The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café

by Alexander McCall Smith

  The other woman began to answer. “I am very well, thank you, Mma. I am …” And then she became silent. Now she looked sharply at Miss Rose.

  “Why did you call her that?” asked Miss Rose. “Have you found out what her name is?”

  “I think you know that already,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think both of you know it.”

  “She does not,” said Miss Rose. “She does not know who she is.”

  Lakshmi sat down heavily on the chair nearest her. “See,” she said. “She knows. This lady knows.”

  Miss Rose turned to her quickly. “You cannot say that. She knows nothing. You know nothing either. You don’t even know who you are. Remember?”

  “She is called Lakshmi,” said Mma Ramotswe evenly. “And I must tell you that I know what happened.”

  Miss Rose eyed her suspiciously. “How can you know that? You are just telling us that—it’s not true.”

  “It is true,” countered Mma Ramotswe. “Lakshmi is from over the border—that way.” She waved an arm towards South Africa. “She had a very bad husband who beat her. She tried to defend herself and he went to the police. He had a corrupt policeman charge her with attempted murder.” She paused, watching the effect of her words. “That is why she is here. She is running away.”

  Lakshmi now spoke. “You see, Rosie? You see. It’s all over now.”

  “It is not over,” snapped Miss Rose. “You have no proof of all this, Mma. We shall just say that it is all lies.”

  “But it is the truth, Mma. I do not like to lie.” She put her hands together and then opened them, palms upward, in a gesture of openness.

  Miss Rose closed her eyes, as if to shut out the obvious. She drew a deep breath. “You don’t know what it’s like, Mma Ramotswe …”

  Mma Ramotswe did not let her finish. “But I do, Mma.”

  Both women looked at her.

  Mma Ramotswe held their gaze. She did not like to talk about this; she never mentioned it, in fact, because it was something very personal, and painful too. But now she felt that she had to.

  “When I was young I married a man called Note Mokoti,” she said. “My father did not want me to marry him—I could tell that—but you know how it is when you are young: you think that you know better than everybody else. So I ignored him when he said that he thought that Note would not be a good husband for me and that he could not be trusted. I think he knew, too, that he would be violent, but he did not want to spell that out to me.”

  They were silent.

  “I think that you may know what I’m talking about, Lakshmi.”

  Lakshmi did not say anything, but the slight movement of her head showed her agreement. She knew very well.

  “I went ahead and married Note, although it must have broken my daddy’s heart. And then, shortly after we were married, he began to hurt me. He began to hurt me in many ways—in my heart and in my body. He struck me with a belt. He made me cry and cry and that only seemed to give him more pleasure. He taunted me for being too weak to stand up to him.

  “I thought: I must run away from this man. I thought that, but there is a big difference between thinking something and being able to do anything about it. Sometimes it is difficult for women to get away, even though they know they must …”

  Lakshmi nodded vigorously. “Yes, Mma. Yes. That is exactly right.”

  Mma Ramotswe continued with her story. “At last I got back to my father and he never said anything like I told you. He said nothing like that; he took me back and the nightmare was over.”

  “Yes,” muttered Lakshmi. “It is like a nightmare. It is just like that.”

  “So, you see, Mma,” concluded Mma Ramotswe. “I do know what it’s like. I know very well.”

  Miss Rose exchanged glances with Lakshmi. It was clear that she did not quite know what to do. “So now you have found out,” she said at last. “So, what now?”

  They were both staring at Mma Ramotswe. For a few long minutes there was silence, eventually broken by Lakshmi.

  “Maybe I should tell you, Mma,” she said.

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes, of course, Mma. I do not know everything about what happened.”

  Miss Rose raised a hand in a gesture of warning. “Lakshmi, I don’t think you should.”

  But Lakshmi was not to be dissuaded, her voice gaining strength as she began. “My husband said that he loved me. This was after we were introduced by our parents—you know how it is with us, Mma: we like families to have a hand in the marriage.”

  Mma Ramotswe knew all about this. As a younger woman she had been offended by the thought of arranged marriages and wondered how anybody could enter into one: How could one accept the choice of others in such a private matter? But then, as she saw more of these, she increasingly realised that they tended to work, at least where the arranged marriage was consensual. Perhaps one of the reasons for this, she thought, was that compatibility was something that families could judge, perhaps even better than the man and woman themselves.

  “And I thought I was very lucky to have this nice-looking man who might have been a bit older than I was but who seemed well established. We had a good house outside Durban, Mma, and he was earning a lot of money in a firm that brought things in from India. Many of my friends said that they would have happily changed places with me. I thought I was very lucky.

  “But then I began to see another side of him. If anything went wrong in the house—even the smallest thing—he would shout at me. Then he started to hit me. I remember the first time it happened I thought that it had been an accident; I thought that he had raised his hand to make a point and that he had slipped. But then it happened again, and again after that.

  “He became suspicious. He said that I should not go out of the house because there were men around who would flirt with me and he said that I would flirt back. I told him that I would never do that, but he laughed and said that all women were the same. He said that it was always women who led men on and that there were no exceptions. He said that if he caught me looking at another man he would make sure that I never looked at a man again.

  “He told me that I was not to mix with other women—the wives of his friends. He said that these women would lead me into bad ways and that they probably all had lovers. He said that he would be able to tell if I tried to see these people secretly. He had people who would report back to him if they saw me out in the town.

  “And all the time the beatings went on. Sometimes he did it because he was angry with me for something to do with the house, but on other occasions he said that a beating was to remind me not to step out of line. He also used to shout at me and mock me for not having children. I told him that I was doing my best and that maybe the problem was with him, but that drove him into a frenzy. It was in one of these frenzies that I tried to defend myself. I ran into the kitchen and picked up the only weapon that I could find, which was a bread knife. I shouted to him that he should keep away and that I would use the knife to defend myself, but he mocked me. He said that I couldn’t even cut bread properly, let alone use a bread knife to defend myself. Then he threw something at me and rushed towards me. I held out the knife, and it went into him—not very far, because it hit a rib. It stopped him, though, and he shouted and squealed like an animal in the slaughterhouse. Bullies are like that, I think, Mma: they are not very courageous when they are hurt—they become like little boys.

  “I ran out of the house and went to one of my friends. She took me in, and she was the one who drove me all the way over here the following day when we heard that he had gone to the police and I was now wanted for attempted murder.

  “I could not go through any of the border posts because I would be stopped on the South African side. I also didn’t have a passport and Botswana would not have let me in. So my friend drove to one of those game ranch places where you can go on safari. We pretended that we were there to admire the animals, but we were really interested in the border, which ran down one side of the game reser
ve. My friend paid one of the staff at the reserve to guide me across at night and to walk with me to a road on the Botswana side. They had been in touch with my cousin. He said that he would pick me up at a certain time, and he was there waiting for me when I got to the road. He brought me here and talked to me about what to do. And the rest, Mma, I think you already know.”

  Miss Rose shook her head. “It’s a mistake to tell anybody this,” she muttered. “It is a big mistake.”

  Mma Ramotswe waited until it was clear that Lakshmi had finished. Then she folded her arms. “You need not worry, Lakshmi, I am not going to tell anybody.”

  Miss Rose looked at Mma Ramotswe disbelievingly. “And how much do you want for your silence, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe remained calm. “I want nothing, Mma.”

  “You see,” said Lakshmi. “This is an honest lady.”

  Mma Ramotswe brought up the fact that Mr. Sengupta had asked her to take on the case. “He wanted me to say that I have found out nothing, but I cannot do that. I cannot make any false statement that I know will be given to the Botswana authorities. I cannot do it, Mma.”

  “So what will you do?” asked Miss Rose.

  “I will do nothing,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I will withdraw from the case. You will not claim that there has been any investigation by me, and I shall say nothing about what I know. I am sorry if that is not what you really wanted from me, but I do not think that I have much choice.”

  Miss Rose and Lakshmi looked at one another for guidance. “Maybe that will be all right,” said Miss Rose eventually.

  “And you will explain the whole matter to Mr. Sengupta?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

  Lakshmi replied: “I will tell him, Mma. He will understand. He is a good man. He may sell stationery, but he is a very big hero underneath.”

  “I think I can see that,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  Miss Rose had something to add. “Yes, Mma Ramotswe—my brother is a very big hero indeed. You may not know it, but he was even prepared to ignore your assistant crashing into him in order not to cause you inconvenience. He thought that since you were being kind to us he would be kind to you.”

  Mma Ramotswe was baffled. “I beg your pardon, Mma?”

  “Your assistant … that young man. He was following our car and he collided with my brother. Your young man was not paying attention to the traffic. That young man and his girl were lucky.”

  “His girl?”

  “There was some floozy with him in the van, my brother said.”

  “I see,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  She rose to take her leave. She would walk out of the house and out of the tragic life of this poor woman. Her fate would be decided by others now, and there was nothing Mma Ramotswe could do to influence the direction of that decision; she wished that there were, but it was not the case. One could not set all the wrongs of the world right; one could not do anything about even a tiny proportion of those wrongs. It was a hard conclusion to reach, and she did not feel happy about it. But she could hardly make a report that she knew would be used to mislead the officials of her own government. Botswana was a well-run country—such things belonged to the corrupt side of Africa, and that, she was determined, would never gain a toehold in her Botswana. Never.

  As she left, Lakshmi came up to her and took her hand. “Thank you, Mma,” she said.

  Mma Ramotswe returned the pressure on her hand. “I hope all goes well for you, my sister,” she whispered.

  She meant it. Sometimes such words are uttered as a matter of course; we wish people well when we have not really reflected on it and may even be indifferent to what happens. But she meant this—with all her heart she meant it. And even now she was thinking of what else she could possibly do to help, having declined to give her assistance in one respect. She wondered whether she would come up with something. Sometimes ideas came at totally unexpected times—when you were walking in your garden looking at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s beans, or when you were sitting on your verandah watching the sun sink over the tops of the acacia trees, or when you were simply looking up at the sky, so high, so pale, so empty. Ideas could come to you completely unbidden; suddenly they were there, ready to be invoked, ready to solve a problem that you thought was quite intractable. So it might be that an idea could come to resolve this rather sad situation; an idea that might seem improbable but might just work—such as getting in touch with Billy Pilane over in Johannesburg and saying to him: “Billy, would you be able to get somebody off the wanted list if you knew the true story and you knew that she did not deserve to be there …?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  YOU DON’T WANT HANDSOME MEN

  WHEN MMA RAMOTSWE ARRIVED at the office the following morning, Charlie was already there, sitting on the empty oil drum at the side of the building, his eyes closed, sunning himself, humming a tune that she had often heard him hum before—an annoying little tune that had wormed its way into her mind too and would not be shooed away.

  He opened his eyes when he heard her open the door of the tiny white van. “You see, Mma,” he called out, “I am first here. I am Mr. Keen, first class, one hundred per cent dedicated.”

  She laughed. “I am glad that you are enjoying being …” She was about to say “a secretary,” but she stopped herself. And, anyway, he said it.

  “I like being a secretary, Mma. It is a very cool thing to be.”

  “Oh yes? Cool?”

  Charlie lowered himself from his drum, dusted off his trouser legs, and joined her at the office door. “I have discovered that girls like men who are secretaries,” he said. “I was speaking to one last night at a dance, and when I told her that I was a secretary, she said, ‘Ow, you must be one of these new men.’ So I said I was, and she said, ‘New men are very sexy—everybody knows that.’ And so I said, ‘Yes, that is true. Everybody knows that.’ ”

  Mma Ramotswe rolled her eyes. “I see. So you’re pleased.”

  “Very pleased.”

  They entered the office together.

  “I have something to discuss with you, Charlie,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Any time, Mma. A filing problem? Let me sort it out. A letter to dictate? I can write quite quickly even if I can’t do those stupid signs with a pencil that Mma Makutsi goes on about.”

  “Shorthand.”

  “Yes, shorthand. I do not need that rubbish. I can write quickly.”

  Mma Ramotswe sat down at her desk and reached for a pencil. It was easier to talk about difficult things, she found, if she had a pencil in her hands. The pencil could be twirled between fingers and, if necessary, tapped on the desktop. She cleared her throat, gesturing for him to sit in the client’s chair in front of her desk.

  “Charlie, I wanted to talk about that accident the other day.”

  Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “What accident?”

  “You know what I’m talking about. The dent my van received. That one.”

  “Ah,” said Charlie. “That accident.” He paused, concern passing over his face. “Has the van not been repaired properly? Do you want me to take it back?”

  “It’s fine,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You can’t tell that it has been damaged.”

  “Good,” said Charlie, and then added quickly, “So, no problem then.”

  He was about to get up, but she signalled for him to remain seated. “You never really told me exactly what happened.”

  Charlie shrugged. “There’s not much to say, Mma. The other driver didn’t stop at a stop sign.”

  “Yes, but it would be interesting to hear your report on it. Why don’t you tell me what happened? In your own words, of course.”

  He clasped his hands together. She could see him squirm.

  “My words, Mma?”

  Mma Ramotswe looked into his eyes. He looked away, his gaze falling to the floor.

  “Yes, Charlie?”

  He drew in his breath. “I was driving along …”

  “Yes?”

  “I was driving along,
you see …”

  “By yourself?”

  He hesitated. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. No, maybe I wasn’t by myself.”

  “Ah.”

  “I think I was with a friend. Yes, I remember now: I was with a friend. I was giving him a lift somewhere.”

  “Him?”

  Charlie’s hands tightened their grip on each other. “Maybe it wasn’t a him. Maybe it was a lady. Yes, I think it might have been a lady.”

  “Or even a girl?”

  He frowned. “Ladies, girls—all the same, Mma. One word covers both.”

  “So you had a girl in the cab.”

  “I was trying to help her, Mma. She had a long way to walk.”

  Mma Ramotswe conceded the point. “That was kind of you, Charlie. And then what happened?”

  He stared up at the ceiling, as if trying to dredge information from the furthest recesses of his memory. “It was a long time ago,” he said.

  “Five days?”

  “That’s a long time when so much is happening, Mma. Five days is almost a whole week.”

  She tapped the pencil on the desk. “Try to remember. I know it was a long time ago.”

  He turned his gaze to meet hers. “I came to an intersection,” he said flatly. “Then Mr. Sengupta didn’t stop, and he hit me. So …” He hesitated. “So, I lost sight of where the other car went. I didn’t really see the exact house.” He lowered his voice. “I had picked up that girl, you see, Mma, and I was showing off to her.”

  They looked at one another in silence. She noticed that his lower lip was quivering, and she made up her mind.

  “Then that’s all right, Charlie. You’ve told me the truth, and now we can forget about it.”

  He had not expected this. When he spoke, his voice faltered. “You’re not angry, Mma?”

  She shook her head. What was the point of anger? There were occasions when Mma Ramotswe, like all of us, could feel angry, but they were few—and they never lasted long. Anger, Obed Ramotswe had explained to her once, is no more than a salt that we rub into our wounds. She had never forgotten that—along with the things he said about cattle, and Botswana, and the behaviour of the rains. “I was, Charlie,” she said quietly, “but not for long. I wanted to give you the chance to tell me yourself that you weren’t on your own, and now you have done that.” She paused, allowing herself the faintest of smiles. “And as for accidents—there are so many things in Botswana that are in the wrong place. So we can’t help being involved in accidents, can we? And we can’t help being nice to young women, can we?”