The Full Cupboard of Life

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “No, Mma. That’s all: no.”

  “No what?”

  “No. I’m not doing it.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “By no, I mean no. That’s what I mean. No.”

  “No? Oh.”

  That, at least, was the theory. When it came actually to speaking, it might be considerably more difficult than that. But at least he had an idea of what he might say and the tone he would adopt.

  MR J.L.B. MATEKONI, trying—and largely succeeding—not to think of parachutes or aeroplanes, or even the sky, started the short journey from his house to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. It was a journey that he had made so often that he knew every bump in the road, every gateway past which he drove, and, extraordinarily, the people whom he would often see standing at much the same place as they always stood. People like their places, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni reflected. There was that rather ragged man who used to walk about the end of Maratadiba Road, looking as if he had lost something. He was the father, he believed, of the maid who worked in one of the houses there and she had given him the spare room in her quarters. That was the right thing for a daughter to do, of course, but if Mr J.L.B. Matekoni were that man, or the daughter for that matter, he would think that the best place for a father who was slightly confused would be back in the village, or even out at the lands or at a cattle post. In the village he would be able to stand in one spot and watch everything happen without his moving about. He could watch cattle, which was very important for older people, and a good hobby for older men. There was a great deal to be learned just by watching cattle and noting their different colours. That would have kept that man busy.

  And then, just round the corner, on Boteli Road, on Fridays and Saturdays one might see a very interesting car parked under the shade of a thorn tree. The car belonged to the brother of a man who lived in one of the houses on Boteli Road. He was a butcher from Lobatse, who came up to Gaborone for the week-ends, which started, for him, on Friday morning. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had seen his butchery store down in Lobatse. It was large and modern, with a picture of a cow painted on the side. In addition, this man owned a plastering business, and so Mr J.L.B. Matekoni imagined that he was a fairly wealthy man, at least by the standards of Lobatse, if not the standards of Gaborone. But it was not his prosperity which singled him out in the eyes of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; it was the fact that he had such a fine car and had clearly taken such good care of it.

  This car was a Rover 90, made in 1955, and therefore very old. It was painted blue, and on the front there was a silver badge showing a boat with a high prow. The first time he had driven past it, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had stopped to examine it and had noted the fine red leather seats and the gleaming silver of the gear lever. These external matters had not impressed him; it was the knowledge of what lay within: the knowledge of the 2.6-litre engine with its manual transmission and its famous free wheel option. That was something one would not see these days, and indeed Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had once brought his apprentices to look at the car, from the outside, so that they could get some sense of fine engineering. He knew of course that there was very little chance of that, but he tried anyway. The apprentices had whistled, and the older one, Charlie, had said, “That is a very fine car, Rra! Ow!” But no sooner had Mr J.L.B. Matekoni turned his back for a moment than that very same apprentice had leant forward to admire himself in the car’s wing mirror.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had realised then that it was hopeless. Between these young men and himself there was a gulf that simply could not be crossed. The apprentice had recognised that it was a fine car, but had he really understood what it was that made it fine? He doubted that. They were impressed with the spoilers and flashy aluminium wheels that car manufacturers added these days; things which meant nothing, just nothing, to a real mechanic like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. These were the externals, the outside trim designed, as often as not, to impress those who had no knowledge of cars. For the real mechanic, mechanical beauty lay in the accuracy and intricacy of the thousand moving pieces within the breast of the car: the rods, the cogs, the pistons. These were the things that mattered, not the inanimate parts that did nothing but reflect the sun.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni slowed down and gazed at the fine car under the thorn tree. As he did so, he noticed, to his alarm, that there was something under the car—something that a casual observer might not notice but which he would never miss. Drawing up at the side of the road, he switched off the engine of his truck and got out of the cab. Then, walking over to the blue Rover, he went down on his hands and knees and peered at the dark underbelly of the car. Yes, it was as he thought; and now he went down on his stomach and crawled under the car to get a better view. It took him only a moment to realise what was wrong, of course, but the sight made him draw in his breath sharply. A pool of oil had leaked out onto the ground below the car and had stained the sand black.

  “What are you doing, Rra?”

  The sound surprised Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, but he knew better than to lift his head up sharply; that was the sort of thing that the apprentices kept doing. They often bumped their heads on the bottom of cars when the telephone rang or when something else disturbed them. It was a normal human reaction to look up when disturbed, but a mechanic learned quickly to control it. Or a mechanic should learn that quickly; the apprentices had not done so, and he suspected that they never would. Mma Makutsi knew this, of course, and she had once rather mischievously called out Charlie’s name when he was underneath a car. “Charlie,” she had cried, and there had followed a dull thump as the unfortunate young man had sat up and hit his head on the sump of the car. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had not really approved of this little joke, but he had found it difficult not to smile when he caught her eye. “I was just checking up that you were all right,” shouted Mma Makutsi. “Be careful of your head down there. That brain needs to be looked after, you know.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni wriggled his way out from under the car and stood up, dusting his trousers as he did so. As he had thought, it was the butcher himself, a corpulent man with a thick neck, like the neck of a bull. It was obvious to anyone, from the very first glance, that this was a wealthy man, even if they did not know about the butchery and the plastering business, nor indeed about this wonderful car with its silver badge.

  “I was looking at your car, Rra,” he said. “I was underneath it.”

  “So I see,” said the butcher. “I saw your legs sticking out. When I saw that, I knew that there was somebody under my car.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “You must be wondering what I was doing, Rra.”

  The butcher nodded. “You are right. That is what I was wondering.”

  “You see, I am a mechanic,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have always thought very highly of this car. It is a very good car.”

  The butcher seemed to relax. “Oh, I see, Rra. You are one who understands old cars like this. I am happy for you to go back under and look.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni acknowledged the generosity of the offer. He would go back under the car, but it would be more than out of mere curiosity. If he went back, it would be on a mission of repair. He would have to tell the butcher of what he had seen.

  “There is oil, Rra,” he began. “Your car is leaking oil.”

  The butcher lifted up a hand in a gesture of tiredness. There was always oil. It was a risk with old cars. Oil; the smell of burning rubber; mysterious rattles: old cars were like the bush at night—there were always strange sounds and smells. He kept taking the car back to the garage and getting them to fix this problem and that problem, and yet these problems always recurred. And now here was another mechanic—one he did not even know—who was talking about oil leaks.

  “I have had trouble with oil,” he said. “There are always oil leaks and I always have to put more oil in the front. Every time I make the journey up from Lobatse, I have to put in more oil.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni grimaced. “That is bad, Rra. But you should not have to do it. If the
person who serviced this car made sure that the rubber seal on the rod that holds the oil cylinder was in its proper place, then this sort of thing would not happen.” He paused. “I could fix this for you. I could do it in ten minutes.”

  The butcher looked at him. “I cannot bring the car in to your garage now,” he said. “I have to talk to my brother about our sister’s boy. He is a difficult boy, that one, and we have to work something out. And anyway, I cannot be paying all sorts of mechanics to look at this car. I have already paid a lot of money to the garage.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his shoes. “I would not have charged you, Rra. That is not why I offered.”

  For a few moments there was silence. The butcher looked at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and knew, immediately, what sort of man he was dealing with. And he knew, too, that his assumption that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would want payment was a gross misreading of the situation; for there were people in Botswana who still believed in the old Botswana ways and who were prepared to do things for others just to help them and not in prospect of some reward. This man, whom he had found lying underneath his car, was such a man. And yet he had paid such a great deal of money to those mechanics and they had assured him that all was in order. And the car, after all, worked reasonably well, even if there was a small problem with oil.

  The butcher frowned, slipping a hand inside his collar and tugging at it, as if to loosen the material. “I do not think there can be anything wrong with my car,” he said. “I think that you must be wrong, Rra.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. Without saying anything, he pointed to the edge of the dark oil stain, just discernible beneath the body of the car. The butcher’s gaze followed his hand, and he shook his head vigorously. “It is impossible,” he said. “I take this car to a good garage. I pay a great deal of money to have it looked after. They are always tinkering with the engine.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni raised an eyebrow. “Always tinkering? Who are these people?” he asked.

  The butcher gave the name of the garage, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni knew immediately. He had spent years trying to improve the image of the motor trade, but whatever he, and others like him, did they would always be thwarted by the activities of people like the butcher’s mechanics; if indeed they were mechanics at all—Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had strong doubts about the qualifications of some of them.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow.

  ‘If you would let me look at the engine, Rra,” he said. “I could very quickly check your oil level. Then we would know whether it was safe for you to drive off to have more oil put in.”

  The butcher hesitated for a moment. There was something humiliating about being called to account in this way, and yet it would be churlish to reject an offer of help. This man was obviously sincere, and seemed to know what he was talking about; so he reached into his pocket for the car keys, opened the driver’s door, and set about pulling the silver-topped lever that would release the catch on the engine cover.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stood back respectfully. The revealing of an engine of this nature—an engine which was older than the Republic of Botswana itself—was a special moment, and he did not want to show unseemly curiosity as the beautiful piece of engineering was exposed to view. So he stood where he was and only leaned forward slightly once he could see the engine; and quickly drew in his breath, and was silent—not in admiration, as he had expected, but in shock. For this was not the engine of a 1955 Rover 90, lovingly preserved; he saw, instead, an engine which had been cobbled together with all manner of parts. A flimsy carburettor, of recent vintage and crude construction; a modern oil filter, adapted and tacked onto the only original part that he could make out—the great, solid engine block that had been put into the car at its birth all those years ago. That at least was intact, but what mechanical company it had been obliged to keep!

  The butcher looked at him expectantly. “Well, Rra?”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni found it hard to reply. There were times when, as a mechanic, one had to give bad news. It was never easy, and one often wished that there were some way round the brute truth. But there were occasions when just nothing could be done, and he feared that this was one of them. “I’m sorry, Rra,” he began. “This is very sad. A terrible thing has been done to this car. The engine parts …” He could not go on. What had been done was an act of such mechanical vandalism that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni could not find the words to express the feelings within him. So he turned away and shook his head, as might one who had seen some great work of art destroyed before his eyes, cast low by the basest Philistines.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MR MOPEDI BOBOLOGO

  MMA HOLONGA sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. From the other side of the desk, Mma Ramotswe watched her client. She had observed that some people found it easier to tell a story if they shut their eyes, or if they looked down, or focused on something in the distance—something that was there but not there. It did not matter to her; the important thing was that clients should feel comfortable and that they should be able to talk without embarrassment. It might not be easy for Mma Holonga to talk about this, as these were intimate matters of the heart, and if closing her eyes would help, then Mma Ramotswe thought that a good idea. One of her clients, ashamed of what he had to say, had talked from behind cupped hands; that had been difficult, as what he had said had been far from clear. At least Mma Holonga, addressing her from her private darkness, could be understood perfectly well.

  “I’ll start with the man I like best,” she said. “Or at least I think he is the one I like the best.”

  Then why not marry him? thought Mma Ramotswe. If you liked a man, then surely you could trust your judgment? But no, there were men who were likeable—charming in fact—but who were dangerous to women: Note Makoti, thought Mma Ramotswe. Her own first husband, Note Makoti, was immensely attractive to women, and only later would they discover what sort of man he really was. So Mma Holonga was right: the man you liked might not be the right man.

  “Tell me about this man,” said Mma Ramotswe. “What does he do?”

  Mma Holonga smiled. “He is a teacher.”

  Mma Ramotswe noted this information on a piece of paper. First man, she wrote. Teacher. It was important information, because everybody in Botswana had their place, and one simple word could describe a world. Teachers were respected in Botswana, even if so many attitudes were changing. In the past, of course, it had been an even more important thing to be a schoolteacher, and the moral authority of the teacher was recognised by all. Today, more people had studied for diplomas and certificates and these people considered themselves to be every bit as good as teachers. But often they were not, because teachers had wisdom, while many of these people with paper qualifications had not. The wisest man Mma Ramotswe had ever known—her own father, Obed Ramotswe, had no Cambridge Certificate, not even his Standard Six, but that had made no difference. He had wisdom, and that counted for very much more.

  She looked out of the window while Mma Holonga began to explain who the teacher was. She tried to concentrate, but the thought of her father had taken her back to Mochudi, and to the memories that the village had for her; of afternoons in the hot season when nothing happened but the heat and when it seemed that nothing could ever have happened; when there was time to sit in front of one’s house in the evening and watch the birds flying back to the trees and the sky to the West fill with swathes of red as the sun went down over the Kalahari; when it seemed that you would be fifteen years old for ever and would always be here in Mochudi. And you were not to know then what the world would bring; that the life you imagined for yourself elsewhere might not be as good as the life you already had. Not that this was the case with Mma Ramotswe’s life, which had on the whole been a happy one; but for many it was true—those quiet days in their village would prove to be the best time for them.

  Mma Ramotswe’s thoughts were interrupted by Mma Holonga. “A teacher, Mma,” the
other woman said. “I said that he was a teacher.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I was dreaming there for a moment. A teacher. Yes, Mma, that is a good job to have, in spite of the cheekiness of young people these days. It is still a good thing to be a teacher.”

  Mma Holonga nodded, acknowledging the truth of this observation. “His name is Bobologo,” she went on. “Mopedi Bobologo. He is a teacher at the school over there near the University gate. You know that one.”

  “I have driven past it many times,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who is the man who runs this garage behind us; he has a house nearby and he says that he can hear the children singing sometimes if the wind is coming from that school.”

  Mma Holonga listened to this, but was not interested. She did not know Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and could not picture him, as Mma Ramotswe now did, standing on his verandah, listening to the singing of the children.

  “This man is called Mr Mopedi Bobologo, although he is not like the famous Bobologo. This one is tall and thin, because he comes from the North, and they are often tall up there. Like the trees. They are just like the trees up in the North.

  “He is a very clever man, this Bobologo. He knows everything about everything. He has read many books, and can tell you what is in all of them. This books says that. This book says this. He knows the contents of many books.”

  “Oh,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There are many, many books. And all the time, more books are coming. It is difficult to read them all.”

  “It is impossible to read them all,” said Mma Holonga. “Even those very clever people at the University of Botswana—people like Professor Tlou—they have not read everything.”

  “It must be sad for them,” observed Mma Ramotswe reflectively. “If it is your job to read books and you can never get to the end of them. You think that you have read all the books and suddenly you see that there are some new ones that have arrived. Then what do you do? You have to start over again.”