“How is the hospital?” she asked. “I have heard that you have a lot of new things there. New beds. New X-ray machines.”
“We have all of that,” said Tati Monyena. “The Government has been very generous.”
“It is your money,” chipped in Mma Makutsi from behind his chair. “When people say that the Government has given them this thing or that thing, they are forgetting that the thing which the Government gave them belonged to the people in the first place!” She paused, and then added, “Everybody knows that.”
In the silence that followed, a small white gecko, one of those albino-like creatures that cling to walls and ceilings, defying gravity with their tiny sucker-like toes, ran across a section of ceiling board. Two flies, which had landed on the same section, moved, but languidly, to escape the approaching danger. Mma Ramotswe’s gaze followed the gecko, but then dropped to Mma Makutsi, sitting defiantly below. What she said might be true—in fact, it was self-evidently true—but she should not have used that disparaging tone, as if Tati Monyena were a schoolboy who needed the facts of public finance spelled out for him.
“Rra Monyena knows all that, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly.
Tati Monyena gave a nervous glance over his shoulder in the direction of Mma Makutsi. “What she says is right,” he said. “It is our money.”
“You wouldn’t think that some politicians knew that,” said Mma Makutsi.
Mma Ramotswe decided that it was time to get the conversation off politics. “So the hospital wants me to do something,” she said. “I am happy to help. But you must tell me what the problem is.”
“That’s what doctors say,” offered Mma Makutsi from the other side of the office. “They say, What seems to be the problem? when you go to see them. And then they say…”
“Thank you very much, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe firmly. “No, Rra, what is this problem that the hospital has?”
Tati Monyena sighed. “I wish we had only one problem,” he began. “In fact, we have many problems. All hospitals have problems. Not enough funds. Not enough nurses. Infection control. It would be a very big list if I were to tell you about all our problems. But there is one problem in particular that we decided I needed to ask you about. One very big problem.”
“Which is?”
“People have died in the hospital,” he said.
Mma Ramotswe caught Mma Makutsi’s eye. She did not want any further remarks from that quarter, and she gave her assistant a severe look. She could imagine what Mma Makutsi might have said to that: that people were always dying in hospitals, and that it was surely no cause for complaint if this happened from time to time. Hospitals were full of sick people, and sick people died if the treatment did not work.
“I am sorry,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I can imagine that the hospital does not like its patients to become late. But, after all, hospitals…”
“Oh, we know that we’re going to lose a certain number of patients,” said Tati Monyena quickly. “You can’t avoid that.”
“So, why would you need my services?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
Tati Monyena hesitated before he replied. “This will go no further?” he asked. His voice was barely above a whisper.
“This is a confidential consultation,” Mma Ramotswe reassured him. “It is just between you and me. Nobody else.”
Tati Monyena looked over his shoulder again. Mma Makutsi was staring at him through her large round glasses and he quickly looked back again.
“My assistant is bound to secrecy too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We do not talk about our clients’ affairs.”
“Except when…,” began Mma Makutsi, but she was cut off by Mma Ramotswe, who raised her voice.
“Except never,” she said. “Except never.”
Tati Monyena looked uncomfortable at this display of disagreement and hesitated a moment. But then he continued, “People become late in a hospital for all sorts of reasons. You would be surprised, Mma Ramotswe, at how many patients decide that now that they’ve arrived in hospital it’s time to go…” He pointed up at the ceiling. “To go up there. And then there are those who fall out of bed and those who have a bad reaction to some drug and so on. There are many unfortunate things that happen in a hospital.
“But then there are those cases where we just don’t know why somebody became late—we just don’t know. There are not many of these cases, but they do happen. Sometimes I think that is because of a broken heart. That is something that you cannot see, you know. The pathologist does a post-mortem and the heart looks fine from outside. But it is broken inside, from some sadness. From being far from home, maybe, and thinking that you will never again see your family, or your cattle. That can break the heart.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded her agreement at that. She knew about broken hearts, and she understood how they can occur. Her father had told her about that many years ago; about how some men who went off to the mines in South Africa died for no reason at all, or so it seemed. A few weeks after they had arrived in Johannesburg, they simply died, because they were so far from Botswana, and their hearts were broken. She remembered that now.
“A broken heart,” mused Tati Monyena. “But to have a broken heart you have to be awake, Mma, would you not agree?”
Mma Ramotswe looked puzzled. “Awake?”
“Yes. Let me tell you what happened, Mma, and then you will see what I mean. I’m not sure if you know much about hospitals, but you know about a ward they have which is called intensive care. That is for people who are very ill and have to be looked after by nurses all the time, or just about all the time. Sometimes these people are in comas, on ventilators, which help them to breathe. You know about those machines, Mma?”
Mma Ramotswe did.
“Well,” continued Tati Monyena, “we have a ward like that in the hospital. And of course when people become late in that ward, nobody is too surprised. They are very sick when they go in and not all of them will come out. But…” He raised a finger in the air to emphasise the point. “But, when you have three deaths in six months and each of those takes place in the same bed, then you begin to wonder.”
“Coincidence,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “There are many coincidences.”
This time, Tati Monyena did not turn to answer her, but addressed his reply to Mma Ramotswe. “Oh, I know about coincidences,” he said. “That could easily be a coincidence. I know that. But what if those three deaths take place at more or less exactly the same time on a Friday? All of them?” He raised three fingers in the air. “Friday.” One finger went down. “Friday.” The second finger. “Friday.” The third.
CHAPTER THREE
I HAVE FOUND YOU
MMA MAKUTSI went home that day thinking about what Tati Monyena had said. She preferred not to dwell upon her work once she left the office—something that they had strongly recommended at the Botswana Secretarial College. “Don’t go home and write letters all over again in your head,” said the lecturer. “It is best to leave the problems of the office where they belong—in the office.”
She had done that, for the most part, but it was not easy when there was something as unusual—as shocking, perhaps—as this. Even though she tried to put out of her mind the account of the three unusual hospital deaths, the image returned of Tati Monyena holding up three fingers and bringing them down one by one. So might the passing of one’s life be marked—by the raising and lowering of a finger. She thought of this again as she unlocked the door of her house and flicked the light switch. On, off; like our lives.
It had not been a good day for Mma Makutsi. She had not sought out that altercation with Mma Ramotswe—if one could call it that—and it had left her feeling uncomfortable. It was Mma Ramotswe’s fault, she decided; she should not have made those remarks about shopping during working hours. One might reasonably require a junior clerk to keep strict hours, but when it came to those at a higher level, such as herself, then a certain leeway was surely normal. If one went to the shops in the afternoon they were full of people who were senior enough to take the time off to do their shopping. One could not expect such people—and she included herself in that category—to struggle to get everything done on a Saturday morning, when the whole town was trying to do the same thing. If Mma Ramotswe did not appreciate that, she said to herself, then she would have to employ somebody else.