Alexander Smith - The Double Comfort Safari Club

Mma Makutsi looked out of her window. “So this is the place,” she said. “So this is it.”

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We must find Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s cousin’s place now.”

That, as it happened, was not easy. They took directions from a man they saw standing at the side of the street, near one of the hotels. He sent them off into the night in entirely the wrong direction, or so they were told by the next person from whom they obtained guidance. He was more reliable, and they eventually found the house half an hour after they had arrived in the town.

The cousin himself, Mr. H.B.C. Matekoni, was away, but his wife was welcoming. They had young children, who solemnly welcomed the visitors and were then dispatched back to bed. A meal followed and family news was exchanged, with stories of distant cousins and their doings. Mma Makutsi was tired and went to bed in the room that she was to share with Mma Ramotswe. She lay there, on her narrow bed, listening to the low murmur of conversation in the room next door, relishing the novelty of her situation: she was on a business trip, in Maun; she had new boots that she had worn in the car and that were now at the foot of her bed; she could see the night sky outside, through a small window above her head. There were so many stars, in many cases with names, she believed. Did they have African names too, she wondered? It would be good if they did, she decided, if we named the ones over our own heads, because they were ours just as much as they were anybody’s. She felt drowsy, her thoughts wandering; night, stars, the moon… Had anyone claimed the moon yet? she asked herself. It would be wrong for anybody to claim the moon; it was everybody’s, but if it ever belonged to Botswana then it would be well looked after. We would soon have cattle there, she thought… and drifted off.

When Mma Ramotswe came into the room, she found Mma Makutsi asleep, one arm hanging down from her bed, her mouth slightly open, the blanket with which she had covered herself having largely slipped off her. Mma Ramotswe gazed at her assistant for a moment; Mma Makutsi looked different, she noticed, without her large glasses; her face had softened. But now it went further than that; it looked vulnerable, as we all may look in sleep. She reached forward and gently pulled the blanket back over the sleeping woman. Mma Makutsi stirred, but only slightly. Mma Ramotswe turned out her torch and placed it on the table beside her bed. There was enough light from the night sky outside-the light of the moon and stars-to make the torch unnecessary.

She slipped into bed and closed her eyes. She was exhausted from the drive, but she did not drop off to sleep immediately. Her mind was on the next day and what it would bring-on the journey they would have to make to Eagle Island Camp. They would travel by boat, possibly by makoro, one of the traditional canoes that people still used to get about the Delta. They were cheap and easily manoeuvred: all that was required was the strength of the paddler and the local knowledge to navigate the confusing channels that fingered their way through the watery landscape around Maun. That knowledge was more than a matter of knowing where to go-an important part of navigating was being aware of who else might be using those channels at the same time. If it was another makoro, then all was well. If it was a hippo, though, it was a different matter altogether.

She opened her eyes. Would the boatman be able to spot hippos easily enough? What if he missed one, as people sometimes did? There was only one outcome then-there could be no contest between an angry hippo and a frail canoe. The hippo won.

She told herself to stop worrying. It would take a strong hippo to upset a canoe containing both her and Mma Makutsi. The weight of such a canoe would be considerable, and she wondered whether a hippo would have the strength or energy to upset it. No, they would be safe from hippos and… crocodiles. She opened her eyes again. She had heard recently of a terrible incident in which a crocodile had seized somebody from a boat. That was very unusual, but it had happened, and it had happened in Botswana, on the Limpopo River. She shuddered. If the crocodile seized Mma Makutsi, would she have the courage to jump in and rescue her? A crocodile would have difficulty in dealing with two substantial ladies at the same time, especially if they were both determined not to be eaten, and resisted, which she was confident would be the case. There was safety in numbers, perhaps. It was when we were alone that we were in the greatest danger-a rule that applied to so many occasions, she thought, not just to those on which we were confronted with hippopotamuses and crocodiles, and other things in-and out-of the water.

THE COUSIN’S WIFE had arranged with a local boatman to pick them up beside the river.

“This is very exciting,” said Mma Makutsi, as they stood beneath a large mopani tree, waiting for their makoro. “Do you know something, Mma Ramotswe? I have never been in a boat before.”

“Well, you will find out what it is like today,” said Mma Ramotswe. She paused. “Can you swim, Mma?”

Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I have never learned to swim. Up in Bobonong we didn’t really have any water. It’s hard to learn how to swim when there is no water.”

Mma Ramotswe considered this observation. It was, she thought, incontestably true. It was not surprising that there were not many champion swimmers in Botswana, as only one part of the country-the Delta-had much water.

“I cannot swim either,” she said. “Although I was once invited to go swimming in the pool at the Sun Hotel.”

“And did you, Mma Ramotswe?” Mma Makutsi tried not to smile at the picture that came into her mind of Mma Ramotswe entering the pool at the hotel and making the water rise to the point of overflowing. She had been taught about such things at school. She remembered the lesson: “If you place a (large) body in water, the level of the water rises as the body displaces a volume of water equal to the volume of the body.”

Mma Ramotswe herself smiled at the recollection. “I went in at the shallow end,” she said. “It was not very deep, and I found that I could stand. But then I made a very interesting discovery.”

“That you could swim?”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “No, I did not find that I could swim. I found, though, that I could float. I very slowly took the weight off my legs, and do you know, Mma, I floated. It was very pleasant. I did not have to move my arms-I just floated.”

Mma Makutsi clapped her hands. “That is very good, Mma! Well done! Perhaps it is something to do with being so traditionally built. A thin person would sink. You floated.”

“Possibly,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it was good to discover that I could do a sport after all.”

Mma Makutsi was not certain that floating could be called a sport. Was there a Botswana floating team? She thought not. What would such a team do? Would they have to float gently from one point to another, with the winner being the one who arrived first? Surely not.

This conversation might have continued had they not then seen the boatman arriving. He came round a bend in the river, standing in his long, narrow canoe, using a pole to propel it forward. Seeing the two women under the tree, he raised a hand in greeting.

Mma Makutsi frowned. “Will we both fit in that, Mma? What if a hippo…”

Mma Ramotswe put a finger to her lips. “Let’s not talk about hippos, Mma. It is not a good idea to talk about hippos when you are just about to set off on a river journey.”

The boatman drew up at the bank in front of them, skilfully beaching the canoe at their feet. They noticed that he had attached a small outboard engine to the back of the makoro, and as they placed their overnight bags in the front of the canoe, he whipped the engine into life.