The Double Comfort Safari Club (6 page)

The minutes passed slowly. She moved the pot to the side of the stove, where it could simmer peacefully, and untied the strings of the apron she was wearing. Then she opened the kitchen door and stepped out into her small yard. Her pawpaw tree, which had never grown straight, was outlined at its drunken angle, a dark shadow against the glow of the night sky. The light from her neighbour’s uncurtained window spilled out onto the
bare ground of the yard, a square of yellow; and through the window itself, a glimpse of a family seated around a table—the father, who was something in the Ministry of Telecommunications, an engineer, she thought; the mother, who worked in some lowly capacity at the diamond sorting office; and the three children, whose heads bobbed up and down above the level of the windowsill. They were never still, those children; they were always running about and throwing things and behaving as children should behave.

The lights of a car came up the road. She felt a surge of relief: she knew it was Phuti’s car because one of the lights shone at a slightly different angle to the other, casting its beam more upwards than downwards.
My car needs glasses
, he had joked, and she had laughed, not because she felt that she had to, but because her fiancé said some very amusing things sometimes, and this was one of them.

The car drew to a halt outside her yard. Mma Makutsi went forward and began to open the gate, and to say, “I thought that you must be busy …” But then she stopped; it was not Phuti in his car but his assistant manager, Mr. Gaethele, a man with a damaged left ear.

“Phuti?” Mma Makutsi’s voice was low.

Mr. Gaethele looked down. He held his hands palm outwards; a curious gesture, apologetic more than anything else; the gesture of one who has broken something, or brings news of breakage. “There has been an accident, Mma.”

She stood quite still.

“He is all right, but he is in the Princess Marina. His leg is bad. You must not worry too much, Mma.”

She waited for him to say something more. She could not speak. Where? How? When? There were so many questions to be asked, but she could give voice to none of them; not now, here
under the pawpaw tree, to this man whom she did not know very well, who was trying to be sympathetic but was awkward in his attempt.

“I want to go and see him,” she said at last, moving towards the car.

He shook his head. “No. The doctor said that we can see him tomorrow, but not until four o’clock. There is going to be an operation on his leg. His aunt is waiting at the hospital. She says that nobody else must come yet.”

She stared at him, struggling to take in what had happened. She dug her fingernails into her palms, a trick she had learned at school; one pain might cancel out another, might make the world different.

“How did this thing …”

Mr. Gaethele shook his head. “It was one of the delivery drivers. He reversed the truck into Mr. Radiphuti. He was standing in front of small wall, and it caught his leg against the wall. Like this.” He made a crushing movement with his hands.

Mma Makutsi held her hands up to her face. There would be tears, but not until she was ready to cry.

MMA RAMOTSWE
did not hear about the incident at the Double Comfort Furniture Shop until the following morning. When she arrived at the office, Mma Makutsi was already there, sitting at her desk, sorting papers. As her employer entered, she did not look up, as she normally would. She was preoccupied with her work, Mma Ramotswe thought; there was nobody who could become quite as absorbed in filing papers as Mma Makutsi. Filing, she had once pronounced, is the greatest of the secretarial arts. And then she had said …

But something seemed not quite right, and Mma Ramotswe,
about to open the window, turned round. “There is something wrong, isn’t there?”

Mma Makutsi shook her head—vigorously; so vigorously, in fact, that Mma Ramotswe’s suspicions were immediately confirmed.

“There is nothing wrong. Nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe left the window and crossed the room to Mma Makutsi’s desk. She laid her hand on the other woman’s shoulder, gently. “Mma, you can tell me.”

It must be Phuti, she thought, something to do with him. There had been that problem over the negotiation of the bride price, and she did not think that it had been resolved yet. That greedy uncle from Bobonong, that man with the broken nose who had sniffed the presence of money in the Radiphuti family and had travelled all the way down from the north like a greedy vulture. It was something to do with that, obviously.

But then Mma Makutsi looked up at her and said, “Phuti is in hospital. There has been an accident.” And she began to weep, dropping her head onto her forearms and rocking backwards and forwards in that curious motion that is perhaps a subconscious attempt to mimic the movement that brings comfort to a tiny baby. That we should in moments of sorrow seek to return to a time when the harshness of the world could be forfended by the simple reassurances of our parents; that we should do that …

“Oh, Mma Makutsi …”

“He is having an operation. Now, I think.”

Mma Ramotswe bent forward and put both her arms around Mma Makutsi, and for a while they were silent. Then she asked what had happened, and was given the only account that the other woman had—the story as told by Mr. Gaethele.

“If it is only his leg, then that is surely not too bad.”

This brought little comfort to Mma Makutsi.

“And they have the best surgeons at that hospital,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They are miracle-workers.”

Mma Makutsi looked at Mma Ramotswe. “But if it is only his leg, then why will they need a miracle?” She started to sob again.

Mma Ramotswe moved back to her desk. “I shall drive you to the hospital, Mma. We can go and wait there until the operation is over.”

“They do not want us.”

“Who says that?”

Mma Makutsi explained about the aunt and her prohibition of visitors until later that day. Mma Ramotswe, though, was not prepared to accept this; an aunt may have a role in the life of an unmarried man, but in the case of a married man—and an engaged man was as good as married in her view—aunts took second place.

“We shall go to the Princess Marina, right now. In my white van.” She checked herself. “In my van.” She had momentarily forgotten that the tiny white van was no more, and that its successor, mechanically superior though it might be, was no real substitute. But this was not the time for such melancholy thoughts; not when Mma Makutsi was in distress and Phuti Radiphuti, that quiet, inoffensive man who had so dramatically improved Mma Makutsi’s prospects, was, for all they knew, fighting for his life in the operating theatre, or, worse still, was being wheeled out, one of the unlucky ones in that—what was it she had read?—one per cent of those who enter the theatre who do not come out alive. One in one hundred. She would not mention that figure to Mma Makutsi, for whom it might not provide the comfort that, if looked at rationally, it might be expected to provide.

T
HE RADIPHUTI AUNT
had a face which was markedly too wide for her thin body; like a watermelon on sticks, Mma Makutsi had thought when Phuti had first shown her a photograph of her; but she had not said that, of course, remarking, instead, “You are lucky to have an aunt who loves you so much, Phuti.” The impression of disproportion conveyed by this mismatch between head and body was exacerbated by feet which appeared considerably too big for the relatively spindly legs that went up into a skirt made of the brown print fabric favoured by the more conventional sort of middle-aged woman in Botswana. Mma Makutsi had only met her once before, and then briefly, but recognised her and pointed her out to Mma Ramotswe.

“That is Phuti’s aunt. That is her. That lady there.”

Mma Ramotswe looked in the direction indicated by Mma Makutsi. The aunt was sitting under a tree in the grounds of the hospital. Another woman, accompanied by a young girl, sat at the other end of the bench placed there. A village dog, emaciated and flyblown, lay at the girl’s feet, somnolent in the growing heat of
the morning, its mouth open, its preternaturally long tongue exposed to the sun.

Mma Ramotswe gestured for Mma Makutsi to follow her, although her assistant seemed anxious about doing so.

“We will speak to her,” she said. “Come.”

Mma Makutsi was hesitant. “She said that we should not come here until she told us. She said that …”

Mma Ramotswe gripped Mma Makutsi’s arm. “You are the fiancée, Mma! You are almost Mrs. Radiphuti! You are the one who should be at his bedside. He will want to see you, Mma, not his aunt.”

They walked towards the aunt, who turned as they approached and fixed them with a discouraging stare. Mma Ramotswe retained her grip on Mma Makutsi’s arm. “Never be put off by rudeness, Mma,” she whispered. “It is the rude person who is rude, not you.”

This advice, puzzling at first, encouraged Mma Makutsi. “You are right,” she whispered back. “I am not afraid of this woman. I am not afraid of a great big melon.” She looked furtively at Mma Ramotswe, momentarily embarrassed by the childish nature of the insult. It was the sort of thing that Charlie would say, and not a fitting remark for the fiancée of the owner—virtually—of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop and an assistant private detective. But Mma Ramotswe had not heard, or had chosen not to hear.

The aunt glared at them as they came up to her. “You should not be here, Grace Makutsi,” she said sharply, rising to her feet. “Did they not tell you that I would say when you could come? Did Gaethele not give you my message?”

She did not wait for an answer to her question, but continued, “And now you are bringing the whole world. This woman
here, what business has she?” She gestured dismissively towards Mma Ramotswe. “Did anybody give you permission to bring her? This is not a cattle show, you know.”

The sheer rudeness of this welcome made Mma Makutsi start; Mma Ramotswe felt it in her arm, a shocked movement.

“Dumela
, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly, extending the traditional greeting. “I hope you have slept well.”

Even the aunt, in all her bristling hostility, could not overcome the ancient habit; she returned the greeting gruffly, but then immediately turned again to Mma Makutsi. “Well? Did Gaethele give you my message?”

Mma Ramotswe intercepted the question. “I think he did, Mma. But Mma Makutsi is the fiancée, you see, and I was the one who said to her that she should come to the hospital. I was the one.”

The aunt stood quite still, absorbing this provocative piece of information. Then, without looking at Mma Ramotswe, she said to Mma Makutsi, “Who is this large person, Mma?”

“I am Precious Ramotswe,” said Mma Ramotswe evenly. “Mma Makutsi works for me.”

Mma Makutsi would have preferred it if Mma Ramotswe had said “works
with
me,” but did not feel that this was the time for concern over status, important though such questions might be.

The aunt now looked at her adversary directly. Mma Makutsi was right, thought Mma Ramotswe; she does look like a melon. “So you are that woman,” said the aunt. “I have heard of you and your detective nonsense. I do not want to think about such business now. The important thing is this: my Phuti is having a big operation. He is in there now. Now, now, while we speak. And I do not want him to see people until he is strong enough. That is all, Mma.”

She stopped, and fixed Mma Ramotswe with the stare of one who has given a full and perfectly reasonable explanation.

“Have you spoken to the doctor?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She sounded neither angry nor offended; her tone was perfectly even.

“Yes, yes,” snapped the aunt. “I have spoken to them and signed a piece of paper. They told me all about the operation that they would have to do. It is very sad.”

Mma Makutsi caught her breath. “Why sad?”

“Any operation is sad,” said Mma Ramotswe hurriedly. “It is sad for the person having an operation. Sad for the system. That is well known.”

The aunt raised an eyebrow. There was something triumphant in her expression. “They gave me all the details,” she said. “The doctor was very kind. He was Ghanaian. They are always kind, those people from that place.”

Mma Ramotswe probed. “Maybe you could tell Mma Makutsi what he said. She is the fiancée, so she has the right to know.”

The aunt moved her head slightly, as if to ease the pressure on her narrow shoulders. “Fiancée? What is a fiancée, Mma? A fiancée is not a
permanent
person; an aunt, an uncle, they are permanent. Forever. You see?”

Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi. Her assistant was looking down at the ground, avoiding the aunt’s gaze.

“But she will be Mrs. Radiphuti,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly. “She will be his wife very soon.”

For a few moments there was complete silence. The conversation had been followed by the woman and the girl on the bench; understood by the woman, incomprehensible to the girl. The dog had opened its eyes when they had arrived, but had closed them again. A small cluster of flies had gathered at its nostrils, but it seemed inured to their presence.