off by any standards. It was a strange thought. Phuti Radiphuti was so modest and unassuming, and yet he undoubtedly had the resources to live a showier life if he chose to do so.
“When Phuti and I get married,” said Mma Makutsi, “we will not act like rich people. We will be just the same as we always have been. That is the way we are.”
“And that is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe. It was not the Botswana way to be showy. Here it was quietness and discretion that people admired. A great person was a quiet person. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, for instance; he was a quiet man and a great man too, like many mechanics and men who worked well with their hands. And there were many such men in Africa—men whose lives had been ones of hardship and suffering, but who were great men nonetheless.
MMA RAMOTSWE locked the door of the office behind them and said goodbye to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He was bent over the engine of a car, explaining something to the apprentices, who stood up and stared at the two women.
“We are going shopping,” said Mma Makutsi, taunting the young men. “That is what women like to do, you know. They much prefer shopping to going out with men. That is very well known.”
The younger apprentice let out a howl of protest. “That is a lie!” he shouted. “Boss, listen to how that woman lies! You cannot have a detective who lies, Mma Ramotswe. You need to fire that woman. Big glasses and all. Fire her.”
“Hush!” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “We have plenty of work to do. Let the ladies go shopping if it makes them feel better.”
“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe, as she let herself into the tiny white van. “It certainly makes us feel better.”
They drove down the Tlokweng Road to the busy roundabout. There were hawkers at the side of the road selling rough-hewn stools and chairs, and a woman with a smoking brazier on which maize cobs were being grilled. The smell of the maize, the sharp-sweet smell that she knew so well and which spoke so much of the African roadside, wafted through the window of the tiny white van, and for a moment she was back in Mochudi, a child again, at the fireside, waiting for a cob to be passed over to her. And she saw herself all those years ago, standing away from the fire, but with the wood-smoke in her nostrils; and she was biting into the succulent maize, and thinking that this was the most perfect food that the earth had to offer. And she still thought that, all these years later, and her heart could still fill with love for that Africa that she once knew, our mother, she thought, our mother who is always with us, to provide for us, to nourish us, and then to take us, at the end, into her bosom.
They passed the roundabout and drove on to the busy set of shops that had sprung up near Kgale Hill. She did not like these shops, which were ugly and noisy, but the fact of the matter was that there were many different stores there and their selection of merchandise was better than any other collection of shops in the country. So they would put up with the crowds and the noise and see what the shops had to offer. And it would not be all window-shopping. Mma Ramotswe had long promised herself a pressure cooker, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had urged her to buy one. They could look for a pressure cooker, and even if they did not buy it today it would be interesting to see what was on offer.
The two women spent an enjoyable half hour browsing in a shop that sold kitchen equipment. There was a bewildering array of cooking utensils—knives and chopping boards and instruments with which to slice onions into all sorts of shapes.