Precious and Grace (4 page)

She frowned. “How can you tell that, Fanwell?”

“Because it is a rental car,” Fanwell announced.

Mma Ramotswe whistled in admiration. “You are quite the detective, Rra! A car detective, perhaps.”

Fanwell's face broke into a broad smile. “Thank you, Mma. I can tell that it's a rental car because…well, because the rental agreement is lying on the passenger seat.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “All the best clues are very obvious,” she said. “That's what Clovis Andersen says.”

“Your book?” asked Fanwell.

“Yes.
The Principles of Private Detection.
”

Fanwell nodded in recognition. “That book says everything, doesn't it?” He paused. “It's a pity that we mechanics don't have something like that.
The Principles of Cars.
That would be a good book, that one, Mma.”

She smiled. “
The Principles of Cars,
by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. That would be a very good book, I think. ‘Chapter one: Listen to what the car is trying to tell you.' ”

Fanwell clapped his hands together in delight. “Oh, that is very funny, Mma. The boss is always saying that to us. It's one of the first things he said to me when I started my apprenticeship. I don't think I understood then.”

“But you do now?”

“Oh, I do understand now, Mma. It is very true. A car will tell you if it is suffering. And it will often make it very clear where the problem is.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “And chapter two of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's book—what would that be?”

Fanwell thought for a moment. “Chapter two would be: ‘What to do next.' I think that would be a good title for it.”

“Well, maybe we should suggest it to him, but now I must go inside and meet this new client.”

She straightened her dress, which had become crumpled in the van. There were dog hairs that showed against the dark red of the material, and she began to brush these off before she went into the office. She thought of the dog, and its vain attempt to pursue them after they had dropped it off. Perhaps it had no home after all and was now wandering the streets of Old Naledi, sniffing around for some scraps of food, for some sign of the human interest or affection it yearned for but that was not forthcoming.

As she brushed off the last of the hairs, from inside the office she could hear Mma Makutsi's voice and then, less distinctly, the voice of the client. She stopped; she was standing just outside the door, which was slightly ajar. The voices inside were clear now, and she could hear exactly what was being said. She put her hand on the door handle, and then took it off again. She had not intended to eavesdrop, but she could make out exactly what was going on inside, and this made her hesitate.

Those who listen in to what others are saying hear no good of themselves.
Her aunt had told her that when she was a girl, and she had always remembered the advice. But this was not listening in—this was overhearing something because you were about to enter the room in which the conversation in question was being conducted. She could not help but hear what was being said in the office—and she could not help her mouth from opening in astonishment. So this was what Mma Makutsi said when she was not there to exercise restraint, when she was not in a position to protect the cause of truth…

“Y
ES,”
Mma Ramotswe heard Mma Makutsi say, “you were right to come to us, Mma. You were so right.”

Something was said by the other woman that Mma Ramotswe did not catch.

“Indeed, Mma,” continued Mma Makutsi. “Indeed that is true. And you asked about how long we have been established. The answer is a long time, Mma, a very long time. You see I thought—back in those days when we set up the agency—that there was a need for a business like this to help people, Mma, to help them with the problems in their lives. Those were my exact words, Mma. You know how businesses have mottoes these days—things like ‘We are here to serve,' that sort of thing. Well ours is ‘We are here to help people with the problems in their lives.' And you know something, Mma? Once we started we were overwhelmed with enquiries…”

Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. Overwhelmed with enquiries? That was simply not true; had Mma Makutsi forgotten what it had been like? Did she not recall how they had waited and waited for people to come in the front door under the newly painted sign, and for days nobody had come? At one point some chickens had wandered in and pecked at the ground around their feet, and she remembered saying to Mma Makutsi: “At last we have some clients, Mma,” and Mma Makutsi had not seen the joke because in those days her sense of humour had not been much developed. It was something to do with having been born and brought up in Bobonong, where presumably nothing amusing ever happened. Now, of course, she had a much better sense of humour, although sometimes Mma Ramotswe still had to explain the finer points of some humorous remark; but then we all had our weaknesses and one should not dwell on the failings of others.

But how could she say “when we set up the agency…”?
I
set up the agency, Mma Ramotswe thought, and although I don't expect credit, nor would I ever fish for compliments, the simple historical truth was that Mma Makutsi had come to ask for her job
after
the agency had been established. And she was in those days a secretary in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Secretaries had promoted themselves to something different these days and it seemed as if there were no secretaries any more. Mma Ramotswe was not one of those people who believed in holding people back—anything but—yet she felt that there was a role for secretaries, and it was a good and honourable one, and she did not see why people should be so keen to stop being a secretary and become something else.

“We've expanded,” went on Mma Makutsi. “To begin with it was just me and the other lady, but we were so busy that I thought we needed a bit of help. So we have a very charming man—a Mr. Polopetsi—who is a very scientific man, Mma, and he brought all those skills. And we have an office boy, Charlie, who is off on some errand at present…”

Office boy!
Mma Ramotswe bit her lip. Charlie would be incensed by that description. He was, of course, very junior, but he still regarded himself as being a sort of apprentice detective, and to hear Mma Makutsi refer to him as an office boy would cause him immense distress. And as for describing her as “the other lady,” that was going just a little bit too far.

Mma Ramotswe reached for the door handle once more but again was stopped by what she heard.

“So you see, Mma,” Mma Makutsi was saying, “I am just the person to take on this enquiry of yours.”

She pushed the door open to see Mma Makutsi seated at her desk, with the client, a tall woman with long blonde hair, seated in the client's chair in front of her. Each had a cup of tea in front of her.

“Ah,” said Mma Ramotswe, as briskly as she could. “You are already here. And I see that Mma Makutsi has been—”

Mma Makutsi did not let her finish. “This is Mma Ramotswe, Mma,” she said. “She is back now.”

The woman turned in her seat to greet Mma Ramotswe. Mma Ramotswe lowered her gaze in politeness; it was rude to stare, something that people from other cultures simply did not understand. They told their young children to look at old people when they spoke to them, but they did not do this in order to be rude—they simply did not know that a young person should not stare at a more senior person as if to issue a challenge.

Her initial glance had enabled her to form an impression of their client, who now introduced herself as Susan Peters. She noticed the pleasant, open expression—a face devoid of guile or suspicion; she noticed the carefully ironed blouse and the thin-banded gold watch on her wrist; she noticed the small lines around the eyes, which were lines, she thought, of sadness, of sorrow.

Mma Makutsi was getting up from Mma Ramotswe's desk. “You sit down at your desk, Mma,” Mma Makutsi said. “I will get you some tea.”

It was a peace offering, an apology for the unlawful occupation of the desk, and Mma Ramotswe smiled graciously as she took her rightful place. Perhaps she had been hard on Mma Makutsi; perhaps she should not resent her assistant claiming a bit of glory in her account of the agency's history. After all, every one of us wanted to feel important in some sense, and if we occasionally overstated the significance of the role we played in this life, then that, surely, was understandable and should not be held too much against us.

Mma Ramotswe decided to make everything clear. “I am the manager,” she told the blonde lady. “But Mma Makutsi and I work very closely together.”

Susan looked at her hands. “I see.”

“So perhaps you might tell me what it is that brings you to Botswana, Miss Peters.”

Susan looked up. “Please call me Susan.”

“If you wish, Mma. It is a fine name, that one.”

Susan smiled. “It started a long time ago, Mma.”

“Most problems start a long time ago,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There are hardly any that began yesterday.”

“I'm not saying I have a problem,” said Susan. “It's more of…”

They waited.

“A doubt?” suggested Mma Ramotswe.

“It is a doubt, or an…an area of ignorance. It's to do with piecing together bits of the past.”

“So that you know what happened?” suggested Mma Makutsi.

“Maybe,” said Susan.

“You should tell us, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Starting at the beginning.”

“The beginning,” said Susan, “was thirty-five years ago. That,
Bomma,
was when I was born.”

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi exchanged a glance. The use of the correct Setswana plural,
bomma,
for two women was a sign that this was a woman with more than a passing knowledge of Botswana. Few outsiders spoke the language, and even those who spent years in the country might never progress much beyond the basic greetings.

“You see, I was born here.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “You are a Motswana, then, Mma.”

It was a compliment, and Susan responded warmly. “You're very kind, Mma.” She knew, though, that it was impossible; one might be a
paper
Motswana—there were plenty of people who were eligible for various African nationalities, but one could never become the real thing. It simply did not work that way. Citizenship and membership were different things, whatever the law might say. Mma Ramotswe understood that; she did not like it, but she understood it.

Susan continued. “I was never a citizen, though, Mma. I didn't have the right, as my parents were foreigners—working in the country when I was born. They were Canadians, you see. My father was a doctor and my mother was a teacher. He worked out at Molepolole for five years and then they came into Gaborone. He worked for the people who run those medical planes—you know the ones, Mma, the ones that go out to the very remote clinics—that set-up.”

“I know the people,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They were like Dr. Merriweather's mission, but different.”

“That's right, Mma. He worked with them and my mother taught at a small school near the old prison.”

Mma Ramotswe waited for her to continue. She was remembering what Gaborone had been like in those days of greater intimacy. She thought of it as the
quiet time;
the time before the world suddenly became busier and noisier. The time of cattle; the time of bicycles rather than cars; the time when the arrival of the day's single plane was an event; the time of politeness and courtesy.

It was as if Susan had heard her thoughts. “Gaborone was a different place then,” she said wistfully.

This was the signal for Mma Makutsi to join in; she had said very little since Mma Ramotswe had returned. “The whole world was different in those days, Mma. Up in Bobonong it was different. Down here it was different. None of this rush, rush, rush.”

Mma Ramotswe saw the flashing light from Mma Makutsi's spectacles. “No, people walked more slowly in those days.”

“They certainly did,” said Mma Makutsi. “If you look at people today, their legs go fast, fast—just like a pair of scissors. We did not walk like that in the old days.”

Susan nodded. “I'm not sure why people are in such a hurry. I live in Toronto now and—”

“Oh, they must walk very fast in Toronto,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “That will be one of the worst places for walking fast. That and Johannesburg, where they are always running to get from one place to another.” She paused, and then shook her head. “But Toronto…”

She did not finish, and Susan looked at her with some puzzlement. “Toronto is a nice place in other respects, of course…”

“I am not saying it is not a nice place,” said Mma Makutsi. “I am just saying that they walk very fast there. I have seen a film of that. They were walking very fast in the film.”

“I think you should continue,” said Mma Ramotswe. “So you were born out in Molepolole, Mma?”

“Yes. I actually don't remember Molepolole very well because I was only four when we left and came into town. I think I have a memory or two of the place; I remember a garden with a tall rubber hedge—you know those hedges with the white sap that comes out if you break off a piece? I think I remember that. And I remember sitting on a verandah, which must have been at my parents' house out there. Apart from that, my early memories are of this place—of Gaborone.”

Mma Ramotswe made a note on the pad of paper before her.
Early life,
she wrote.
Gaborone.

“We stayed here until I was eight. Then we left.”

“Why was that, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

“My father was paid by the Canadian government,” said Susan. “It was a funded project and the money was given to something else. Aid people are always doing that—they support something for a while, and then it's somebody else's turn. It's fair enough, I suppose. And anyway, his work was to do with tuberculosis, and they had made such good progress with treating TB that they probably wanted to spend their funds on something else. So it was time for us to go back to Canada—except in my case I hardly knew Canada. I had been there twice, I think—just for holidays on my grandmother's farm in Ontario. I didn't know the place otherwise. It was meant to be home, but it wasn't really.

“So leaving Botswana was like leaving my real home—the place I'd grown up in, the first place I knew, the place that was so familiar to me.” She paused. “I remember it very well—the day we left. We had to drive over the border to get the plane from Johannesburg. I remember being in floods of tears because I was leaving my friends. It's like that for children, isn't it? Leaving friends is a very big wrench for them. It seems that you're losing everything. You don't believe your parents when they say you'll make new friends—you will never make any more friends, you think. It's like saying goodbye to the whole world.”

Mma Makutsi made a sympathetic noise. “Oh, I know what that's like, Mma. I know that very well.”

“I'm sure you do,” said Susan.

“I remember when I left Bobonong,” Mma Makutsi went on. “I came down here to go to the Botswana Secretarial College, you know, Mma—I graduated from that place, you see.”