“Well, you will find out what it is like today,” said Mma Ramotswe. She paused. “Can you swim, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I have never learned to swim. Up in Bobonong we didn’t really have any water. It’s hard to learn how to swim when there is no water.”
Mma Ramotswe considered this observation. It was, she thought, incontestably true. It was not surprising that there were not many champion swimmers in Botswana, as only one part of the country-the Delta-had much water.
“I cannot swim either,” she said. “Although I was once invited to go swimming in the pool at the Sun Hotel.”
“And did you, Mma Ramotswe?” Mma Makutsi tried not to smile at the picture that came into her mind of Mma Ramotswe entering the pool at the hotel and making the water rise to the point of overflowing. She had been taught about such things at school. She remembered the lesson: “If you place a (large) body in water, the level of the water rises as the body displaces a volume of water equal to the volume of the body.”
Mma Ramotswe herself smiled at the recollection. “I went in at the shallow end,” she said. “It was not very deep, and I found that I could stand. But then I made a very interesting discovery.”
“That you could swim?”
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, I did not find that I could swim. I found, though, that I could float. I very slowly took the weight off my legs, and do you know, Mma, I floated. It was very pleasant. I did not have to move my arms-I just floated.”
Mma Makutsi clapped her hands. “That is very good, Mma! Well done! Perhaps it is something to do with being so traditionally built. A thin person would sink. You floated.”
“Possibly,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it was good to discover that I could do a sport after all.”
Mma Makutsi was not certain that floating could be called a sport. Was there a Botswana floating team? She thought not. What would such a team do? Would they have to float gently from one point to another, with the winner being the one who arrived first? Surely not.
This conversation might have continued had they not then seen the boatman arriving. He came round a bend in the river, standing in his long, narrow canoe, using a pole to propel it forward. Seeing the two women under the tree, he raised a hand in greeting.
Mma Makutsi frowned. “Will we both fit in that, Mma? What if a hippo…”
Mma Ramotswe put a finger to her lips. “Let’s not talk about hippos, Mma. It is not a good idea to talk about hippos when you are just about to set off on a river journey.”
The boatman drew up at the bank in front of them, skilfully beaching the canoe at their feet. They noticed that he had attached a small outboard engine to the back of the makoro, and as they placed their overnight bags in the front of the canoe, he whipped the engine into life.
“ Eagle Island is too far away for us to be traditional,” he said with a smile. “Now that you’re paying, I’ll turn the engine on.”
The two women settled themselves into their places in the canoe. As she did so, Mma Ramotswe noticed the clearance between the top edge of the boat and the surface of the water diminish alarmingly. And that was before Mma Makutsi had sat down. Hippos, she reminded herself, but did not give voice to the thought.
Mma Makutsi lowered herself. “The water is very close,” she said to the boatman. “Is that normal?”
The boatman replied in a matter-of-fact tone, “It is not normal, Mma. This canoe is very heavy now. That is why the water is almost coming over the side. But we will be perfectly safe, as long as you two ladies don’t move.”
Mma Makutsi froze. “And if we do move?” she whispered.
The boatman laughed. “If you move, we could go into the water. Big splash, Mma.”
“It isn’t funny,” said Mma Makutsi, raising her voice. “We are two ladies here on business. We cannot go into the water, where there are…”
“Hippos,” said the boatman, maintaining his matter-of-fact tone. “And many crocodiles too. And of course sometimes there are also elephants who like to swim in this river. And snakes too. There are snakes who live in the reeds by the side of the river. They like to swim too, Mma. Did you know that?”
“I do not want to hear about these things, Rra,” said Mma Makutsi.
Mma Ramotswe decided to say something to allay her assistant’s fear. There was no point in Mma Makutsi’s spending the trip in a state of terror. She would be cheerful. “Of course you aren’t frightened by any of these creatures, are you, Rra?”
The boatman stared at her. “Oh no, I am very frightened, Mma. I would not like to meet a hippo. They are very bad-tempered animals, and they can snap a man in two with those great teeth of theirs. Just like that. Ow! Snap, and he’s broken in two.”
Mma Ramotswe laughed nervously. “That is very unlikely to happen, Rra,” she said.
“Oh, no it isn’t, Mma. It happens all the time. It happened two weeks ago. I knew the man who was snapped in two by a hippo. He is-he was-the cousin of my wife’s sister’s husband. He was a very close relative, and now he is late.”
Mma Makutsi looked steadfastly ahead. They had now started their journey, and the makoro was heading upstream, throwing out a wake of crystal-clear water on either side of its narrow prow. The water glistened in the sun like a layer of liquid diamonds; beneath, some feet below, lay a clear sand-bank, mottled by the shadows of the wavelets. There was no sign of hippos just yet, but the river twisted this way and that, and there were many turns still to be negotiated. A herd of hippos might be behind any of these, waiting to demonstrate their well-known irascibility.
“I suppose it is better to be taken by a hippo than a crocodile,” the boatman went on. “If a hippo bites you in two, then you do not have much time to think. It is very quick… particularly if he gets your head in that big mouth of his. Then it must be like night coming suddenly. Very dark, I think, Mma.”
Mma Ramotswe tried to distract him. “There is a very interesting bird in the reeds over there, Rra. Did you see him?”
“That bird is very common, Mma,” said the boatman. “You will see many of those birds in the Delta. You must not worry about them. They are harmless.”
“I was not worried about the bird,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I was just pointing it out.”
“Of course,” went on the boatman, “if a crocodile gets you, then that is very different. That is not a good way to go. You’ve heard about the roll?”
Mma Ramotswe said nothing. Mma Makutsi was staring ahead; she too was mute.
The boatman was warming to his subject, raising his voice to make sure that both his passengers heard. “The crocodile gets you in his jaws. Then he takes you down under the water and he rolls over and over, spinning you round and round. This is to make you drown. Then he drags you away to his lair, which is usually under roots at the edge of a riverbank, rather like that place over there. See it? That is a good place for a crocodile to have his lair.”
Mma Makutsi did not dare so much as switch her gaze to the side; Mma Ramotswe glanced towards the bank, and then looked back ahead.
“Crocodiles don’t like fresh meat,” the boatman explained. “They much prefer to eat their prey when it’s a bit rotten. That is why they put you in their lair, you see…”
“Excuse me, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe suddenly. “This is all very interesting, but I do not think that it is a good idea to tell people these things when they are on the water. There are some stories that are better told on the land.”
“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “That is true. We do not want you to speak, Rra. We are not in a mood for conversation.”
The boatman looked puzzled. Women, he thought. It was always the same: men were interested in crocodiles and hippos and how they behaved; women were not. It was very difficult to understand. What did women think about? He had never worked out an answer to this, in spite of having had five wives. Perhaps I shall never understand them, he thought.