"I have been thinking about what you said to me, Mma," he remarked, as she walked past. "It was a very thought-provoking remark."

"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe, slightly taken aback. "And I am afraid I do not know what the answer is. I simply do not."

Mr Pilai shook his head. "Then we shall have to think about it some more," he said.

"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "We shall."

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

MMA POTOKWANE OBLIGES.

T HE GOVERNMENT Man had given Mma Ramotswe a telephone number which she could use at any time and which would circ.u.mvent his secretaries and a.s.sistants. That afternoon she tried the number for the first time, and got straight through to her client. He sounded pleased to hear from her, and expressed his pleasure that the investigation had begun.

"I would like to go down to the house next week," said Mma Ramotswe. "Have you contacted your father?"

"I have done that," said the Government Man. "I have told him that you will be coming to stay for a rest. I told him that you have found many votes for me amongst the women and that I must repay you. You will be well looked after."

Details were agreed, and Mma Ramotswe was given directions to the farm, which lay off the Francistown Road, to the north of Pilane.

"I am sure that you will find evidence of wickedness," said the Government Man. "Then we can save my poor brother."

Mma Ramotswe was noncommittal. "We shall see. I can't guarantee anything. I shall have to see."

"Of course, Mma," the Government Man said hurriedly. "But I have complete confidence in your ability to find out what is happening. I know that you will be able to find evidence against that wicked woman. Let's just hope that you are in time."

After the telephone call, Mma Ramotswe sat at her desk and stared at the wall. She had just taken a whole week out of her diary, and that meant that all the other tasks on her list were consigned to an uncertain future. At least she need not worry about the garage for the time being, nor indeed need she worry about dealing with enquiries at the agency. Mma Makutsi could do all that and if, as was increasingly often the case these days, she was under a car at the time, then the apprentices had been trained to answer the telephone on her behalf.

But what about Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? That was the one really difficult issue which remained untouched, and she realised that she would have to do something quickly. She had finished reading the book on depression and she now felt more confident in dealing with its puzzling symptoms. But there was always a danger with that illness that the sufferer might do something rash-the book had been quite explicit about that-and she dreaded the thought of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni being driven to such extremes by his feelings of lowness and self-disesteem. She would have to get him to Dr Moffat somehow, so that treatment could begin. But when she had told him that he was to see a doctor, he had flatly refused. If she tried again, she would probably get the same response.

She wondered whether there was any way of getting him to take the pills by trickery. She did not like the idea of using underhand methods with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, but when a person's reason was disturbed, then she thought that any means were justified in getting them better. It was as if a person had been kidnapped by some evil being and held ransom. You would not hesitate, she felt, to resort to trickery to defeat the evil being. In her view, that was perfectly in line with the old Botswana morality, or indeed with any other sort of morality.

She had wondered whether she could conceal the tablets in his food. This might have been possible if she had been attending to his every meal, but she was not. He had stopped coming round to her house for his evening meal, and it would look very strange if she suddenly arrived at his house to cater for him. Anyway, she suspected that he was not eating very much in his state of depression-the book had warned about this-as he appeared to be losing weight quite markedly. It would be impossible, then, to administer the drugs to him in this way, even if she decided that this was the proper thing to do.

She sighed. It was unlike her to sit and stare at a wall, and for a moment the thought crossed her mind that she, too, might be becoming depressed. But the thought pa.s.sed quickly; it would be out of the question for Mma Ramotswe to become ill. Everything depended on her: the garage, the agency, the children, Mr J.L.B Matekoni, Mma Makutsi-not to mention Mma Makutsi's people up in Bobonong. She simply could not afford the time to be ill. So she rose to her feet, straightened her dress, and made her way to the telephone on the other side of the room. She took out the small book in which she noted down telephone numbers. Potokwane, Silvia. Matron. Orphan Farm.

MMA POTOKWANE was interviewing a prospective foster parent when Mma Ramotswe arrived. Sitting in the waiting room, Mma Ramotswe watched a small, pale gecko stalk a fly on the ceiling above her head. Both the gecko and the fly were upside down; the gecko relying on minute suction pads on each of its toes, the fly on its spurs. The gecko suddenly darted forward, but was too slow for the fly, which launched itself into a victory roll before settling on the windowsill.

Mma Ramotswe turned to the magazines that littered the table. There was a Government brochure with a picture of senior officials. She looked at the faces-she knew many of these people, and in one or two cases knew rather more about them than would be published in Government brochures. And there was the face of her Government Man, smiling confidently into the camera, while all the time, as she knew, he was eaten up by anxiety for his younger brother and imagining plots against his life. "Mma Ramotswe?"

Mma Potokwane had ushered the foster parent out and now stood looking down on Mma Ramotswe. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting, Mma, but I think I have found a home for a very difficult child. I had to make sure that the woman was the right sort of person."

They went into the matron's room, where a crumb-littered plate bore witness to the last serving of fruitcake.

"You have come about the boy?" asked Mma Potokwane. "You must have had an idea."

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. "Sorry, Mma. I have not had time to think about that boy. I have been very busy with other things."

Mma Potokwane smiled. "You are always a busy person."

"I've come to ask you a favour," said Mma Ramotswe.

"Ah!" Mma Potokwane was beaming with pleasure. "Usually it is I who do that. Now it is different, and I am pleased."

"Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is ill," explained Mma Ramotswe. "I think that he has an illness called depression."

"Ow!" interrupted Mma Potokwane. "I know all about that. Remember that I used to be a nurse. I spent a year working at the mental hospital at Lobatse. I have seen what that illness can do. But at least it can be treated these days. You can get better from depression."

"I have read that," said Mma Ramotswe. "But you have to take the drugs. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni won't even see a doctor. He says he's not ill."

"That's nonsense," said Mma Potokwane. "He should go to the doctor immediately. You should tell him."

"I tried," said Mma Ramotswe. "He said there was nothing wrong with him. I need to get somebody to take him to the doctor. Somebody ..."

"Somebody like me?" cut in Mma Potokwane.

"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "He has always done what you have asked him to do. He wouldn't dare refuse you."

"But he'll need to take the drugs," said Mma Potokwane. "I wouldn't be there to stand over him."

"Well," mused Mma Ramotswe, "if you brought him here, you could nurse him. You could make sure that he took the drugs and became better."

"You mean that I should bring him to the orphan farm?"

"Yes," said Mma Ramotswe. "Bring him here until he's better."

Mma Potokwane tapped her desk. "And if he says that he does not want to come?"

"He would not dare to contradict you, Mma," said Mma Ramotswe. "He would be too scared."

"Oh," said Mma Potokwane. "Am I like that, then?"

"A little bit," said Mma Ramotswe, gently. "But only to men. Men respect a matron."

Mma Potokwane thought for a moment. Then she spoke. "Mr J.L.B. Matekoni has been a good friend to the orphan farm. He has done a great deal for us. I will do this thing for you, Mma. When shall I go to see him?"

"Today," said Mma Ramotswe. "Take him to Dr Moffat. Then bring him right back here."

"Very well," said Mma Potokwane, warming to her task. "I shall go and find out what all this nonsense is about. Not wanting to go to the doctor? What nonsense! I shall sort all this out for you, Mma. You just trust me."

Mma Potokwane showed Mma Ramotswe to her car.

"You won't forget the boy, will you, Mma?" she asked. "You will remember to think about him?"

"Don't worry, Mma," she replied. "You have taken a big weight off my mind. Now I shall try to take one off yours."

DR MOFFAT saw Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in the study at the end of his verandah, while Mma Potokwane drank a cup of tea with Mrs Moffat in the kitchen. The doctor's wife, who was a librarian, knew a great deal, and Mma Potokwane had occasionally consulted her for pieces of information. It was evening, and in the doctor's study insects which had penetrated the fly screens were drunkenly circling the bulb of the desk lamp, throwing themselves against the shade and then, singed by the heat, fluttering wing-injured away. On the desk were a stethoscope and a sphygmomanometer, with its rubber bulb hanging over the edge; on the wall, an old engraving of Kuruman Mission in the mid-nineteenth century.

"I have not seen you for some time, Rra," Dr Moffat said. "My car has been behaving itself well."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni started to smile, but the effort seemed to defeat him. "I have not ..." He tailed off. Dr Moffat waited, but nothing more came.

"You have not been feeling very well?"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. "I am very tired. I cannot sleep."

"That is very hard. If we do not sleep, then we feel bad." He paused. "Are you troubled by anything in particular? Are there things that worry you?"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thought. His jaws worked, as if he was trying to articulate impossible words, and then he replied. "I am worried that bad things I did a long time ago will come back. Then I shall be in disgrace. They will all throw stones at me. It will be the end."

"And these bad things? What are they? You know that you can speak to me about them and I shall not tell anybody."

"They are bad things I did a long time ago. They are very bad things. I cannot speak to anybody about them, not even you."

"And is that all you want to tell me about them?"

"Yes."

Dr Moffat watched Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He noticed the collar, fastened at the wrong b.u.t.ton; he saw the shoes, with their broken laces; he saw the eyes, almost lachrymose in their anguish, and he knew.

"I am going to give you some medicine that will help you to get well," he said. "Mma Potokwane out there says that she will look after you while you are getting better."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded dumbly.

"And you will promise me that you will take this medicine," Dr Moffat went on. "Will you give me your word that you will do that?"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's gaze, firmly fixed on the floor, did not move up. "My word is worth nothing," he said quietly.

"That is the illness speaking," Dr Moffat said gently. "Your word is worth a great deal."

MMA POTOKWANE led him to her car and opened the pa.s.senger door for him. She looked at Dr Moffat and his wife, who were standing at the gate, and she waved to them. They waved back before returning to the house. Then she drove off, back to the orphan farm, pa.s.sing Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors as she did so. The garage, deserted and forlorn in the darkness, got no glance from its proprietor, its begetter, as he rode past.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

FAMILY BUSINESS.

S HE LEFT in the cool of the morning, although the journey would take little more than an hour. Rose had prepared breakfast, and she ate it with the children, sitting on the verandah of her house on Zebra Drive. It was a quiet time, as little traffic pa.s.sed along their road before seven, when people would start to go to work. There were a few people walking by-a tall man, with shabby trousers, eating a fire-charred corn cob, a woman carrying a baby, strapped to her back with its shawl, the baby's head nodding in sleep. One of her neighbour's yellow dogs, lean and undernourished, slunk by, occupied in some mysterious, but quite purposeful canine business. Mma Ramotswe tolerated dogs, but she had a strong distaste for the foul-smelling yellow creatures that lived next door. Their howling at night disturbed her-they would bark at shadows, at the moon, at gusts of wind-and she was sure that they deterred birds, which she did like, from coming to her garden. Every house, except hers, seemed to have its quota of dogs, and occasionally these dogs, overcoming the restrictions of imposed loyalties, would rise above their mutual animosity and walk down the street in a pack, chasing cars and frightening cyclists.

Mma Ramotswe poured bush tea for herself and Motholeli; Puso refused to get used to tea and had a gla.s.s of warm milk, into which Mma Ramotswe had stirred two generous spoons of sugar. He had a sweet tooth, possibly as a result of sweet foods which his sister had given him when she was caring for him in that yard up in Francistown. She would try to wean him onto healthier things, but that change would require patience. Rose had made them porridge, which stood in bowls, dark mola.s.ses trailed across its surface, and there were sections of paw-paw on a plate. It was a healthy breakfast for a child, thought Mma Ramotswe. What would these children have eaten had they stayed with their people, she wondered? Those people survived on next to nothing; roots dug up from the ground, grubs, the eggs of birds; yet they could hunt as n.o.body else could, and there would have been ostrich meat and duiker, which people in towns could rarely afford.

She remembered how, when travelling north, she had stopped beside the road to enjoy a flask of tea. The stopping place was a clearing at the side of the road, where a battered sign indicated that one was at that point crossing the Tropic of Capricorn. She had thought herself alone, and had been surprised when there emerged from behind a tree a Mosarwa, or Bushman, as they used to be called. He was wearing a small leather ap.r.o.n and carrying a skin bag of some sort; and had approached her, whistling away in that curious language they use. For a moment she had been frightened; although she was twice his size, these people carried arrows, and poisons, and were naturally very quick.

She had risen uncertainly to her feet, ready to abandon her flask and seek the safety of the tiny white van, but he had simply pointed to his mouth in supplication. Understanding, Mma Ramotswe had pa.s.sed her cup to him, but he had indicated that it was food, not drink, that he wanted. All that Mma Ramotswe had with her was a couple of egg sandwiches, which he took greedily when offered and bit into hungrily. When he had finished, he licked his fingers and turned away. She watched him as he disappeared into the bush, merging with it as naturally as would a wild creature. She wondered what he had made of the egg sandwich and whether it tasted better to him, or worse, than the offerings of the Kalahari; the rodents and tubers.

The children had belonged to that world, but there could be no going back. That was a life to which one simply could not return, because what had been taken for granted then would seem impossibly hard, and the skills would have gone. Their place now was with Rose, and Mma Ramotswe, in the house on Zebra Drive.

"I am going to have to be away for four or five days," she explained to them over breakfast. "Rose will be looking after you. You will be all right."

"That is fine, Mma," said Motholeli. "I will help her."

Mma Ramotswe smiled at her encouragingly. She had brought up her little brother, and it was in her nature to help those who were younger than she was. She would be a fine mother eventually, she thought, but then she remembered. Could she be a mother in a wheelchair? It would probably be impossible to bear a child if one could not walk, Mma Ramotswe thought, and even if it were possible, she was not sure that any man would want to marry a woman in a wheelchair. It was very unfair, but you could not hide your face from the truth. It would always be more difficult for that girl, always. Of course there were some good men around who would not think that such a thing mattered, and who would want to marry the girl for the fine, plucky person that she was, but such men were very rare, and Mma Ramotswe had trouble in thinking of many. Or did she? There was Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, of course, who was a very good man-even if temporarily a little bit odd-and there was the Bishop, and there had been Sir Seretse Khama, statesman and Paramount Chief. Dr Merriweather, who ran the Scottish Hospital at Molepolole; he was a good man. And there were others, who were less well-known, now that she came to think of it. Mr Potolani, who helped very poor people and gave away most of the money he had made from his stores; and the man who fixed her roof and who repaired Rose's bicycle for nothing when he saw that it needed fixing. There were many good men, in fact, and perhaps there would be a good man in due course for Motholeli. It was possible.

That is, of course, if she wanted to find a husband. It was perfectly possible to be happy without a husband, or at least a bit happy. She herself was happy in her single state, but she thought, on balance, that it would be preferable to have a husband. She looked forward to the day when she would be able to make sure that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was properly fed. She looked forward to the day when, if there was a noise in the night-as there often was these days-it would be Mr J.L.B. Matekoni who would get up to investigate, rather than herself. We do need somebody else in this life, thought Mma Ramotswe; we need a person whom we can make our little G.o.d on this earth, as the old Kgatla saying had it. Whether it was a spouse, or a child, or a parent, or anybody else for that matter, there must be somebody who gives our lives purpose. She had always had the Daddy, the late Obed Ramotswe, miner, cattle farmer, and gentleman. It had given her pleasure to do things for him in his lifetime, and now it was a pleasure to do things for his memory. But the memory of a father went only so far.

Of course, there were those who said that none of this required marriage. They were right, to an extent. You did not have to be married to have somebody in your life, but then you would have no guarantee of permanence. Marriage itself did not offer that, but at least both people said that they wanted a lifelong union. Even if they proved to be wrong, at least they had tried. Mma Ramotswe had no time for those who decried marriage. In the old days, marriage had been a trap for women, because it gave men most of the rights and left women with the duties. Tribal marriage had been like that, although women acquired respect and status as they grew older, particularly if they were the mothers of sons. Mma Ramotswe did not support any of that, and thought that the modern notion of marriage, which was meant to be a union of equals, was a very different thing for a woman. Women had made a very bad mistake, she thought, in allowing themselves to be tricked into abandoning a belief in marriage. Some women thought that this would be a release from the tyranny of men, and in a way it had been that, but then it had also been a fine chance for men to behave selfishly. If you were a man and you were told that you could be with one woman until you got tired of her and then you could easily go on to a younger one, and all the time n.o.body would say that your behaviour was bad-because you were not committing adultery and so what wrong were you doing?-then that would suit you very well indeed.

"Who is doing all the suffering these days?" Mma Ramotswe had asked Mma Makutsi one day, as they sat in their office and waited for a client to appear. "Is it not women who have been left by their men going off with younger girls? Is that not what happens? A man gets to forty-five and decides that he has had enough. So he goes off with a younger woman."

"You are right, Mma," said Mma Makutsi. "It is the women of Botswana who are suffering, not the men. The men are very happy. I have seen it with my own eyes. I saw it at the Botswana Secretarial College."

Mma Ramotswe waited for more details.

"There were many glamorous girls at the College," went on Mma Makutsi. "These were the ones who did not do very well. They got fifty percent, or just over. They used to go out three or four nights a week, and many of them would meet older men, who would have more money and a nice car. These girls did not care that these men were married. They would go out with these men and dance in the bars. Then, what would happen, Mma?"

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. "I can imagine."

Mma Makutsi took off her gla.s.ses and polished them on her blouse. "They would tell these men to leave their wives. And the men would say that this was a good idea, and they would go off with these girls. And there would be many unhappy women who now would not be able to get another man because the men only go for young glamorous girls and they do not want an older woman. That is what I saw happening, Mma, and I could give you a list of names. A whole list."

"You do not need to," said Mma Ramotswe. "I have got a very long list of unhappy ladies. Very long."

"And how many unhappy men do you know?" went on Mma Makutsi. "How many men do you know who are sitting at home and thinking what to do now that their wife has gone off with a younger man? How many, Mma?"

"None," said Mma Ramotswe. "Not one."

"There you are," said Mma Makutsi. "Women have been tricked. They have tricked us, Mma. And we walked into their trap like cattle."

THE CHILDREN dispatched to school, Mma Ramotswe packed her small brown suitcase and began the drive out of town, out past the breweries and the new factories, the new low-cost suburb, with its rows of small, breeze-block houses, over the railway line which led to Francistown and Bulawayo, and onto the road that would lead her to the troubled place that was her destination. The first rains had come, and the parched brown veld was turning green, giving sweet gra.s.s to the cattle and the wandering herds of goats. The tiny white van had no radio-or no radio that worked-but Mma Ramotswe knew songs that she could sing, and she sang them, the window open, the crisp air of morning in her lungs, the birds flying up from the side of the road, plumage glistening; and above her, empty beyond emptiness, that sky that went on for miles and miles, the palest of blues.

She had felt uneasy about her mission, largely because what she was about to do, she felt, was a breach of the fundamental principles of hospitality. You do not go into a house, as a guest, under false colours; and this was precisely what she was doing. Certainly, she was the guest of the father and mother, but even they did not know the true purpose of her visit. They were receiving her as one to whom their son owed a favour; whereas she was really a spy. She was a spy in a good cause, naturally, but that did not change the fact that her goal was to penetrate the family to find out a secret.

But now, in the tiny white van, she decided to put moral doubts aside. It was one of those situations where there were sound points to be made on both sides. She had decided that she would do it, because it was, on balance, better to act out a lie than to allow a life to be lost. Doubts should now be put away and the goal pursued wholeheartedly. There was no point in agonising over the decision you had made and wondering whether it was the right one. Besides, moral scruples would prevent the part from being played with conviction, and this might show. It would be like an actor questioning the part that he was playing mid-role.

She pa.s.sed a man driving a mule cart, and waved. He took a hand from the rein and waved back, as did his pa.s.sengers on the cart, two elderly women, a younger woman, and a child. They would be going out to the lands, thought Mma Ramotswe; a little bit late, perhaps, as they should have ploughed by the time that the first rains came, but they would sow their seed in time and they would have corn, and melons, and beans, perhaps by harvest time. There were several sacks on the cart, and these would contain the seed and the family's food, as well, while they were out on the lands. The women would make porridge and if the boys were lucky they might catch something for the pot-a guinea fowl would make a delicious stew for the whole family.

Mma Ramotswe saw the cart and the family retreating in the rearview mirror, as if they were going back into the past, getting smaller and smaller. One day people would no longer do this; they would no longer go out to the lands for the planting, and they would buy their food in stores, as people did in town. But what a loss for the country that would be; what friendship, and solidarity, and feeling for the land would be sacrificed if that were to happen. She had gone out to the lands as a girl, travelling with her aunts, and had stayed there while the boys had been sent to the cattle posts, where they would live for months in almost complete isolation, supervised by a few old men. She had loved the time at the lands, and had not been bored. They had swept the yards and woven gra.s.s; they had weeded the melon patches and told one another long stories about events that never happened, but could happen, perhaps, in another Botswana, somewhere else.

And then, when it had rained, they had cowered in the huts and heard the thunder roll above the land and smelled the lightning when it came too close, that acrid smell of burned air. When the rains had let up, they had gone outside and waited for the flying ants, which would emerge from their holes in the moistened ground and which could be picked up before they took flight, or plucked from the air as they began their journey, and eaten there and then, for the taste of b.u.t.ter.