Blue Shoes and Happiness

by Alexander McCall Smith

  “People should think a bit more of others when they park their cars,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There is enough room in Botswana for everybody’s car. There is no need for all this crushing.”

  Mma Makutsi was about to say something, but did not. Mma Ramotswe had chosen that spot to park, and the owners of the two other cars might well take the view that she, not they, was the cause of the crush. She did not say this, though, but smiled in a way that could have signalled agreement or merely polite tolerance. Mma Ramotswe’s views were, in general, very balanced, and Mma Makutsi found no difficulty in agreeing with them. But she had discovered that when it came to any matter connected with the tiny white van, then her otherwise equable employer could become quite touchy. As she stood and watched Mma Ramotswe squeezing herself through the gap between the vehicles, she remembered how a few weeks ago she had asked Mma Ramotswe how two large scratches and a dent had appeared on the side of her van. She had been surprised by the vigour with which Mma Ramotswe denied the evidence.

  “There is nothing wrong with my van,” she said. “There is nothing wrong.”

  “But there is a big scratch here,” said Mma Makutsi. “And another one here. And a dent. Look. There it is. I am putting my finger on it. Look.”

  Mma Ramotswe glanced in a cursory way at the side of the van and shook her head. “That is nothing,” she said dismissively. “That is just a bang that happened.”

  Mma Makutsi had shown her surprise. “A bang?”

  “Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “A bang. It is not a big thing. I was parking the van in town and there was a post. It had no business being there. Somebody had put this post in the wrong place and it hit the side of the van. There was a little bang. That is all.”

  Mma Makutsi bit her lip. Posts did not move; vans moved. But a warning glance from Mma Ramotswe told her that it would be unwise to pursue the matter further, and she had not. Now at Mokolodi, as then, she thought that it would be best not to say anything on the subject of parking or vans in general, and so they walked together in silence towards the office. A woman came out to greet them, a woman who appeared to recognise Mma Ramotswe.

  “He is expecting you, Mma,” said the woman. “Your fiancé telephoned to tell us that you were coming.”

  “He is my husband now,” said Mma Ramotswe, smiling.

  “Oh!” exclaimed the woman. “That is very good. You must be very happy, Mma. He is a good man, Mr L.J.B. Matekoni.”

  “J.L.B.,” corrected Mma Ramotswe. “He is Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, and thank you, Mma. He is a very good man.”

  “I would like to find a man like that,” said the woman. “I have a husband down in Lobatse. He never comes to see me. And when I go down there, he is never in.”

  Mma Ramotswe made a clucking sound of sympathy, and disapproval—sympathy for the woman in her plight, and disapproval of what she thought was only-too-common masculine behaviour. There were many good men in Botswana, but there were some who seemed to think that their women were only there to flatter them and give them a good time when they felt in need. These men did not think of what women themselves needed, which was comfort and support, and a bit of help in the hundred and one tasks which women had to perform if homes were to be kept going. Who did the cooking? Who kept the yard tidy? Who washed and fed the children and put them to bed at night? Who weeded the fields? Women did all these things, and it would be nice, thought Mma Ramotswe, if men could occasionally lend a hand.

  It was particularly hard for women now, when there were so many children left without parents because of this cruel sickness. These children had to be looked after by somebody, and this task usually fell to the grandmothers. But in many cases the grandmothers were finding it difficult to cope because there were simply so many children coming to them. Mma Ramotswe had met one woman who had been looking after twelve grandchildren, all orphaned. And there this woman was at seventy-five, at a time when a person should be allowed to sit in the sun and look up at the sky, cooking and washing and scraping around for food for the hungry mouths of all those children. And if that grandmother should become late, she thought, what then?

  The woman led them back towards the office, a round building, made of stone, with a thatched roof that came down in low eaves. A man stepped from the door, looked momentarily surprised when he saw Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi, and then gave a broad grin.

  “Dumela, Mma Ramotswe,” he said, raising a hand in greeting. “And Mma …”

  “This is Mma Makutsi, Neil,” said Mma Ramotswe.

  “Of course,” said Neil. “This is the lady who keeps cobras under her desk!”

  Mma Makutsi laughed. “I do not wish to think about cobras, Rra,” she said. “I am only glad that you came when you did. I do not like snakes.”

  “Those apprentices were not going about it the right way,” said Neil, smiling at the recollection. “You don’t throw spanners at snakes. It doesn’t help.”

  He gestured for the two women to follow him to the terrace in front of the verandah. Several chairs were set under the shade of a tree, and they sat on these and looked out over the tops of the trees to the hills in the distance. A cicada was screeching somewhere in the grass nearby, a shrill, persistent sound, a call for another cicada, a warning, a protest against some injustice down in the insect world. The sky above was clear, a great echoing bowl of blue, drenched in light. There could be nothing wrong.

  “It is very beautiful here,” said Mma Ramotswe. “If I worked here I would do no work, I think. I would sit and look at the hills.”

  “You are welcome to come and look at these hills any time, Mma,” said Neil. He paused before continuing. “Are you here on business?”

  Mma Ramotswe nodded. “Yes, we are.”

  Neil signalled to a young woman to bring them tea. “One of our people is in trouble? Is that it?” He frowned as he spoke.

  For a moment Mma Ramotswe looked confused. Then she realised. “No, not my business—Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s business. Garage business.”

  The misunderstanding cleared up, they sat and waited for the tea. Their conversation wandered. Mma Makutsi seemed to be thinking of something else, and Mma Ramotswe found herself expressing a view on something she knew nothing about—a plan to build some houses nearby. Then the subject of ostriches came up. This was more interesting to Mma Ramotswe, although when she came to think of it, what did she know about ostriches? Very little.

  “We’ve got a number of ostriches over there,” said Neil, pointing in the direction of a small hillock in the mid-distance.

  Mma Ramotswe followed his gaze. The expanse of bush was wide, the acacia trees like small umbrellas dotted thickly over the land. A patch of high grass on the edge of the clearing in which the camp sat moved slightly in the wind. There was nothing wrong; or was there? Why, thought Mma Ramotswe, do I feel that sensation, not fear, but something like it? Dread, perhaps; the sort of dread that can be felt in broad daylight, like this, with the sun all about and the shadows short and the presence of people—a man whistling as he attended to a task outside the office building, a woman leaning against her broom, chatting with somebody through a window.

  “The thing about ostriches,” said Neil, “is that they are not very intelligent. In fact, ostriches are very stupid, Mma Ramotswe.”

  “They are a bit like chickens, then,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have never thought that chickens were very clever.”

  Neil laughed. “That’s a good way of putting it! Yes. Big chickens.”

  Mma Ramotswe remembered her meeting with Mr Molefelo, who had told her of how he had seen a man kicked by an ostrich and become late, immediately. “Chickens are not so dangerous,” she said. “I am not frightened of chickens.”

  Neil raised an admonitory finger. “Stay away from ostriches, Mma Ramotswe. But, if you find yourself face-to-face with an angry ostrich, do you know what to do? No? I’ll tell you. You put your hat on the top of a stick and raise it well above your head. The ostrich will think that you are much ta
ller than he is, and he will back off. It works every time—every time!”

  Mma Makutsi’s eyes opened wide. What if she had no hat? Could she put something else on a stick and hold it up instead—one of her shoes, one of the green shoes with sky-blue linings perhaps? Or would the ostriches just laugh at that? There was no telling, but it was still an extraordinary piece of information, and she made a mental note to pass it on to Phuti Radiphuti the next time she saw him. She stopped herself; she had forgotten. She was not sure whether there would be a next time …

  Neil reached for the tea-pot and poured tea for his guests. “You know, Mma Ramotswe, there’s something I want to talk to you about. I wasn’t going to mention it to you, but since you’re here, you might be just the person to deal with something. I know that you’re a … what do you call yourself, a detective?”

  “Yes, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I call myself a detective. And other people call me that too.”

  Neil cleared his throat. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Well, a detective is maybe what we need around here.”

  Mma Ramotswe raised her cup to her lips. She had been right—there was something wrong. She had picked it up and, rather than doubting it, she should have trusted her instincts. There were usually ways of telling what was happening; there were signs, if one was ready to see them; there were sounds, if one was ready to hear them.

  She looked at Neil across the rim of her cup. He was a very straightforward man, and although he was not a Motswana he was a man who had been born in Africa and lived all his life there. Such people may be white people, but they knew, they understood as well as anybody else. If he was worried about something, then there would be reason to worry.

  “I felt that there was something wrong, Rra,” she said quietly. “I could tell—I could just tell that there was something wrong.” As she spoke, she felt it again—that feeling of dread. She half-turned in her seat and looked behind her, back into the darkened interior of the building behind them, where the kitchen was. A woman was standing in the doorway, just standing, doing nothing. Mma Ramotswe could not quite make out her face, and the woman withdrew, back into the shadows.

  Neil had replaced his cup on the table and was rubbing the rim of it gently, as if to coax out a sound. Mma Ramotswe noticed that one of his fingers had been scratched: a small line of dried blood ran across the skin, which was weathered, cracked, the skin of a man who worked with stone and machinery and the branches of thorn trees. She waited for him to speak.

  “This is generally a pretty happy place,” he began. “You know what it’s like, don’t you?”

  Mma Ramotswe did. She remembered when Mokolodi had first been set up, the dream of Ian Kirby, who had been a friend of Seretse Khama and his family. He had created the game park and had given it over to a trust for the nation so that people could come out from Gaborone, which was so close, and see animals in the wild. It was an idealistic place, and it attracted people who loved the bush and wanted to preserve it. These were not people to argue or fight with one another. Nor was it the sort of place where a dishonest or difficult person would wish to work. And yet there was something wrong. What was it? What was it? She closed her eyes, but opened them again quickly. It was fear; it was unmistakable.

  “I know what this place is like normally,” she said. “It is happy. I have a cousin here, you know. She has always liked working here.”

  “Well, it’s not like that now,” said Neil. “There’s something very odd going on, and I don’t seem able to find out what the trouble is. I’ve asked people and they just clam up. They look away. You know how people do that when they don’t want to talk. They look away.”

  Mma Ramotswe understood that. People did not always talk about the things that were worrying them. Sometimes this was because they thought it rude to burden others with their troubles; sometimes it was because they did not know how to say what had to be said; there were many reasons. But fear was always a possible explanation: you did not talk about things that you were worried might happen. If you did, then the very things you worried about could come to pass.

  “Tell me, Rra,” she asked, “how do you know that there is something? How can you tell?”

  Neil picked up a dried leaf which had blown onto the table and crushed it slowly between his fingers. “How do I know? Well, I’ll give you an example. Last Saturday I wanted to drive round the reserve at night. I do that from time to time—we’ve had a bit of trouble with poachers, and I like to go out at odd times, without lights, so that if there’s anybody thinking of getting up to anything they will know that we’re in the habit of coming round the corner at any time, night or day. I usually take two or three of the men when I do this.

  “Normally there’s no difficulty in getting some men to come with me. They take it in turns, and pitch up of their own accord. Well, last Saturday it seemed to be a very different situation. Nobody was willing to volunteer, and when I went down to the houses to see what was going on, everybody’s door was firmly shut.”

  Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “They were scared?”

  “That’s the only explanation,” said Neil.

  “Scared of poachers?”

  Neil shrugged his shoulders. “It’s difficult to say. I would have thought that was unlikely. The sort of poachers we get round here will usually run a mile rather than come up against any of us. They’re not a very impressive breed of poacher, I’m afraid.”

  “So?” pressed Mma Ramotswe. “Was there anything else?”

  Neil thought for a moment. “There have been other odd things. One of the women who works in the kitchen ran out screaming her head off the other day. She was hysterical. She said that she had seen something in the storeroom.”

  “And?” encouraged Mma Ramotswe.

  “I called one of the other women to calm her down,” said Neil. “Then I went and had a look in the storeroom. Of course, there was nothing. But when I tried to get the women to come in with me so that I could show them that there was nothing there, they both refused. Both of them. The woman who was trying to calm her friend down was just as bad.”

  Mma Ramotswe listened carefully. This was beginning to sound familiar to her. Although it happened relatively infrequently, it still happened. Witchcraft. Somebody was practising witchcraft, and the moment that happened, then all reason, all sound ideas and rationality, could be abandoned. Just below the surface, there were deep wells of fear and superstition that could suddenly be revealed by something like this. It was less common than it used to be, but it was there.

  She looked at her watch. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni needed that axle, and she and Mma Makutsi did not have the time to sit and talk much longer, pleasant though it was to sit under that tree.

  “I will come back sometime soon,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And when I come back, I shall look into these things for you. In the meantime, we must get that axle for Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. That is what we need to do first. The other thing can wait.”

  Mma Ramotswe went back to her van and drove it down to the workshop area, while Neil and Mma Makutsi walked together down the track to meet her there. It took no more than a few minutes for the half-axle to be found among a pile of greasy spare parts. Then it was loaded into the back of the tiny white van, where it rested on some spread-out newspapers. Mma Ramotswe noticed that the two men who picked up the axle and manoeuvred it into the van said nothing beyond a mumbled greeting, completing their task in silence and then turning away, melting back into the workshop.

  “You won’t forget to come out soon?” Neil said as Mma Ramotswe prepared to leave.

  “I won’t,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Don’t worry. I’ll come out and have a word with a few people.”

  “If they’ll talk,” said Neil gloomily. “It’s as if somebody has stuck their lips together with tape.”

  “Somebody probably has,” said Mma Ramotswe quietly. “It’s just that we can’t see the tape.”

  She drove back up the Mokolodi road to join the main road ba
ck to Gaborone. Mma Makutsi was still silent, sitting next to her, morosely looking out of her window. Mma Ramotswe glanced at her companion and was on the point of saying something, but did not. It seemed to her as if she was surrounded by silence—those silent men at the workshop, the silent woman beside her, the silent sky.

  She looked again at Mma Makutsi. She had been about to say: “You know, Mma, I might just as well have come out here by myself, for all the fun you’re being.” But she did not. If I said anything like that, she told herself, I rather think Mma Makutsi would burst into tears. She wanted to reach across and lay a hand on Mma Makutsi’s arm, to comfort her, but could not. They were coming to a bend in the road, and they would end up in a ditch if she took her hands off the wheel. That would not help, thought Mma Ramotswe.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MR POLOPETSI, AND THE COMPLICATIONS IN HIS LIFE

  MR J.L.B. MATEKONI was very pleased with the half-axle that he had obtained from Mokolodi. Fitting it, though, was a major job, requiring the assistance of the two apprentices—who needed to be instructed on this matter anyway. So the next morning, while the three of them conferred under the raised vehicle, Mr Polopetsi, who was the most recent addition to the staff of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, was left in charge of the routine work of the garage. He had been recruited after Mma Ramotswe’s van had knocked him off his bicycle and she had arranged for it to be fixed by Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. It was after this that he had revealed what had happened to him, how he had been sent to prison for negligence after the wrong drug had been dispensed from the hospital pharmacy in which he worked. It had not been his fault, but lies had been told by another, and the magistrate had felt that a conviction and prison sentence were necessary to satisfy the outrage of the patient’s family. Mma Ramotswe had been moved by the story and by his plight, and had arranged work for him in the garage. It had been a good choice: Mr Polopetsi was a methodical worker who had rapidly learned how to service a car and carry out the more mundane repairs. He was an intelligent man, and discreet too, and Mma Ramotswe foresaw the day when he would be useful in the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. He could never be a partner in the agency, as a ladies’ detective agency could not allow that, but he could certainly perform some of the tasks for which a man would be useful. It would be handy, for instance, to have a man who could go and observe what was going on in a particular bar, if that should be necessary in a case. A lady detective could not very well do that, as she would spend half her time fending off the men who pestered ladies in bars.