Mma Potokwane stopped her. “Oh, I have met that woman. I cannot remember her name, but she has a…”
“Big head,” Mma Makutsi supplied. “A big head, a bit like a melon.” She sketched the dimensions of the head with her hands.
“Yes, that is her,” said Mma Potokwane. “She is a very difficult woman. She was very rude to one of the house mothers once, at church, I think. She said that she was not putting enough money in the collection basket. I heard about that. The house mother had been crying. She said, Some woman with a very big head made me very embarrassed. I remember it.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled, picturing the scene. The people who volunteered to take the collection at church were often of a rather stern type, she thought. “That is the woman who is now looking after Phuti,” she said. “And she is trying to stop Mma Makutsi from seeing him.”
Mma Potokwane put down her teacup with a clatter. “What? What is this?”
“She turns me away when I go to the house,” explained Mma Makutsi. “She won’t let me see Phuti, my own fiancé.”
Mma Potokwane made a strange sound-a sort of eruption that came from deep within her, a small sound, perhaps, at its origin somewhere within her chest, but magnified tenfold as it came up through her matronly air passages, to emerge from her lips as an unmistakably disapproving snort. It was very like the sound, thought Mma Ramotswe, not without admiration, that a she-elephant makes when warning an intruder off her young.
“That is a piece of nonsense,” said Mma Potokwane. “The place for a man who is recovering from an injury is with the lady who is almost married to him. That has always been so, and the world has not changed so much that it is any different now.” She looked at Mma Ramotswe, as one matron to another. “Do you not agree with me, Mma Ramotswe?”
Mma Ramotswe inclined her head to signify that she did not dissent. She agreed with Mma Potokwane on many things, but not all. Yet this was one area in which the agreement was perfect. Of course, this redoubtable woman, this defender of the interests of orphans-and fiancées-was right.
Mma Potokwane now looked out of the window, momentarily lost in thought. After a while she turned round and addressed Mma Makutsi. “Of course, it might be difficult for you to look after him all the time. You have your job, don’t you?”
Mma Makutsi sighed. “It would be hard, Mma, but I would like to try.”
“You live by yourself, don’t you, Mma?” Mma Potokwane asked.
“Yes, I do. But I always get back by five-thirty. So he would only be by himself from…”
“From seven in the morning until five-thirty in the evening,” said Mma Potokwane briskly. “That would not be very good for him, Mma. No, we must think of something else, and I believe that I have a solution.”
Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi exchanged glances.
“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “I have been thinking. There is a room behind my office at the orphan farm. It is a very comfortable room that we sometimes use when we have visitors. Mr. Radiphuti could stay there, and that means there would be many people to look after him during the day. We have a nurse, as you know, and there is a house mother nearby who is a very good cook. Then you could come every evening, Mma Makutsi, and you could stay in my place. We have two extra bedrooms in our house. So you could see him in the evenings and all weekends. He would be very well looked after, I think.”
For a moment or two Mma Makutsi did not move, but sat quite still, quite upright, as if transfixed. Then she removed her large glasses and polished them on the sleeve of her blouse. She put the glasses back on. “Oh, Mma…,” she began. She faltered. She had not received many kindnesses in her life, apart from those that she had had from Mma Ramotswe, and from Phuti, of course, and she was clearly finding it difficult to express what she felt. Mma Ramotswe could tell that, and she answered on her assistant’s behalf. “That would be wonderful, Mma,” she said. “I’m sure that Mma Makutsi would love that.”
There was a vigorous nodding from Mma Makutsi.
“But then,” Mma Ramotswe went on, “how do we get Phuti to hear about this? That aunt of his has cut off all communication. She is like a dog at the door.”
Mma Potokwane let out another snort. “I will go and see him,” she said. “Mma Makutsi will come with me, and we will have a word with Mr. Radiphuti. We will ask him whether he would like to accept my invitation, and if he says yes-and I’m sure he will-then we shall bring him straight back. That aunt of his is no problem, Mma. She is no problem at all.” She paused. “And you come too, Mma Ramotswe. We shall all go.”
Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi, and knew that she had to go. And she wanted to, anyway, as she could hardly miss the spectacle of Mma Potokwane, one of the most formidable women in Botswana, coming face-to-face with one of the country’s nastiest senior aunts. It would be an encounter to remember, and talk about, for a long time. And she was sure who would win.
“You are very kind,” she said to Mma Potokwane. “This will make Mma Makutsi happy, and it will be best for Phuti. It is a very good idea, Mma, and we are all grateful to you.”
“I am not being kind,” said Mma Potokwane. “I am just helping my friends who have helped me. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni has done so much for us-he has fixed so many things over the years-that I am very happy to be able to repay the… the assistant to his wife.”
That was only partly true, thought Mma Ramotswe. It was probably the case that Mma Potokwane wanted to repay favours, but it was not true that she was not kind. Of course Mma Potokwane was kind-one only had to look at her life to see that. And what was also true, Mma Ramotswe thought, was this: Some kind people may not look kind. They may look severe, or strict, or even bossy, as Mma Potokwane sometimes did. But inside them there was a big dam of kindness, as there is inside so many people, like the great dam to the south of Gaborone, ready to release its healing waters.
MMA POTOKWANE drove them to the aunt’s house, parking directly outside her gate. The unpleasant brown car, with its small, mean-spirited windows, was there in the short driveway, and the aunt’s front door was slightly open. A man with a rake was standing in the yard, battered old hat perched on his head; a jobbing gardener, thought Mma Ramotswe. The man waved, and she returned his wave as they approached the house.
“She is not a nice woman,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “I am worried.”
“Nonsense!” said Mma Potokwane, not bothering to lower her voice. “She is a melon. That is all.”
They reached the front door and Mma Potokwane shouted out, “Ko! Ko!” When there was no reply, she shouted the greeting out again, and this time edged the front door a bit further open. This brought a reaction from within-the aunt suddenly appeared. She was wearing a pink housecoat and had a cloth, a doek, wound round the top of her head. She eyed her visitors suspiciously, an expression of outrage spreading slowly across her face.
“Yes?” she said. “What is this?”
“I am Mma Potokwane,” came the announcement. “You know these ladies. We are here to see Mr. Radiphuti.”
“Impossible,” said the aunt. “He is sleeping. You must go away. All of you.”
Mma Potokwane seemed to inflate before their eyes. “I am not asking you, Mma,” she said to the aunt. “I am telling you. Mma Makutsi is here to see her husband.”
The aunt glared at Mma Makutsi. “She is not his wife. He is not her husband. She is… she is nothing, Mma. So you must all go now. You. The nothing. This other woman. All go.”
Mma Potokwane moved forward slowly. It was not really like a person moving, thought Mma Ramotswe; it was more a geological movement, the movement of boulders falling slowly down a slope-unstoppable, remorseless, obeying only the rules of gravity and no other. In the face of this, the aunt could do nothing; there was no physical contact, and Mma Potokwane moved past her into the house unimpeded. Unerringly, as if on entirely familiar territory, she made her way into a corridor, followed by Mma Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe. The first door she pushed open led into a pantry, the second into a bedroom. And there, sitting in a wheelchair by the end of the bed, was Phuti Radiphuti.