Alexander Smith: The Double Comfort Safari Club

“I have cried so much,” said Mma Makutsi. “I have thought of you all the time, Phuti, all the time.”

He squeezed her hand. “I thought I was going to die. And when I was lying there, thinking this is the end for Radiphuti, I was only sad for you, Grace, not for me. I did not care about dying, but I did care about leaving you.”

She tried to reply to this, but she could not. She found herself weeping. She took off her glasses and polished them, which is what she did at moments of emotion. Phuti took them from her, gently, and rubbed them against the sleeve of his shirt before handing them back to her.

“Mma Radiphuti,” he said. “That is what you will be, very soon now.”

“Very soon,” she echoed. “That will be very good.”

WHILE MMA MAKUTSI and Phuti Radiphuti were talking together at last, Mma Ramotswe and the matron sat together in the office itself, a freshly poured cup of tea to hand. Each also had a slice of Mma Potokwane’s fruit cake on a plate beside them. There was more cake in a tin on the table, ready to be consumed if the need arose, and it surely would.

“Mr. Radiphuti seems very content,” said Mma Potokwane. “Poor man.”

Mma Ramotswe took a sip of her tea. “Yes. And he told me in the car that he will shortly be able to walk on a new leg they are making for him. Or part of a leg, I should say. He only needs something the length of this pencil. They did not take much off.”

“We had a child with something like that,” said Mma Potokwane. “He learned to walk very quickly, and ended up playing football. He had the right approach to life, that boy.”

Mma Ramotswe thought about this. Having the right approach to life was a great gift in this life. Her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, had always had the right approach to life-she was sure of that. And for a moment, as she sat there with her friend, with the late-afternoon sun slanting in through the window, she thought about how she owed her father so much. He had taught her almost everything she knew about how to lead a good life, and the lessons she had learned from him were as fresh today as they ever had been. Do not complain about your life. Do not blame others for things that you have brought upon yourself. Be content with who you are and where you are, and do whatever you can do to bring to others such contentment, and joy, and understanding that you have managed to find yourself.

She closed her eyes. You can do that in the company of an old friend-you can close your eyes and think of the land that gave you life and breath, and of all the reasons why you are glad that you are there, with the people you know, with the people you love.

Alexander McCall Smith is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland.