Alexander McCall Smith - Tears of the Giraffe

Mma Makutsi admitted her to the office, while Mma Ramotswe rose from her chair to welcome her.

"I'm sorry to come without an appointment," said the woman. "I hoped that I might find you in."

"You don't need an appointment," said Mma Ramotswe warmly, reaching out to shake her hand. "You are always welcome."

The woman took her hand, correctly, Mma Ramotswe noticed, in the proper Botswana way, placing her left hand on her right forearm as a mark of respect. Most white people shook hands very rudely, snatching just one hand and leaving their other hand free to perform all sorts of mischief. This woman had at least learned something about how to behave.

She invited the caller to sit down in the chair which they kept for clients, while Mma Makutsi busied herself with the kettle.

"I'm Mrs Andrea Curtin," said the visitor. "I heard from somebody in my embassy that you were a detective and you might be able to help me."

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. "Embassy?"

"The American Embassy," said Mrs Curtin. "I asked them to give me the name of a detective agency."

Mma Ramotswe smiled. "I am glad that they recommended me," she said. "But what do you need?"

The woman had folded her hands on her lap and now she looked down at them. The skin of her hands was mottled, Mma Ramotswe noticed, in the way that white people's hands were if they were exposed to too much sun. Perhaps she was an American who had lived for many years in Africa; there were many of these people. They grew to love Africa and they stayed, sometimes until they died. Mma Ramotswe could understand why they did this. She could not imagine why anybody would want to live anywhere else. How did people survive in cold, northern climates, with all that snow and rain and darkness?

"I could say that I am looking for somebody," said Mrs Curtin, raising her eyes to meet Mma Ramotswe's gaze. "But then that would suggest that there is somebody to look for. I don't think that there is. So I suppose I should say that I'm trying to find out what happened to somebody, quite a long time ago. I don't expect that that person is alive. In fact, I am certain that he is not. But I want to find out what happened."

Mma Ramotswe nodded. "Sometimes it is important to know," she said. "And I am sorry, Mma, if you have lost somebody."

Mrs Curtin smiled. "You're very kind. Yes, I lost somebody."

"When was this?" asked Mma Ramotswe.

"Ten years ago," said Mrs Curtin. "Ten years ago I lost my son."

For a few moments there was a silence. Mma Ramotswe glanced over to where Mma Makutsi was standing near the sink and noticed that her secretary was watching Mrs Curtin attentively. When she caught her employer's gaze, Mma Makutsi looked guilty and returned to her task of filling the teapot.

Mma Ramotswe broke the silence. "I am very sorry. I know what it is like to lose a child."

"Do you, Mma?"

She was not sure whether the question had an edge to it, as if it were a challenge, but she answered gently. "I lost my baby. He did not live."

Mrs Curtin lowered her gaze. "Then you know," she said.

Mma Makutsi had now prepared the bush tea and she brought over a chipped enamel tray on which two mugs were standing. Mrs Curtin took hers gratefully, and began to sip on the hot, red liquid.

"I should tell you something about myself," said Mrs Curtin. "Then you will know why I am here and why I would like you to help me. If you can help me I shall be very pleased, but if not, I shall understand."

"I will tell you," said Mma Ramotswe. "I cannot help everybody. I will not waste our time or your money. I shall tell you whether I can help."

Mrs Curtin put down her mug and wiped her hand against the side of her khaki trousers.

"Then let me tell you," she said, "why an American woman is sitting in your office in Botswana. Then, at the end of what I have to say, you can say either yes or no. It will be that simple. Either yes or no."

I CAME to Africa twelve years ago. I was forty-three and Africa meant nothing to me. I suppose I had the usual ideas about it-a hotchpotch of images of big game and savannah and Kilimanjaro rising out of the cloud. I also thought of famines and civil wars and potbellied, half-naked children staring at the camera, sunk in hopelessness. I know that all that is just one side of it-and not the most important side either-but it was what was in my mind.

My husband was an economist. We met in college and married shortly after we graduated; we were very young, but our marriage lasted. He took a job in Washington and ended up in the World Bank. He became quite senior there and could have spent his entire career in Washington, going up the ladder there. But he became restless, and one day he announced that there was a posting available to spend two years here in Botswana as a regional manager for World Bank activities in this part of Africa. It was promotion, after all, and if it was a cure for restlessness then I thought it preferable to his having an affair with another woman, which is the other way that men cure their restlessness. You know how it is, Mma, when men realize that they are no longer young. They panic, and they look for a younger woman who will reassure them that they are still men.

I couldn't have borne any of that, and so I agreed, and we came out here with our son, Michael, who was then just eighteen. He had been due to go to college that year, but we decided that he could have a year out with us before he started at Dartmouth. That's a very good college in America, Mma. Some of our colleges are not very good at all, but that one is one of the best. We were proud that he had a place there.

Michael took to the idea of coming out here and began to read everything he could find on Africa. By the time we arrived he knew far more than either of us did. He read everything that van der Post had written-all that dreamy nonsense-and then he sought out much weightier things, books by anthropologists on the San and even the Moffat journals. I think this is how he first fell in love with Africa-through all those books, even before he had set foot on African soil.

The Bank had arranged a house in Gaborone, just behind State House, where all those embassies and high commissions are. I took to it at once. There had been good rains that year and the garden had been well tended. There was bed after bed of cannas and arum lilies; great riots of bougainvillaea; thick kikuyu-grass lawns. It was a little square of paradise behind a high white wall.

Michael was like a child who has just discovered the key to the candy cupboard. He would get up early in the morning and take Jack's truck out onto the Molepolole Road. Then he would walk about in the bush for an hour or so before he came back for breakfast. I went with him once or twice, even though I don't like getting up early, and he would rattle on about the birds we saw and the lizards we found scuttling about in the dust; he knew all the names within days. And we would watch the sun come up behind us, and feel its warmth. You know how it is, Mma, out there, on the edge of the Kalahari. It's the time of day when the sky is white and empty and there is that sharp smell in the air, and you just want to fill your lungs to bursting.

Jack was busy with his work and with all the people he had to meet-Government people, US aid people, financial people and so on. I had no interest in any of that, and so I just contented myself in running the house and reading and meeting some of the people I liked to have coffee with in the mornings. I also helped with the Methodist clinic. I drove people between the clinic and their villages, which was a good way of seeing a bit of the country apart from anything else. I came to know a lot about your people that way, Mma Ramotswe.