Alexander McCall Smith - Tears of the Giraffe

But it was enough. They drove slowly round the corner and parked under a jacaranda tree at the side of the road.

"What now?" asked the uncle. "Do we wait here until she leaves?"

Mma Makutsi was uncertain. "There is not much point in sitting here," she said. "We are really interested in what is going on in that house."

She remembered Mma Ramotswe's advice. The best source of information was undoubtedly the maids, if they could be persuaded to talk. It was now lunchtime, and the maids would be busy in the kitchen. But in an hour or so, they would have their own lunch break, and would come back to the servants' quarters. And those could be reached quite easily, along the narrow sanitary lane that ran along the back of the properties. That would be the time to speak to them and to offer the crisp new fifty pula notes which Mma Ramotswe had issued her the previous evening.

The uncle wanted to accompany her, and Mma Makutsi had difficulty persuading him that she could go alone.

"It could be dangerous," he said. "You might need protection."

She brushed aside his objections. "Dangerous, Uncle? Since when has it been dangerous to talk to a couple of maids in the middle of Gaborone, in the middle of the day?"

He had had no answer to that, but he nonetheless looked anxious when she left him in the car and made her way along the lane to the back gate. He watched her hesitate behind the small, whitewashed building which formed the servants' quarters, before making her way round to the door, and then he lost sight of her. He took out his pencil, glanced at the time, and made a note: Mma Makutsi enters servants' quarters at 2:10 P.M.

THERE WERE two of them, just as she had anticipated. One of them was older than the other, and had crow's-feet wrinkles at the side of her eyes. She was a comfortable, large-chested woman, dressed in a green maid's dress and a pair of scuffed white shoes of the sort which nurses wear. The younger woman, who looked as if she was in her mid-twenties, Mma Makutsi's own age, was wearing a red housecoat and had a sultry, spoiled face. In other clothes, and made-up, she would not have looked out of place as a bar girl. Perhaps she is one, thought Mma Makutsi.

The two women stared at her, the younger one quite rudely.

"Ko ko," said Mma Makutsi, politely, using the greeting that could substitute for a knock when there was no door to be knocked upon. This was necessary, as although the women were not inside their house they were not quite outside either,

being seated on two stools in the cramped open porch at the front of the building.

The older woman studied their visitor, raising her hand to shade her eyes against the harsh light of the early afternoon. "Dumela, Mma. Are you well?"

The formal greetings were exchanged, and then there was silence. The younger woman poked at their small, blackened kettle with a stick.

"I wanted to talk to you, my sisters," said Mma Makutsi. "I want to find out about that woman who has come to visit this house, the one who drives that Mercedes-Benz. You know that one?"

The younger maid dropped the stick. The older one nodded. "Yes, we know that woman." "Who is she?"

The younger retrieved her stick and looked up at Mma Makutsi. "She is a very important lady, that one! She comes to the house and sits in the chairs and drinks tea. That is who she is."

The other one chuckled. "But she is also a very tired lady," she said. "Poor lady, she works so hard that she has to go and lie down in the bedroom a lot, to regain her strength."

The younger one burst into a peal of laughter. "Oh yes," she said. "There is much resting done in that bedroom. He helps her to rest her poor legs. Poor lady."

Mma Makutsi joined in their laughter. She knew immediately that this was going to be much easier than she had imagined it would be. Mma Ramotswe was right, as usual; people liked to talk, and, in particular, they liked to talk about people who annoyed them in some way. All one had to do was to discover the grudge and the grudge itself would do all the work.

She felt in her pocket for the two fifty pula notes; it might not even be necessary to use them after all. If this were the case, she might ask Mma Ramotswe to authorise their payment to her uncle.

"Who is the man who lives in this house?" she said. "Has he no wife of his own?"

This was the signal for them both to giggle. "He has a wife all right," said the older one. "She lives out at their village, up near Mahalaype. He goes there at weekends. This lady here is his town wife."

"And does the country wife know about this town wife?"

"No," said the older woman. "She would not like it. She is a Catholic woman, and she is very rich. Her father had four shops up there and bought a big farm. Then they came and dug a big mine on that farm and so they had to pay that woman a lot of money. That is how she bought this big house for her husband. But she does not like Gaborone."

"She is one of those people who never likes to leave the village," the younger maid interjected. "There are some people like that. She lets her husband live here to run some sort of business that she owns down here. But he has to go back every Friday, like a schoolboy going home for the weekend."

Mma Makutsi looked at the kettle. It was a very hot day, and she wondered if they would offer her tea. Fortunately the older maid noticed her glance and made the offer.

"And I'll tell you another thing," said the younger maid as she lit the paraffin stove underneath the kettle. "I would write a letter to the wife and tell her about that other woman, if I were not afraid that I would lose my job."

"He told us," said the other. "He said that if we told his wife, then we would lose our jobs immediately. He pays us well, this

man. He pays more than any other employer on this whole street. So we cannot lose this job. We just keep our mouths shut..."

She stopped, and at that moment both maids looked at one another in dismay.

"Aiee!" wailed the younger one. "What have we been doing? Why have we spoken like this to you? Are you from Mahalaype? Have you been sent by the wife? We are finished! We are very stupid women. Aiee!"

"No," said Mma Makutsi quickly. "I do not know the wife. I have not even heard of her. I have been asked to find out by that other woman's husband what she is doing. That is all."

The two maids became calmer, but the old one still looked worried. "But if you tell him what is happening, then he will come and chase this man away from his own wife and he might tell the real wife that her husband has another woman. That way we are finished too. It makes no difference."

"No," said Mma Makutsi. "I don't have to tell him what is going on. I might just say that she is seeing some man but I don't know who it is. What difference does it make to him? All he needs to know is that she is seeing a man. It does not matter which man it is."

The younger maid whispered something to the other, who frowned.

"What was that, Mma?" asked Mma Makutsi. The older one looked up at her. "My sister was just wondering about the boy. You see, there is a boy, who belongs to that smart woman. We do not like that woman, but we do like the boy. And that boy, you see, is the son of this man, not of the other man. They both have very big noses. There is no doubt about it. You take a look at them and you will see it for yourself.

This one is the father of that boy, even if the boy lives with the other one. He comes here every afternoon after school. The mother has told the boy that he must never speak to his other father about coming here, and so the boy keeps this thing secret from him. That is bad. Boys should not be taught to lie like that. What will become of Botswana, Mma, if we teach boys to behave like that? Where will Botswana be if we have so many dishonest boys? God will punish us, I am sure of it. Aren't you?"