“No. Not her.”
“Then who else is there? Tati Monyena?”
Mr Polopetsi did not think this likely. “I think that he is somebody who would protect his staff rather than punish them,” he said. “Tati Monyena is a kind man.”
“Well, I don’t know what to think,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it’s time for us to leave anyway. I don’t think that there is anything more we can do here.”
They drove back to Gaborone. They spoke to each other on the journey, but not about the visit to the hospital, as neither had much to say about that. Mr Polopetsi told Mma Ramotswe about one of his sons, who was turning out to be very good at mental arithmetic. “He is like a calculator,” he said. “He is already doing calculations that I cannot do, and he is only eight.”
“You must be very proud of him,” said Mma Ramotswe.
Mr Polopetsi beamed with pleasure. “I am, Mma,” he said. “He is the most precious thing I have in this world.” He seemed about to say something else, but stopped. He looked at Mma Ramotswe hesitantly, and she knew that he was about to make a request. It will be for money, she thought. There will be school fees to be paid, or shoes to be bought for this boy, or even a blanket; children needed all these things, all the time.
“He needs a godmother,” said Mr Polopetsi. “He had a godmother, and now she is late. He needs a new one.”
There was only one answer Mma Ramotswe could give. “Yes,” she said. “I will do that, Rra.”
There would be birthdays from now on, as well as shoes and school fees and so forth. But we cannot always choose whose lives will become entangled with our own; these things happen to us, come to us uninvited, and Mma Ramotswe understood that well. And just as she had not chosen Mr Polopetsi’s son, she reflected, so too had the boy not chosen her.
CHAPTER FIVE
RESIGNATION SHOES
MMA MAKUTSI was eager for a report the next day. She would have preferred to have gone to Mochudi in the place of Mr Polopetsi, who she thought would not have been likely to add very much to the investigation. But she was cautious about giving offence to Mma Ramotswe after the misunderstandings of the previous day, and she kept those feelings to herself. In fact, she went further than that and told Mma Ramotswe what a good idea it had been to take Mr Polopetsi. “If you’re a woman, sometimes people don’t take you seriously enough,” she said. “That is when it is useful to have a man around.”
Mma Ramotswe was non-committal about that. Men were learning, she thought, and a great deal had changed. Mma Makutsi, perhaps, was fighting battles which had already been largely won, at least in the towns. It was different in the villages, of course, where men still thought that they could do what they liked. But she was thinking of other things: she had been pondering Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s planned investigation and was wondering whether she could discreetly suggest that Mma Makutsi assist him. She could try that, certainly, but she was not sure whether he would welcome it; in fact, she was sure that he would not. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni might not be the most assertive of men, but there were sensitivities there that surfaced from time to time.
“Be that as it may,” she said to Mma Makutsi, as they began to attend to the morning mail. “There was not very much that we could find out at the hospital. I saw the ward where it happened. I spoke to the nurses, who said almost nothing. And that was it.”
Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. “And what can you do now?” she asked.
It was difficult for Mma Ramotswe to answer that. She very rarely gave up on a case, as solutions had a habit of cropping up as long as one was patient. But it was difficult at any particular point to say what would happen next. “I shall wait,” she said. “There is no special hurry, Mma. I shall wait and see what happens.”
“Well, I don’t see what can possibly happen,” said Mma Makutsi. “These things don’t solve themselves, you know.”
Mma Ramotswe bit her lip and turned to the letter she had just opened. It was a letter of thanks from the parents of a young man whom she had eventually located in Francistown. There had been a family row and he had gone missing, leaving no address. There had been a girlfriend, about whom the parents knew nothing, and the young woman had eventually confided to Mma Ramotswe that he was in Francistown, although she was not sure exactly where. So Mma Ramotswe had quizzed her about his interests, which, she revealed, included jazz. From that it was a simple step to enquire of the only place in Francistown where jazz was played. Yes, they knew of him, and yes he would be playing the following evening. Would she like to come? She would not, but the young man’s parents did, and they were reunited with their son. He had wanted to contact them, but was too proud; the fact that his parents had come all the way from Gaborone meant that honour was satisfied. Everybody forgave one another and started again, which, Mma Ramotswe reflected, is how many of the world’s problems might be solved. We should forgive one another and start all over again. But what if those who needed to be forgiven hung on to the things that they had wrongly acquired: What then? That, she decided, was a matter that would require further thought.
“It is so easy to thank people,” said Mma Ramotswe, passing the letter over to Mma Makutsi. “And most people don’t bother to do it. They don’t thank the person who does something for them. They just take it for granted.”
Mma Makutsi looked out of the window. Mma Ramotswe had done her plenty of favours in the past, and she had never written to thank her. Could the remark be aimed at her? Could Mma Ramotswe have been harbouring a grudge, as people did, sometimes for years and years? She looked at her employer and decided that this was unlikely. Mma Ramotswe could not harbour a grudge convincingly; she would start to laugh, or offer the object of her grudge a cup of tea, or do something which indicated that the grudge was not real.
Mma Makutsi read the letter. “Where shall I file this, Mma?” she asked. “We do not have a file for letters of thanks. We have a file for letters of complaint, of course. Should it go there?”
Mma Ramotswe did not think this a good idea. They could open a new file, but their filing cabinets were already overcrowded and she did not think it would be worthwhile opening a file which might never contain another letter. “We can throw it away now,” she said.
Mma Makutsi frowned. “At the Botswana Secretarial College we were taught never to throw anything away for at least a week,” she said. “There might always be some follow-up.”
“There will be no follow-up to a letter of thanks,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is it. There will be no more. That case is closed.”
With a slow show of reluctance, Mma Makutsi held the letter over the bin and dropped it in. As she did so, the door of the office opened and Charlie, the older of the two apprentices, walked in. He had removed his work overalls to reveal a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt underneath. The tee-shirt, Mma Ramotswe noticed, had a picture of a jet aircraft on it and the slogan underneath in large letters: HIGH FLIER.
Mma Makutsi looked at him. “Finishing work early today?” she asked. “Ten o’clock in the morning? You’re a quick worker, Charlie!”
The young man ignored this comment as he sauntered over to Mma Ramotswe’s desk. “Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “You’ve always been kind to me.” He paused, casting a glance over his shoulder in the direction of Mma Makutsi. “Now I’ve come to say goodbye. I’m finishing work here soon. I’m going. I’ve come to say goodbye.”
Mma Ramotswe stared at Charlie in astonishment. “But you haven’t finished your…your…”
“Apprenticeship,” supplied Mma Makutsi from the other side of the room. “You silly boy! You can’t leave before you’ve finished that.”
Charlie did not react to this. He continued to look at Mma Ramotswe. “I haven’t finished my apprenticeship—I know that,” he said. “But you only need to finish your apprenticeship if you want to be a mechanic. Who said I want to be a mechanic?”