Alexander McCall Smith - Tears of the Giraffe

They waited at the gate while Mma Tsbago called out for permission to enter. It was rude to go up the path without first calling, and even ruder to go into a building uninvited.

"Ko, Ko!" called out Mma Tsbago. "Mma Potsane, I am here to see you!"

There was no response, and Mma Tsbago repeated her call. Again no answer came, and then the door of the house suddenly opened and a small, rotund woman, dressed in a long skirt and high-collared white blouse, came out and peered in their direction.

"Who is that?" she called out, shading her eyes with a hand. "Who are you? I cannot see you."

"Mma Tsbago. You know me. I am here with a stranger." The householder laughed. "I thought it might be somebody else, and I quickly got dressed up. But I need not have bothered!"

She gestured for them to enter and they walked across to meet her.

"I cannot see very well these days," explained Mma Potsane. "My eyes are getting worse and worse. That is why I didn't know who you were."

They shook hands, exchanging formal greetings. Then Mma Potsane gestured across to a bench which stood in the shade of the large tree beside her house. They could sit there, she explained, because the house was too dark inside.

Mma Tsbago explained why they were there and Mma Pot-sane listened intently. Her eyes appeared to be irritating her, and from time to time she wiped at them with the sleeve of her blouse. As Mma Tsbago spoke, she nodded encouragement.

"Yes," she said. "We lived out there. My husband worked there. We both worked there. We hoped that we would be able to make some money with our crops and for a while it worked. Then..." She broke off, shrugging despondently.

"Things went wrong?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "Drought?"

Mma Potsane sighed. "There was a drought, yes. But there's always a drought, isn't there? No, it was just that people lost faith in the idea. There were good people living there, but they went away."

"The white man from Namibia? The German one?" asked Mma Ramotswe.

"Yes, that one. He was a good man, but he went away. Then there were other people, Batswana, who decided that they had had enough. They went too."

"And an American?" pressed Mma Ramotswe. "There was an American boy?"

Mma Potsane rubbed at her eyes. "That boy vanished. He disappeared one night. They had the police out here and they searched and searched. His mother came too, many times. She brought a Mosarwa tracker with her, a tiny little man, like a dog with his nose to the ground. He had a very fat bottom, like all those Basarwa have."

"He found nothing?" Mma Ramotswe knew the answer to this, but she wanted to keep the other woman talking. She had so far only heard the story from Mrs Curtin's viewpoint; it was quite possible that there were things which other people had seen which she did not know about.

"He ran round and round like a dog," said Mma Potsane, laughing. "He looked under stones and sniffed the air and muttered away in that peculiar language of theirs-you know how it is, all those sounds like trees in the wind and twigs breaking. But he found no sign of any wild animals which may have taken that boy."

Mma Ramotswe passed her a handkerchief to dab her eyes. "So what do you think happened to him, Mma? How can somebody just vanish like that?"

Mma Potsane sniffed and then blew her nose on Mma Ramotswe's handkerchief.

"I think that he was sucked up," she said. "There are sometimes whirlwinds here in the very hot season. They come in from the Kalahari and they suck things up. I think that maybe that boy got sucked up in a whirlwind and put down somewhere far, far away. Maybe over by Ghanzi way or in the middle of the Kalahari or somewhere. No wonder they didn't find him."

Mma Tsbago looked sideways at Mma Ramotswe, trying to catch her eye, but Mma Ramotswe looked straight ahead at Mma Potsane.

"That is always possible, Mma," she said. "That is an interesting idea." She paused. "Could you take me out there and show me round? I have a van here."

Mma Potsane thought for a moment. "I do not like to go out there," she said. "It is a sad place for me."

"I have twenty pula for your expenses," said Mma Ramotswe, reaching into her pocket. "I had hoped that you would be able to accept this from me."

"Of course," said Mma Potsane hurriedly. "We can go there. I do not like to go there at night, but in the day it is different."

"Now?" said Mma Ramotswe. "Could you come now?"

"I am not busy," said Mma Potsane. "There is nothing happening here."

Mma Ramotswe passed the money over to Mma Potsane, who thanked her, clapping both hands in a sign of gratitude. Then they walked back over her neatly swept yard and, saying goodbye to Mma Tsbago, they climbed into the van and drove off.

ON THE day that Mma Ramotswe travelled out to Silokwolela, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni felt vaguely ill at ease. He had become accustomed to meeting Mma Ramotswe on a Saturday morning to help her with her shopping or with some task about the house. Without her, he felt at a loose end: Gaborone seemed strangely empty; the garage was closed, and he had no desire to attend to the paperwork that had been piling up on his desk. He could call on a friend, of course, and perhaps go and watch a football match, but again he was not in the mood for that. Then he thought of Mma Silvia Potokwane, Matron in Charge of the Orphan Farm. There was inevitably something happening out there, and she was always happy to sit down and have a chat over a cup of tea. He would go out there and see how everything was. Then the rest of the day could take care of itself until Mma Ramotswe returned that evening.

Mma Potokwane spotted him, as usual, as he parked his car under one of the syringa trees.

"I see you!" she shouted from her window. "I see you, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni!"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni waved in her direction as he locked the car. Then he strode towards the office, where the sound of cheerful music drifted out of one of the windows. Inside, Mma Potokwane was sitting beside her desk, a telephone receiver to her ear. She motioned for him to sit down and continued with her conversation.

"If you can give me some of that cooking oil," she said, "the orphans will be very happy. They like to have their potatoes fried in oil and it is good for them."

The voice at the other end said something, and she frowned, glancing up at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, as if to share her irritation.

"But you cannot sell that oil if it is beyond its expiry date. So why should I pay you anything for it? It would be better to give it to the orphans than to pour it down the drain. I cannot give you money for it, and so I see no reason why you shouldn't give it to us."

Again something was said on the other end of the line, and she nodded patiently.

"I can make sure that the Daily News comes to photograph you handing the oil over. Everybody will know that you are a generous man. It will be there in the papers."

There was a further brief exchange and then she replaced the receiver.

"Some people are slow to give," she said. "It is something to do with how their mothers brought them up. I have read all about this problem in a book. There is a doctor called Dr. Freud who is very famous and has written many books about such people."

"Is he in Johannesburg?" asked Mr J.L.B. Matekoni.

"I do not think so," said Mma Potokwane. "It is a book from London. But it is very interesting. He says that all boys are in love with their mother."

"That is natural," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "Of course boys love their mothers. Why should they not do so?"

Mma Potokwane shrugged. "I agree with you. I cannot see what is wrong with a boy loving his mother."

"Then why is Dr. Freud worried about this?" went on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "Surely he should be worried if they did not love their mothers."