Alexander McCall Smith - Tears of the Giraffe

Mma Ramotswe nodded her understanding. "Yes," she said "It's his fault, but he is not a good man. He cannot give any thing to that woman, or to anybody else for that matter. Such people cannot say sorry to another. But you can. You can meet this woman and tell her what happened. You can seek her forgiveness."

Carla shook her head. "I don't see why... After all these years..."

Mma Ramotswe stopped her. "Besides," she said. 'You are the mother of her grandchild. Is that not so? Would you deny her that little bit of comfort? She has no son now. But there is a..."

"Boy," said Carla. "He is called Michael too. He is nine, almost ten."

Mma Ramotswe smiled. "You must bring the child to her, Mma," she said. "You are a mother. You know what that means. You have no reason now not to do this. Oswald cannot do anything to you. He is no threat."

Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and walked over to the desk, where Carla sat, crumpled, uncertain.

'You know that you must do this," she said.

She took the other woman's hand and held it gently. It was sun-specked, from exposure to high places and heat, and hard work.

'You will do it, won't you, Mma? She is ready to come out to Botswana. She will come in a day or two if I tell her. Can you get away from here? Just for a few days?"

"I have an assistant," said Carla. "She can run the place."

"And the boy? Michael? Will he not be happy to see his grandmother?"

Carla looked up at her. "Yes, Mma Ramotswe," she said. "You are right."

SHE RETURNED to Gaborone the following day, arriving late at night. Her maid, Rose, had stayed in the house to look after the children, who were fast asleep when Mma Ramotswe arrived home. She crept into their rooms and listened to their soft breathing and smelled the sweet smell of children sleeping. Then exhausted from the drive, she tumbled into her bed, mentally still driving, her eyes moving behind heavy, closed lids.

She was in the office early the following morning, leaving the children in Rose's care. Mma Makutsi had arrived even earlier than she had, and was sitting efficiently behind her desk, typing a report.

"Mr Letsenyane Badule," she announced. "I am reporting on the end of the case."

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. "I thought that you wanted me to sort that out."

Mma Makutsi pursed her lips. "To begin with, I was not brave enough," she said. "But then he came in yesterday and I had to speak to him. If 1 had seen him coming, I could have locked the door and put up a closed sign. But he came in before I could do anything about it."

"And?" prompted Mma Ramotswe.

"And I told him about his wife's being unfaithful."

"What did he say?"

"He was upset. He looked very sad."

Mma Ramotswe smiled wryly. "No surprise there," she said. "Yes, but then I told him that he should not do anything about this as his wife was not doing it for herself, but was doing it for her son's sake. She had taken up with a rich man purely to make sure that his son would get a good education. I said that she was being very selfless. I said that it might be best to leave things exactly as they are."

Mma Ramotswe looked astounded. "He believed that?" she said, incredulously.

"Yes," said Mma Makutsi. "He is not a very sophisticated man. He seemed quite pleased." "I'm astonished," said Mma Ramotswe. "Well, there you are," said Mma Makutsi. "He remains happy. The wife also continues to be happy. The boy gets his education. And the wife's lover and the wife's lover's wife are also happy. It is a good result."

Mma Ramotswe was not convinced. There was a major ethical flaw in this solution, but to define it exactly would require a great deal more thought and discussion. She would have to talk to Mma Makutsi about this at greater length, once she had more time to do so. It was a pity, she thought, that the Journal of Criminology did not have a problem page for just such cases. She could have written and asked for advice in this delicate matter. Perhaps she could write to the editor anyway and suggest that an agony aunt be appointed; it would certainly make the journal very much more readable.

Several quiet days ensued, in which, once again, they were without clients, and could bring the administrative affairs of the agency up to date. Mma Makutsi oiled her typewriter and went out to buy a new kettle, for the preparation of bush tea.

Mma Ramotswe wrote letters to old friends and prepared accounts for the impending end of the financial year. She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted for infinitely more than a vigorously healthy balance sheet. In fact, she thought, annual accounts should include an item specifically headed Happiness, alongside expenses and receipts and the like. That figure in her accounts would be a very large one, she thought.

But it would be nothing to the happiness of Andrea Curtin, who arrived three days later and who met, late that afternoon, in the office of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, the mother of her grandson and her grandson himself. While Carla was left alone to give the account of what happened on that night ten years ago, Mma Ramotswe took the boy for a walk, and pointed out to him the granite slopes of Kgale Hill and the distant smudge of blue which was the waters of the dam. He was a courteous boy, rather grave in his manner, who was interested in stones, and kept stopping to scratch at some piece of rock or to pick up a pebble.

"This one is quartz," he said, showing her a piece of white rock. "Sometimes you find gold in quartz."

She took the rock and examined it. "You are very interested in rocks?"

"I want to be a geologist," he said solemnly. "We have a geologist who stays in our hotel sometimes. He teaches me about rocks."

She smiled encouragingly. "It would be an interesting job, that," she said. "Rather like being a detective. Looking for things."

She handed the piece of quartz back to him. As he took it, his eye caught her engagement ring, and for a moment he held her hand, looking at the gold band and its twinkling stone.

"Cubic zirconium," he said. "They make them look like diamonds. Just like the real thing."

WHEN THEY returned, Carla and the American woman were sitting side by side and there was a peacefulness, even joy, in the older woman's expression which told Mma Ramotswe that what she had intended had indeed been achieved.

They drank tea together, just looking at one another. The boy had a gift for his grandmother, a small soapstone carving, which he had made himself. She took it, and kissed him, as any grandmother would.

Mma Ramotswe had a gift for the American woman, a basket which on her return journey from Bulawayo she had bought, on impulse, from a woman sitting by the side of the road in Francistown. The woman was desperate, and Mma Ramotswe, who did not need a basket, had bought it to help her. It was a traditional Botswana basket, with a design worked into the weaving.

"These little marks here are tears," she said. "The giraffe gives its tears to the women and they weave them into the basket."

The American woman took the basket politely, in the proper Botswana way of receiving a gift-with both hands. How rude were people who took a gift with one hand, as if snatching it from the donor; she knew better.

"You are very kind, Mma," she said. "But why did the giraffe give its tears?"

Mma Ramotse shrugged; she had never thought about it. "I suppose that it means that we can all give something," she said. "A giraffe has nothing else to give-only tears." Did it mean that? she wondered. And for a moment she imagined that she saw a giraffe peering down through the trees, its strange, stilt-borne body camouflaged among the leaves; and its moist velvet cheeks and liquid eyes; and she thought of all the beauty that there was in Africa, and of the laughter, and the love.