The Double Comfort Safari Club (19 page)

“I hope you are well, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I hope you will invite us in.”

Violet Sephotho’s eyes grew wide. “Of course, of course,” she said coquettishly. “We cannot have Mma Ramotswe and …” She knew Mma Makutsi’s name, of course; she knew it well, as they had studied together at the Botswana Secretarial College, but it suited her to seem to forget. “And …”

“Grace Makutsi,” hissed Mma Makutsi. “You remember me.”

Mma Ramotswe threw a warning glance at her assistant.

“Of course,” said Violet. “Grace Makutsi. The Botswana Secretarial College. Sorry to have forgotten, but some people are hard to remember. Anyway, please both come in.”

They stepped into the front room of the house, a living room that doubled up as a dining room. The room had been recently painted, and there were several framed prints on the wall. There was a picture of the Eiffel Tower and one of New York.

“That is Paris,” said Violet. “And that is New York. You have heard of these places?”

“I have heard of them,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“And you, Grace?” asked Violet.

“I have heard of them too,” said Mma Makutsi through tightened lips.

“And then there is Johannesburg,” said Violet airily. “That is such an exciting city, and it’s not so far away. I will be going there next weekend, I think. Four hours by car.”

“It is very easy to get to Johannesburg,” said Mma Ramotswe pleasantly. “My father used to work in the mines there in the days when all the men went off to South Africa for work. Things are so different now.”

“Oh yes,” said Violet. “There are many different things today.
I am always finding different things.” She looked at her visitors and smiled. Mma Ramotswe noticed that she had applied thick purple eyeliner in copious quantities.

Violet looked at her watch. “I’m sorry, Bomma, that I cannot give you tea or anything. But I am going out tonight. There is a big dance at the Grand Palm. I am going there. By invitation.” She paused. “And maybe you will tell me why you have come to see me?”

There was something in her tone that suggested she was on edge. She knows there is something wrong, thought Mma Ramotswe. And for a minute she felt sympathy for this ruthless, ambitious woman. She knew.

“I am a messenger today,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I sometimes do that sort of thing.”

“Not enough detective work?” asked Violet, her confidence momentarily returning.

“I do things for friends,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am a friend of a certain lawyer. He is called Joe Bosilong.”

Violet was quite still. One of her heavily purpled eyelids moved slightly; the smallest tic. “I know him,” she said. “He is my lawyer.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He has sent me with an amendment to the deed he drew up for you recently. There is a mistake in it. It will have to be signed again by that kind man who is giving you this house, Mr. Kereleng.”

Violet said nothing.

Then Mma Makutsi spoke. “Unless he won’t sign, of course.”

Violet spun round to face her. “You said something, Mma?” she said, her voice rising to a high pitch.

“I said that maybe Mr. Kereleng won’t sign. And if that happens, then I’m afraid that he will be taking this house back.”

“Mma Makutsi—,” Mma Ramotswe began. But she could
not continue. Violet Sephotho, screaming, had launched herself into an attack on Mma Makutsi. It happened so quickly that Mma Ramotswe had little time to think about her reaction. Moving forward, she caught hold of Violet’s flailing arms and brought them to her sides. It was the first time in her entire career as a detective that she had used force. It shocked her.

“Get out of my house, Grace Makutsi!” screamed the now physically restrained Violet. “You get out! You,
voetsek, voetsek!”

Mma Makutsi was calm. “You have too much purple on your eyelids,” she said. “Purple Sephotho!” And then, as she and Mma Ramotswe retreated from the room, Mma Makutsi threw her parting shot over her shoulder, “Fifty per cent!”

Outside, Mma Ramotswe found her breath coming in short bursts. “Are you all right, Mma?” asked Mma Makutsi.

“I am very upset,” said Mma Ramotswe, stopping to get her breath back. “That was a very nasty scene.”

“She is a nasty woman,” said Mma Makutsi. “That purple eyeliner, I …”

“Do not talk about that, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“She is a horrible …”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe simply. She felt herself shaking. “She is unhappy, and she brings unhappiness to others. That is very sad. I am sorry for her.”

Mma Makutsi looked up at the sky. How could Mma Ramotswe even begin to have sympathy for that terrible woman? How could she? And then, suddenly, she remembered how. It was because this woman, this traditionally built woman, this understanding, tolerant employer, this detective, was composed of kindness, just of kindness.

“I’m sorry,” said Mma Makutsi. “I did not behave very well in there.”

Mma Ramotswe took her hand. “You were a bit excited,
maybe. But you didn’t do too badly. When she attacked you, you did nothing, which was the right thing to do.” Suddenly she laughed. “That eyeliner!” she said. “What a colour!”

“I can’t wait to tell Phuti about this,” said Mma Makutsi.

There was a silence, which Mma Ramotswe tried to fill. “I’m sure that you will see him soon,” she said. “Then you can tell him.”

She was not sure, though. She had a bad feeling about that aunt of Phuti’s. That was the problem, she thought. You deal with one difficult person in this life—Violet Sephotho, for instance—and another one pops up.

But for a short while she could put such difficulties aside. Now she had the pleasant duty of going to tell Mr. Kereleng that he had his house back; it had never really been Violet’s anyway, thanks to the faulty deed, but now he could go and claim it back, and then sell it to raise the money for his laboratory. There were so many things in this world that did not turn out well; she was glad that here, at least, was one that had turned out very well indeed.

She went to his office. He was embarrassed at first, and explained to her in a lowered voice that they were not meant to receive personal callers at work. But when she told him what had happened, his demeanour changed. He let out a whoop of delight, and then began to cry. His colleagues watched in amazement, and then one came over to Mma Ramotswe and asked her if Mr. Kereleng had received bad news. “No,” she said. “It is very good news. Sometimes people cry if they are very happy, or very relieved.”

“That is very odd,” said the colleague.

“No, it is not,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We should all cry a bit more, Rra. We really should.”

T
HE DRIVE NORTH
took longer than they had expected. In spite of their early start, the road was busy for the first part of the journey, with large stock carriers occupying both lanes and inconsiderately making it difficult to pass. In the days of the tiny white van that would have been neither here nor there—that van had been unable to pass anything much, although it usually managed to get past bicycles, and pedestrians, if conditions were right. The new blue van, of course, experienced no such difficulties, having reserves of power deep in its engine that Mma Ramotswe could release with a simple movement of her right foot. That ability, though, was such a novelty that she hardly dared use it. What would happen, she wondered, if she put her foot down hard to the floor and left it there? She had done that frequently enough in the old van, and there was rarely any reaction. It was as if that engine did not receive its instructions, or, if it did, it merely shrugged them off, as an aged beast of burden, a donkey or an ox, may ignore its owner’s exhortations, saying, effectively,
I am just too old to be doing this any more. Leave me alone please
.

Mma Makutsi proved to be a helpful companion and co-driver.
She did not possess a driving licence—not yet—but she took the view that the obtaining of ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College, if not amounting to an actual driving qualification, entitled her to hold views and to advise. So she kept a lookout when Mma Ramotswe wanted to pass something.
Now, Mma, right now. Just go a bit faster. There is nothing coming. Go now
. She also navigated—which was not an exacting task given that the road to Francistown, which marked the end of the first leg of the journey, ran straight and true from Gaborone northwards and neither meandered nor diverted. “You go straight here, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “That sign over there says Francistown. That is the route to take.” Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes,” she said. “These are good signs, don’t you think, Mma? They make it quite clear which way you should go.”

Mma Makutsi, interpreting this as veiled criticism of her navigating, searched for an objection to this remark. “But what if there is a blind person?” she challenged. “What use would they be then?”

“But a blind person shouldn’t be driving,” said Mma Ramotswe. And added, as if the matter required further resolution, “That is well known, Mma.”

There could be no answer to that, and the subject of signs was pursued no further. There were other things to talk about, though, and as their conversation wandered this way and that the long miles clocked up. Towns passed, some well known—Mahalapye and Palapye—some small and unimportant to all except those who lived in them, for whom they were everything. Each had associations or memories for Mma Ramotswe, and, to a lesser extent, for Mma Makutsi. One of them would know somebody who came from there, or had relatives there; one of them
would know a story that came from that place—a story of envy or overreaching ambition or simple human need.

“That place,” said Mma Makutsi as they drove past a small settlement called Serule. “That is the place where they have discovered uranium. I read about it in the
Botswana Daily News
. They are going to mine it some day. And then those people living in Serule will have a lot of uranium.”

“I do not want to have any uranium,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They are welcome to it.”

“Of course they won’t keep it. You do not need to keep uranium.”

“There are other things that have happened there,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Apart from finding uranium. I knew a man who came from Serule. He had a sister who did very well at school. High marks … like yours, Mma.”

The compliment pleased Mma Makutsi. She liked people to refer to her results, even if she tried to wear the ninety-seven per cent gracefully. “I see,” she said demurely. “And then?”

“The sister was a clever girl. So it was not just hard work. Some people get good results from working very hard, others from being very bright. These people do not have to work very much—they just get their good results. It’s like standing under a tree and waiting for the figs to fall into your arms.”

At first Mma Makutsi was silent. She was not sure if there was a barb in this remark. But she would let it pass anyway. “Standing under a fig tree is safe enough, Mma,” she said. “But you should never stand under a sausage tree.” The sausage tree, the
moporoto
in Setswana, was a sort of jacaranda that had heavy fruit like great, pendulous sausages.

“Certainly not, Mma. There are many people who are late now because of that. Those are very heavy pods, and if you get
one on your head, then you are in great danger of becoming late.”

She used the expression that the Batswana preferred: to become late. There was human sympathy here; to be dead is to be nothing, to be finished. The expression is far too final, too disruptive of the bonds that bind us to one another, bonds that survive the demise of one person. A late father is still your father, even though he is not there; a dead father sounds as if he has nothing further to do—he is finished.

“This girl,” Mma Ramotswe continued, “was always doing well. People said,
That girl is going to be an important somebody one day. She will be going to Gaborone, definite.”

Mma Makutsi frowned. She could tell which way this story was going, as it was an old story in Botswana, a theme repeated time and time again. The person who does well, who excels, is asking for trouble. “People were watching?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe confirmed the worst. “They were watching, Mma. They were listening too. There are always people who are watching and listening.”

Of course there are, thought Mma Makutsi. She had gone from Bobonong to Gaborone. She knew all about envy.

“Somebody—and they did not know who it was at first—put a spell on this girl.”

There was silence. To report the casting of a spell does not mean that you believe in the efficacy of spells. But spells were used, whether or not the rest of us believed in them; and somebody was prepared to believe in them. If that somebody were the victim, then the spell had worked. It was as simple as that. And people could be frightened to death by the knowledge that there was a spell on them; it happened regularly.

“How did she know?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe shrugged. “It is difficult to say. Spells are
nothing—they don’t exist. So how do you tell when there is nothing there—just air? Maybe somebody spoke to her. That is how people come to know about spells. People say,
They have bought some bad medicine to use against you
. That sort of thing.” She did not like to think about it; that was the old Africa, not the Africa of today, and certainly not the Botswana she knew. And yet it was there; just as it was elsewhere in the world, everywhere, really, where underneath the modern and the rational there ran a dark river of unreason and fear.