The Miracle at Speedy Motors

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “About my brother?” asked Mma Sebina brightly. “He is coming to see me tonight. We are going to go to the cinema together.”

  Mma Ramotswe swallowed. If she were to be completely honest, then the answer to that would be no, it is not about your brother, because he is not your brother. But she could not; the truth could be too cruel on occasion, and this was one such. And yet that same truth would have to be disclosed very soon.

  “It is about your brother,” she said. “Yes, it is, Mma.”

  And now she was standing in front of Mma Sebina’s gate and calling out Ko! Ko! And there was Mma Sebina coming out of her front door, wiping her hands on a piece of kitchen towel, and waving to her.

  “Mma Ramotswe! You must come in and try what I have just baked. Some banana bread, Mma. It’s a special recipe. Kenneth told me he liked it.”

  “Kenneth?”

  “My brother. That is his first name. Kenneth Sekape.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at the ground, and Mma Sebina noticed.

  “Is there something wrong?” There was panic in her voice.

  “There’s something wrong, Mma. Oh, you have come to give me bad news…”

  She started to wail, the wail of the bereaved, the widow, that heart-rending inimitable cry that signified the sudden, overwhelming onset of a grief. Mma Ramotswe reached forward and seized Mma Sebina by the arm, pulling her towards her. “No, Mma! It is not that! Mr. Sekape is all right. It is not that, Mma.”

  Mma Sebina strangled her cries. She stared mutely at Mma Ramotswe. “Then…”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head, as if trying to make sense of some confusion within her. “It is all my fault. I should have checked up on what Mma Potokwane told me. She has too much to remember, Mma. She can get things mixed up.”

  Mma Sebina frowned. “What is mixed up?”

  Mma Ramotswe took a deep breath. Now, very suddenly, she felt herself acutely aware of where she was—standing in front of Mma Sebina’s house, under a sky from which the rain clouds had cleared and which was now empty, blue, limitless. And across which a bird of prey was describing huge, lazy circles. She thought it strange that at a moment like this one should notice such things, but she had heard that one did; as a person facing death may suddenly find that he is looking at some humdrum object in his room, and seeing its beauty.

  “Mr. Sekape is not really your brother, I’m afraid, Mma. Mma Potokwane got things mixed up.” She would tell her in due course that there had been a brother and that he was late. Now was not the time, though, as she had caused Mma Sebina quite enough distress already.

  Mma Ramotswe had half expected another wail, and was prepared for it. Instead she saw an expression of curiosity come over the other woman’s face. It was curiosity, but it was also a look of pleasurable discovery, as if the information that had just been given to her was not disappointing but welcome.

  “So he is not my brother,” she said.

  “No. He is not. I’m so sorry, Mma.”

  Mma Sebina fingered the crumpled piece of kitchen towel that she had been carrying. “I am glad about that,” she said.

  It took a moment or two, but then the realisation came to Mma Ramotswe. Of course, of course. “Oh, Mma,” she said. “I’m sorry that he proved to be one of those men who have a low opinion of women. I knew it was going to be difficult for you. I knew it. So, yes, you must be glad that such a man is not your brother.”

  Mma Sebina looked at her in puzzlement. “But he does like women,” she said. “He said that he liked me very much. And…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, Mma Ramotswe. What you have told me is very good news because…well, because I like Kenneth very much. I like him…more than one would normally like a brother. Well, more as one would like a man who might become a husband. Of course I could not think that while he was still my brother, and I thought that he would just be a very good friend. But now…”

  “And what about him?”

  Mma Sebina looked away. “I think that he will be pleased too, Mma. I think he will be very pleased.”

  Mma Ramotswe felt the tension of the meeting ebb away. She had expected it to be painful and instead it had become an occasion of pleasure, of complicity in a future romance.

  Mma Sebina now took Mma Ramotswe by the arm and steered her towards the door. “Let us go and try some of that banana bread, Mma,” she said. And then she added: “It’s strange, isn’t it? I consulted you to find me a family, and you went out and found me a husband.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled at this. It seemed a bit premature for Mma Sebina to be thinking in terms of marrying Mr. Sekape, but one thing was very clear: she was a woman with a mission, and in Mma Ramotswe’s view, women with a mission usually achieved it, as many men in Botswana—and elsewhere, she imagined—had found out.

  Over the cup of tea and the generous slice of banana bread, Mma Ramotswe tackled the last matter that she knew she had to raise with Mma Sebina. It was simpler, now that the information about the mistake had been so easily dealt with, but it would still require tact.

  “There is something else I know, Mma,” she said. “There is something about the reason why you were taken in by Mma Potokwane in the first place. I have found that out and I think that you may want to know it.”

  “About my mother?” said Mma Sebina.

  “Yes. It is about your mother.”

  Mma Sebina lowered her eyes. “Is it something that—” She broke off. Then: “Would it make me feel bad about her?”

  Mma Ramotswe thought about this. “It might,” she said. “But if you knew this thing, it would still be possible for you to forgive her.”

  “Even though she is late? She is late, isn’t she?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “She is late. But it is still possible to forgive people who are late, you know. It’s important to do that sometimes.”

  “Then I forgive her,” said Mma Sebina. “I forgive my mother for…”

  “For…”

  Mma Sebina raised a hand. “No, please don’t tell me, Mma. I would prefer not to know. And I forgive her whatever it is, even if I do not know.”

  “Then I am sure that wherever she is, she is pleased, Mma. I am sure, by the way, that she loved you a great deal. And I am sure that the thing that happened was not something she would have wished to happen.”

  “I am sure that is true,” said Mma Sebina.

  They drank their tea. There is a final thing, Mma Ramotswe suddenly thought; a final, final thing. The woman who had kept a chair in the tree: Why had she been so adamant that Mma Sebina was not adopted? She claimed, after all, to have witnessed her birth; why would she have said that?

  “There was a friend of your mother’s,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “I saw her when I went down to Otse. She has a tree—”

  “And a chair hanging up in the tree?” interrupted Mma Sebina. “Oh dear.”

  “Why do you say that, Mma?”

  “Because that poor lady lives in a world of dreams,” said Mma Sebina. “She is famous for that. And if she told you that she used to have a tomato stall, and that the Minister of Agriculture awarded her a prize for the tomatoes—that is all nonsense, Mma. I’m sorry to say. All nonsense. But she’s harmless, and if she wants to sit under that tree with the chair hanging in it, then there are worse ways of spending one’s time.”

  Mma Ramotswe had to agree with this. There were. Considerably worse ways.

  MR. J.L.B. MATEKONI arrived home the following morning, unannounced. Mma Ramotswe had not expected him until the next afternoon, but his truck pulled up outside the gate while Mma Ramotswe was taking her early morning walk about the garden. The plants were doing well with the recent rains, and she was examining a shrub which she had planted a few days before, and thinking about Mma Makutsi, when she heard the horn sound and she looked up to see his truck.

  She ran towards the gate. He waved from the cab, and so did Motholeli, sitting beside him. Then she pulled the gate open and the tru
ck passed through. She saw the layer of dust on the window, through which Motholeli looked at her, smiling. She saw the spattering of red mud thrown up against the mudguards; they had travelled through rain.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni stepped out. “We left very early,” he said. “I woke up at three and I decided that we would leave then. It is easier driving in the cool of the day.”

  “Of course.” She looked at his face, searching. She knew the answer, but she still looked. People had sometimes defied the worst predictions of medical science; it had happened.

  He dropped his gaze to the ground, and she knew. She knew immediately.

  “I’m sorry, Rra.”

  His lips moved slightly, but she could not hear what he was saying. She glanced at Motholeli through the mud-streaked glass; she was stuffing something into a bag; she was absorbed.

  “And how is she dealing with this?” Mma Ramotswe whispered.

  Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked up at her, and she saw that his eyes were moist. Men can cry. Mechanics. Any man.

  “She is being very brave. It’s as if nothing has happened.” His voice broke off for a moment. Then, “She says that it was worth going. That she is glad that we tried.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I will help her out of the truck,” she said. “You must be very tired. You go in and have a shower. All that dust, Rra. All that dust.”

  There was much to do. Motholeli was insistent that she wanted to get back to school that morning, in spite of having got up so early. “I want to see my friends again,” she said. “I want to tell them about Johannesburg.”

  After breakfast, Mma Ramotswe helped her into the tiny white van and loaded the wheelchair in the back. Then she drove off to the school and parked outside the main gate. They were early and there were no children about, just the man who swept the playground, moving slowly backwards and forwards, his brush raising a small cloud of dust with each stroke. Along the line of the gate, the grass, encouraged into growth by the heavy rains, was dark green, lush.

  They sat there, waiting for other children to arrive.

  “That grass,” said Mma Ramotswe, pointing to the fence. “Look at it. That would keep some cattle very happy. But there are no cattle in town these days. I remember when there were, you know. Lots of cattle. People just brought them into town with them to keep an eye on them. And I remember when we had telephones that everybody had to share—if you were lucky enough to have a telephone in the first place—party lines. When you spoke, other people could pick up their phone and listen too. You had to be careful.”

  “I would not have liked that,” said Motholeli.

  “You got used to it,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You can get used to anything, you know.” She had not intended to say that, and it was only afterwards that she realised that Motholeli might have misunderstood her, might have taken it badly. You can get used to anything—even a wheelchair, not being able to walk, even that. She had not meant to say it.

  She glanced sideways at the little girl. Motholeli was looking at her hands, examining her fingernails.

  “I am used to it now, Mma. I am used to…what has happened to me. You must not worry about me.”

  Mma Ramotswe reached out and put a hand on her knee. “I did not want you to go. I was worried that it would come to nothing. I wasn’t at all sure about that doctor.”

  “He tried,” said Motholeli. “And the people in Johannesburg tried too. They had all sorts of machines. But then they said that they could not do anything. I heard them. They said it to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, but I overheard them. And he was crying.”

  “Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was crying?”

  “Yes. He was.” She finished her examination of her nails and began to wind down the car window. “I don’t want anybody to cry for me. There is no need. I am happy. I will carry on being happy.”

  A small boy on a bicycle had now arrived at the front gate. He dismounted with grave caution; the bicycle, gleaming in the morning sunlight, was brand-new.

  “Look at him,” said Motholeli. “He is very proud of his bicycle.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is proud.” She turned to Motholeli. “And I am proud too, Motholeli. I am a very, very proud lady.”

  WHEN SHE RETURNED to Zebra Drive, she found Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni still sitting at the kitchen table, the breakfast plates all about him. He had the air of a man who had been defeated over something, who had been proved wrong.

  “So,” she said. “That is over.”

  He did not look at her, but traced a pattern on the tablecloth with a finger. “I’m sorry, Mma,” he said. “You were right. I should not have believed those people. And I still have to pay them. I have taken a loan. It is very bad.”

  She looked at him, this man whose generous heart she had never doubted once, not once, in all the time she had known him; this man who had become her husband and of whom she was so proud.

  “No, there is no need for a loan,” she said gently. “I have sold cattle. There is easily enough money.”

  “I cannot…”

  “You can. She is my child too.”

  He raised his head; there was so much in his eyes, she thought: disappointment, embarrassment, regret—and tiredness too. “I was stupid to believe that a miracle might be possible. I was so foolish.”

  Mma Ramotswe sat down at the table and took his hand. “It is not at all foolish to hope for miracles,” she said. “No, it is not foolish, Rra. Not foolish at all. There are many miracles.”

  He asked her what she meant, and she explained. There had been a miracle at Speedy Motors while he was away. A woman had looked for somebody to be her family and she had found him. That was a miracle. And Mma Makutsi had paid tribute to Charlie—was that not another miracle? And there had been these life-giving rains, which had made Botswana turn from brown to green and would make the cattle fat within days. All of these were miracles, were they not? Of course one might still wish for further miracles. There was that ominous knocking sound in the tiny white van; if that were to vanish, then that would be another most welcome miracle.

  But one had to be careful, Mma Ramotswe reminded herself: one should not ask for too many things in this life, especially when one already had so much.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and was a law professor at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.

  BOOKS BY ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

  IN THE NO. 1 LADIES’ DETECTIVE AGENCY SERIES

  The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

  Tears of the Giraffe

  Morality for Beautiful Girls

  The Kalahari Typing School for Men

  The Full Cupboard of Life

  In the Company of Cheerful Ladies

  Blue Shoes and Happiness

  The Good Husband of Zebra Drive

  The Miracle at Speedy Motors

  IN THE ISABEL DALHOUSIE SERIES

  The Sunday Philosophy Club

  Friends, Lovers, Chocolate

  The Right Attitude to Rain

  The Careful Use of Compliments

  IN THE PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS SERIES

  Portuguese Irregular Verbs

  The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs

  At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

  IN THE 44 SCOTLAND STREET SERIES

  44 Scotland Street

  Espresso Tales

  Love over Scotland

  The Girl Who Married a Lion and Other Tales from Africa

  This is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Alexander McCall Smith

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Originally published in Great Britain by Little, Brown, an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group, London.

  Pantheon Books and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  McCall Smith, Alexander, [date]

  The miracle at Speedy Motors / Alexander McCall Smith.

  p. cm.

  1. Ramotswe, Precious (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (Imaginary organization)—Fiction. 3. Women Private investigators—Botswana—Fiction. 4. Botswana—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6063.C326M53 2008 823'.914—dc22 2008000934

  www.pantheonbooks.com

  eISBN: 978-0-307-37719-7

  v3.0