The Colors of All the Cattle

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “They were still small boys inside, weren’t they? And they used to make Mma Makutsi so cross…”

  But now it was different, and Mma Makutsi and Charlie, although occasionally at odds with one another, had a far better understanding. And so, when Mma Makutsi muttered the name of Gobe Moruti to herself, Charlie picked up her anxiety and sought to reassure her.

  “You must not worry about this man,” he said. “He is just a man, Mma—same as any man.”

  Mma Makutsi sighed. “I know that, Charlie. But still…”

  He adopted what he hoped was a cheerful, encouraging tone. “Come on, Mma. You have never been afraid of men.”

  “I know that,” she replied. “But this man is a very rich man. Rich men are different from most men. They are used to getting their own way.”

  “Not all of them,” said Charlie. “I have fixed some cars belonging to rich men. They have been polite—same as anybody.”

  She was unconvinced. “Maybe, but this one, I think, will not be polite.” She based this view on the fact that this was a man who seemed intent on ignoring the wishes of a large number of people, both living and late—if late people could have wishes, which was something she was not sure about. Mma Makutsi was not as sure as some people were about what happened to you at the end of this life. She had had a heated discussion recently with Charlie and Fanwell on this very subject; Fanwell was of the view that there was a simple selection process in which those who had behaved badly were sent to a place of boiling pitch while the meritorious went somewhere higher, probably in the clouds. Charlie laughed at this, saying that nobody believed that sort of thing any longer, and that the modern view was that you went back to where you began and started over again. “That is what they believe in India,” he had said. “And now they have scientific proof.” He paused. “And so in your case, Mma Makutsi, you’ll be going back to Bobonong, to start all over again as a new baby up there.”

  Mma Makutsi had responded robustly. “There is no proof at all, Charlie. None.”

  “You’ll be back in Bobonong, Mma,” he warned. “Don’t be surprised when that happens.”

  She had laughed, but behind her laughter there was a note of anxiety. She was loyal to Bobonong, and always defended her home town when people spoke disparagingly about it, but she was not sure that she could face the prospect of once again going through the first twenty years of her life, particularly if in a fresh incarnation she might not find that golden opportunity to escape from the limitations of her pre–Botswana Secretarial College life.

  Now Charlie said, “You’ll be fine, Mma. This man will not dare to be rude to you. You are not the sort of lady that men think they can be rude to. That is not the sort of lady you are.”

  Mma Makutsi was boosted by this, but only slightly. She thought it was still going to be a trial to speak to Mr. Gobe Moruti in his modern office, in a new office building, all glass and concrete, complete with air-conditioning and a man in uniform at the front door. Putting a man in uniform at your front door was a gesture that was unambiguously forbidding, she felt; it was a signal to people like her to keep away and not to bother important and busy people like Mr. Gobe Moruti with idle questions.

  Charlie parked under a tree by the side of the road. “I am here if you need me, Mma,” he said.

  She thanked him, stepped out of the van, and made her way towards the entrance. There was a book for her to sign at reception before she went in—a ledger with Time In and Time Out columns, along with a space for the name of the visitor’s business. Mma Makutsi signed the column labelled Name, and then, under Name of Company, began to write: No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Ag— She stopped herself. She had done this automatically, without thinking. She had meant to write Double Comfort Furniture Store, but the habit of years had overcome her planned cover, and now the woman behind the desk was peering at her entries, reading them upside down.

  Flustered, Mma Makutsi attempted to cross out the offending admission. The woman behind the desk frowned. “Why are you crossing that out, Mma?” she asked, craning her neck for a better view of the entry. “What is this No. 1 Ladies’ what? What is that, Mma?”

  “I have made a mistake, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “I meant to write something else.”

  The receptionist’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “But what is this thing you wrote first? No. 1 Ladies’ Detective…What is that, Mma? Are you a detective? Is that what you do?”

  Mma Makutsi forced herself to laugh. “Me? A detective? Ha!”

  “Well, are you?” insisted the receptionist.

  Mma Makutsi ignored the question. “What I meant to write was the Double Comfort Furniture Store, Mma. It came out wrong.”

  “How can that happen?” asked the woman.

  Mma Makutsi became suddenly efficient. “Look, Mma,” she said briskly. “I have an appointment with Mr. Gobe Moruti. I cannot stand here talking about this and that, much as I would like to. I am a very busy person.”

  The receptionist drew back, silenced by this display of confidence. Lifting a telephone handset, she dialled a number and announced that Mma Makutsi of the No. 1 Comfort Furniture Store had arrived to see Mr. Moruti.

  Mma Makutsi interrupted her. “No, Mma, the Double Comfort Furniture Store, not the No. 1 Comfort Furniture Store.”

  The receptionist glared at her. “I’m sorry,” she said into the handset. “This lady says that she is not from that business but from some other business.”

  “No, Mma,” Mma Makutsi interjected, her voice rising as she spoke. “It is not some other business. It is the Double Comfort Furniture Store.”

  The receptionist replaced the handset. “They say you can go up now, Mma.” Her tone was polite; the misunderstandings of the last few minutes having been put to one side. “Mr. Moruti is on the second floor. He’s waiting for you now.”

  Mma Makutsi took the stairs, and as she climbed she reflected, with acute embarrassment, on the foolish slip she had made. Of all the incompetent things to do on an undercover mission, surely the most incompetent would be to announce, right at the outset, that you were a detective—and that, in effect, was what she had done. She imagined what Mma Ramotswe would say about that. She would be polite, of course, but she would undoubtedly feel obliged to point out something that Clovis Andersen had written on the subject. She remembered at least one section of The Principles of Private Detection where this arose. “If you are using an assumed name,” Andersen wrote, “make sure you remember it! I know at least one operative”—the great man liked to use that word, operative—“who has been exposed because he has forgotten the false name he was intending to use.”

  How could she have made such a fundamental mistake—right at the beginning of the mission? If Charlie had done that, it would have been excusable—he was a trainee with very little experience, and also was a young man, with all the impetuosity of the young and the headstrong. She, by contrast, had under her belt years of being a detective, had read The Principles of Private Detection at least five times, and of course had achieved ninety-seven per cent in the final examinations of the Botswana Secretarial College; in the light of all that, there was surely no excuse for such a basic error. Of course it was possible that there would be no adverse consequences: the receptionist had not said anything about detectives to the person on the other end of the line. But that did not mean that once she had disappeared up the stairs the woman had not immediately lifted the phone and told Mr. Moruti that there was a suspected detective on her way up to see him.

  By the time she reached the glass door labelled Managing Director, she had persuaded herself that all was lost. She would be met by a suspicious, possibly even angry Gobe Moruti, who would immediately show her the door amid accusations of making an appointment under false pretences. But that did not happen. When she knocked on the door, it was immediately opened, and she found herself faced with a tall, we
ll-built man dressed in a light grey suit. He greeted her correctly, and warmly, in the Botswana manner.

  “Mma Makutsi,” he said, “it is very good of you to come and see me.”

  Completely taken aback, she struggled to find the words. “No, Rra, it is good of you…I am here, you see, on business…”

  He made a reassuring gesture. “Of course you are,” he said. “Of course you are.”

  She said, “It is a very warm day, isn’t it?”

  Gobe Moruti smiled. It was not a forced smile, but one that seemed to suggest pleasure at a novel observation. “I think you’re quite right,” he said. “It is warm. Yes, you’re right there.” He moved a chair and invited her to sit. Then he returned to his seat on the other side of the desk. “We’re very lucky to have air-conditioning,” he said. “It’s a big expense, of course—all that electricity—but there we are, it has to be used for something, I suppose. You can’t leave electricity lying around.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “Electricity is very slippery,” said Mma Makutsi. She was not sure whether that was a witty thing to say, but it possibly was.

  Gobe Moruti thought so. “Ha! That’s a thought, Mma. The slipperiness of electricity. Quite right. You can never get a-hold of it, can you?” He laughed again. Mma Makutsi laughed too.

  Then Gobe Moruti asked, “Do you have air-conditioning in your office at the Double Comfort Furniture Agency?”

  “Furniture Store, Rra,” she corrected.

  “Furniture Store—of course. Why would I say agency? Careless of me.”

  “It’s a small thing, Rra.” And then, frantically, she thought: Do we? Phuti’s office always seemed cool enough to her, but that might be because it was under the eaves of the building and had two large windows. Were the windows open? They were, she thought, which meant there would be no air-conditioning.

  “We prefer the natural approach, Rra,” she answered. “There is a big air conditioner in the sky, I think. It’s called the wind.”

  Gobe Moruti clapped his hands together appreciatively. “Oh, that is very good, Mma! The wind. And the wind is free—or at least it’s free at the moment. No doubt the government will find a way of making us pay for it, but they haven’t worked that out yet.” He reached for a large paper clip on his desk and began to fiddle with it while he spoke. “Now, then, Mma, what can I do for you today?”

  Mma Makutsi had mentally rehearsed her opening, and now she used it. “It is about furniture, Rra. I believe that you are the man behind the plan to build a big new hotel.”

  He held up a hand. “Not just the man behind that scheme, Mma. There are many people standing behind me—many people who have a new vision for Gaborone.”

  She nodded. “Of course, Rra. But you are the main man, I think.”

  “Possibly. Yes, you might put it that way. But I think of myself as just being the standard-bearer for a whole troop of people, ordinary men and women who support me in what I’m trying to do. I may not even know them—they may be people in the street, but they are with me because they see the benefits of what I’m doing.”

  For you, thought Mma Makutsi. The benefits for you.

  “And this new hotel,” she continued, “will need furniture, I assume.”

  Gobe Moruti chuckled. “Hotels usually have furniture, Mma. Imagine if you went to a hotel and there was no bed in the room, and you had to say to the manager, There’s no bed in my room, and he would say, maybe, What do you expect for the price you’re paying? Ha! That would be very funny, wouldn’t it, Mma?”

  Mma Makutsi was about to reply, but he had more to say. “And then perhaps the manager would say, If you want a bed, you’ll have to pay for a deluxe room. Ha! That would be even funnier—though not so funny for the poor customer.”

  “It would not,” agreed Mma Makutsi. “But you won’t want that to happen, will you, Rra? You will need furniture.”

  Gobe Moruti seemed disappointed to be abandoning the fantasy. “Yes, Mma, we shall need furniture. We’ll not only need beds, but we’ll need tables and chairs, and desks. And chests of drawers and storage units and…” He sighed. “We shall need an awful lot of furniture.”

  “We sell furniture,” said Mma Makutsi.

  Gobe Moruti nodded. “So you do,” he said. “Or rather, your husband does.”

  Mma Makutsi caught her breath. She said nothing. Gobe Moruti was looking at her intently. The casual friendliness of the past few minutes seemed to have abruptly evaporated.

  He broke the silence. “But of course, Mma, you have many things to do, I suppose. You have your job with that Mma Ramotswe. And your child, of course. And you must be even more busy now that your boss is going into politics. My, you must be busy, Mma.” He paused, watching the effect of his words. “I’m surprised you have time to sell furniture as well—I’m very surprised.”

  Mma Makutsi sat quite still. She felt his eyes upon her, appraising her in an almost amused fashion. He had seen through everything—right from the start—and she had completely failed to spot it.

  Gobe Moruti leaned back in his chair with the air of one enjoying the embarrassment of another. He spoke slowly now, measuring the weight of each phrase, each sentence. His tone had become languid.

  “I understand, of course,” he said. “You see, I am used to these matters, Mma. When you are in my line of business—developing the country—you get used to dealing with politicians and, shall I say, would-be politicians. In fact, the would-be politicians are even easier to understand than the long-serving ones. You know why, Mma?”

  He was waiting for her to respond. She shrugged.

  “Because they have not yet learned to conceal what they are up to. It’s quite amusing, in fact, to see it. They are very obvious in what they do. It’s only later, when they’ve learned the ropes, that they are more discreet. They see one or two people overstep some mark or other and get into trouble, and that is when they learn to be discreet.”

  He took a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and wiped his brow. “Please excuse me, Mma, for sweating like this. Even with the air-conditioning, I find it a bit hot at this time of the year.”

  Mma Makutsi bit her lip. She was unsure whether to rise to her feet and bring this meeting to an end, or to wait and see where it led. In the event, she did nothing.

  “So I think I should spare you further embarrassment, Mma. I know very well why you are here.”

  She made a last attempt. “I am here to sell furniture. That is all that—”

  He cut her short. “Come on, Mma, there is no need for us to beat about the bush. You are here on behalf of that Mma Ramotswe of yours. You are here to get my support, in return for which you would like me to help get your candidate elected. And then, if that happens—if it happens, Mma, and there is always a big if in politics—you will offer to support my planning application for the hotel in return for…well, let’s say, in return for further support of a practical nature from me.”

  He stopped. She was staring at him with wide-open eyes.

  “Have I surprised you, Mma?” he asked. “Did you not know how these things worked?”

  Mma Makutsi found her voice. “That is all wrong, Rra. That is not why I am here. I have not come to ask for anything like that.”

  She was not ready for his reaction. He was nodding in agreement. “Absolutely right, Mma,” he said quietly. “That is exactly what you should say. You are learning very quickly, I think.”

  “I do not think you heard me, Rra.”

  “Oh no, I heard you, Mma. And you were saying exactly what you should say in such circumstances. Never say anything that can be quoted back at you. Always deny things. Make sure that any understanding is reached by a nod of the head or even a look in the eyes. Then nobody can come along and accuse you of corruption.”

  Her voice rose in her refutation. “We are not corrupt, Rra
.”

  “Yes,” he said enthusiastically. “That’s just the right thing to say, Mma. Just right. And anyway, this corruption nonsense—what are they talking about? Is it corruption to do whatever is necessary to make sure that important economic assets are constructed? Is it corrupt to make sure that jobs are created for people currently without work? Is that corrupt, Mma? If it is, then I would be proud to call myself corrupt. I would go out in the streets and say, Here is a corrupt man doing his best for the economy of Botswana. That is what I would say. I would say it openly, and with pride, Mma.”

  When he had finished, he folded his hands across his stomach in an air of righteous self-satisfaction. Mma Makutsi looked down at the floor. There was nothing for her to say, she decided.

  “So,” said Gobe Moruti at last, “here is my message for your Mma Ramotswe. Tell her: Yes, Mma, we can do business together. Tell her to talk to me once she has won—if she wins. I will certainly make her co-operation worth her while at that stage.” He paused. “Of course, she might not win, and I shall be sorry if that happens—for her sake. But I will not be sorry for my own sake, as I have already had very satisfactory conversations with her opponent in this election, and if she wins, instead of Mma Ramotswe, then everything will be fine. So, either outcome will suit me, Mma.”

  Mma Makutsi struggled to control herself. It should not have surprised her, she told herself, that Violet Sephotho had already teamed up with Mr. Gobe Moruti. They were two peas from the same pod, she thought: two beans from the same row. Peas and beans. Of course they were.

  She rose to her feet. “I’m going now, Rra,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster. “And all I would say is this: you have misjudged Mma Ramotswe very badly.”

  Gobe Moruti smiled as he showed her to the door. “Well done, Mma. A very good denial. You would make a fine politician if you ever chose to stand yourself.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN