“Exactly. Lady of traditional build. She went by here five hours ago. Heading north.”
“They are very clever, those people, Hansi.”
Hansi nodded. “Sometimes I worry, though. I worry about who will be learning those skills in the next generation. Are there apprentices? Are there people learning how to track?”
Mma Ramotswe frowned as she thought of the apprentices at Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. She could not imagine Charlie and Fanwell tracking animals through the bush, although she could just see them tracking cars. Four-door saloon, heading south, third gear. Or, more likely, Car full of girls, going that way, two hours ago.
Hansi made tea, and they continued to chat for half an hour or so. They enjoyed each other’s company, although their circumstances were very different. He came from the opposite end of the country, from Ghanzi, in the far west, on the other side of the Kalahari, a dry place that had just enough vegetation to make it good land for cattle, as long as they were grazed thinly enough on the brittle veld. It was a landscape of browns and ochres, of dust and copper-red sunsets, of rickety windmills turning above marginal boreholes, sucking the land for water somewhere deep down.
Hansi’s father was one of a tribe of Afrikaaners that had trekked there in the nineteenth century and had stayed. They were tough people, burned dry by the sun, leather-hard in their determination to eke out a living from the land, followers of a Calvinist church, a long way from their Dutch roots-so long a way as to have become African in their souls. This father of his had produced Hansi by a local woman, a Motswana, and then disowned his tiny son, sending the woman away with a pittance. Hansi knew who he was, and knew his farm, but knew too that he was not welcome there. Yet he was, for some complex reason, proud of this farmer who denied him, and of his lineage, and spoke of his father with the same air of pride as Mma Ramotswe spoke of hers. She thought, though, If I could speak to that man and tell him how much his son loves him, and shake him until he acknowledged this love and how stupid he was to turn his heart against it. If I could speak to him… But some of us cannot see love, she said to herself, even when it is there, right before us, asking us to invite it in.
After her conversation with Hansi, Mma Ramotswe returned to the office. There she found Mr. Polopetsi sitting in Mma Makutsi’s chair. “Just trying it, Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “And it is important to have somebody here to answer the telephone.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled at the explanation. She understood: Mr. Polopetsi would never get promotion as long as Mma Makutsi was there; it was understandable, then, that he might wish to enjoy the thought of being in her position.
“The lady whose chair that is,” she said, “is a very determined lady. You know that, don’t you, Rra?”
Mr. Polopetsi nodded ruefully. “She is a very strong lady.”
“And I’m afraid that she is showing no signs of giving up her job,” Mma Ramotswe went on. “Which means…”
Mr. Polopetsi interrupted her. “I know, Mma. There is no chance for me.” He paused and looked up, hoping to read encouragement in Mma Ramotswe’s expression. “I just wondered whether poor Radiphuti’s accident will make any difference. I thought that maybe with him being crippled now, she would need to stay at home.”
“I don’t think that he would like you to say that he is crippled,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He has lost a leg-or a bit of a leg-but they will fix him up with something and he will be able to walk. Maybe more or less the same as before.”
Mr. Polopetsi said that he was pleased to hear this, and Mma Ramotswe thought that he meant it, even if the implication of this news was that Mma Makutsi would stay at her post. She wished she could do more for this mild and inoffensive man, who was always so willing to take on new tasks and who never complained. A great wrong had been done him, she felt, in his imprisonment for the consequences of an error that was not of his making, and in the past she had entertained thoughts of clearing his name. But no longer; it was too long ago and it would be an impossible task. Now he should concentrate on forgetting that nightmare, which she thought was exactly what he was doing. But it would still be a help to give him some scrap of status to hang on to…
“I’ve been thinking, Rra.” She had not-not strictly so-as the thought had just popped into her mind a few seconds ago. “I’ve been thinking about your position.”
He looked at her with that long, hopeful stare that he often used-rather like the mute gaze of a dog that wants his master to feed him.
“Yes,” she went on, now thinking quickly. “You know that this is a small business. We do not make much money, and the share we put in of the wage that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni pays you is very small. You know that?”
He inclined his head slightly. “I know that, Mma. And I am very grateful.”
It was typical of him, she thought. Others would resent this arrangement, but he accepted it.
“So we cannot really give you more money. We would like to, but we cannot.”
“I know that, Mma. And you must not worry. My wife is helping in a shop now, and she is getting some money too. We are luckier than many. I am not complaining.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “You do not complain, Rra. You are very good that way. But what I’ve been thinking about is this. We could give you a new title. I thought that we might call you…” She hesitated. She had thought of Operations Manager, but she knew that Mma Makutsi would object to that. So it would have to be Consultant. That was the word people used to describe the jobs of those who really had no fixed role, and sometimes nothing at all to do. “How about Consultant Detective?” she asked.
Mr. Polopetsi said nothing.
“It is a very good title,” Mma Ramotswe encouraged him.
He shook his head. “It is kind of you, Mma. But I am happy as I am. You do not have to find a name for me just to make me feel better.”
“But…”
“No, Mma. I do not need that. I am happy to do the work I do. Maybe one day things will change for me, but I do not fret too much about that. I am happy right now. I like fixing cars, you see, and I like doing some work for you too. So what do I lack? I have enough food now. My children are not hungry. They are learning well at school. This is a good country, our Botswana. So why do I need to be a consultant?”
She could not answer, and so she simply looked at him, and he looked back at her. Everything was perfectly understood.
Then he said, “While you were out, there was a telephone call for you. I took it. It was that lady who is your friend, that Mma Mateleke. She said, Could Mma Ramotswe meet me for tea tomorrow morning at ten o’clock? Riverwalk. That café she goes to. I said that I would ask you and that I would phone her and let her know.”
Mma Ramotswe wondered if her friend was in trouble. She had looked ill at ease in church on Sunday, and the thought had crossed her mind that something was troubling Mma Mateleke. Domestic disputes, perhaps? She remembered the story that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had told her-about rescuing Mma Mateleke’s car from the Lobatse Road. He had said something about strange behaviour from some man who drove past, but he had not said much more than that, and she had been cooking at the time rather than listening. Was something going on in the Mateleke household? She would find out, no doubt, at the Riverwalk Café tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.
She stopped. Why was it called Riverwalk? Where was the river? The Notwane was nowhere in sight. And the walk?
CHAPTER NINE. RULE 32
IT WAS VERY FORTUNATE that when Mma Ramotswe arrived at the Riverwalk Café the next morning she was able to get the table that she wanted. This was in the middle, but also on the edge. This was the best place to be, she thought, because it afforded a good view of the car park as well as of the small market that sprang up each morning to sell brightly coloured garments, necklaces, and a seemingly endless supply of carved wooden hippos. Mma Ramotswe had wondered who bought these carvings, as the stalls never seemed to do any business when she was there; the occasional visitor, perhaps, who felt the need for a hippo; the traveller buying a last-minute present for those left at home-unnecessary purchases, perhaps, but tokens of love that were never unnecessary, never pointless. She had bought a wooden hippo herself one day, only a small one, on impulse, when she had walked past a stall and seen the look of resignation on the stallholder’s face. It had not been expensive, and she had not attempted to bargain as the seller expected her to do, but had paid the price asked without demur. The stallholder had cheered up, and Mma Ramotswe had remarked that perhaps business might improve. “There is always somebody to buy something,” she said. Yes, she thought, including a somebody who bought a wooden hippo for which she had no real use just because she was soft-hearted.