(2/15) Tears of the Giraffe

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “You should leave her and marry me,” she said. “I am not one to shout at a man. I would make a good wife for a man like you.”

  Her suggestion had been serious, but he had treated it as a joke, and had cuffed her playfully.

  “You would be just as bad,” he said. “Once women are married to men, they start to complain. It is a well-known fact. Ask any married man.”

  So their relationship remained casual, but, after her risky and rather frightening interview with the police—an interview in which his alibi was probed for over three hours—she felt that there was an obligation which one day could be called in.

  “Philemon,” she said to him, lying beside him on Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s bed one hot afternoon. “I want you to get me a gun.”

  He laughed, but became serious when he turned over and saw her expression.

  “What are you planning to do? Shoot Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? Next time he comes into the kitchen and complains about the food, you shoot him? Hah!”

  “No. I am not planning to shoot anybody. I want the gun to put in somebody’s house. Then I will tell the police that there is a gun there and they will come and find it.”

  “And so I don’t get my gun back?”

  “No. The police will take it. But they will also take the person whose house it was in. What happens if you are found with an illegal gun?”

  Philemon lit a cigarette and puffed the air straight up towards Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s ceiling.

  “They don’t like illegal weapons here. You get caught with an illegal gun and you go to prison. That’s it. No hanging about. They don’t want this place to become like Johannesburg.”

  Florence smiled. “I am glad that they are so strict about guns. That is what I want.”

  Philemon extracted a fragment of tobacco from the space between his two front teeth. “So,” he said. “How do I pay for this gun? Five hundred pula. Minimum. Somebody has to bring it over from Johannesburg. You can’t pick them up here so easily.”

  “I have not got five hundred pula,” she said. “Why not steal the gun? You’ve got contacts. Get one of your boys to do it.” She paused before continuing. “Remember that I helped you. That was not easy for me.”

  He studied her carefully. “You really want this?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s really important to me.”

  He stubbed his cigarette out and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll get you a gun. But remember that if anything goes wrong, you didn’t get the gun from me.”

  “I shall say I found it,” said Florence. “I shall say that it was lying in the bush over near the prison. Maybe it was something to do with the prisoners.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” said Philemon. “When do you want it?”

  “As soon as you can get it,” she replied.

  “I can get you one tonight,” he said. “As it happens, I have a spare one. You can have that.”

  She sat up and touched the back of his neck gently. “You are a very kind man. You can come and see me anytime, you know. Anytime. I am always happy to see you and make you happy.”

  “You are a very fine girl,” he said, laughing. “Very bad. Very wicked. Very clever.”

  HE DELIVERED the gun, as he had promised, wrapped in a wax-proof parcel, which he put at the bottom of a voluminous OK Bazaars plastic bag, underneath a cluster of old copies of Ebony magazine. She unwrapped it in his presence and he started to explain how the safety catch operated, but she cut him short.

  “I’m not interested in that,” she said. “All I’m interested in is this gun, and these bullets.”

  He had handed her, separately, nine rounds of stubby, heavy ammunition. The bullets shone, as if each had been polished for its task, and she found herself attracted to their feel. They would make a fine necklace, she thought, if drilled through the base and threaded through with nylon string or perhaps a silver chain.

  Philemon showed her how to load bullets into the magazine and how to wipe the gun afterwards, to remove fingerprints. Then he gave her a brief caress, planted a kiss on her cheek, and left. The smell of his hair oil, an exotic rum-like smell, lingered in the air, as it always did when he visited her, and she felt a stab of regret for their languid afternoon and its pleasures. If she went to his house and shot his wife, would he marry her? Would he see her as his liberator, or the slayer of the mother of his children? It was difficult to tell.

  Besides, she could never shoot anybody. She was a Christian, and she did not believe in killing people. She thought of herself as a good person, who was simply forced, by circumstances, to do things that good people did not do—or which they claimed they did not do. She knew better, of course. Everybody cut some corners, and if she was proposing to deal with Mma Ramotswe in this unconventional way, it was only because it was necessary to use such measures against somebody who was so patently a threat to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. How could he defend himself against a woman as determined as that? It was clear that strong steps had to be taken, and a few years in prison would teach that woman to be more respectful of the rights of others. That interfering detective woman was the author of her own misfortune; she only had herself to blame.

  NOW, THOUGHT Florence, I have obtained a gun. This gun must now be put into the place that I have planned for it, which is a certain house in Zebra Drive.

  To do this, another favour had to be called in. A man known to her simply as Paul, a man who came to her for conversation and affection, had borrowed money from her two years previously. It was not a large sum, but he had never paid it back. He might have forgotten about it, but she had not, and now he would be reminded. And if he proved difficult, he, too, had a wife who did not know about the social visits that her husband paid to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s house. A threat to reveal these might encourage compliance.

  It was money, though, that had secured agreement. She mentioned the loan, and he stuttered out his inability to pay.

  “Every pula I have has to be accounted for,” he said. “We have to pay the hospital for one of the children. He keeps getting ill. I cannot spare any money. I will pay you back one day.”

  She nodded her understanding. “It will be easy to forget,” she said. “I shall forget this money if you do something for me.”

  He had stared at her suspiciously. “You go to an empty house—nobody will be there. You break a window in the kitchen and you get in.”

  “I am not a thief,” he interrupted. “I do not steal.”

  “But I am not asking you to steal,” she said. “What kind of thief goes into a house and puts something into it? That is not a thief!”

  She explained that she wanted a parcel left in a cupboard somewhere, tucked away where it could not be found.

  “I want to keep something safe,” she said. “This thing will be safe there.”

  He had cavilled at the idea, but she mentioned the loan again, and he capitulated. He would go the following afternoon, at a time when everybody was at work. She had done her homework: there would not even be a maid at the house, and there was no dog.

  “It couldn’t be easier,” she promised him. “You will get it done in fifteen minutes. In. Out.”

  She handed him the parcel. The gun had been replaced in its wax-proof paper and this had been itself wrapped in a further layer of plain brown paper. The wrapping disguised the nature of the contents, but the parcel was still weighty and he was suspicious.

  “Don’t ask,” she said. “Don’t ask and then you won’t know.”

  It’s a gun, he thought. She wants me to plant a gun in that house in Zebra Drive.

  “I don’t want to carry this thing about with me,” he said. “It is very dangerous. I know that it’s a gun and I know what happens to you if the police find you with a gun. I do not want to go to jail. I will fetch it from you at the Matekoni house tomorrow.”

  She thought for a moment. She could take the gun with her to work, tucked away in a plastic bag. If he wish
ed to fetch it from her from there, then she had no objection. The important thing was to get it into the Ramotswe house and then, two days later, to make that telephone call to the police.

  “All right,” she said. “I will put it back in its bag and take it with me. You come at 2:30. He will have gone back to his garage by then.”

  He watched her replace the parcel in the OK Bazaars bag in which it had first arrived.

  “Now,” she said. “You have been a good man and I want to make you happy.”

  He shook his head. “I am too nervous to be happy. Maybe some other time.”

  THE FOLLOWING afternoon, shortly after two o’clock, Paul Monsopati, a senior clerk at the Gaborone Sun Hotel, and a man marked by the hotel management for further promotion, slipped into the office of one of the hotel secretaries and asked her to leave the room for a few minutes.

  “I have an important telephone call to make,” he said. “It is a private matter. To do with a funeral.”

  The secretary nodded, and left the room. People were always dying and funerals, which were eagerly attended by every distant relative who was able to do so, and by almost every casual acquaintance, required a great deal of planning.

  Paul picked up the telephone receiver and dialled a number which he had written out on a piece of paper.

  “I wish to speak to an Inspector,” he said. “Not a sergeant. I want an Inspector.”

  “Who are you, Rra?”

  “That is not important. You get me an Inspector, or you will be in trouble.”

  Nothing was said, and, after a few minutes, a new voice came on the line.

  “Now listen to me, please, Rra,” said Paul. “I cannot speak for long. I am a loyal citizen of Botswana. I am against crime.”

  “Good,” said the Inspector. “That is what we like to hear.”

  “Well,” said Paul. “If you go to a certain house you will find that there is a lady there who has an illegal firearm. She is one who sells these weapons. It will be in a white OK Bazaars bag. You will catch her if you go right now. She is the one, not the man who lives in that house. It is in her bag, and she will have it with her in the kitchen. That is all I have to say.”

  He gave the address of the house and then rang off. At the other end of the line, the Inspector smiled with satisfaction. This would be an easy arrest, and he would be congratulated for doing something about illegal weapons. One might complain about the public and about their lack of a sense of duty, but every so often something like this happened and a conscientious citizen restored one’s faith in ordinary members of the public. There should be awards for these people. Awards and a cash prize. Five hundred pula at least.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  FAMILY

  MR J.L.B. Matekoni was aware of the fact that he was standing directly under the branch of an acacia tree. He looked up, and saw for a moment, in utter clarity, the details of the leaves against the emptiness of the sky. Drawn in upon themselves for the midday heat, the leaves were like tiny hands clasped in prayer; a bird, a common butcher bird, scruffy and undistinguished, was perched farther up the branch, claws clasped tight, black eyes darting. It was the sheer enormity of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s plight that made this perception so vivid; as a condemned man might peep out of his cell on his last morning and see the familiar, fading world.

  He looked down, and saw that Mma Ramotswe was still there, standing some ten feet away, her expression one of bemused puzzlement. She knew that he worked for the orphan farm, and she was aware of Mma Silvia Potokwane’s persuasive ways. She would be imagining, he thought, that here was Mr J.L.B. Matekoni taking two of the orphans out for the day and arranging for them to have their photographs taken. She would not be imagining that here was Mr J.L.B. Matekoni with his two new foster children, soon to be her foster children too.

  Mma Ramotswe broke the silence. “What are you doing?” she said simply. It was an entirely reasonable question—the sort of question that any friend or indeed fiancée may ask of another. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at the children. The girl had placed her photograph in a plastic carrier bag that was attached to the side of her wheelchair; the boy was clutching his photograph to his chest, as if Mma Ramotswe might wish to take it from him.

  “These are two children from the orphan farm,” stuttered Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “This one is the girl and this one is the boy.”

  Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Well!” she said. “So that is it. That is very helpful.”

  The girl smiled and greeted Mma Ramotswe politely.

  “I am called Motholeli,” she said. “My brother is called Puso. These are the names that we have been given at the orphan farm.”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I hope that they are looking after you well, there. Mma Potokwane is a kind lady.”

  “She is kind,” said the girl. “Very kind.”

  She looked as if she was about to say something else, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni broke in rapidly.

  “I have had the children’s photographs taken,” he explained, and turning to the girl, he said: “Show them to Mma Ramotswe, Motholeli.”

  The girl propelled her chair forward and passed the photograph to Mma Ramotswe, who admired it.

  “That is a very nice photograph to have,” she said. “I have only one or two photographs of myself when I was your age. If ever I am feeling old, I go and take a look at them and I think that maybe I am not so old after all.”

  “You are still young,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “We are not old these days until we are seventy—maybe more. It has all changed.”

  “That’s what we like to think,” chuckled Mma Ramotswe, passing the photograph back to the girl. “Is Mr J.L.B. Matekoni taking you back now, or are you going to eat in town?”

  “We have been shopping,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni blurted out. “We may have one or two other things to do.”

  “We will go back to his house soon,” the girl said. “We are living with Mr J.L.B. Matekoni now. We are staying in his house.”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni felt his heart thump wildly against his chest. I am going to have a heart attack, he thought. I am going to die now. And for a moment he felt immense regret that he would never marry Mma Ramotswe, that he would go to his grave a bachelor, that the children would be twice orphaned, that Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors would close. But his heart did not stop, but continued to beat, and Mma Ramotswe and all the physical world remained stubbornly there.

  Mma Ramotswe looked quizzically at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “They are staying in your house?” she said. “This is a new development. Have they just come?”

  He nodded bleakly. “Yesterday,” he said.

  Mma Ramotswe looked down at the children and then back at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “I think that we should have a talk,” she said. “You children stay here for a moment. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and I are going to the post office.”

  There was no escape. Head hanging, like a schoolboy caught in delinquency, he followed Mma Ramotswe to the corner of the post office, where before the stacked rows of private postal boxes, he faced the judgement and sentence that he knew were his lot. She would divorce him—if that was the correct term for the breakup of an engagement. He had lost her because of his dishonesty and stupidity—and it was all Mma Silvia Potokwane’s fault. Women like that were always interfering in the lives of others, forcing them to do things; and then matters went badly astray and lives were ruined in the process.

  Mma Ramotswe put down her basket of letters.

  “Why did you not tell me about these children?” she asked. “What have you done?”

  He hardly dared meet her gaze. “I was going to tell you,” he said. “I was out at the orphan farm yesterday. The pump was playing up. It’s so old. Then their minibus needs new brakes. I have tried to fix those brakes, but they are always giving problems. We shall have to try and find new parts, I have told them that, but …”

  “Yes, yes,” pressed Mma Ramotswe. “You have told me about those brakes befor
e. But what about these children?”

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “Mma Potokwane is a very strong woman. She told me that I should take some foster children. I did not mean to do it without talking to you, but she would not listen to me. She brought in the children and I really had no alternative. It was very hard for me.”

  He stopped. A man passed on his way to his postal box, fumbling in his pocket for his key, muttering something to himself. Mma Ramotswe glanced at the man and then looked back at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

  “So,” she said, “you agreed to take these children. And now they think that they are going to stay.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” he mumbled.

  “And how long for?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took a deep breath. “For as long as they need a home,” he said. “Yes, I offered them that.”

  Unexpectedly he felt a new confidence. He had done nothing wrong. He had not stolen anything, or killed anybody, or committed adultery. He had just offered to change the lives of two poor children who had had nothing and who would now be loved and looked after. If Mma Ramotswe did not like that, well there was nothing he could do about it now. He had been impetuous, but his impetuosity had been in a good cause.

  Mma Ramotswe suddenly laughed. “Well, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said. “Nobody could say of you that you are not a kind man. You are, I think, the kindest man in Botswana. What other man would do that? I do not know of one, not one single one. Nobody else would do that. Nobody.”

  He stared at her. “You are not cross?”

  “I was,” she said. “But only for a little while. One minute maybe. But then I thought: Do I want to marry the kindest man in the country? I do. Can I be a mother for them? I can. That is what I thought, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “You are a very kind woman yourself, Mma. You have been very kind to me.”

  “We must not stand here and talk about kindness,” she said. “There are those two children there. Let’s take them back to Zebra Drive and show them where they are going to live. Then this afternoon I can come and collect them from your house and bring them to mine. Mine is more …”