Morality for Beautiful Girls (10 page)

Mma Ramotswe reread the passage, her spirits rising gloriously as she did so. A book on depression might not normally be expected to have that effect on the reader, but it did now. Of course Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had done nothing terrible; he was, as she had known him to be, a man of unbesmirched honour. Now all that she had to do was to get him to see a doctor and be treated. She closed the book and glanced at the synopsis on the back cover.
This very treatable disease
… it said. This cheered her even further. She knew what she had to do, and her list, even if it had appeared that morning to be a long and complicated one, was now less mountainous, less daunting.

SHE WENT straight from the Botswana Book Centre to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. To her relief, the garage was open and Mma Makutsi was standing outside the office, drinking a cup of tea. The two apprentices were sitting on their oil drums, the one smoking a cigarette and the other drinking a soft drink from a can.

“It’s rather early for a break,” said Mma Ramotswe, glancing at the apprentices.

“Oh, Mma, we all deserve a break,” said Mma Makutsi. “We have been here for two and half hours already. We all came in at six and we have been working very hard.”

“Yes,” said one of the apprentices. “Very hard. And we have done some very fine work, Mma. You tell her, Mma. You tell her what you did.”

“This Acting Manager is a No. 1 mechanic,” interjected the other apprentice. “Even better than the boss, I think.”

Mma Makutsi laughed. “You boys are too used to saying nice things to women. That will not work with me. I am here as an acting manager, not as a woman.”

“But it’s true, Mma,” said the elder apprentice. “If she won’t tell you, then I will. We had a car here, one which had been sitting for four, five days. It belongs to a senior nurse at the Princess Marina Hospital. She is a very strong woman and I would not like to have to dance with her. Ow!”

“That woman would never dance with you,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “What would she be doing dancing with a greasy boy like you, when she can dance with surgeons and people like that?”

The apprentice laughed off the insult. “Anyway, when she brought the car in she said that it stopped from time to time in the middle of the traffic and she would have to wait for a while and then start it again. Then it would start again and go for a while and then stop.

“We looked at it. I tried it and it started. I drove it over to the old airport and even out on the Lobatse Road. Nothing. No stopping. But this woman said that it was always stopping. So I replaced the spark plugs and tried it again. This time it stopped right at the circle near the Golf Club. Just stopped. Then it started again. And a very funny thing happened, which that woman had told us about. The windscreen wipers came on when the car stopped. I didn’t touch them.

“So, early this morning I said to Mma Makutsi here: ‘This is a very strange car, Mma. It stops and then starts.’

“Mma Makutsi came and looked at the car. She looked in the engine and saw that the plugs were new and there was a new battery too. Then she opened the door and got in, and she made a face like this, see. Just like this, with her nose all turned up. And she said: ‘This car smells of mice. I can tell that it has a mouse smell.’

“She began to look about. She peered under the seats and she found nothing there. Then she looked under the dash and she started to shout out to me and my brother here. She said: ‘There is a nest of mice in this car. And they have eaten the insulation off the wires right here. Look.’

“So we looked at those wires, which are very important wires for a car—the ones which are connected to the ignition, and we saw that two of them were touching, or almost touching, just where the mice had gnawed off the covering. This would mean that the engine would think that the ignition was off when the wires touched and power would go to the wipers. So that is what happened. In the meantime, the mice had run out of the car because they had been found. Mma Makutsi took out their nest and threw it away. Then she bound the wires with some tape that we gave her and now the car is fixed. It has a mouse problem no longer, all because this woman is such a good detective.”

“She is a mechanic detective,” said the other apprentice. “She would make a man very happy, but very tired, I think. Ow!”

“Quiet,” said Mma Makutsi, playfully. “You boys must get back to work. I am the Acting Manager here. I am not one of the girls you pick up in bars. Get back to your work.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “You obviously have a talent for finding things out, Mma. Perhaps being a detective and being a mechanic are not so different after all.”

They went into the office. Mma Ramotswe immediately noticed that Mma Makutsi had made a great impression on the chaos. Although Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s desk was still covered with papers, these appeared to have been sorted into piles. Bills to be sent out had been placed in one pile, while bills to be paid had been put in another. Catalogues from suppliers had been stacked on top of a filing cabinet, and car manuals had been replaced on the shelf above his desk. And at one end of the room, leaning against the wall, was a shiny white board on which Mma Makutsi had drawn two columns headed
CARS IN
and
CARS
OUT
.

“They taught us at the Botswana Secretarial College,” said Mma Makutsi, “that it is very important to have a system. If you have a system which tells you where you are, then you will never be lost.”

“That is true,” agreed Mma Ramotswe. “They obviously knew how to run a business there.”

Mma Makutsi beamed with pleasure. “And there is another thing,” she said. “I think that it would be helpful if I made you a list.”

“A list?”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi, handing her a large red file. “I have put your list in there. Each day I shall bring this list up to date. You will see that there are three columns.
URGENT
,
NOT
URGENT
, and
FUTURE
SOMETIME
.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. She did not want another list, but equally she did not want to discourage Mma Makutsi, who certainly knew how to run a garage.

“Thank you, Mma,” she said, opening the file. “I see that you have already started my list.”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “Mma Potokwane telephoned from the orphan farm. She wanted to speak to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, but I told her that he was not here. So she said that she was going to get in touch with you anyway and could you telephone her. You’ll see that I have put it in the
NOT
URGENT
column.”

“I shall phone her,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It must be something to do with the children. I had better phone her straightaway.”

Mma Makutsi went back to the workshop, where Mma Ramotswe heard her calling out some instructions to the apprentices. She picked up the telephone—covered, she noticed, with greasy fingerprints, and dialled the number which Mma Makutsi had written on her list. While the telephone rang, she placed a large red tick opposite the solitary item on the list.

Mma Potokwane answered.

“Very kind of you to telephone, Mma Ramotswe. I hope that the children are well?”

“They are very settled,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Good. Now, Mma, could I ask you a favour?”

Mma Ramotswe knew that this is how the orphan farm operated. It needed help, and of course everybody was prepared to help. Nobody could refuse Mma Silvia Potokwane.

“I will help you, Mma. Just tell me what it is.”

“I would like you to come and drink tea with me,” said Mma Potokwane. “This afternoon, if possible. There is something you should see.”

“Can you not tell me what it is?”

“No, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane. “It is difficult to describe over the telephone. It would be better to see for yourself.”

CHAPTER NINE

AT THE ORPHAN FARM

T
HE ORPHAN farm was some twenty minutes’ drive out of town. Mma Ramotswe had been there on several occasions, although not as frequently as Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, who paid regular visits to deal with bits and pieces of machinery that seemed always to be going wrong. There was a borehole pump in particular that required his regular attention, and then there was their minibus, the brakes of which constantly needed attention. He never begrudged them his time, and they thought highly of him, as everybody did.

Mma Ramotswe liked Mma Potokwane, to whom she was very distantly connected through her mother’s side of the family. It was not uncommon to be connected to somebody in Botswana, a lesson which foreigners were quick to learn when they realised that if they made a critical remark of somebody they were inevitably speaking to that person’s distant cousin.

Mma Potokwane was standing outside the office, talking to one of the staff, when Mma Ramotswe arrived. She directed the tiny white van to a visitors’ parking place under a shady syringa tree, and then invited her guest inside.

“It is so hot these days, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “But I have a very powerful fan in my office. If I turn it on to its highest setting, it can blow people out of the room. It is a very useful weapon.”

“I hope that you will not do that to me,” said Mma Ramotswe. For a moment she had a vision of herself being blown out of Mma Potokwane’s office, her skirts all about her, up into the sky where she could look down on the trees and the paths and the cattle staring up at her in astonishment.

“Of course not,” said Mma Potokwane. “You’re the sort of visitor I like to receive. The sort I don’t like are interfering people. People who try to tell me how to be the matron of an orphan farm. Sometimes we get these people. People who stick their noses in. They think they know about orphans, but they don’t. The people who know the most about orphans are those ladies out there.” She pointed out of her window, to where two of the housemothers, stout women in blue housecoats, were taking two toddlers for a walk along a path, the tiny hands firmly grasped, the hesitant, wobbly steps gently encouraged.

“Yes,” went on Mma Potokwane. “Those ladies know. They can deal with any sort of child. A very sad child, who cries for its late mother all the time. A very wicked child, who has been taught to steal. A very cheeky child who has not learned to respect its elders and who uses bad words. Those ladies can deal with all those children.”

“They are very good women,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The two orphans whom Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and I took say that they were very happy here. Only yesterday, Motholeli read me a story which she had written at school. The story of her life. She referred to you, Mma.”

“I am glad that she was happy here,” said Mma Potokwane. “She is a very brave girl, that one.” She paused. “But I did not ask you out here to talk about those children, Mma. I wanted to tell you about a very strange thing that has happened here. It is so strange that even the housemothers cannot deal with it. That is why I thought that I would ask you. I was phoning Mr J.L.B. Matekoni to get your number.”

She reached across her desk and poured Mma Ramotswe a cup of tea. Then she cut into a large fruitcake which was on a plate to the side of the tea tray. “This cake is made by our senior girls,” she said. “We train them to cook.”

Mma Ramotswe accepted her large slice of cake and looked at the rich fruit within it. There were at least seven hundred calories in that, she thought, but it did not matter; she was a traditionally built lady and she did not have to worry about such things.

“You know that we take all sorts of children,” continued Mma Potokwane. “Usually they are brought to us when the mother dies and nobody knows who the father is. Often the grandmother cannot cope, because she is too ill or too poor, and then the children have nobody. We get them from the social work people or from the police sometimes. Sometimes they might just be left somewhere and a member of the public gets in touch with us.”

“They are lucky to get here,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“Yes. And usually, whatever has happened to them in the past, we have seen something like it before. Nothing shocks us. But every now and then a very unusual case comes in and we don’t know what to do.”

“And there is such a child now?”

“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “After you have finished eating that big piece of cake I will take you and show you a boy who arrived with no name. If they have no name, we always give them one. We find a good Botswana name and they get that. But that is usually only with babies. Older children normally tell us their names. This boy didn’t. In fact, he doesn’t seem to have learned how to speak at all. So we decided to call him Mataila.”

Mma Ramotswe finished her cake and drained the dregs of her tea. Then, together with Mma Potokwane, she walked over to one of the houses at the very edge of the circle of buildings in which the orphans lived. There were beans growing there, and the small yard in front of the door was neatly swept. This was a housemother who knew how to keep a house, thought Mma Ramotswe. And if that was the case, then how could she be defeated by a mere boy?

The housemother, Mma Kerileng, was in the kitchen. Drying her hands on her apron, she greeted Mma Ramotswe warmly and invited the two women into the living room. This was a cheerfully decorated room, with pictures drawn by the children pinned up on a large notice board. A box in one corner was filled with toys.

Mma Kerileng waited until her guests were seated before she lowered herself into one of the bulky armchairs which were arranged around a low central table.

“I have heard of you, Mma,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. “I have seen your picture in the newspaper. And of course I have met Mr J.L.B. Matekoni when he has been out here fixing all the machines that are always breaking. You are a lucky lady to be marrying a man who can fix things. Most husbands just break things.”

Mma Ramotswe inclined her head at the compliment. “He is a good man,” she said. “He is not well at the moment, but I am hoping that he will be better very soon.”

“I hope so too,” said Mma Kerileng. She looked expectantly at Mma Potokwane.

“I wanted Mma Ramotswe to see Mataila,” she said. “She may be able to advise us. How is he today?”

“It is the same as yesterday,” said Mma Kerileng. “And the day before that. There is no change in that boy.”

Mma Potokwane sighed. “It is very sad. Is he sleeping now? Can you open the door?”

“I think that he’s awake,” said the housemother. “Let us see anyway.”

She arose from her chair and led them down a highly polished corridor. Mma Ramotswe noticed, with approval, how clean the house was. She knew how much hard work there would be in this woman; throughout the country there were women who worked and worked and who were rarely given any praise. Politicians claimed the credit for building Botswana, but how dare they? How dare they claim the credit for all the hard work of people like Mma Kerileng, and women like her.

They stopped outside a door at the end of the corridor and Mma Kerileng took a key out of her housecoat pocket.

“I cannot remember when we last locked a child in a room,” she said. “In fact, I think it has never happened before. We have never had to do such a thing.”

The observation seemed to make Mma Potokwane feel uncomfortable. “There is no other way,” she said. “He would run off into the bush.”

“Of course,” said Mma Kerileng. “It just seems very sad.”

She pushed the door open, to reveal a room furnished only with a mattress. There was no glass in the window, which was covered with a large latticework wrought-iron screen of the sort used as burglar bars. Sitting on the mattress, his legs splayed out before him, was a boy of five or six, completely naked.

The boy looked at the women as they entered and for a brief moment Mma Ramotswe saw an expression of fear, of the sort one might see in the eyes of a frightened animal. But this lasted only for a short time before it was replaced by a look of vacancy, or absence.

“Mataila,” said Mma Potokwane, speaking very slowly in Setswana. “Mataila, how are you today? This lady here is called Mma Ramotswe. Ramotswe. Can you see her?”

The boy looked up at Mma Potokwane as she spoke, and his gaze remained with her until she stopped speaking. Then he looked down at the floor again.

“I don’t think he understands,” said Mma Potokwane. “But we speak to him anyway.”

“Have you tried other languages?” asked Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwane nodded. “Everything we can think of. We had somebody come out from the Department of African Languages at the university. They tried some of the rarer ones, just in case he had wandered down from Zambia. We tried Herero. We tried San, although he’s obviously not a Mosarwa to look at. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Mma Ramotswe took a step forward to get a closer look at the boy. He raised his head slightly, but did nothing else. She stepped forward again.

“Be careful,” said Mma Potokwane. “He bites. Not always, but quite often.”

Mma Ramotswe stood still. Biting was a not uncommon method of fighting in Botswana, and it would not be surprising to find a child that bit. There had been a recent case reported in Mmegi of assault by biting. A waiter had bitten a customer after an argument over shortchanging, and this had led to a prosecution in the Lobatse Magistrate’s Court. The waiter had been sentenced to one month’s imprisonment and had immediately bitten the policeman who was leading him off to the cells; a further example, thought Mma Ramotswe, of the shortsightedness of violent people. This second bite had cost him another three months in prison.

Mma Ramotswe looked down at the child.

“Mataila?”

The boy did nothing.

“Mataila?” She stretched out towards the boy, ready to withdraw her hand sharply if necessary.

The boy growled. There was no other word for it, she thought. It was a growl, a low, guttural sound that seemed to come from his chest.

“Did you hear that?” asked Mma Potokwane. “Isn’t that extraordinary? And if you’re wondering why he’s naked, it’s because he ripped up the clothes we gave him. He ripped them with his teeth and threw them down on the ground. We gave him two pairs of shorts, and he did the same thing to both of them.”

Mma Potokwane now moved forward.

“Now, Mataila,” she said. “You get up and come outside. Mma Kerileng will take you out for some fresh air.”

She reached down and took the boy, gingerly, by the arm. His head turned for a moment, and Mma Ramotswe thought that he was about to bite, but he did not and he meekly rose to his feet and allowed himself to be led out of the room.

Outside the house, Mma Kerileng took the boy’s hand and walked with him towards a clump of trees at the edge of the compound. The boy walked with a rather unusual gait, observed Mma Ramotswe, between a run and a walk, as if he might suddenly bound off.

“So that’s our Mataila,” said Mma Potokwane, as they watched the housemother walk off with her charge. “What do you think of that?”

Mma Ramotswe grimaced. “It is very strange. Something terrible must have happened to that child.”

“No doubt,” said Mma Potokwane. “I said that to the doctor who looked at him. He said maybe yes, maybe no. He said that there are some children who are just like that. They keep to themselves and they never learn to talk.”

Mma Ramotswe watched as Mma Kerileng briefly let go of the child’s hand.

“We have to watch him all the time,” said Mma Potokwane. “If we leave him, he runs off into the bush and hides. He went missing for four hours last week. They eventually found him over by the sewerage ponds. He does not seem to know that a naked child running as fast as he can is likely to attract attention.”

Mma Potokwane and Mma Ramotswe began to walk back together towards the office. Mma Ramotswe felt depressed. She wondered how one would make a start with a child like that. It was easy to respond to the needs of appealing orphans—of children such as the two who had come to live in Zebra Drive—but there were so many other children, children who had been damaged in some way or other, and who would need patience and understanding. She contemplated her life, with its lists and its demands, and she wondered how she would ever find the time to be the mother of a child like that. Surely Mma Potokwane could not be planning that she and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni should take this child too? She knew that the matron had a reputation for determination and for not taking no for an answer—which of course made her a powerful advocate for her orphans—but she could not imagine that she would try to impose in this way, for in any view it would be a great imposition to foist this child off on her.

“I am a busy woman,” she started to say, as they neared the office. “I’m sorry, but I cannot take …”

A group of orphans walked past them and greeted the matron politely. They had with them a small, undernourished puppy, which one of them was cradling in her arms; one orphan helps another, thought Mma Ramotswe.

“Be careful with that dog,” warned Mma Potokwane. “I am always telling you that you should not pick up these strays. Will you not listen …”