The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “I see.”

  “He makes children with that one, that other one. She is Naledi. She makes children with that man and with other men. All Potokwane men! From all over. From here. From there. From Gaborone. From Lobatse. From Tlokweng. Hah! Many children. Making children all the time.”

  Mma Ramotswe waited for more, but he seemed to have completed what he had to say.

  “Naledi? She makes children with another man, not just with Saviour?”

  At first it was as if he had not heard the question. Then he replied. “Naledi makes children with Government. Government is a big man. A big car. The big car comes to the house. They make children and then he goes in helicopter.”

  “They go in the helicopter after he has made children with Naledi? Is that what happened, Saint?”

  The question hung in the air, unanswered. She watched him, noting his growing confusion. “Government and Naledi,” he said at last. “Then he stole my cattle. Government took them. He took my cattle. All gone. No helicopter. Yes, a helicopter.”

  Mma Ramotswe was listening so intently that she did not notice Mma Potokwane re-enter the room. Her presence, though, registered with Saint, who immediately stiffened.

  “I think that Saint is getting a bit upset, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane. “He becomes tired very quickly.”

  “Of course,” said Mma Ramotswe. She turned to Saint. “Thank you for talking to me, Saint.”

  “You can go now, Saint,” said Mma Potokwane. “You can go and water the vegetables. Not too much water—just a little.”

  Saint left the room, looking over his shoulder at Mma Ramotswe when he was halfway through the door. Mma Ramotswe raised a hand in a gesture of farewell, and he did the same.

  “Poor man,” said Mma Potokwane. “It is very sad.”

  —

  BECAUSE SHE WAS PREOCCUPIED with thoughts of her unsettling encounter with Saint, Mma Ramotswe drove back along the track rather too fast. For most of the short journey back to the main Lobatse Road that would not have mattered too much: the track, although in a bad state of repair—or in no state of repair at all—was well within the capacity of the tiny white van’s specially strengthened suspension. That suspension had been fortified by Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who had observed the way in which the van listed to starboard—the driver’s side—and had tactfully corrected the matter by installing new and stronger springs all round. But no van, no matter how doctored by the best mechanic in Botswana, could cope with its near-side front wheel dropping at speed into a substantial hole in the ground at the same time as its off-side partner hit a small termite mound. Those mounds, painstakingly constructed by countless tiny pincers, can achieve the consistency and strength of concrete, which that one had. And the result was inevitable: although the wheel that had dropped into the hole somehow managed to emerge at the other side, there was a bone-juddering bump, an almost uncontrollable swerve, and, thereafter, a disturbing sound not unlike the kind made by an animal in pain. They were still on the road, though, and they appeared to be heading in the right direction.

  “That was close,” muttered Mma Ramotswe, as she regained control of the vehicle. “This is a very bad road, Rra.”

  “I think something’s broken, Mma,” said Mr. Polopetsi nervously.

  Mma Ramotswe had regained her calm. “Oh, things break in cars pretty regularly,” she said. “That’s why we have garages, Mr. Polopetsi. That’s what keeps Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni in business.”

  “He’ll fix this?”

  “Of course he’ll fix this. It’s probably just a few nuts and bolts.” She wiped a thin layer of dust off the inside of the windscreen before continuing, “I may not even trouble him over this one. I may get Charlie to fix it in his spare time. He has done that for me before.”

  They completed their journey along the track at a lower speed and in silence—apart from the protesting noise emanating from the compromised suspension. They passed the sign that said Eggs and turned onto the Lobatse Road. The noise was less obvious now, and Mma Ramotswe suggested that the van was perhaps getting better by itself. “Sometimes that happens,” she said. “A car recovers.”

  Mr. Polopetsi said nothing, and it was not until they were almost on the edge of the town that they spoke again.

  “He was a very unusual man,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “That man back there? Saint?”

  “Yes. He said some very strange things to me when you were out of the room.”

  Mr. Polopetsi shrugged. “I think some of these poor people live in a different world. They see things that we don’t see.”

  Mma Ramotswe agreed, but pointed out that the reason they saw things we did not see was because we did not know they were watching. “People think somebody like that doesn’t observe what’s happening,” she said. “But all the time, such a person will be seeing everything.” She paused. “And that, I think, is what has happened here.”

  They were nearing the first of the traffic circles, and Mma Ramotswe slowed down. A line of cars was building up, drawn onto the main highway from a number of tributary roads. “I think that the answer is this,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “This Government Keboneng was probably not perfect—no man is, I suspect. I think that he was seeing that woman, Naledi, who was Saviour’s wife. And I think she was seeing other men too.”

  “So that is the scandal they were talking about?”

  “Probably,” answered Mma Ramotswe.

  Mr. Polopetsi looked out of the van’s window. He had spotted a large bird, a kite of some sort, soaring on a thermal current in the air. The rain clouds they had seen earlier on seemed to have disappeared, and the sky had returned to a faded and empty blue.

  “So you have solved the whole thing, Mma? Is it at an end?”

  She took her time with her answer. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so. What do you feel, Mr. Polopetsi?”

  “There is more to it than meets the eye, Mma.”

  “That is exactly the problem, Rra. There is more to this than meets the eye.”

  Mma Ramotswe drove on, taking the road that led past the Water Affairs Office. That route would take them close to Mr. Polopetsi’s house on the edge of the area known as the Village, and she could drop him off at his gate.

  “That will be very convenient, Mma,” he said. “I think my wife—”

  He stopped suddenly. They had drawn up at an intersection, alongside a car and a truck. The drivers of all three vehicles happened to look at one another, as sometimes happens in traffic. The truck driver looked at Mma Ramotswe, and Mma Ramotswe—and Mr. Polopetsi—glanced at the car beside them. Mma Makutsi, sitting behind the wheel of one of Phuti’s cars from the Double Comfort Furniture Store, returned their glance.

  “Oh no,” muttered Mma Ramotswe.

  The traffic began to move again, and the driver behind her sounded his horn impatiently. They drove off.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  SHE THOUGHT SHE WAS A BIT FAST

  SO MUCH FOR THE RESTFUL EFFECTS of being on holiday: Mma Ramotswe lay in bed that night, unable to sleep, watching the shadows thrown by the moonlight. On the ceiling directly above her was what appeared to be the pattern of a bush, perhaps a tree, and beside it, moving slightly, was a waving hand—both shadows made by the bougainvillea framing their window. She closed her eyes, hoping that sleep would come, but that only seemed to make her more alert. Now she seemed to see the white van moving along a track, and the track suddenly opened up into a great hole the size of Kgali Hill itself. The van plunged into the hole, and beside her Mr. Polopetsi was shouting, “There is a great hole, Mma—be careful!”

  She opened her eyes. On his side of the bed, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, covered only with a sheet because of the heat, breathed quietly in the depth of sleep; he never suffered from insomnia and would remain in that state of utterly peaceful oblivion until the first cock-crow of dawn. It was easier for men, she thought; they did not have to worry about kitchens and children and doing the shopping…These were things tha
t could interrupt the sleep of anyone, and when you added to it the cares of other people, of Government Keboneng’s sister and his political supporters, then nobody could be expected to drop off to sleep with all that around her neck.

  As quietly as she could, she got out of bed, felt for her slippers in the darkness, and made her way into the kitchen. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was not a light sleeper, but the children were, and once roused they were difficult to settle again. Once away from the sleeping quarters, she switched on a light and looked at her watch. It was four in the morning. She had retired to bed at nine, and she knew that she had dropped off to sleep for the first part of the night—perhaps until shortly after two, when she had woken up and had lain there thinking. That meant that she had enjoyed five hours of sleep, which was enough, she felt, to see her through the day. There was no point in going back to bed now, as she would merely lie awake until dawn, which at this time of the year would begin not long after five-thirty. It would be far better to stay up and get some of her morning chores done before the day began in earnest.

  And then she thought: Am I on holiday, or am I back at work? She had told Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni that her holiday was over, but this did not mean that she would be returning to her usual routine. So there would be no going into the office, no awaiting—with pleasure—the first cup of office red bush tea, no leisurely perusal of the mail, no listening to Mma Makutsi telling her about Itumelang’s latest achievements, no patient questioning of clients to find out what they really wanted…The thought of all this made her feel nostalgic. She still had ten days of the original holiday left to run, and she was missing the office so much.

  She sat down at the kitchen table, a blank piece of lined paper in front of her. At the top of this she wrote: The Troublesome Keboneng Case. Then she underlined this, to make it clear that this was a heading, and on the line below she wrote: (1) Mma Potokwane, sister of Government Keboneng, thinks Government was above reproach—and wants that to be established. Our duty? To help her in that quest. (2) Was Government Keboneng a good man? Yes. Did he do anything to be ashamed of? Yes. What was it? See (3).

  She paused. The practice of writing out a summary of a complicated case was one that she had learned from the pages of Clovis Andersen’s The Principles of Private Detection. He said: Make a list of what you know, what you don’t know, and what you’d like to know. Make a list of possible outcomes. Choose the outcome you think is best, then go for that!

  This, she thought, was sage advice—as was all the advice that Clovis Andersen gave his readers. There were times, though, when advising something was easier than doing it, and this, she suspected, was one such time. But she would persist.

  (3) Government Keboneng became involved with Naledi Potokwane, the wife of Saviour Potokwane, the brother of Pound Potokwane, who was the husband of the Mma Potokwane who is our client, and of Saint Potokwane. Saint Potokwane is a simple man, but he was probably telling the truth because it would not occur to him to lie. He said that Naledi was involved with all the men in the family—shameless woman!—including Potokwanes from Gaborone, Lobatse, and…

  She sat quite still, her pencil poised above the page. She had not thought before this of his exact words, but now they came back to her. He had talked about Gaborone, Lobatse, and Tlokweng. There was, she thought, only one family of Potokwanes in Tlokweng, and that was the family of her friend Mma Potokwane, the matron. She drew in her breath in horror. Naledi had been involved with her own friend’s husband. She had not thought of this before, but now the uncomfortable truth was staring her in the face.

  For a good few minutes Mma Ramotswe sat at the kitchen table, her head sunk in her hands. Of all the information she might wish to come across, this was the very last thing she wanted to know. As far as she knew, Mma Potokwane’s marriage was a sound one, and she had never heard of anything that suggested otherwise. But men had their little ways and they sometimes strayed. In her view, this did not in every case make the man wicked, it simply made him thoughtless—and weak. Sometimes the slip was a very short-lived one—something to do with the male menopause you read about—and on these occasions all could return to normal quite quickly. On other occasions even a single act of infidelity could be the end—something never to be forgiven, a deep rent in the fabric of the marriage, sundering all those bonds of trust marriage required.

  Mma Ramotswe sat up straight. She had started to make her list, and now she would finish it. It was painful, but it had to be done.

  (4) Saint said something about his cattle being taken from him. Who inherited the cattle from the father of Pound, Saviour, and Saint? They would each get an equal share of the family’s assets, but it is possible that somebody took advantage of Saint’s lack of understanding and embezzled his cattle from him. He said that was Government Keboneng; that might have been the case, but how can we prove it? We cannot.

  (5) What should we tell Mma Potokwane (the client)? If it becomes generally known that Government was involved with his relative’s wife, then that will not be viewed well by the public. You do not seduce your relative’s wife. You just do not do that. So what do we do? Nothing? But we owe it to the client to tell her what we have found out—unless, of course, we realise that this knowledge will make her unhappy, and there is no point in adding to all the unhappiness there already is in this world. If anything, we should try to make that mountain of unhappiness a bit smaller—if we can.

  (6) If we start talking about Government’s indiscretion, then that will lead to our talking about Naledi’s bad behaviour, and one of the people she behaved badly with might be the husband of our good friend Mma Potokwane (the matron).

  She paused in her writing. That was a dreadful conclusion, and it was one that she would have to think about long and hard. Could it be true? If so, then she would be in a very difficult position, as she would have to decide whether to look further into the matter or to keep that knowledge from her friend. We did not always need to know the whole truth about things, and it may be that Mma Potokwane should be protected from facts that might ruin her happiness. There were times when the past should be put to rest, and this might be one of them.

  (7) So we do nothing, or…or we tell the client that we have found some bad thing that it is best for her not to know about. We then point out to her that it is not such a bad thing that it should make her feel too ashamed. Her brother was weak, but then all men are weak. That is well known (except, perhaps, by the men themselves). In this case he fell for a woman who liked to tempt men. Those are very bad women, but men cannot see it. Forget about the past and stop talking about it. Let Government Keboneng be remembered in the hearts of those whom he has helped. That is the best memorial there is.

  She put down her pencil, folded the piece of paper, and closed her eyes. She would make a pot of tea, then she would go and sit on the verandah until the sun began to rise. She knew what she had to do.

  —

  MMA RAMOTSWE DECIDED that the agency was no place for the sort of meeting that she must have with Mma Makutsi. There were too many distractions in the office, and there would also be the presence of Mr. Polopetsi and Charlie to be taken into account. Mma Makutsi was very conscious of her own dignity and would be loath to discuss anything sensitive in front of Charlie. The relationship that those two had was a curious one: Charlie had always taken pleasure in baiting Mma Makutsi, and for her part she had frequently been quite dismissive of him. Yet Mma Ramotswe was sure that beneath the badinage, behind the exchange of barbed comments and asides, there was affection between them. This had shown itself on numerous occasions when Charlie had been in trouble; even as she huffed and puffed about the fecklessness of young men, Mma Makutsi’s expression betrayed her true feelings of concern for the young man. And even as Charlie poured scorn on Mma Makutsi’s ninety-seven per cent, it was clear that he admired not only this result but her general capabilities, and would defend her against criticism from any external quarter.

  Mr. Polopetsi was another matter
altogether. He stood in awe of Mma Makutsi, and whenever she expressed a view on any issue—which of course happened regularly—he would nod his head in automatic, unconditional agreement, like an ally bound by an unbreakable treaty. He would also quote her—a rather touching habit—referring to her pronouncements as if they had the authority of the statements of Clovis Andersen himself. Indeed, he had recently said that in his view there was little to distinguish the opinions of Mma Makutsi and those of Mr. Andersen. “They are like two tomatoes,” he began, and then faltered. “Or is it like two peas in a pod? Which is it, Mma Ramotswe?”

  “People say ‘two peas in a pod,’ Rra. That is what people say.”

  “Well, Mma Makutsi and that man who wrote that book you have—Mr. Clovis Andersen from New York…”

  “Not New York, Rra,” Mma Ramotswe corrected him. “Muncie, Indiana. That is another American place, just like New York, I think.”

  Mr. Polopetsi acknowledged the correction. “Yes, Mr. Clovis Andersen from Muncie, Indiana. When you hear what he says and then you listen to Mma Makutsi, it is almost the same thing, Mma. They think the same way. That is why they say the same sorts of things.”

  This generous comparison had been overheard by Mma Makutsi, who beamed with pleasure. “He is a very good man, that Mr. Polopetsi,” she later confided to Mma Ramotswe. “People look at him and think, Who is that funny little man? They think he is a nobody person; they think he is just some downtrodden husband with a wife who is much bigger than he is…”

  “She is,” said Mma Ramotswe, in a matter-of-fact way. “She is a very large lady, Mma. I have seen her. You could lose Mr. Polopetsi under her skirts. You could be talking to her and suddenly you would realise that there is a husband under there. And then his head would pop out and you would get a big surprise.”

  “But you would be wrong if you wrote him off,” continued Mma Makutsi. “He has a way of saying things that are very true, I think.”