The Colors of All the Cattle

by Alexander McCall Smith

  Mma Potokwane looked up. “Years and years, Mma? No, no, no! You will not have to spend years on the council. Just one year. Maybe eighteen months. Then you can resign.”

  “I can resign?”

  “Of course you can. Lots of politicians resign…” Mma Potokwane paused. “Mostly because they’ve done something that requires them to resign, but there are others, Mma, who resign because they want to spend more time with their families. That is what they say, Mma—I have heard them say that.”

  Mma Makutsi joined in. “One year, Mma Ramotswe. Just enough time to stop the Big Fun Hotel.”

  Mma Potokwane had now detected the chink through which her point could be made. “Yes, Mma,” she said. “The Big Fun Hotel…Nobody wants that, Mma—or at least nobody except a few greedy men. You can stop it, Mma. You can, you know.”

  Mma Ramotswe hesitated, and Mma Potokwane pressed on. “And here’s a promise for you, Mma. If you decide you don’t like it—that you really don’t like it—you can come to me at any time—at any time, Mma—and say, I want to give it up. And I will not say anything to persuade you otherwise—not one word.”

  “Not a single word,” added Mma Makutsi for emphasis.

  They waited. Mma Ramotswe had been so certain, but now it seemed to her that it would be churlish to refuse something that would not bind her for too long and from which she could, if she really wished to do so, honourably resign.

  “All right,” she said. “I will do it, Mma Potokwane. But it has to be on the terms you have just laid down.”

  “Of course, of course,” gushed Mma Potokwane. “All that is agreed—and Mma Makutsi is my witness.”

  “God too,” said Mma Makutsi solemnly. “He heard what Mma Potokwane said and will hold her to her words.”

  Mma Potokwane threw a sideways glance at Mma Makutsi. “That too,” she said. “That too.”

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT SURPRISE came from Mma Makutsi. Once tea had been poured and they were all seated around Mma Ramotswe’s desk, she announced that she had, in fact, spent the previous evening writing a manifesto for Mma Ramotswe’s campaign and that she had it with her to read out for approval.

  “I have already typed it out. It is here.” She unfolded two sheets of paper. “Should I begin, ladies?”

  “Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “I was hoping to follow an agenda, but this is a very important matter, Mma, and you should read it now.”

  Mma Makutsi took off her glasses and polished them carefully.

  “Those are very fine spectacles,” observed Mma Potokwane. “My husband needs bigger spectacles—he is missing seeing things at the sides. I have said that bigger spectacles will give him a wider field of vision.”

  “So he can see all of you,” said Mma Makutsi.

  It was a casual observation, not intended in any insulting way, but Mma Ramotswe gave her a sharp look. Mma Potokwane appeared not to notice.

  “Please carry on,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am very eager to find out what I think.”

  Now Mma Potokwane looked at her sharply.

  Mma Makutsi began. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she read out, “this is a very important election.”

  Mma Potokwane raised a finger. “Not ladies and gentlemen, Mma. This is a not a speech at a school prize-giving. This is talking to the people of Botswana, Mma.”

  “And are they not ladies and gentlemen?” protested Mma Makutsi.

  “Yes, they are,” Mma Potokwane replied. “They are ladies and gentlemen, but you don’t speak to them like that in a manifesto. This is a manifesto, Mma—that is, a sort of mission statement. You start by saying: Dear voters. Or maybe you say: People of Gaborone. Something like that.”

  Mma Makutsi pouted, but reached for a pencil and altered her text. “Dear voters,” she intoned. “This is a very important election. It is historic.”

  “That’s very good,” applauded Mma Potokwane. “People like to think they are making history.”

  “Even if they’re just choosing a councillor,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Potokwane smiled. “Even then, Mma. Even then. People like to think they are important.”

  Mma Makutsi continued her reading. “In this election,” she went on, “you can choose what sort of person you want to have to represent you. You can decide whether you want a woman who has worked tirelessly for the benefit of humanity over many years—”

  Mma Ramotswe raised a hand. “Oh, Mma, you cannot say that. It is very kind of you, but it is not true. I have worked hard, but mostly I have been working for the business. Or I have been growing beans in my garden and cooking meals for the family and repairing Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s work overalls. Things like that, Mma—not working tirelessly for the benefit of humanity.”

  Mma Potokwane proposed a compromise. “Write: a woman who has been working very hard over many years, Mma. Write that instead. That is certainly true.”

  Mma Makutsi reached for her pencil. “Over many years,” she intoned, “or a woman who is one of the worst people in the country. This Violet Sephotho may not be known to some of you, but let me tell you…”

  Mma Potokwane was shaking her head vehemently, but it did not stop Mma Makutsi.

  “Just let me read to the end, Mma. Then you can make any suggestions…” She emphasised the word suggestions. “So I shall continue, Mma. But let me tell you what sort of person she is. Let us start at that most distinguished educational institution, the Botswana Secretarial College. How Violet Sephotho secured a place in that college has been a matter of discussion for years, but there are many who believe that she may have bribed her way in. I am not saying that is what I think, ladies and gentlemen…No, I shall put in dear voters instead of that. So, that is not what I necessarily think, dear voters, but there are many who do, and it is probably true. Once she was there, did she work hard? She did not. Once she was there, did she sit there in the lecture room, painting her nails and thinking about men? She most certainly did. Once she was there, did she get over ninety per cent in the final examinations? She most certainly did not. She got barely fifty per cent. She was lucky to pass. And yet here she is putting herself forward for election to public office on the basis of a mark of barely fifty per cent! What will History have to say about that?

  “I now turn to what she did afterwards. While other, more meritorious candidates found it hard to get a job, Violet Sephotho found herself being offered first-class jobs in more than one firm. How did she do it, if not by using her charms to work on the men who made the hiring decisions? She did not say anything specific, of course; oh, no, that woman is not so foolish as to leave any trail in writing, or even in words. She would go to the interviews in the most immodest dress; she would cross her legs in a way that weak men cannot resist; she would flutter her eyelashes—they are artificial, by the way, ladies…I mean, dear voters…and she would get the job on the spot while other candidates, wearing modest clothing and thinking only of the things they learned at the Botswana Secretarial College, were turned down again and again.

  “And, since then, she has not hesitated to use underhand means to get what she wants. She has also tried to entice other people’s husbands away from their wives. Ladies…and I will have to leave that reference to ladies in place, I think…ladies, if you want to keep your husbands, make sure you don’t vote for a proven husband-stealer! Do not be fooled by this woman. Do not think, just because she is wearing the clothing of one of those harmless sheep you see grazing in the fields, that she is not a jackal underneath. Or a hyena, perhaps. Either of those. Both will bite you, dear voters, and the only way you can make sure that doesn’t happen is to vote for the lady who is not a jackal, nor a hyena, but is a real woman who represents all the women of Botswana—and the men too—and who will bring prosperity to this town and all its inhabitants, with the exception of those who do not deserve it. That
is the choice before you, dear voters: so think very carefully before you go into the voting booth, and once you have thought very carefully, put your mark against the name of Mma Ramotswe. That is what God wants you to do. That is what the late Seretse Khama would have done, if he were still with us. Vote the right way so that—”

  It was too much for Mma Potokwane. “Mma Makutsi,” she said. “That is a very powerful manifesto, but I think we need to talk about it.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think we do.”

  * * *

  —

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, sitting on the verandah with Motholeli and Puso, Mma Ramotswe told the children of her decision.

  “There is going to be an election,” she said. “You know what that is, don’t you?”

  Motholeli nodded; Puso looked uncertain.

  “It is about choosing,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is about choosing people to run the country—or the town.”

  “I know that,” said Motheleli.

  Puso decided to look knowledgeable. “I know that too,” he said.

  “You will see some posters,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “They may even have a picture of me, I think. That is because I am standing in this election.”

  Motholeli smiled. “Everyone will vote for you, Mma. You will get all the votes.”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I don’t think so, Motholeli.”

  “Yes, they will,” said Puso.

  Motholeli looked thoughtful. “Who will be the other people, Mma?”

  “There is a lady called Violet Sephotho. She is going to stand too.”

  Puso’s eyes narrowed. “I hate her,” he said.

  His sister gave him a sideways look. “You’ve never met her, Puso. You don’t know who she is.”

  “I don’t care,” said Puso. “I hate her. She is very smelly.”

  Mma Ramotswe put an arm around the boy’s shoulder. “We don’t hate people, Puso. We don’t hate anybody.”

  He looked at her sullenly. “Why?” he asked.

  “Because hate makes you very tired,” said Mma Ramotswe. She wondered whether there was more to say, but suddenly she felt tired herself.

  “She’ll lose,” said Motholeli.

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Let’s wait and see,” she said. And then she said, “I have some fat cakes. They are in the cupboard.”

  They had been sitting down during this conversation; now she rose and made her way to the kitchen cupboard. There were four fat cakes on a plate—delicious, greasy, tempting. She took them out and offered the plate to the children. She closed her eyes. Temptation nudged at her, a soft, persuasive tap on the shoulder. She returned to the verandah. “One and a third each,” she said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AN EIGHTY-FOUR-HORSE-POWER HEROINE

  FANWELL WAS a more cautious driver than Charlie, and, as they made their way to Mochudi in Mma Ramotswe’s white van, he resisted Charlie’s encouragement to drive faster. “This vehicle is not designed to go fast,” he insisted. “We’ll get there when we get there, not before.”

  “You can’t get there before you get there,” Charlie said.

  “No,” said Fanwell. “That’s what I meant.”

  The road was quiet in the mid-afternoon heat. To their right, broken acacia scrub stretched out to a distant, flat horizon. On fences and on telephone wires, the occasional bird perched—a hornbill with its yellow beak, a hoopoe with its waistcoat of brown and tiny stripes, a grey Cape dove calling for its partner. The earth was dry, baked by months of waiting for rain, beaten flat where animal tracks had made winding paths, crumbling elsewhere, where the erosion of wind and ancient rain had worked its effect.

  To their left there stretched out much the same terrain, but with a hint of something different in the distance. Not too far away in that direction—fifty miles perhaps—the real Kalahari began, that vast dry land that ran all the way to the Okavango and the western limits of the country: Botswana boiled down, distilled, into a place of dryness, a place of air and light and human loneliness. Here and there along the way were farmhouses, scattered across the land seemingly at random but obeying a code of ownership and title, observing human claims to be where grandfathers and grandmothers, and others before them, had been. These houses were the sites of many stories: stories of men who worked there, and of those who travelled for work in distant places and never came back; of women who stayed and nurtured the children and bore the world upon their backs.

  Fanwell asked Charlie about his friend in Mochudi. Who was he? Where did he learn to fix car bodies? Did he have a girlfriend?

  “His name is Eddie,” said Charlie. “He’s tall. We used to call him Giraffe, but he did not like that, and so people went back to calling him Eddie. He has a Setswana name too, but I’ve forgotten what it is. Only his mother ever calls him that. Mothers are like that, aren’t they? They give you some stupid name, and then they’re the only ones who use it.”

  “They don’t think it’s stupid,” said Fanwell.

  “Well, it often is.” Charlie paused. “Your name, Fanwell—where does that come from? Why do they call you that?”

  Fanwell did not answer immediately. He was Charlie’s loyal friend, but there were times when he thought Charlie could think a bit more before he spoke.

  “It was my father’s name,” he said at last. “He was Fanwell too.”

  Charlie shrugged. “Odd name, isn’t it? I’m not saying it’s stupid—I’m just saying it’s odd.”

  Fanwell said nothing.

  Charlie grinned. “We could give you another name, of course, if you like. What about Pilot? Would you like to be called Pilot? I heard of some guy called that the other day. The girls loved it. Oh, buy me a drink, Mr. Pilot…”

  “Was he a pilot?” asked Fanwell.

  “No, he worked in the tax office. Some rubbish job. But he called himself Pilot and he had a lot of girls hanging around him, I’m telling you.”

  Fanwell smiled. “Pilot? Yes, maybe, but maybe not. I like being Fanwell. Girls don’t mind that name, you know.”

  “In that case,” said Charlie, “keep your name. Hold on to it. Big asset.”

  They drove on. Then Fanwell said, “What about girls, Charlie? Do you have a girlfriend at the moment?” He had always stood in awe of Charlie’s way with the girls; he himself had difficulty in making the girls take notice of him, whereas Charlie made it all seem so easy.

  “You’re asking me whether I have a girlfriend, Fanwell?” said Charlie. “Is that what you’re asking me?”

  Fanwell nodded. “I haven’t got one at the moment, I don’t mind telling you. I wondered if you had one.”

  Charlie whistled. “No girlfriend? Are you remembering to wash every day?” He laughed. “Only joking, Fanwell, but it’s something that some guys don’t think about. Women don’t like men who smell. There’s been research into that. It’s been proven.”

  Fanwell smiled weakly. “I wash every day. Every day.”

  “Yes,” said Charlie. “And don’t worry, Fanwell. If you really did smell, I’d be the first to tell you. That’s what friends are for, isn’t it? To tell you if you smell.”

  “So, is there a girl?”

  “Could be,” said Charlie.

  Fanwell pressed him. “What does that mean?”

  Charlie gazed out of the window. They were nearing Mochudi now, and the first houses were appearing. Goats wandered in the dusty yards, sniffing out the tiniest piece of vegetation to nibble upon. A child pushed a model car, made out of wire, along the side of the road. A cyclist, dressed in the blue robe of the African Zion Church, wobbled erratically along a track leading off to a cluster of buildings.

  At last Charlie answered. “I’m seeing a girl called Queenie-Queenie. She works in a dress shop. I really like her.”

  The car swerved as Fanw
ell registered this information. He recovered quickly. “I know that girl,” he said. “I have heard about her.”

  Charlie frowned. “Have you actually met her?”

  Fanwell replied that he had not, but he knew somebody who knew her. “I haven’t actually seen her,” he said. “But I have heard all about her.”

  Charlie looked at him sideways. “So, what have you heard?”

  “Her father is very rich,” said Fanwell. “Her father’s a big man.”

  Charlie was silent.

  “Very rich,” repeated Fanwell. “Very big.”

  Charlie shook his head. “I don’t think it can be the same person. Her father has a truck. He delivers things.”

  Fanwell laughed. “A truck, you say? Fifty trucks, more like it. A whole fleet of trucks. He carts cattle down from Francistown to Lobatse. They go up to Maun as well. And up north too. Zambia. The Congo as well. They’re everywhere.”

  “Are you sure? Has this girl you know got a brother?”

  Fanwell replied that she had. “He does body-building,” he said. “He’s one of these strongmen.”

  “Then that’s Queenie,” said Charlie.

  Fanwell was silent. If only he could meet a girl like that, who would change his life. She would lift him out of poverty—the poverty that seemed to stretch out in front of him no matter how hard he worked. How could he ever afford, on his mechanic’s pay, a place of his own to live in when Gaborone was becoming so expensive? The people who had houses had these houses because they had bought them a long time ago. If your parents had a house, then that made it easier, because you could share their house with them and then, when they became late, it would be yours. Or if your parents were rich, they could help you find the deposit to buy somewhere of your own, or at least to get a lease. But Fanwell did not have parents in that position, and so he would have to continue to live in a small room, shared with another. How could you ever find a wife if all you had to take her back to was a shared room? Lucky Charlie, he thought. If he played his cards right, he would be able to marry this girl, Queenie-Queenie, and live in a large house paid for by his father-in-law. He would even be invited to join the family business and help run the fleet of trucks.