The Kalahari Typing School for Men

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Ramotswe parked the tiny white van on the opposite side of the street, under a convenient acacia tree.

  “So!” she said, her voice lowered, although nobody could possibly hear them. “So that is the competition.”

  Mma Makutsi, who was sitting in the passenger seat, leaned forward to be able to see past Mma Ramotswe. Her employer was a large lady—traditionally built, as she described herself—and it was not easy to get a good view of the offending sign.

  “Ex-CID,” said Mma Ramotswe. “A retired policeman then. That is not good news for us. People will love the idea of taking their problems to a retired policeman.”

  “And ex–New York,” said Mma Makutsi admiringly. “That will impress people a great deal. They have seen films about New York detectives and they know how good they are.”

  Mma Ramotswe cast a glance at Mma Makutsi. “Do you mean Superman?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “That sort of thing. Superman.”

  Mma Ramotswe opened her mouth to say something to her assistant but then stopped. She was well aware of Mma Makutsi’s academic achievements at the Botswana Secretarial College—she could hardly avoid the framed certificate to that effect hanging above Mma Makutsi’s desk—but sometimes she thought her extraordinarily naive. Superman indeed! Why anybody above, well, the age of six or seven at the most should be interested in such nonsense quite escaped her. And yet they did show an interest; when films like that came to the cinema in town, the one owned by the rich man with a house near Nyerere Drive, there were always crowds of people who were prepared to pay for the seats. Of course some of these were courting couples, who would not necessarily be interested in what was happening on the screen, but others appeared to go for the films themselves.

  There was no point in arguing about Superman with Mma Makutsi. Whoever had opened this agency, even if they were really ex–New York, would hardly be Superman.

  “We’ll go in and introduce ourselves,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I can see somebody inside. They are already at work.”

  “On some big important case,” observed Mma Makutsi ruefully.

  “Perhaps,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But then again, perhaps not. When people drive past the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and see us inside, they may think that we’re working on a big important case. Yet most of the time, as you know, we are only sitting there drinking bush tea and reading the Botswana Daily News. So you see that appearances can be deceptive.”

  Mma Makutsi thought that this was rather too self-effacing. It was true that they were not particularly busy at present, and it was also true that a fair amount of bush tea was consumed in the office, but it was not always like that. There were times when they were very busy and the passerby would have been quite correct in making the assumption that the office was a hive of activity. So Mma Ramotswe was wrong; but there was no point in arguing with Mma Ramotswe, who seemed to be in a rather defeatist mood. Something was happening at home, thought Mma Makutsi, because it was so unlike her to be anything but optimistic.

  They crossed the road and approached the door of the small shop which now housed the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency. The front was largely taken up by a glass display window, behind which a screen prevented the passerby from seeing more than the heads of the people working within. In the window was a framed picture of a group of men standing together outside a rather impressive-looking official building. The men were all wearing wide-brimmed hats which shaded their faces and made it impossible to distinguish their features.

  “Not a good photograph,” muttered Mma Ramotswe to Mma Makutsi. “Worse than useless.”

  The door itself, which was half glass-fronted, bore a hand-written sign: Please Enter. No Need to Knock. But Mma Ramotswe, who believed in the traditional values—one of which was always to knock and call out Ko Ko! before one entered—knocked at the door before pushing it open.

  “No need to knock, Mma,” said a man sitting behind a desk. “Just come in.”

  “I always knock, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is the right thing to do.”

  The man smiled. “In my business,” he said, “it’s not always a good idea to knock. It warns people to stop whatever they’re doing.”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed at the joke. “And one would not want that!”

  “No, indeed,” said the man. “But as you see, I am doing nothing bad. What a pity! I am just sitting here waiting for two beautiful ladies like you to come in and see me.”

  Mma Ramotswe glanced very quickly at Mma Makutsi before she replied. “You are a very kind man, Rra,” she said. “I am not called beautiful every day. It is nice when that happens.”

  The man behind the desk made a self-deprecating gesture. “When you are a detective, Mma, you get used to observing things. I saw you coming in, and the first thing I said to myself was: Two very, very beautiful ladies coming in the door. This is your lucky day.…” He stopped, and then, rising to his feet and sitting down again almost immediately, he put the palm of a hand to his forehead.

  “But, Mma, what am I saying! You are Mma Ramotswe, aren’t you? The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency? I have seen your picture in the newspaper, and here I am telling you all about being a detective! And all the time it is you and Mma … Mma …”

  “Makutsi,” said Mma Makutsi. “I am an assistant detective at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. I was at the Botswana Secretarial College before—”

  The man nodded, cutting her short. “Oh, that place. Yes.”

  Mma Ramotswe noticed the effect which this had on Mma Makutsi. It was as if somebody had applied an electric wire to her skin.

  “It is a fine college,” said Mma Ramotswe quickly, and then, to change the subject, “But what is your name, Rra?”

  “I am Mr. Buthelezi,” said the man, reaching out to shake hands. “Cephas Buthelezi. Ex-CID.”

  Mma Ramotswe took his hand and shook it, as did Mma Makutsi, reluctantly in her case. Then, invited to sit down by Mr. Buthelezi, they lowered themselves gingerly onto the shiny new chairs in front of his desk.

  “Buthelezi is a famous name,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Are you of the same family as he is?”

  Mr. Buthelezi laughed. “Or might one say, is he of the same family as I am? Ha, ha!”

  Mma Ramotswe waited a moment. “Well, is he?” she asked.

  Mr. Buthelezi reached for a packet of cigarettes on his desk and extracted one.

  “Many people are called Buthelezi,” he said. “And many people are not. People are also called Nkomo or Ramaphosa or whatever. That does not make them a real Nkomo or a real Ramaphosa, does it? There are many names, are there not?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded her agreement. “That is true, Rra. There are many names.”

  Mr. Buthelezi lit his cigarette. He had not offered his guests one—not that they smoked—but the lack of consideration had been noted, at least by Mma Makutsi, who, after the slighting reference to the Botswana Secretarial College, was looking for reasons to damn their newly discovered competitor.

  Mma Ramotswe had been waiting for an answer to her question but now realised that one would not be forthcoming. “Of course,” she said, “that is a Zulu name, is it not? You are from that part of the world, Rra?”

  Mr. Buthelezi picked a fragment of tobacco from his front teeth.

  “My late father was a Zulu from Natal,” he said. “But my late mother was from here, a Motswana. She met my father when she was working over the border, in South Africa. She sent me to school in Botswana, and then, when I had finished school, I went back to live with them in South Africa. That is when I joined the CID in Johannesburg. Now I am back in my mother’s country.”

  “And I see on your sign that you have lived in New York, too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You have had a busy life, Rra!”

  Mr. Buthelezi looked away, as if remembering a rich and varied life. “Yes, New York. I have been in New York.”

  “Did you like living there, Rra?” asked Mma Makutsi. “I
have always wanted to go to New York.”

  “New York is a very large city,” said Mr. Buthelezi. “My God! Wow! There are many buildings there.”

  “But how long did you live there?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Were you there for many years?”

  “Not many years,” said Mr. Buthelezi.

  “How long?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  “You are very interested in New York, Mma,” said Mr. Buthelezi. “You should go there yourself. Don’t just get my view of it. See the place with your own eyes. Wow!”

  For a few moments there was a silence, with Mma Makutsi’s unanswered question hanging in the air: how long? Mr. Buthelezi drew on his cigarette and blew the smoke up towards the ceiling. He seemed comfortable enough with the silence, but after a while he reached forward and passed a small leaflet to Mma Ramotswe.

  “This is my brochure, Mma,” he said. “I am happy for you to see it. I do not mind that there is more than one detective agency in this town. It’s growing so quickly, isn’t it? There is work for two of us.” And what about me? thought Mma Makutsi. What about me? Are there not three of us, or am I just a nothing in your eyes?

  Mma Ramotswe took the cheaply printed brochure. There was a picture of Mr. Buthelezi on the front, sitting at a different desk and looking rather formal. She turned the page. Again there was a picture of Mr. Buthelezi, this time standing beside a black car, with indistinct tall buildings in the background. The middle ground, which was oddly hazy, appeared to be waste ground of some sort, and there were no other figures in the photograph, which was labelled underneath, New York.

  She looked at the text opposite the picture. Is something troubling you? it read. Is your husband coming home late and smelling of ladies’ perfume? Is one of your employees stealing your business secrets? Don’t take any chances! Entrust your enquiries to a MAN!

  The effect of this on Mma Ramotswe was similar to the effect which the earlier remark about the Botswana Secretarial College had produced on Mma Makutsi. Silently she passed the brochure to her assistant, who adjusted her glasses to read it.

  “It has been very good to meet you, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe, struggling with the words. Insincerity had never come easily to her, but good manners required it on occasion, even if a superhuman effort was needed. “We must meet again soon so that we can discuss our cases together.”

  Mr. Buthelezi beamed with pleasure. “That would be very good, Mma,” he said. “You and me talking about professional matters …”

  “And Mma Makutsi,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Buthelezi, glancing quickly, and dismissively, at his other visitor.

  Mma Makutsi had handed the brochure back to Mr. Buthelezi, who insisted that they keep it. Then the two women stood up, took their leave politely, if rather coldly, and left the shop, closing the door perhaps rather too firmly behind them. Once outside, they crossed the road in complete silence, and it was not until Mma Ramotswe had turned the tiny white van round and started to head for home that anything was said.

  “So!” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Makutsi searched for something to say but could think of nothing that fitted the occasion; nothing that summed up her outrage at the way in which the Botswana Secretarial College had been referred to as that place. So she said, “So,” too, and left it at that.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE TALKING CURE

  T HEY RETURNED to the office in silence. Mma Makutsi wanted to talk, but one look at Mma Ramotswe, sitting behind the wheel of the tiny white van, her face set in an uncharacteristic scowl, persuaded her that if there was to be any discussion of their encounter with Mr. Buthelezi, then this would have to come later. There could be no doubt, of course, of what Mma Ramotswe thought about their new colleague—if one could call him that. How dare he sit there and speak to Mma Ramotswe, the doyenne of the profession of private enquiry agent in Botswana, in that condescending fashion, as if he had all the experience and she were the newcomer. And then there was the boastful brochure, which Mma Makutsi now clutched in her hands, resisting all temptation to crunch it into a ball and throw it out of the window of the tiny white van. It was reasonable enough, of course, for people to wish to speak to a man, if that is what they wanted, but that did not mean that a man would be better. Trust your enquiries to a man indeed! The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, as they had made abundantly clear from the very beginning, was not merely a service provided for ladies by ladies; it was a service for everybody, men and women equally. And the title made no claim to the special talents of ladies in private detection (although one could make that case if one sat down to it); all it implied was that this was a detective agency that happened to be run by ladies.

  Mma Ramotswe parked the tiny white van directly behind the garage, outside the back door of the building that they shared with Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was busy in the inspection pit, peering up at the chassis of a battered blue minibus and showing something to one of the apprentices beside him. He waved cheerfully, and Mma Ramotswe acknowledged his greeting, but she did not walk over to chat with him, as she normally would have done. Instead, both she and Mma Makutsi went directly into the agency and sat down at their desks in indignant silence.

  Mma Makutsi had garage bills to attend to, and she busied herself with these. Mma Ramotswe, who sat on the committee of the Anglican Cathedral Women’s League for Better Housing, had the minutes of a meeting to read through and a draft to prepare of a letter to the Ministry of Housing. She immersed herself in these tasks, but she found it difficult to concentrate, and after twenty minutes or so of saying the wrong thing to the deputy minister, and being unable to find the right words, she rose to her feet and went outside.

  It was a comfortable time of year, immediately after the worst of the heat and before the winter set in. Not that the country had much of a winter. The nights could get chilly, of course, with that dry cold that could penetrate to the very bones, but the winter days were usually sunny and clear, with air that one could almost drink, so pure and fresh it was; air with a hint of wood smoke; air that filled one with gratitude that one was here, in this place, and nowhere else. This time of year, when the grass was already turning brown but there were still patches of green, was perfect, in Mma Ramotswe’s view. Now she stood outside, under one of the acacia trees, looking towards Tlokweng, watching a small group of donkeys cropping the grass beside the road. Her anger had largely passed, and watching the patient, unassuming donkeys helped restore her sense of perspective. The children’s difficulties were not really serious; small boys could behave in peculiar ways (just like men), and as for Motholeli, bullying was an inevitable, universal problem. She would discuss this with Mma Potokwani, who would tell her exactly what to do.

  Mr. Buthelezi was a rather more serious matter, but then again, was he really that much of a threat? He was bombastic and pleased with himself, but that did not mean he would take business away from her. People did not want bluster when they were worried about something; they wanted good sense and caution. Those ridiculous photographs of him would surely put people off. People could tell the difference, could they not, between fantasy and reality? As Clovis Andersen pointed out in The Principles of Private Detection, anybody who went into the profession thinking that it was glamorous because they had read books or seen films about it was fundamentally misguided. Of course Mr. Buthelezi would never have read Clovis Andersen (I should have asked him directly, thought Mma Ramotswe; that would have put him in place).

  She turned away from the road and looked away, down to the stand of eucalyptus trees that had been planted years ago, when Gaborone was still called Chief Gaborone’s Place, and which had established itself as a forest. She was fearful of this forest, for some reason, and never walked there alone. It was a sad place, she thought, with its tall red-brown termite mounds and its paths that went to nobody’s house but merely petered out in bark-littered clearings. Cattle moved through the trees, and she could hear their bells
now but turned away with a shiver. That was not a good place.

  The donkeys had wandered onto the road and were standing still, wondering whether to cross or not. A boy shouted at them and threw a stone to move them on, calling out their names: Broken Ear, Broken Ear! Thin One, Thin One! Come on, come on, move!

  Which was Broken Ear, she wondered, as they all seemed to have fine ears, and none, now that one came to think of it, looked particularly thin. She was thinking of this, of the names which people give their animals, when a car turned off the road, circled Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors twice, and then drew up next to the tiny white van. Mma Ramotswe watched as the driver, a tall, well-built man in his early forties, got out.

  “Dumela, Mma,” he said as he walked over towards her. “Can you help me? I am looking for the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.”

  Mma Ramotswe realised that she must seem somewhat dreamy to him, standing there, staring at the donkeys; a woman who was perhaps not all there in the head. “That is me, Rra. I am sorry, I was thinking of something else.” She pointed to the donkeys. “I was listening to the herd boy calling out the names of those donkeys. I was not paying attention.”

  The man chuckled. “And why should you? There’s nothing wrong with watching donkeys, or cattle, for that matter. I love to watch cattle myself. I can look at them for hours.”

  “Who can’t?” replied Mma Ramotswe. “My father had a good eye for cattle. He could tell you a lot about a cow’s owner just by looking at her.”

  “There are people like that,” he agreed. “It is a great talent. Perhaps you can do it. You could be a cattle detective, asking the cattle to tell you things.”