The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The young woman shrugged. “We know that woman. She is always bringing her children in here.”

  Mma Ramotswe waited for something further to be said, but the young woman simply shrugged again.

  “You should stop them, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Can’t prove anything,” said the young woman. “They never do it when we’re watching. They are very clever.”

  Mma Ramotswe stared at her in disbelief, but this merely elicited another shrug. And with that, the incident, it seemed, was closed. But she thought about it—both there, in the supermarket, as she did her own shopping, and afterwards, as she drove home in the white van. She thought of what her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, or even Seretse Khama himself would have said about this. They would have said: This is not what Botswana needs. And they were right, she felt, although she was relieved that, being late, they had been spared the sight of what she had witnessed.

  On this occasion there was no such shocking incident at the supermarket, but there was nonetheless a meeting. This was with Mma Potokwane, whom Mma Ramotswe encountered in the supermarket’s sauce and condiment section. Mma Potokwane was examining a jar of extra-strong pickle with the expression of one who is doubtful as to whether her palate will be able to bear the heat.

  “Ah, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “Do you know whether this sauce is as hot as the jar claims? The label has a picture of a man with fire coming out of his mouth. Look.”

  She handed her friend the jar for scrutiny. “I believe this is very hot,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But the picture is an exaggeration, I think. I do not think it will set you on fire.” For a moment she pictured Mma Potokwane with flames coming out of her mouth. She imagined herself reaching for a fire extinguisher and covering her friend in white foam, or pushing her down to the ground and covering her head with a fire blanket. It would be an undignified end to a meal.

  The jar of sauce found its way into Mma Potokwane’s trolley, and the conversation moved on from sauce to the possibility of a chat after they had both finished their shopping. An arrangement was made: they would meet in forty minutes at the café near the outside stairs. “There is something I need to talk about, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane. “It is quite a serious matter, I’m afraid.”

  Mma Ramotswe did not relish spending the next forty minutes worrying, and so she asked Mma Potokwane what it was about.

  “It is rather hard to explain,” said Mma Potokwane. “It is to do with Mma Makutsi. I shall tell you once we sit down and can chat.”

  To do with Mma Makutsi? This hardly helped, and by the time she found herself with Mma Potokwane at the Equatorial Café she was feeling thoroughly anxious. But even then, the conversation did not go straight to the subject of Mma Makutsi, but meandered gently in that direction, by way of a discussion of orphans, cake, and guilt, and one or two other subjects of equal importance.

  The subject of orphans was triggered by Mma Ramotswe’s enquiry as to whether any new children had arrived at the Orphan Farm.

  “There is a young boy,” said Mma Potokwane. “He has recently come in. It is very sad. He lost his parents in a mining accident up at Selebi-Phikwe.”

  “Both parents?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “The mother as well as the father? Did they both go down the mine together? At the same time, Mma?”

  Mma Potokwane waved the question aside. “There are many women who go down mines,” she said. “Women are always going down mines these days.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked dubious. “Are you sure, Mma?”

  Mma Potokwane was sure. “I could tell you some very sad stories,” she said. “But what is the point? The fact of the matter is that the poor child has no parents. That is what we have to deal with. It does not matter how the parents were lost.”

  “But it’s unusual for two parents to be lost in the same mining disaster, don’t you think?”

  “The Lord works in strange ways,” said Mma Potokwane, closing down the discussion. “That is all I have to say on the subject.”

  They had moved on to cake, having ordered a slice each to eat with their tea. Mma Potokwane had told the waitress that she wanted a large piece, and she was sure that Mma Ramotswe felt the same. “None of your thin slices,” she warned. “I have seen you serve some very thin slices here. We do not want any of those, if you please.”

  Mma Ramotswe had nodded her agreement. “I see no reason why we should not have a large slice,” she said. “Or even two. I do not feel guilty about eating cake any more. I used to, but no longer.”

  “You are very wise,” said Mma Potokwane. “How did you do it, Mma? Did you stop thinking about the things that made you feel guilty?”

  Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “I read an article in a magazine. I was at the dentist and there was a magazine for the patients to read. I read an article under a headline that said: Why you shouldn’t feel guilty any more. I started to read it but then the dentist called me in and I had to leave it in the waiting room.”

  “It’s always very annoying when that happens,” said Mma Potokwane. “Sometimes I’m listening to something on the radio—something interesting—and one of the housemothers calls me for one emergency or another. It is always the same—you miss the ending.”

  Mma Ramotswe was silent. “I have a confession to make, Mma.”

  Mma Potokwane raised an eyebrow. Had Mma Ramotswe been eating too much cake? Was that weighing on her? Cake can weigh on people … She smiled at the thought: it certainly could, and it weighed heavily on her, perhaps, as on other traditionally built people.

  “After the dentist had finished,” Mma Ramotswe went on, “I went back into the waiting room … and took the magazine.” She paused. “It was very old, and I was just going to borrow it.”

  Is that all? thought Mma Potokwane. If that was all that troubled Mma Ramotswe, then hers must be an unburdened conscience indeed; although small things could always exert an undue influence on those whose lives were otherwise largely spotless. She had known a man, a cousin of her husband, who had been tormented by an ancient act of minor dishonesty and had dwelt on what he had done until he had made himself sick with guilt and worry. And it was such a small thing: a matter of a neighbour’s chicken that had wandered into his hen-coop and, rather than being sent back, had been allowed to stay. That was all, and yet he had dwelt on the incident for years and the neighbour could not understand why he kept being given chickens as a present on every conceivable occasion—Christmas, Botswana Day, Seretse Khama’s birthday, and so on. “What have I done to deserve such a kind neighbour?” the recipient of this continued largesse had asked—a question that only made it worse for the donor, who thought: If only he knew that I am not kind—I am a stealer of chickens. Eventually he had confessed his torment to Mma Potokwane’s husband, who had simply laughed and told him to forget the whole matter as he had more than made up for his wrongdoing. Rra Potokwane told the neighbour, in fact, who went round to see the cousin and told him that he should give the matter no further thought, as he himself had done exactly the same thing with one of his chickens that had wandered across the boundary between their properties. And this, it seemed, had been the absolution that the cousin had wanted all along, and he was released from self-reproach, although he distrusted his neighbour thereafter on the grounds that he seemed so unmoved by his own wrongdoing. If he could so easily overlook something like that, what else could he overlook?

  “People are always taking magazines from waiting rooms,” said Mma Potokwane. “Dentists don’t mind about it—they know that it happens all the time.”

  “I intended to take it back.”

  Mma Potokwane was sure that Mma Ramotswe had done exactly that, but no, it appeared that she had not. “I lost it,” she said. “I read the article about guilt and it made me feel so guilty that I decided to take the magazine back the next day. But then I lost it, Mma. I don’t know what happened to it.”

  Mma Potokwane laughed. “I thought it told you not to feel guilty.”

&nbs
p; “But I did.”

  “So what happened next?” asked Mma Potokwane.

  “I bought a new magazine and took it to the waiting room. I told the receptionist that I had bought a present for the waiting room. It was so that other people could enjoy the magazine while they waited to have their teeth looked at. I said that it would take their minds off what lay ahead.”

  Mma Potokwane thought that this would have been a great comfort for those facing the dentist’s drill. Mma Ramotswe, though, had more to tell.

  “The receptionist laughed,” she continued. “She said: you must be another of those people who take our magazines and then regret it.”

  “Oh,” said Mma Potokwane. Then she added, “That lady is not very sympathetic, Mma. That was not a kind thing to say to somebody who had stolen a … borrowed a magazine and then felt bad about it.”

  With orphans, cake, and guilt all disposed of, it was time for Mma Potokwane to broach the subject of Mma Makutsi. “Mma Makutsi,” she said simply, “has, I believe, some café or other.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “She is very proud of it,” she said. “We went there for a meal the other day. She has a chef—”

  Mma Potokwane interrupted her. “A chef called Disang.”

  Mma Ramotswe was cautious. “I think he’s called Thomas.”

  “Yes, Thomas Disang.”

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at her cup. She feared where this was going. “Isn’t Mma Makutsi’s lawyer called Disang?”

  “Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “That is his name. But it’s also the name of the chef. And of the waiter. And the waitress, for that matter.”

  A fresh pot of tea arrived, and Mma Potokwane raised her cup to take a deep draught. She was a quick drinker of tea, and always managed two or three cups to Mma Ramotswe’s one. “Yes. They are all Disangs—and they are all relatives of that lawyer of hers.”

  “It is a common name,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There are hundreds of Disangs.”

  “It is certainly a common name,” agreed Mma Potokwane. “But I can tell you this, Mma—those Disangs in that restaurant are all one family. The chef is the lawyer’s brother. The waiter is the chef’s son, and the waitress is the son’s wife.”

  Mma Ramotswe reflected on this. It was not uncommon for people to look after their relatives—it was a very African thing. If your cousin was in need, for instance, why not help him? Surely it was wrong, according to the old traditions, to let somebody close to you suffer need. Yes, but … and that but was a very big one. That desire to help was one of the roots of the vine of corruption that had smothered so much of Africa.

  “Does Mma Makutsi know all this?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Potokwane shook her head. “I do not think she knows. And there is another thing she doesn’t know: that Disang man cannot cook.”

  Mma Ramotswe remembered their dinner. “But he can cook, Mma. He’s very good. He cooked for us the other night.”

  Mma Potokwane shook her head slowly. “He did not cook, Mma. That meal was cooked by somebody else.”

  “But he was there in the kitchen,” protested Mma Ramotswe. “They served it to us directly from the kitchen. He was there. I saw him.”

  Mma Potokwane poured herself another cup of tea. “It was cooked by one of my housemothers,” she said. “She told me.”

  Mma Ramotswe stared at her friend. She remembered what Fanwell had said about seeing a woman in the kitchen. She groaned inwardly. “You may as well tell me everything, Mma,” she said.

  Mma Potokwane put down her cup. “She mentioned it to me casually,” she said. “She wasn’t trying to hide anything. I had gone to inspect her kitchen and had complimented her on her cooking. Then she said that she had recently cooked a meal for some people in a restaurant. She is the aunt of that chef. She said that she was very surprised that he had found a job in a restaurant as he is one of the worst cooks she knows. She also said that he is a good-for-nothing who never sticks at any job.”

  “Oh,” said Mma Ramotswe. It was all she could think of to say.

  “So I’m afraid those Disangs are taking advantage of Mma Makutsi,” continued Mma Potokwane. “It will end in disaster, I’m afraid.”

  Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I’m afraid it will too.”

  “And it gets worse,” said Mma Potokwane.

  “How can it get worse, Mma?”

  Mma Potokwane refilled her teacup. “That waiter—the chef’s son—he’s even more hopeless than his father. Apparently he spilled a whole plate of stew over one of the customers yesterday. I heard about it from our infant teacher, who was there. She said there was a terrific row and the waiter stormed off without apologising. The poor customer was covered in stew and had to clean himself up as best he could.”

  “That is not good,” sighed Mma Ramotswe.

  “And it gets even worse than that,” said Mma Potokwane. “Did you see the Botswana Daily News? They had something on the front page. It said: Read our restaurant reviewer’s assessment of a new café—in tomorrow’s Daily News.”

  Mma Ramotswe tried to be positive. “That can help sometimes,” she said. “Often these places really want a review. It can be an advertisement.”

  “Except for one thing,” said Mma Potokwane. “Do you know who has recently become their restaurant reviewer?” She did not wait for an answer. “She signs her reviews with her initials: VS.”

  “VS?”

  Mma Potokwane let her friend work it out for herself. A louder sigh came, and that sigh was more of a groan. “Violet Sephotho?” ventured Mma Ramotswe.

  Mma Potokwane nodded. “I’m afraid so,” she said.

  “Oh my goodness,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is very bad.” She paused. “What does that woman know about restaurants?”

  “Nothing,” said Mma Potokwane. “But then many people who write about things know nothing. As you yourself might say, Mma Ramotswe—that is well known. How does Violet get any of her jobs, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe knew the answer but did not want to spell it out. The two women looked at one another—they understood.

  “She must know a journalist,” said Mma Potokwane. “She must know one of those journalists very well.”

  Nothing more needed to be said. Violet Sephotho, sworn enemy of Mma Makutsi and graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College with barely fifty per cent in the final examinations, was incorrigible. There was no low to which she would not stoop in pursuit of her ambitions, which were money and men, in either order. The two goals, in fact, were intertwined: men brought money, or if they did not, they were not the sort of men in whom Violet was interested.

  Mma Ramotswe stared out of the window of the Equatorial Café as this new piece of information sank in. Gaborone, although a city, was really a small town, as most cities were. Everybody read the Botswana Daily News and bad publicity in that quarter would kill Mma Makutsi’s restaurant stone dead. People believed what they read—for the most part—and few, if any, of them would know that the initials VS stood for Violet Sephotho. And even if they did, not everybody knew about Violet’s track record and would assume that a restaurant review would be written by somebody who had all the necessary experience and judgement to write such a thing. VS … that could stand for Very Suspect, thought Mma Ramotswe, or perhaps Very Spiteful.

  Mma Potokwane shook her head sorrowfully. “She will be writing something very bad, I think.”

  Mma Ramotswe was deep in thought. There had been no indication from Mma Makutsi that things were going wrong, although now that she came to think about it she had seemed a bit subdued over the last day or two since the restaurant opened. She was not sure how hands-on Mma Makutsi was planning to be with her restaurant—she had many other things in her life, after all. It was possible that she was intending to leave the whole thing to Mr. Disang, and if that were the case, she might not have heard of these disturbing incidents and might be assuming that everything was going well. That was unlikely, though: What was the point of having a restaurant if you we
re not going to take a reasonably active interest in it? It was not as if Mma Makutsi needed a business purely to make money; since her marriage to Phuti she had been in the fortunate position of not having to worry much about money—the Double Comfort Furniture Store was doing well, by all accounts, and then there were all those Radiphuti cattle. No, the restaurant had not come into existence simply to make money.

  She turned her gaze away from the window and back to Mma Potokwane. “This is a big disaster, Mma,” she said.

  Mma Potokwane nodded gravely. “It is not at all good. In fact, it is bad, Mma. It is very bad all round.”

  More tea was poured. They were both thinking the same thing: How would Mma Makutsi be told? It was not Mma Potokwane’s responsibility—Mma Makutsi was Mma Ramotswe’s friend and colleague—but when you were a matron the problems of others tended to be your problem too. Mma Ramotswe knew that she would have to raise the subject with Mma Makutsi, but she was not looking forward to witnessing the distress that her friend would feel when she found out. The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café was not only a café—it represented more than that in Mma Makutsi’s mind: it was her own business, her own creation, the emblem of everything she had accomplished. It was about having achieved ninety-seven per cent; having struggled against all the odds; having acted on her initiative. Mma Ramotswe closed her eyes and sighed. She would find a time to speak to Mma Makutsi, but that time had not yet arrived.

  Mma Potokwane, full of sympathy for this difficult situation, took it upon herself to move the discussion on.

  “It’s one of your cases that’s worrying you, isn’t it?” the matron said.

  “It is, Mma.”

  Mma Potokwane reached out and patted Mma Ramotswe’s arm. “Friends can always tell.”