The Double Comfort Safari Club

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “But …”

  He held up a hand. “Let me explain, Mma. I am a person who is always telling other people that they must rejoice and love the Lord. Alleluia, alleluia! That is what I am always saying. And when I see people who are happy, I say, ‘Alleluia! You are living in goodness and light!’ But all the time, Mma, inside me there is just an unhappiness and …”—he paused, staring straight into Mma Ramotswe’s eyes—“… and doubt.”

  For a moment she said nothing. She knew that reverends sometimes had doubts about what they professed to believe, and that this could not be easy for them. It would be like telling somebody all the time to do something that one would not do oneself. But was she the person to address his doubts? Surely he should go and speak to somebody who knew something about these matters—another reverend, perhaps, or a teacher of theology. Of course, there were all sorts of other doubts … doubts about marriage? Was saying that one had doubts a way of saying that one was thinking of leaving one’s spouse? Mma Ramotswe was not sure; these days there were so many ways of describing unpleasant things and making them sound quite pleasant. Nobody ran away from their responsibilities any more—they were said to have gone off to find themselves. Nobody dismissed anybody from their job any more—they let them go. What if they said, “But I do not want to go!” The only reply would be, “But I’m still going to let you!” It showed what nonsense these silly expressions were—at least Setswana did not have them: words in Setswana meant exactly what they said.

  “I am worried about my wife,” Herbert Mateleke blurted out. “I have started to doubt her.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at the tablecloth. He was doubting her? But he was the one who was meant to be having the affair! Or was this a part of the modern business of turning everything on its head, of making bad sound good and good sound bad, or at least very dull?

  At last she asked, “Why is this, Rra? Why are you doubting her?”

  Her question was clear enough, but he appeared to need some time to answer it. When the answer came, however, it was unambiguous. “I think that she is seeing another man.”

  Mma Ramotswe could not conceal her surprise. This was not the way she had thought the encounter would go. She should be trying to find out whether he was having an affair, and now here was he about to ask her—and she was sure the request would not be long in coming—to find out whether Mma Mateleke was seeing somebody.

  He was staring at her. “You look surprised, Mma. I suppose I can understand.”

  She gathered her thoughts. “Yes, I am a bit surprised, Rra. I cannot deny that.”

  He sighed. “That’s the trouble, isn’t it? If I went to anybody and said, ‘Do you realise that my wife is having an affair?’ they would be very surprised. They would say, ‘But she is a very respectable lady, Rra. She is that well-known midwife. And you are a part-time reverend.’ And so on. That is what they would say.”

  Mma Ramotswe asked him why he thought Mma Mateleke was seeing somebody. Did he have any proof? She was trying to remember what Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had told her. Something about a car and the Lobatse Road. The Lobatse Road was not a good place to conduct an affair; it was far too busy. Now some small, out-of-the-way road, some road that wandered away to a distant cattle post, or off into the Kalahari until it disappeared in the sand, that road would be the place for a lovers’ meeting.

  He shook his head. “I have no proof. I have no letters filled with kisses and things like that. But I have seen her talking to a man. I saw her outside the Botswana Book Centre one day. She was talking to a man.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. “But that is nothing, Rra! Many women talk to men. They may know a man from work, or something like that. Yes, maybe she knew him from work.”

  Herbert Mateleke shook his head. “She is a midwife, Mma, as you know. Men do not have babies. Yet.” He hesitated. “Although there are many men these days who want to have babies, I think.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled at that. There were so many different sorts of men these days, that was true, and she wondered whether she might have to change her views of men, which were based, she had to admit, on the idea of traditional men; there were plenty of men today who seemed to be interested in things like clothing and hairstyles, even here in Botswana. And there was a whole generation, she had to acknowledge—reluctantly—who knew very little about cattle, and, shockingly, were not interested in learning. If there was one thing that would upset her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, were he by some miracle to come back and see Botswana today, it would be that. He could take the rudeness of the day—not that Botswana was nearly as bad as many places—and he could take the materialism of the day, but she did not think that he would understand this lack of interest in the land and in the cattle. “But this is Botswana!” he would say to these young people. “You are Batswana and you have no interest in cattle? How can that be!”

  This was not the time, though, to reflect on change in the world. This was the time to try to allay Herbert Mateleke’s highly unlikely suspicions about his wife. Those suspicions, of course, spoke volumes on the issue of whether he himself was having an affair. He was not. A husband who was having an affair would not have the time or the interest in his wife to work himself into a state over her fidelity or otherwise. No, the most likely explanation here was that these two people, perhaps having become a bit stale in their marriage, were imagining things—on both sides.

  “Even if she does not work with men,” Mma Ramotswe pointed out, “there could be many other reasons for her to talk to a man. What about the daddies—the men who have fathered the children she has delivered? Do you not think they would have good memories of her, and want to tell her how the children are doing?”

  She waited for him to answer, but he merely looked glumly over the top of her head. So she continued, “I do not think for one moment—not for one moment—that you can draw such a serious conclusion just from seeing her talking to a man. In public. In the open. For heaven’s sake, Rra, what if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni were to see you and me sitting here having food together? Would he say to himself, that man, that Herbert Mateleke, is having an affair with my wife? Of course he would not. He would say: that is Mma Ramotswe having a snack with her friend’s husband. Then he would ask himself: I wonder what they are eating. Is it good? That is what he would think, Rra. And that is what you should think too.”

  Herbert Mateleke stopped staring over the top of her head, lowering his eyes to meet hers. “But there are other things. There are other things that make me think this.”

  “Such as? Are you sure you are not letting your imagination run away with itself?”

  “I am not. We used to go for walks together. I used to go with her to the supermarket. Now she says that she is too busy. She says that I should get on with my preaching and let her get on with the things she has to do.”

  Wives lost interest in their husbands, Mma Ramotswe reflected. Sometimes husbands did not notice this, but it could be rather difficult if the husband was the clinging, dependent type of man. She studied Herbert Mateleke for a moment, asking herself what it would be like to be married to him. It was something she did from time to time, and for the most part she reached the conclusion that it would actually be rather hard being married to most men; not that she was fussy, of course. And she expected that most men would probably not wish to be married to her—that was only fair if she did not want to be married to them. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was perfect, as far as she was concerned—he was so understanding and considerate, compared with most men.

  She would definitely not like to be married to Herbert Mateleke. It was not that he was a boorish or unpleasant man—far from it. The problem was that he was a reverend, and she imagined that he would always be preaching at his wife, telling her what to do. And if that were the case, then it would be no great surprise, perhaps, if Mma Mateleke were to feel a little bit trapped, and to try to do at least some things on her own.

  How might one put that tactfully? Mma Ramotswe took a de
ep breath. “Women need some room for themselves, Rra,” she ventured. “You know how it is.”

  He looked at her blankly. “Some room, Mma? She has a great deal of space. Our house is very big. My wife is never crowded.”

  “I don’t mean room in that sense,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I mean room to do things by herself. We all want to do that, Rra. It’s natural.”

  He stared at her without expression. He has not understood, she thought.

  “You don’t like being with other people all the time, do you, Rra? Don’t you sometimes feel like getting away from everybody and taking a walk by yourself? Surely you feel that?”

  “But she is my wife,” said Herbert Mateleke. “Why should she not want to be with me all the time?”

  He had neither listened nor understood, thought Mma Ramotswe. Of course Mma Mateleke would want to get away from her husband. She simply wanted to breathe, as all women do. And men too. We all needed to breathe. She would like to point this out to Herbert Mateleke, but she was not sure that he would understand. The realisation came to her that this man, for all his success and his following, was actually not very bright. Mma Mateleke was an intelligent woman, and perhaps she had simply grown bored with this rather slow, literal man. But that did not mean she would go out and have an affair; that was surely unlikely. Apart from anything else, Mma Mateleke was simply too busy delivering babies to have an affair.

  “Let me tell you what I think, Rra,” she said. She was suddenly businesslike. He was looking for advice; well, she would give it, first to him, and then later to Mma Mateleke. She would bang their heads together and say, “Listen, you are both worrying about something that is not happening. But sort this out before you drift apart and the thing that you worry about really does happen. Listen to one another. Find out how each of you is feeling. And above all, stop worrying.”

  Of course, she knew that it was almost always pointless telling somebody to stop worrying. We all did it; we told friends not to worry because their worries seemed small, unimportant things to us, and we knew that such problems were never solved by brooding over them. But people never stopped worrying simply because they were told to. They listened, perhaps, and told you that they would stop, but they carried on nonetheless. That was true, Mma Ramotswe thought, of most advice we gave; people often listened, but only very rarely acted on what was said to them. “Thank you, Mma,” they said. “That is very wise.” And then they went on to do exactly what they had planned to do in the first place. People were very strange. Mma Ramotswe had decided that early in her career, and had seen nothing to disabuse her of that notion. People were very strange.

  But this was not a time to question the whole idea of giving advice; this was a time to give it. “This is what I think, Rra,” she said. “I do not think that your wife is having an affair. I think that you are worrying for no reason. And I also think that she might be worrying about you! Yes! So the two of you should sit down and talk together. Then go out to the President Hotel and have dinner together. Pretend that you’re twenty-five again and out on a date. That is what you must do.”

  He listened to her carefully, and this time he appeared to be taking in what she was saying. Sometimes reverends did not listen to others, she had observed, because they thought that there was nobody else who could tell them anything. But Mma Ramotswe’s plain talking had had an effect; he was listening, and he was taking it in. Good, she thought. This is a very good result. No affairs. No unhappiness. Nothing. And no fee, of course, as Mma Mateleke had not actually consulted her as a detective, but had prevailed upon her as a friend. No fee.

  WHILE MMA RAMOTSWE was sitting in the café with Herbert Mateleke, Mma Makutsi set off out of the office for the rest of the afternoon—and why not, given that all her filing was completely up to date and all the bills, such as they were, had been sent out? What was the point of her sitting in the office waiting for five o’clock, when she could go home and wait until five o’clock, when she would go to see Phuti at his aunt’s house? To pass the time she would make a cup of tea and read a copy of the magazine she had bought at Exclusive Books. This magazine was full of delights, and she could hardly wait to start turning its glossy, newly printed pages. The cover promised an article on the doings of some big stars; that always made for interesting reading, as the big stars were often up to no good. She liked to look at the pictures that accompanied such articles, and to study the clothes that these big stars wore. They dressed expensively, these people, and as for their shoes …

  She looked down at her feet. She had decided to wear the boots she had just bought so that they would be worn in by the time she went up to the Delta. Now, making her way along Odi Drive, she felt very pleased with the comfort of her new footwear. She had read that ankle support was very important, and she had thought at the time that this was being made rather too much of. She had never had trouble with her ankles, and she did not see why it would be necessary to give that part of the leg special treatment. What about the knees? Surely they deserved support too; not that they got it, of course. There were many things in this life that deserved support and that did not get it.

  Her new boots gave a great deal of ankle support. They were also much lighter than she had imagined. I could dance in these boots, she thought.

  Oh, so you’re thinking of dancing, Boss? You never danced in us.

  She glanced into the bag in which she was carrying her old shoes. She was never sure whether her shoes really talked—she thought that it was highly unlikely—and yet they did seem to make remarks from time to time. Usually their comments were of a reproachful or critical nature; shoes, it seemed, were rather resentful, put-upon things that clearly did not accept their manifest destiny underfoot.

  Don’t worry about them, Boss. It was a different voice. The new shoes spoke in a firm, confident tone. She looked down at them.

  That’s right, Boss. You trust in us. We know where we’re going.

  That, she thought, was exactly what one would want to hear of boots. It did not matter so much with ordinary town shoes, but it mattered a great deal with boots. If one were going into danger—and the Okavango Delta was filled with wild animals—then it would undoubtedly be a good thing to have shoes that could look after themselves in difficult conditions.

  That’s us, Boss! said the boots. That’s us, all right.

  She continued walking, coming to the end of Odi Drive and turning onto Maratadiba Road. There were deserted houses on that corner—old buildings now half eaten by termites, half covered in the bush that grows so quickly over human efforts. It was a good place for snakes, she thought; even here in the city, in these forgotten corners of wasteland, snakes might make their homes: cobras, puff adders, even mambas. She glanced at the tangle of vegetation that had been brought by the recent rains. Everything greened so quickly, transformed from thinness and brownness, thickened, ran riot. She gazed at the derelict windows, their glass broken; at the bulging walls that would surely soon collapse. Yes, there were snakes there, but she had these boots, and that was exactly what boots were for.

  She stopped. She looked behind her, back in the direction of Tlokweng. The radio had spoken of rain, and the sky confirmed the forecast. A bank of purple cloud had built up to the east, and even as she had been walking from the shops it had grown in size and anger. Now it filled half the sky; to the west it was light and sunny, to the east it was storms and rain. It happened so quickly, the clouds sweeping in within minutes. And with them was that smell of rain, that half dusty smell that was like no other, overpowering in the intensity of its associations for anyone raised in a dry country. It was synonymous with joy, with renewal, with life itself.

  Pula, she muttered; a word that stood for so much, that meant joy, and money, and rain. And rain it was, with initial, fat drops falling on the dusty ground to make a tiny crater in the sand; and then another million such craters before the ground became a shimmer of water. It was so sudden, and she looked around as the water began to stream d
own her face. It was in her eyes; warm and welcome, but to be wiped away so that she could see through the watery curtain of white that was all about her.

  The only place to shelter was one of the deserted houses, almost obscured now in the torrent of the storm. She ran, her boots making her sure-footed in the water and mud. There was a door, which stood ajar, and beyond it a room in which the ceiling boards hung down in fragments. All this work, all this human effort, all brought to this.

  With the storm outside, the room was darkened further than what must have been its usual gloom. She looked about her. The concrete floor was shattered here and there, as if by small, localised earthquakes. There was a smell, and there was a person, a man sitting on his haunches at the far end of the room, staring at her. He was an old man, and his face was criss-crossed by lines. She saw his eyes, though, which caught the light, dim though it was, from what had once been the window.

  She gave a start. The man smiled. “Do not be afraid, Mma. This is my house, but you are welcome to shelter from the rain.”

  She took in what was on the floor. A bag from which a few old clothes, rags really, spilled. A few cans, open and abandoned. A single bicycle wheel, salvaged for some reason and then forgotten.

  She took a step forward, and then another. She squatted down beside him, remembering this easy, chairless way of sitting that is so natural in Africa.

  “I come from up there,” the old man said, pointing north.

  She nodded. He spoke Setswana in the accent of an age ago.

  “So this is your house,” she said. “I always thought that there was nobody here.”

  “There is always somebody,” he said.

  Mma Makutsi looked up at the failed ceiling. The drumming of the rain on the roof was less insistent now. She would be able to continue her walk soon. She reached into the pocket of her blouse. She had a fifty-pula note in it, now damp from the rain. She gave it to the man, and he took it, examining it carefully as one might examine an important document.