Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (17 page)

The thought of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nursing secret, unfulfilled ambitions saddened Mma Ramotswe, as did the thought of people wanting something very much indeed and not getting the thing they yearned for. When we dismiss or deny the hopes of others, she thought, we forget that they, like us, have only one chance in this life.

It was while Mma Tafa was filling the kettle for a second pot of tea, and while Mma Ramotswe was thinking of unfulfilled ambitions, that the kitchen door opened and Big Man Tafa came in. Seeing him up close, Mma Ramotswe was struck by the goalkeeper's diminutive stature—he seemed far smaller here in the kitchen, surprisingly so, than when standing in the goal. Of course it might have had something to do with his juxtaposition to Mma Tafa, who, beside her husband, seemed even larger than before. She positively flowed, thought Mma Ramotswe, flowed from a comfortable, cushiony centre to the outposts of her well-padded fingers; a great river of a woman. And he, the tiny goalkeeper, looked as if he might drown in the arms of such a wife; drown and be lost altogether.
Where is my husband?
Mma Tafa might say.
Has anybody seen him?
And they would reply:
In your arms, Mma, right there; be careful; he is right there, see
.

Introductions were made and Big Man sat down. When his wife explained that Mma Ramotswe was here on behalf on Mr. Molofololo, a shadow crossed his face. He glanced at his wife,
who responded with one of those looks that married couples can exchange; a look that conveyed far more than might any words. And then came the reassuring response that underlined the unspoken message: “There is no trouble,” she said. “Don't worry.”

Mma Ramotswe made a mental note of this comment. What trouble might Big Man Tafa expect from an emissary from Mr. Molofololo? In one view, such a remark suggested that Big Man Tafa had reason to fear Mr. Molofololo—and that, surely, is how a traitor to a football team might be expected to feel.

Big Man Tafa sat down opposite Mma Ramotswe at the table and listened attentively as she told him why she was there. “Mr. Molofololo wants to hear what is wrong,” she said. “That is why I am speaking to everybody.”

He relaxed visibly at the mention of everybody. “Not just me?” he said.

“Of course not, Rra. Why would it just be you?”

She was aware of the sting at the end of her reply, and she watched his reaction carefully.

“Because when a goal is scored, it is always the goalkeeper who gets the blame,” he said. “Always the poor goalie.”

That seemed understandable enough. And of course if anybody was in a position to give a match away, it was the goalkeeper.

Big Man Tafa clasped his hands together and settled back in his chair. “You want to know what's wrong, Mma? I can tell you. Free. I can tell you free. Our captain—Rops Thobega. Have you met him?”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “I met him briefly, Rra. I have not talked to him properly yet, Rra. But I will.”

Big Man wrinkled his nose. “If he agrees to talk to you, that is. You will have to make an appointment, you know. The great Rops Thobega isn't one of those people you can just drop in on. Oh no. You have to phone and say to his wife,
Please may I speak to Rops,
Mma? Not for long. Just one minute, please
. That's what you have to do.”

Mma Tafa laughed. “And you have to make an appointment before you can speak to the wife. You have to phone up the maid and say
Please, Mma, may I speak to Mma Thobega? Just one minute, etc., etc.”
She watched Big Man as she spoke, clearly taking pleasure from his approbation.

“That is very funny” said Big Man. “But Mmakeletso is right. The whole lot of them have let his position go to his head. It is easier to speak to the President himself than it is to speak to him, I tell you!”

“That is not at all good,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that you are telling me that the captain, this Rops, is no good.”

“I am,” said Big Man Tafa. “And until he is replaced, then we are going to lose, lose, lose. I can tell you that, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe looked thoughtful, weighing this information carefully. “Tell me, Rra,” she asked, “how do you replace a captain? Does this happen automatically if a team does very badly for a long time?”

She thought that they both hesitated, Mmakeletso and Big Man Tafa; she thought she saw them stiffen and look at each other. She waited.

“Oh, I don't know,” Big Man said after a while. “It depends on the owner of the team. It will be up to Mr. Molofololo, I suppose.”

Mma Ramotswe tried a different tack. “Do you think it possible, Rra …” she began. “Do you think it possible that somebody in the team might try to lose on purpose? Do you think that anything like that could happen?”

Big Man Tafa closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them and stared at Mma Ramotswe in what looked like unfeigned horror. “Never, Mma. You could tell, you see. Anybody could tell.”

Mma Ramotswe probed gently. “How?”

Big Man Tafa tapped the table with his fingers. “You can always tell when somebody is not doing his best. You can just tell.” He paused, as if thinking of something for the first time. “But now that you come to mention it, Mma, I think that there might be somebody not trying his best. Yes, I think I can say that.”

Mma Ramotswe watched him closely. His small frame, she thought, was like that of one of those creatures you see scurrying through the bush: wiry and difficult to catch. He would be a wonderful dancer, she decided. And then for a moment she pictured Big Man Tafa, dancing with his wife, lost in all that flesh, his dainty feet barely touching the ground as he was lifted up in her arms.

She tried to make the question sound unimportant—an afterthought. “Who do you think is not trying his best?”

He answered immediately. “Rops,” he said. “If anybody wants us to lose, it must be Rops.”

She affected disbelief. “Surely not, Rra. Surely not Rops. Why would he want that?”

“Because he hates Mr. Molofololo,” said Big Man Tafa, “and I believe that Mr. Molofololo put Rops's brother-in-law out of business.”

“How did he do that?” Mma Ramotswe enquired.

Big Man did not know, but he assured Mma Ramotswe that it had happened and that Rops still felt angry about it.

“I see,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But if Rops dislikes Mr. Molofololo so much, why can he not just resign? He is such a well-known man that there will be many teams who will want him to play for them. He could go to Extension Gunners. He could go anywhere.”

Big Man Tafa shook his head. “Rops is too old now. He can no longer play very well. Rops is finished.”

“But surely he wouldn't want to end his career like this,” Mma
Ramotswe persisted. “Who would want to retire after a long spell of losing every game?”

“Don't ask me,” said Big Man Tafa. “You should know that sort of thing. You're the detective.”

Mma Ramotswe sat quite still. “How do you know that, Rra? How do you know that I'm a detective?”

Big Man looked at her in surprise. “Because everybody knows that, Mma Ramotswe. You are a famous lady in these parts. Mma Ramotswe of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Everybody knows you now.”

“Your cover is blown,” said Mma Tafa, smiling at Mma Ramotswe. “Isn't that what you detectives say?”

Big Man Tafa answered the question for her. “It is,” he said.

AS SHE WALKED
back to the car, Mma Ramotswe was deep in thought. She was not quite sure what to make of her conversation with the Tafas; some things had become clearer while other things had become more obscure. Some things, indeed, were now quite unintelligible.

The small boy was sitting on duty at the van, and she fished a couple of coins out of her bag to pay him.

“You have looked after the van very well,” she said, pressing the coins into his outstretched palm.

“Thank you, Mma.”

She looked down at him, at his funny, rather serious face; he was wiser, perhaps, than most boys of his age.
Boys know everything
, she remembered somebody saying.
Everything
.

“Tell me,” she said to the boy. “Big Man Tafa: Is he a good man, do you think, or is he a bad man?”

The boy's eyes moved slightly. A fly had landed on his head and was walking slowly across the smooth expanse of his brow. He did nothing to brush it off.

“He is bad man, I think,” he said. “A very bad man. And one day God is going to punish him.”

Mma Ramotswe was taken aback. The judgement had been so swift, so clear; but it always is, she reflected, when you're that size.

“Who says he is a bad man?” she asked. “Just you?”

The boy shook his head, making the fly take off from its suddenly uncertain landing strip.

“My father,” he said. “Big Man Tafa owes my father ten thousand pula. That is this much, Mma.” He stretched out his hand to illustrate a pile of money. “He says that only bad men don't pay what they have promised to pay. That is why I think that God will get him.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “You are a very interesting boy” she said.

W
HEN MMA RAMOTSWE
arrived back at an empty office, she found on her desk a handwritten note from Mma Makutsi:

Mma Ramotswe smiled at this note. If the way we write a letter gives us away, as people said it did, then the DSP said it all: the Diploma in Secretarial Practice that Mma Makutsi had was her proudest possession—and understandably so. But did she have to put it after her name, and do so even when she wrote a note to her employer? Mma Ramotswe herself had no letters to put after her name, unless, of course, she wrote W, for Woman. Mma Precious Ramotswe, W. That seemed a bit unnecessary because the Mma made it clear that she was a woman, as did her
first name, Precious. Perhaps she could put TBW (Traditionally Built Woman) or PI (Private Investigator). The last of these sounded much better, she thought, but really was not necessary, as everybody appeared to know that she was a private detective, or so the Tafas had claimed.

She hoped that Mma Makutsi would handle her conversation with Phuti tactfully, and not say anything that she would later regret. When she had suggested to her assistant that she should talk about her concerns, Mma Ramotswe had not meant that she should talk to Phuti; she had meant that Mma Makutsi should talk to her. Discussing that sort of thing with a woman friend was one thing; discussing it with a man, and with the man under suspicion as well, was quite another, and much more hazardous. Men did not like to be suspected of unfaithfulness; indeed, she had heard of cases where men had responded to such accusations by going out and finding another girlfriend, even when there was no truth to the original accusation. It seemed that the mere mention of such a possibility could be enough to trigger the desire in a man's mind to do what he would otherwise not have done. One had to be extremely careful.

Mma Ramotswe thought it very unlikely that Phuti was entertaining the possibility of abandoning Mma Makutsi in favour of Violet Sephotho. Phuti had always struck her as being an unadventurous, loyal man; not the sort of man to take up with a woman like Violet, with her loud, loose ways and her utter ruthlessness. And yet, and yet … The problem was that men were weak, and sometimes the steadiest of men proved to be the weakest of all when faced with a determined onslaught. Violet probably knew that very well. She knew how to turn a man's head, as she would have done so on many occasions before, presumably leaving a trail of broken engagements and marriages behind her. She was, Mma Ramotswe believed, a husband-stealer, as she had heard this
accusation levelled against her on more than one occasion. And would Phuti, for all his fine qualities, be able to resist the devastating power of one so skilled in the sinister arts of husband-stealing?

She sat down at her desk, pondering these matters, and was doing this, looking up at the ceiling, when Fanwell came in.

“I know that it is not yet tea time, Mma,” he said, looking at his watch. “But I am very thirsty. I would like to make some tea.”

“I am thirsty too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “So perhaps you will make some for me, too.”

Fanwell went off to fill the kettle and returned a few moments later. While waiting for the water to boil, he sat on top of Mma Makutsi's desk, kicking his legs against the side. He would never have dared to do that, thought Mma Ramotswe, had Mma Makutsi been present, but he could be forgiven the presumption. There were some things that she herself did when Mma Makutsi was absent that she would never have dared to do in her presence—such as using her assistant's cup if her own cup needed washing and she was too busy—or it was too hot—to do it.

“I'm very sorry,” said Fanwell suddenly.

Mma Ramotswe looked up in surprise. “What have you done?”