“As a matter of fact, Mma, I am on a diet,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And it doesn’t make it any easier for me if you eat doughnuts like that in front of me.”
It was an uncharacteristically sharp retort from Mma Ramotswe, who was normally so kind and polite, and for that reason Mma Makutsi did not take it to heart. Short temper was a known hazard of dieting—and who could blame people for being a bit irritable when they were constantly hungry? But at the same time, normal life had to go on around dieters, and doughnuts were just a part of normal life.
“You can’t expect everybody else to stop eating, Mma Ramotswe,” Mma Makutsi pointed out.
Nothing more was said on the subject, but it occurred to Mma Ramotswe that this was exactly the sort of question one should put to Aunty Emang. She imagined the letter: “Dear Aunty Emang, I am on a diet and yet the lady in the office with me insists on eating doughnuts in front of me. I find this very difficult. I do not want to be rude, but is there anything I can do about this?”
Aunty Emang would come up with one of her rather witty responses to that, thought Mma Ramotswe. She reflected on Aunty Emang. It must be strange having people write to one about all sorts of problems. One would end up being party to so many secrets … She stopped. An idea had come to her, and she noted it down quickly on a scrap of paper so that it might not be lost, as was the fate of so many ideas, brilliant and otherwise.
SHORTLY BEFORE LUNCH, Mr Polopetsi knocked on the office door. They had not seen him that morning, but this was not unusual. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had discovered that Mr Polopetsi was a safe driver—unlike the apprentices, who broke the speed limit at every opportunity—and he had decided to use him to collect spares and deliver the cars of customers who could not manage to get in to the garage to collect them. Mr Polopetsi did not mind walking back from the customers’ houses, or taking a minibus, whereas the apprentices insisted on being collected by Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in his truck. But all this was time-consuming for him, and sometimes Mr Polopetsi would be out of the garage for hours on end.
“Mr Polopetsi!” said Mma Ramotswe. “Have you been off on one of your long errands, Rra? All over the place? Here and there?”
“He is known all over the town,” said Mma Makutsi, laughing. “He is the best-known messenger. Like Superman.”
“Superman was not a messenger,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He was …” She did not complete her sentence. What exactly did Superman do? She was not sure if that was ever made clear.
Mr Polopetsi ignored this talk of Superman. He had noticed that sometimes these ladies got into a silly mood and talked all sorts of nonsense, which was meant to be funny. He did not find it particularly amusing. “I have been collecting some spare parts for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” he explained patiently. “I had to get some fuses and we had run out of fan belts and …”
“And blah blah blah,” said Mma Makutsi. “All this garage business. It is of no interest to us, Mr Polopetsi. We are interested in more serious matters on this side of the building.”
“You would find fan belts serious enough if yours broke halfway to Francistown,” retorted Mr Polopetsi. He was about to continue with an explanation of the importance of mechanical matters, but he stopped. Mma Makutsi had risen from her desk to take a file back to the filing cabinet, and he now saw her new blue shoes. And he noticed, too, the odd way in which she was walking.
“Have you hurt yourself, Mma?” he asked solicitously. “Have you sprained an ankle?”
Mma Makutsi continued on her tottering journey. “No,” she said. “I have not hurt myself. I am fine, thank you, Rra.”
Mr Polopetsi did not intercept the warning glance from Mma Ramotswe, and continued, “Those look like new shoes. My! They are very fashionable, aren’t they? I can hardly see them, they’re so small. Are you sure they fit you?”
“Of course I am,” mumbled Mma Makutsi. “I am just breaking them in, that’s all.”
“I would have thought that your feet were far too wide for shoes like that, Mma,” Mr Polopetsi went on. “I do not think that you would be able to run in those, do you? Or even walk.”
Mma Ramotswe could not help but smile, and she peered down at her desk with intense interest, trying to hide her expression from Mma Makutsi.
“What do you think, Mma Ramotswe?” asked Mr Polopetsi. “Do you think that Mma Makutsi should wear shoes like that?”
“It is none of my business, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Mma Makutsi is old enough to choose her own shoes.”
“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi defiantly. “I don’t comment on your shoes, and you should not comment on mine. It is very rude for a man to comment on a woman’s shoes. That is well known, isn’t it, Mma Ramotswe?”
“Yes, it is,” said Mma Ramotswe loyally. “And anyway, Mr Polopetsi, did you want to see us about something?”
Mr Polopetsi walked across the room and sat in the client’s chair, uninvited. “I have something to show you,” he said. “It is out at the back. But first I will tell you something. You remember when we went out to Mokolodi? There was something wrong there, wasn’t there?”
Mma Ramotswe nodded, but was non-committal. “I do not think that everything was right.”
“People were frightened, weren’t they?” pressed Mr Polopetsi. “Did you notice that?”
“Maybe,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“Well, I certainly noticed it,” said Mr Polopetsi. “And while you were talking to people, I did a bit of investigating. I dug a bit deeper.”
Mma Ramotswe frowned. It was not for Mr Polopetsi to dig deeper. That was not why she had taken him down to Mokolodi. He was a perceptive man, and an intelligent one, but he should not think that he could initiate enquiries. Not even Mma Makutsi, with her considerable experience in the field, initiated investigations without first talking to Mma Ramotswe about it. This was a simple question of accountability. If anything went wrong, then it would be Mma Ramotswe who would have to bear responsibility as principal. For this reason she had to know what was going on.
She composed herself to talk firmly to Mr Polopetsi. She did not relish doing this, but she was the boss, after all, and she could not shirk her duty.
“Mr Polopetsi,” she began. “I do not think …”
He cut her off, brightly raising a finger in the air, as if to point to the source of his inspiration.
“It was all to do with a bird,” he said. “Would you believe it, Mma Ramotswe? A bird was responsible for all that fear and worry.”
Mma Ramotswe was silenced. Of course it was to do with a bird—she had found that out eventually, had winkled the information out of that girl in the restaurant. But she had not expected that Mr Polopetsi, who had no contacts there, would have found out the same thing.
“I did know about the bird,” she said gravely. “And I was going to do something about it for them.”
Mr Polopetsi raised another finger in the air. “I’ve done it already,” he said brightly. “I’ve solved the problem.”
Mma Makutsi, who had been listening with increasing interest, now broke into the conversation. “What is all this about a bird?” she asked. “How can a bird cause all this trouble?”
Mr Polopetsi turned in his chair to face Mma Makutsi. “It’s not just any ordinary bird,” he explained. “It’s a hornbill—a ground hornbill.”
Mma Makutsi gave an involuntary shudder. There were ground hornbills up in the north, where she came from. She knew that they were bad luck. People avoided the ground hornbill if they could. And they were wise to do so, in her view. One only had to look at those birds, which were as big as turkeys and had those great beaks and those old-looking eyes.
“Yes,” went on Mr Polopetsi. “This bird had been brought to the Mokolodi animal sanctuary. Somebody had found it lying on the road up north and brought it down. It had a broken wing and a broken leg, and they bound these up and kept it there to recover. And everybody was very frightened because they knew that this bird would bring death. It would just bring death.”