Alexander McCall Smith - Tears of the Giraffe

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni exposed the pistons and the cylinders. Then, pausing, he looked over at the children.

"What is happening now, Rra?" called the girl. "Are you going to replace those rings there? What do they do? Are they important?"

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at the boy. "You see, Puso? You see what I am doing?"

The boy smiled weakly.

"He is a drawing a picture in the oil," said the apprentice. "He is drawing a house."

The girl said: "May I come closer, Rra?" she said. "I will not get in the way."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni nodded and, after she had wheeled herself across, he pointed out to her where the trouble lay.

"You hold this for me," he said. "There."

She took the spanner, and held it firmly.

"Good," he said. "Now you turn this one here. You see? Not too far. That's right."

He took the spanner from her and replaced it in his tray. Then he turned and looked at her. She was leaning forward in her chair, her eyes bright with interest. He knew that look; the expression of one who loves engines. It could not be faked; that younger apprentice, for example, did not have it, and that is why he would never be more than a mediocre mechanic. But this girl, this strange, serious child who had come into his life, had the makings of a mechanic. She had the art. He had never before seen it in a girl, but it was there. And why not? Mma Ramotswe had taught him that there is no reason why women should not do anything they wanted. She was undoubtedly right. People had assumed that private detectives would be men, but look at how well Mma Ramotswe had done. She had been able to use a woman's powers of observation and a woman's intuition to find out things that could well escape a man. So if a girl might aspire to becoming a detective, then why should she not aspire to entering the predominantly male world of cars and engines?

Motholeli raised her eyes, meeting his gaze, but still respectfully.

"You are not cross with me, Rra?" she said. "You do not think I am a nuisance?"

He reached forward and laid a hand gently on her arm. "Of course I am not cross," he said. "I am proud. I am proud that now I have a daughter who will be a great mechanic. Is that what you want? Am I right?"

She nodded modestly. "I have always loved engines," she said. "I have always liked to look at them. I have loved to work with screwdrivers and spanners. But I have never had the chance to do anything,"

"Well," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "That changes now. You can come with me on Saturday mornings and help here. Would you like that? We can make a special workbench for you-a low one-so that it is the right height for your chair." "You are very kind, Rra."

For the rest of the day, she remained at his side, watching each procedure, asking the occasional question, but taking care not to intrude. He tinkered and coaxed, until eventually the minibus engine, reinvigorated, was secured back in place and, when tested, produced no acrid black smoke.

"You see," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni proudly, pointing to the clear exhaust. "Oil won't burn off like that if it's kept in the right place. Tight seals. Good piston rings. Everything in its proper place."

Motholeli clapped her hands. "That van is happier now," she said.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. 'Yes," he agreed. "It is happier now."

He knew now, beyond all doubt, that she had the talent. Only those who really understood machinery could conceive of happiness in an engine; it was an insight which the non-mechanically minded simply lacked. This girl had it, while the younger apprentice did not. He would kick an engine, rather than talk to it, and he had often seen him forcing metal. You cannot force metal, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had told him time after time. If you force metal, it fights back. Remember that if you remember nothing else I have tried to teach you. Yet the apprentice would still strip bolts by turning the nut the wrong way and would bend flanges if they seemed reluctant to fall into proper alignment. No machinery could be treated that way.

This girl was different. She understood the feelings of engines, and would be a great mechanic one day-that was clear.

He looked at her proudly, as he wiped his hands on cotton lint. The future of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors seemed assured.

MMA RAMOTSWE felt afraid. She had experienced fear only once or twice before in her work as Botswana's only lady private detective (a title she still deserved; Mma Makutsi, it had to be remembered, was only an assistant private detective). She had felt this way when she had gone to see Charlie Gotso, the wealthy businessman who still cultivated witch doctors, and indeed on that meeting she had wondered whether her calling might one day bring her up against real danger. Now, faced with going to Dr Ranta's house, the same cold feeling had settled in her stomach. Of course, there were no real grounds for this. It was an ordinary house in an everyday street near Maru-a-Pula School. There would be neighbours next door, and the sound of voices; there would be dogs barking in the night; there would be the lights of cars. She could not imagine that Dr Ranta would pose any danger to her. He was an accomplished seducer perhaps, a manipulator, an opportunist, but not a murderer.

On the other hand, the most ordinary people can be murderers. And if this were to be the manner of one's death, then one was very likely to know one's assailant and meet him in very ordinary circumstances. She had recently taken out a subscription to the Journal of Criminology (an expensive mistake, because it contained little of interest to her) but among the meaningless tables and unintelligible prose she had come across an arresting fact: the overwhelming majority of homicide victims know the person who kills them. They are not killed by strangers, but by friends, family, work acquaintances. Mothers killed their children. Husbands killed their wives. Wives killed their husbands. Employees killed their employers. Danger, it seemed, stalked every interstice of day-to-day life. Could this be true? Not in Johannesburg, she thought, where people fell victim to tsostis who prowled about at night, to car thieves who were prepared to use their guns, and to random acts of indiscriminate violence by young men with no sense of the value of life. But perhaps cities like that were an exception; perhaps in more normal circumstances homicide happened in just this sort of surrounding-a quiet talk in a modest house, while people went about their ordinary business just a stone's throw away.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni sensed that something was wrong. He had come to dinner, to tell her of his visit earlier that evening to his maid in prison, and had immediately noticed that she seemed distracted. He did not mention it at first; there was a story to tell about the maid, and this, he thought, might take Mma Ramotswe's mind off whatever it was that was preoccupying her.

"I have arranged for a lawyer to see her," he said. "There is a man in town who knows about this sort of case. I have arranged for him to go and see her in her cell and to speak for her in court."

Mma Ramotswe piled an ample helping of beans on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's plate.

"Did she explain anything?" she asked. "It can't look good for her. Silly woman."

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. "She was hysterical when I first arrived. She started to shout at the guards. It was very embarrassing for me. They said: 'Please control your wife and tell her to keep her big mouth shut.' I had to tell them twice that she was not my wife."

"But why was she shouting?" asked Mma Ramotswe. "Surely she understands that she can't shout her way out of there."

"She knows that, I think," said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. "She was shouting because she was so cross. She said that somebody else should be there, not her. She mentioned your name for some reason."