For a few moments there was complete silence. The conversation had been followed by the woman and the girl on the bench; understood by the woman, incomprehensible to the girl. The dog had opened its eyes when they had arrived, but had closed them again. A small cluster of flies had gathered at its nostrils, but it seemed inured to their presence.
Then the aunt spoke. “Not now,” she said. “Not any more, I think.”
Mma Makutsi’s head jerked up. Mma Ramotswe’s grip on her arm tightened.
“Yes,” said the aunt, her eyes revealing her evident enjoyment. “Phuti will not wish to marry you now, I’m afraid. Not after this operation.”
Mma Ramotswe drew in her breath; it was involuntary, but quite audible. She understood that it was his legs that had been damaged; what was this?
“The doctor told me,” said the aunt. “He told me that Phuti’s right leg is very badly damaged. All crushed, he said, like the wood you break up to make a fire. They cannot repair it, and they are going to have to cut it off. There. Just below the knee.”
Mma Makutsi closed her eyes, and for a moment Mma Ramotswe thought that she was going to collapse there where they were standing. She helped her to the bench. “Sit down, Mma. Just sit down.”
The aunt’s satisfaction in the situation seemed to be growing. She now became brisk and businesslike. “The doctor said that he thought that they would be able to make a good flap of skin. They will not have to take skin from anywhere else. That is good. And then he will have to come to my house, and I will look after him.” She paused. “I do not think that marriage will be a good idea now, Mma. And anyway, you will not want to marry a man who has only one leg, will you? You will find another man-there are plenty of men with two legs.”
As Mma Makutsi settled herself on the bench, the woman at the other end moved over to her side, quickly, instinctively. “Do not be sad, my sister,” she said. “You must not be sad. Your husband will not die.”
Mma Makutsi looked at the woman, who now took her hand in hers. “It does not matter that they will take one leg from him. It does not matter. He will be alive, won’t he?”
Mma Makutsi nodded. “Thank you, Mma.”
“And this lady,” whispered the woman. “She is like a skinny cow. No man will want to live with her. Even a man with one leg will run away from such a woman. You can tell that.”
Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. “I have heard what you said,” she told the aunt. “And I do not think you should speak like that. It is not true, and it is unkind. Mma Makutsi will wait here with me, and with this good lady here.” She gestured to the other woman on the bench, who nodded her agreement. “And then when the operation is over she will go to sit with Phuti until he wakes up. I shall explain all this to Dr. Gulubane, who is an important doctor in the hospital here. I know him well, Mma, and I am sure that he will sort everything out if you start to make trouble.” She paused. “Do you understand what I have said to you?”
The aunt glanced about her. The mention of authority had unnerved her, and she was outnumbered; even the young girl was staring at her with undisguised hostility. She reached for a bag that she had placed beside the bench and began to walk away. “Phuti will be very cross when I tell him about this,” she said over her shoulder. “I can tell you that.”
Mma Ramotswe hesitated for a moment, and then she walked briskly after the retreating aunt. “Excuse me, Mma,” she said.
The aunt ignored her.
“I know that you’re feeling very sad,” Mma Ramotswe persisted. “I know that you love Phuti very much, and this must be very hard for you.”
The aunt’s step faltered.
Mma Ramotswe reached out to touch the other woman’s arm. “And from what I have heard, he is very fond of you too. He is a good man.”
The aunt stopped. Mma Ramotswe heard her breathing, a slightly raspy sound; to hear the breathing of others, such a vulnerable, intimate sound, was the most powerful reminder of their humanity-if one listened.
“You have heard that he is fond of me, Mma? You have heard that?”
Mma Ramotswe had not, but she reasoned that she could infer it from what Mma Makutsi said about Phuti’s regular visits to the aunt’s house; and from such information to a conclusion of fondness, and from that to a report of fondness, was not too large a step. To tell the strict truth was the best policy in general but not always, particularly when the happiness of an insecure and lonely, even if misguided, woman was at stake.
“Yes, I have heard it,” she said. “And I think that you should think very carefully about what I am going to tell you, Mma.”
The aunt was looking at Mma Ramotswe intently now. The watermelon-shaped head gave a small nod.
“Phuti is a good man,” Mma Ramotswe went on. “I have already told you that. And there is something that we need to remember about good men. They have room in their hearts for more than one person, you know. So if Phuti has a wife…”
“She is his fiancée,” muttered the aunt.
“But she will be his wife, and what I was trying to tell you is that I am sure that he will still be very fond of you and look after you when he is married.”
The aunt looked doubtful. “How do you know this? How do you know what he will feel?”
“I know it because I know Mma Makutsi very well,” she said. “I know that she is the sort of woman who will make sure that he does his duty. She will not allow him to forget about you.”
The aunt stared at her. “You are sure of that?”
“Of course I am sure. We can ask her right now if you like.”
The aunt looked back towards Mma Makutsi. “Why?”
“Because each of you has a heavy heart,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And feeling angry makes a heart even heavier.”
The aunt made a strange sound with her teeth: a sucking-in of air. Then she made her decision.
“I do not wish to talk to you any more, Mma. Thank you very much. Goodbye.”
CHAPTER SIX. HOW TO LOVE YOUR COUNTRY AGAIN
PHUTI RADIPHUTI’S OPERATION took place on a Friday morning. Mma Makutsi spent the latter part of the afternoon at his bedside before being ushered out by a nurse and making her way home by minibus. She felt physically exhausted but also, curiously, elated: this came from sheer relief at the fact that Phuti was still alive, and also from the emotion that she had felt when he had taken her hand and held it tightly. That, she felt, could only be a wordless affirmation of the fact that nothing had changed.
“A word of warning,” said the doctor as he took Mma Makutsi aside. “He won’t necessarily have taken in what has happened to him. Sometimes it’s not until quite a bit later that a person in his position comes to terms with the loss of a limb. You have to be ready for that.”
This warning, sobering though it was, had not succeeded in dampening Mma Makutsi’s pleasure at the operation’s success. She had seized upon such positive words as the doctor had uttered: there had been enough skin for a very good flap; the compromised tissue was relatively low down the leg-just a couple of handbreadths above the ankle; a temporary prosthetic device could be fitted in a month or so and then they could get just the right artificial leg later on; his vascular system was fundamentally healthy, and there should be no reason why there should be any complications. There was a lot to be relieved about.
Later on that night, though, in the quiet, sleepless hours, doubts returned. The aunt had implied that everything would be different now that Phuti had lost a leg-but why? The posing of the question brought a range of possible answers. Phuti had never been particularly confident. This might destroy his confidence altogether, and if that happened then he might not wish to marry. He might become depressed, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been, and Mma Makutsi knew what depression could do to a person’s ability to make even the smallest decision, let alone a decision about a wedding date. And finally there was the aunt with the watermelon-shaped head; she had now shown her hand, and could be counted on to use all her wiles-and Mma Makutsi imagined that these might be considerable-to prise Phuti away from her and take him back into the fold of his family. There were all sorts of unpleasant possibilities, and in the small hours of the morning these loomed larger and larger.