CHAPTER FIFTEEN. AT EAGLE ISLAND CAMP
THEY ARRIVED SAFELY. There were no hippos, and no crocodiles-or at least, none that they saw, and the two elephants they spotted, two young males standing under a canopy of large marula trees, were a safe distance away and completely uninterested in the passing boat.
Mma Ramotswe arranged for the boatman to return the following day. She and Mma Makutsi would spend the night in the camp, staying in the staff village with one of the women who worked in the kitchens. This woman was a friend of the cousin in Maun-again, a connection that could be deemed sufficiently close to allow for a request for hospitality. Of course, hospitality would be repaid at some time in the future: somebody from the camp would be in Gaborone, and would appear at the house in need of a bed for the night, or for several nights, and a meal, or several meals. Mma Ramotswe did not resent this, as it was the old Botswana morality in action: you helped people who had helped you, or who knew people whom you had helped.
The boatman disappeared down a winding branch of the river, whistling tunelessly. “That man is very tactless,” said Mma Makutsi. “He has no idea of when is the right time to talk about certain things. Imagine if we had been visitors, Mma. Imagine if we had been Swedish! We would have wanted to go straight back to Sweden, I think.”
“He was only trying to be helpful,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But you are right, Mma, he would not be the best tour guide in Botswana, I think. He would not be very reassuring for… for Swedish people.”
Mma Makutsi had more to say on the subject. “I was not frightened, Mma. I was not worried.”
“Of course not,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“But the Swedes…”
“Yes, of course. The Swedes. You are right to be concerned, Mma.” Mma Ramotswe, having straightened her dress, was looking towards the camp buildings a short distance away. A man in a khaki uniform was making his way towards them. He lifted an arm, waving, and greeted them politely as he came closer.
“You are Mma Ramotswe, are you, Mma?”
Mma Ramotswe inclined her head. “I am that lady,” she said. “And this is Mma Makutsi.”
“Assistant detective,” said Mma Makutsi quickly.
The man announced himself as the deputy manager. He had heard from the camp’s head office in Maun about Mma Ramotswe’s telephone call a couple of days earlier, explaining her mission. They were pleased, he said, that one of their guests had been so impressed with her visit as to leave a gift to one of the guides. “We are very happy about that, Mma, and we would like to help you. If you tell us who this American lady was, then we can find out which guide looked after her.”
They walked back towards the camp. The deputy manager would show them, he said, to the staff quarters, where they would be spending the night. Afterwards, they could come and have tea with the manager and the senior guide and talk about their mission. As they walked, Mma Ramotswe looked about her: she was still in her country, in Botswana, but it was a different Botswana from the one she knew. The vegetation here seemed very different-the trees were higher, the leaves greener. There were palm trees among the mopani and acacia; there were creepers and vines; everything was denser.
“This is a very beautiful place,” said Mma Ramotswe.
“That is why people come here,” said the deputy manager. “They come because they want to find a beautiful place. That is what people want.”
“There are many beautiful places,” said Mma Makutsi.
The deputy manager looked at her appreciatively, as if impressed by the wisdom of her observation. “I think that you are right,” he said.
Nothing more was said on the rest of the walk to the staff quarters. The woman with whom they were staying met them there, and took them to her small thatched house-a couple of rooms, one of which she had cleared for her guests. Mma Ramotswe looked at the floor, on which two reed sleeping mats had been laid. Beside each mat, a glass jam jar filled with water had been placed, each holding a small bunch of white and yellow flowers. The floor had been recently swept, and bore the marks of the brush, tiny scratch-like lines. A rough cupboard, unsteady on its legs she imagined, stood against the rear wall, ready for the guests’ possessions. The cupboard had been emptied of its contents and its door now stood ajar. This, she thought, is half a house, and it has been cleared for us.
“You should not have done this just for us,” she said to the woman, who had introduced herself as Mma Sepoi.
Mma Sepoi smiled, and dropped a knee in a small curtsy. “You are my guests, Mma. I want you to be comfortable.”
They settled in, Mma Sepoi telling them about her life while they placed in the rickety cupboard the few possessions they had brought with them. It was an ability that Mme Ramotswe always admired-that of encapsulating a whole life, and often the life of an entire family, in a few sentences. So many people, she had discovered, could do it, and effortlessly too; in her own case, she needed time. Where would one start? With Obed Ramotswe meeting her mother, bashful and hesitant about marriage, when he came back for a break from his work in the mines? With her return to Mochudi and that terrible stormy night when her mother, in circumstances that were yet to be fully explained, wandered onto the railway line that ran from Bulawayo down to Mafikeng? With those early days at the school high above Mochudi, where one might hear drifting from down below the sound of cattle bells?
“I have worked here for four years,” said Mma Sepoi. “I am very happy. Some people, you know, that go into one job and then another, they say, This job does not suit me; it has this, that, or the next thing wrong with it. You know people like that, Mma Ramotswe? There are many of them. Not me. I came here after I had worked as a cleaning lady in Maun. Before that I had a job at Jack’s Camp, with the old man, not the son, but the father before him. They are very good people. They know this country better than most people, Mma. And before that I was in Nata, from the time when I was a girl. My father was a policeman there. He was very good at catching stock thieves. If a cattle thief saw him coming, just walking along the road, he would run. Like that. Off. And my father would run after him and catch him because he had been in the police running team. He was a No. 1 police runner. And his father, my grandfather, was from Francistown, and his cattle were all drowned in a big flood on the Shashi River. That happened a long time ago, Mma.”
“A lot has happened in your life,” said Mma Makutsi. “You have had a very eventful life.”
Mma Sepoi acknowledged the compliment. “I have had many things that have happened to me. But I am not complaining. I say that everything that happens has a lesson in it. You look at it and you say, ‘That happened because of this thing.’ And then when it happens next, you know why it happened in the first place.” She paused to take a breath. “That is the way I look at things, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi took off her glasses and polished them. “Are there many animals here, Mma?” she asked. The question was casually posed, but Mma Ramotswe detected an edge to it.
“Oh, there are many,” said Mma Sepoi. She pointed out of the door behind her. “Keep this door closed at night, Mma.”
Mma Makutsi redoubled her polishing efforts. “I always keep my door closed at night,” she said nervously. “It is safer that way.”
“Especially here,” said Mma Sepoi. “I got up the other night because I heard something sniffing at my door. I have a saucepan by my bed and I bang it against the wall to make a noise. Lions don’t like saucepans, Mma.”