The Double Comfort Safari Club

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “The sister was a clever girl. So it was not just hard work. Some people get good results from working very hard, others from being very bright. These people do not have to work very much—they just get their good results. It’s like standing under a tree and waiting for the figs to fall into your arms.”

  At first Mma Makutsi was silent. She was not sure if there was a barb in this remark. But she would let it pass anyway. “Standing under a fig tree is safe enough, Mma,” she said. “But you should never stand under a sausage tree.” The sausage tree, the moporoto in Setswana, was a sort of jacaranda that had heavy fruit like great, pendulous sausages.

  “Certainly not, Mma. There are many people who are late now because of that. Those are very heavy pods, and if you get one on your head, then you are in great danger of becoming late.”

  She used the expression that the Batswana preferred: to become late. There was human sympathy here; to be dead is to be nothing, to be finished. The expression is far too final, too disruptive of the bonds that bind us to one another, bonds that survive the demise of one person. A late father is still your father, even though he is not there; a dead father sounds as if he has nothing further to do—he is finished.

  “This girl,” Mma Ramotswe continued, “was always doing well. People said, That girl is going to be an important somebody one day. She will be going to Gaborone, definite.”

  Mma Makutsi frowned. She could tell which way this story was going, as it was an old story in Botswana, a theme repeated time and time again. The person who does well, who excels, is asking for trouble. “People were watching?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe confirmed the worst. “They were watching, Mma. They were listening too. There are always people who are watching and listening.”

  Of course there are, thought Mma Makutsi. She had gone from Bobonong to Gaborone. She knew all about envy.

  “Somebody—and they did not know who it was at first—put a spell on this girl.”

  There was silence. To report the casting of a spell does not mean that you believe in the efficacy of spells. But spells were used, whether or not the rest of us believed in them; and somebody was prepared to believe in them. If that somebody were the victim, then the spell had worked. It was as simple as that. And people could be frightened to death by the knowledge that there was a spell on them; it happened regularly.

  “How did she know?” asked Mma Makutsi.

  Mma Ramotswe shrugged. “It is difficult to say. Spells are nothing—they don’t exist. So how do you tell when there is nothing there—just air? Maybe somebody spoke to her. That is how people come to know about spells. People say, They have bought some bad medicine to use against you. That sort of thing.” She did not like to think about it; that was the old Africa, not the Africa of today, and certainly not the Botswana she knew. And yet it was there; just as it was elsewhere in the world, everywhere, really, where underneath the modern and the rational there ran a dark river of unreason and fear.

  “The girl told her family,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “They said that they had feared something like this would happen. And they tried to keep her in the house. They did not like her to go anywhere except the school. At nights they all slept in the same room with the girl at the back, so that any person who came into the house would have to step over other sleepers before they came to the one they were looking for.

  “The mother went quietly to a witch doctor and bought something to protect the girl. Some useless mixture of ground bones and leaves—they love that sort of thing—made into a paste. She put this on the girl’s cheeks, although the girl said that she did not believe in this nonsense. The mother said, ‘And when something bad happens, will you not believe in it then?’ And the girl said, ‘All of this is part of a world that has gone now. It is no longer true, any of this.’”

  Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Poor girl.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Because something bad did happen. She had an old aunt, this girl. Her parents said to her, ‘Do not visit your aunt now. Her place is far away. You will be in danger if you go.’

  “The girl said that this was just superstition. ‘I am a strong girl,’ she said. ‘How can anything like that harm a strong girl in broad daylight?’ That is what she said, Mma, which is just the right thing for her to say. If more people said that sort of thing, then all this business could never flourish. It would die when it is out in the sun. It is a business that needs darkness and fear to stay alive.”

  Their road was now almost deserted. It was lunchtime, and the sun was high in the sky overhead, casting short, vertical shadows. Before them, stretched out to the distant horizon on either side, was acacia-dominated scrub bush—mile upon mile of olive-green trees, like tiny umbrellas erected against the heat of the sun. And through the windows of the van, open to allow a draught of cooling air, came the noise of the cicadas, that high-pitched screeching that provided a constant background of sound for the African bush.

  Light made all the difference. Under this midday sky fear and terror seemed very far away, but at night it was easy to imagine the presence of evil and its attendants, even here.

  “The girl went to see her aunt. She walked a long way to see her, and then said goodbye to her aunt and began the walk back. It was mid-afternoon. But it was getting dark, because it was the rainy season—as it is now. There was lightning. The girl said later that she knew that she was going to be hit because she could smell the lightning before it came. People say that it has a smell, Mma, but I have never smelled it because I have never been close enough. I do not want to get so close to lightning that I shall be able to smell it—just as I do not want to get close enough to smell a lion’s breath.

  “She started to run when the rain drew near, but the storm was too quick for her and it caught up with her. That is when she was struck by lightning, thrown to the ground and knocked out. They took her back to her place when they found her. They thought that she was dead because she did not move, not even to breathe, and they could see the burns on her clothes that told them what had happened. Her family wailed and wailed and called the headman to tell him what had happened. He said that it was difficult to go to the police in such cases because they could not tell who had put a spell on the girl. ‘And how can anybody prove anything?’ he asked. ‘This is the doing of lightning. You cannot arrest lightning.’

  “That night the girl woke up. They screamed some more when they saw the body move, but they were happy too. The girl told them what had happened. ‘I have been dreaming since then,’ she said. ‘So that is what it is like to be late,’ her father said. ‘It is as if you are dreaming.’

  “The girl’s mother had a good idea. She said, ‘Let’s go ahead with the funeral tomorrow because we have already killed the cow for the guests. But let us see if we can find out who put this spell on our daughter. If she wakes up at the funeral, we shall see who runs away, and we shall know who it is.’

  “They all thought that this was a good idea, even the girl. ‘It will be very good to be at my own funeral,’ she said. ‘I shall hear the things that people say about me, and I shall find out who my friends are.’”

  Mma Makutsi interrupted Mma Ramotswe at this point. “I am not so sure,” she said. “People do not always tell the truth at funerals. They say things that are not true because they feel guilty about the way they have treated the late person. I have seen that happen many times. In fact, if you listened to what was said at funerals, you would think that this is a land of saints.”

  Mma Ramotswe agreed that this was largely true. “Yes,” she said. “That may be true, but people are trying their best, remember. And they may believe what they say.”

  “All those lies?” asked Mma Makutsi. “They would believe all those lies?”

  Mma Ramotswe pointed out that many people came to believe the lies they told. Politicians, she said, were a bit like that. “They get so used to telling lies that they begin to think that these lies are true. It is very sad.�
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  But that was not the point of the story, she reminded Mma Makutsi. “They all said that they would go ahead with the funeral, and it was also agreed that the girl should jump out of the coffin in the middle of the service and say that there was one present who had put a spell on her, and she knew who this person was. Then everybody was to look for the one who ran away, as surely such a person would run away in such circumstances.”

  Mma Makutsi could barely wait for the outcome. “They carried her in, Mma? As if she was late?”

  “Yes, they did that, Mma. It was all planned. They were going to sing a Setswana hymn—you know that one, ‘The Yoke Is Heavy upon Me’—and then the girl was to knock on the coffin. Then they would let her sit up and make her denunciation of the spell that had almost killed her. But there was a problem.”

  Mma Makutsi drew in her breath. A problem? Perhaps the girl had suffocated and was now really dead. Perhaps she had gone to sleep and had to be woken up by her family. She raised these possibilities with Mma Ramotswe, who said no, it had not been like that. Then what had happened?

  “The father said that they should open the coffin and check on the body. The reverend, who did not know about the plan, was surprised, but did not want to upset a man in mourning, and so he agreed. That is when they got a bad shock, Mma Makutsi. A bad, bad shock.”

  Mma Makutsi covered her face with her hands. “I do not want to hear the end of this story, Mma Ramotswe. I am too frightened.”

  “It was not the girl in there at all,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They had mixed up the coffins, and the girl had gone to another funeral altogether.”

  Mma Makutsi let out a scream. “Oh, Mma! That is terrible. They might have already buried the other one.”

  “Yes, they might have. But fortunately they did not.”

  Mma Makutsi let out a sigh of relief. “That is a very happy result,” she said. “Real life very seldom works out that way.”

  “Indeed,” said Mma Ramotswe. “If we believe that story. I am not sure …”

  But Mma Makutsi appeared not to have heard. “It must have been very sad for the people at that funeral—the one where the late person started knocking on the coffin. Their hopes must have been raised that the dear brother or sister inside was no longer late. And then, when they discovered that it was another person, they must have been very upset.”

  “I don’t think so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Apparently that other person was a very difficult person who had made everybody’s life a misery. When they heard the knocking they were all very sad, I’m told. Then, when they realised it was somebody else, they were very relieved.”

  Mma Makutsi laughed at this. It was difficult to imagine being glad over the loss of anybody; she would never rejoice in the demise of another, unless, of course … A list started to form in her mind. No. 1. Violet Sephotho. No. 2. Phuti’s No. 1 Aunty. No. 3 … Was there a No. 3? She could not think of anybody. More minor punishments would do for the rest. And she should not make such a list, she told herself; it was unworthy of her, and she should stop. What if something dreadful were to happen either to Violet or to the aunt? She would be racked with guilt, no doubt, feeling that she had caused the misfortune, in spite of the fact that she knew quite well that one could never be the cause of anything unless you actually did something. And just thinking about something could never be said to be doing anything.

  They needed to talk about something different, and so Mma Makutsi asked after the children. How was Puso doing at school, and was Motholeli still talking about becoming a mechanic?

  “He is doing well,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is not very good at writing but his arithmetic is good. His head is full of numbers, I think.”

  “That is very useful,” said Mma Makutsi. “He can be a bookkeeper or an accountant.”

  Mma Ramotswe smiled. It was difficult for her to imagine Puso grown up, and she saw for a moment an accountant in short trousers, a catapult sticking out of his pocket, and in his hand a jam sandwich of the sort that Puso loved to eat. But children changed, as adults did, and the image in her mind became one of a young man in a suit, with shiny shoes and a businesslike look to him. How everybody would have changed by then; how the country would have changed too.

  “And Motholeli?” prompted Mma Makutsi.

  “I think that she still wants to be a mechanic. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni talks to her about cars and she is always asking him about gearboxes and such things. There are not many girls who talk about engines, but she is one.”

  “That will also be a very good thing,” said Mma Makutsi. “It means that there will be a Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors even in twenty years’ time, when you and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are both late.”

  Mma Ramotswe did a quick calculation in her head. “I do not think that either of us need be late by then, Mma,” she said. “We are not that old.”

  Mma Makutsi looked doubtful. “Maybe not,” she admitted, rather reluctantly, thought Mma Ramotswe.

  MANY HOURS and many stories later they reached Maun. It was early evening, and they saw in the distance the first lights of the town in the gathering dusk. There was something deeply reassuring about the sight. It was not simply that they were reaching the end of their long journey; the lights were comforting signs of human settlement in a great emptiness. To the south, under a sky that, as the evening approached, became an expanse of red, were the Makadikadi salt pans, a landscape of improbable whiteness that went on for a hundred miles, forever, it seemed, if one stood on their edge, a tiny human. Mma Ramotswe shivered: to stand on the verge of something so great and so empty seemed to be in danger of being swallowed up; she often felt that when she was in the wild places of her country. It would be so easy to become lost, to disappear, to find yourself alone in a wide slice of Africa, reduced to what you really were, a small and vulnerable creature among many other creatures.

  The lights drew nearer. Now they were individual dwellings, dotted here and there amid the acacia scrub. A few had fires outside, small flickering points of orange seen through the trees. A truck, a figure, a set of headlights in the darkness; and then Maun itself, with its streets and lit windows, and its frontier air.

  Mma Makutsi looked out of her window. “So this is the place,” she said. “So this is it.”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We must find Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s cousin’s place now.”

  That, as it happened, was not easy. They took directions from a man they saw standing at the side of the street, near one of the hotels. He sent them off into the night in entirely the wrong direction, or so they were told by the next person from whom they obtained guidance. He was more reliable, and they eventually found the house half an hour after they had arrived in the town.

  The cousin himself, Mr. H.B.C. Matekoni, was away, but his wife was welcoming. They had young children, who solemnly welcomed the visitors and were then dispatched back to bed. A meal followed and family news was exchanged, with stories of distant cousins and their doings. Mma Makutsi was tired and went to bed in the room that she was to share with Mma Ramotswe. She lay there, on her narrow bed, listening to the low murmur of conversation in the room next door, relishing the novelty of her situation: she was on a business trip, in Maun; she had new boots that she had worn in the car and that were now at the foot of her bed; she could see the night sky outside, through a small window above her head. There were so many stars, in many cases with names, she believed. Did they have African names too, she wondered? It would be good if they did, she decided, if we named the ones over our own heads, because they were ours just as much as they were anybody’s. She felt drowsy, her thoughts wandering; night, stars, the moon … Had anyone claimed the moon yet? she asked herself. It would be wrong for anybody to claim the moon; it was everybody’s, but if it ever belonged to Botswana then it would be well looked after. We would soon have cattle there, she thought … and drifted off.

  When Mma Ramotswe came into the room, she found Mma Makutsi asleep, one arm hanging down fro
m her bed, her mouth slightly open, the blanket with which she had covered herself having largely slipped off her. Mma Ramotswe gazed at her assistant for a moment; Mma Makutsi looked different, she noticed, without her large glasses; her face had softened. But now it went further than that; it looked vulnerable, as we all may look in sleep. She reached forward and gently pulled the blanket back over the sleeping woman. Mma Makutsi stirred, but only slightly. Mma Ramotswe turned out her torch and placed it on the table beside her bed. There was enough light from the night sky outside—the light of the moon and stars—to make the torch unnecessary.

  She slipped into bed and closed her eyes. She was exhausted from the drive, but she did not drop off to sleep immediately. Her mind was on the next day and what it would bring—on the journey they would have to make to Eagle Island Camp. They would travel by boat, possibly by makoro, one of the traditional canoes that people still used to get about the Delta. They were cheap and easily manoeuvred: all that was required was the strength of the paddler and the local knowledge to navigate the confusing channels that fingered their way through the watery landscape around Maun. That knowledge was more than a matter of knowing where to go—an important part of navigating was being aware of who else might be using those channels at the same time. If it was another makoro, then all was well. If it was a hippo, though, it was a different matter altogether.

  She opened her eyes. Would the boatman be able to spot hippos easily enough? What if he missed one, as people sometimes did? There was only one outcome then—there could be no contest between an angry hippo and a frail canoe. The hippo won.

  She told herself to stop worrying. It would take a strong hippo to upset a canoe containing both her and Mma Makutsi. The weight of such a canoe would be considerable, and she wondered whether a hippo would have the strength or energy to upset it. No, they would be safe from hippos and … crocodiles. She opened her eyes again. She had heard recently of a terrible incident in which a crocodile had seized somebody from a boat. That was very unusual, but it had happened, and it had happened in Botswana, on the Limpopo River. She shuddered. If the crocodile seized Mma Makutsi, would she have the courage to jump in and rescue her? A crocodile would have difficulty in dealing with two substantial ladies at the same time, especially if they were both determined not to be eaten, and resisted, which she was confident would be the case. There was safety in numbers, perhaps. It was when we were alone that we were in the greatest danger—a rule that applied to so many occasions, she thought, not just to those on which we were confronted with hippopotamuses and crocodiles, and other things in—and out—of the water.