Alexander Smith: The Kalahari Typing School For Men

Mma Ramotswe had not thought of this incident for years, and now, looking at Motholeli, she wondered what local torment was causing her unhappiness. People said that school days were happy, but they often were not. Often it was like being in prison; wary of older children and terrified of teachers, unable to talk to anybody about troubles because you thought that there would be nobody who would understand. Perhaps things had changed for the better, and in some ways they had. Teachers were not allowed to beat children as they did in the past, although, Mma Ramotswe reflected, there were some boys-and indeed some young men-who might have been greatly improved by moderate physical correction. The apprentices, for example: would it help if Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni resorted to physical chastisement-nothing severe, of course-but just an occasional kick in the seat of the pants while they were bending over to change a tyre or something like that? The thought made her smile. She would even offer to administer the kick herself, which she imagined might be oddly satisfying, as one of the apprentices, the one who still kept on about girls, had a largeish bottom which she thought would be quite comfortable to kick. How enjoyable it would be to creep up behind him and kick him when he was least expecting it, and then to say: Let that be a lesson! That was all one would have to say, but it would be a blow for women everywhere.

But those were not serious thoughts and would not help the immediate problem, which was to find out what was troubling Motholeli and making her so palpably miserable.

Mma Ramotswe put away the last of her groceries and then put on the kettle to make a pot of red bush tea. Then she sat down.

“You’re unhappy,” she said simply. “And it’s something at school, isn’t it?”

Motholeli shook her head. “No,” she said. “I am not.”

“That is not true,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You are a happy girl normally. You are famous for your happiness. And now you are almost crying. I do not have to be a detective to know that.”

The girl looked down at the ground.

“I have no mother,” she said quietly. “I am a girl who has no mother.”

Something caught at Mma Ramotswe’s throat: a feeling of sudden, overwhelming sympathy. So that was it. She was missing her mother; of course she was. She was missing her mother in exactly the same way in which she, Precious Ramotswe, had missed her own mother, whom she had never known, and in the same way, too, that she missed her father, every day of her life, every day, her good, kind father, Obed Ramotswe, of whom she was so proud. Mma Ramotswe rose to her feet and crossed the kitchen floor. Now she crouched down and embraced the girl.

“Of course you have a mother, Motholeli,” she whispered. “Your mummy is there, in heaven, and she is watching you, watching you every day. And I’ll tell you what she’s thinking: she’s thinking, I am very proud of that fine girl, my daughter. I am very proud of how hard she is working and how she is looking after her little brother. That is what she is thinking.”

She felt the girl’s shoulder heave beneath her and she felt the warm tears of the child against her own skin.

“You mustn’t cry,” she said. “You mustn’t be unhappy. She would not want you to be unhappy, would she?”

“She doesn’t care. She doesn’t care what happens to me.”

Mma Ramotswe caught her breath. “But you mustn’t say that. That is not true. It is not. Of course she cares.”

“That is not what this girl is telling me at school,” said Motholeli. “She says that I am a girl who has no mother because my mother did not like me and left. That is what she says.”

“And who is this girl?” asked Mma Ramotswe angrily. “Who is she to tell you these lies?”

“She is a very popular girl at school. She is a rich girl. She has many friends, and they all believe what she says.”

“Her name?” said Mma Ramotswe. “What is the name of this popular girl?”

Motholeli gave the name, and Mma Ramotswe immediately knew. For a moment she said nothing, then, wiping the tears away from Motholeli’s cheek, she spoke to her.

“We will talk about this more later on,” she said. “For now, you just remember that everything that this girl has said to you-everything-is just not true. It doesn’t matter who she is. It doesn’t matter one little bit. You lost your mother because she was sick. She was a good woman, I know that. I have asked about her, and that is what Mma Potokwani told me. She said she was a strong woman who was kind to people. You remember that. You remember that and be proud of it. Do you understand what I am saying?”

The girl looked up. Then she nodded.

“And there is something else you must remember,” Mma Ramotswe said. “There is something else that you must remember for the rest of your life. Sir Seretse Khama said that every person in Botswana, every person, is of equal value. The same. That means you, too. Everyone. You may be an orphan girl, but you are as good as anybody else. There is nobody who can look at you and say, I am better than you. Do you understand that?”

Mma Ramotswe waited until Motholeli had nodded before she rose to her feet. “And in the meantime,” she said, “we should start cooking this fine pumpkin so that when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni comes to have dinner with us this evening, we shall have a good meal ready for him on the table. Would you like that?”

Motholeli smiled. “I would like that very much, Mma.”

“Good,” said Mma Ramotswe.

MR. J.L.B. Matekoni left the garage at five o’clock and drove straight to the house in Zebra Drive. He liked the early evening, when the heat had gone out of the sun and it was pleasant to walk about in the last hour or so before dusk set in. This evening he was planning to spend some time clearing Mma Ramotswe’s vegetable garden at the back of the house before he would join her for a cup of bush tea on the verandah. There they would catch up on the day’s events before going in for dinner. There was always something to discuss; information which Mma Ramotswe had picked up while doing her shopping or items from that day’s Botswana Daily News (except for football news, in which Mma Ramotswe had no interest). They always agreed with one another; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni trusted Mma Ramotswe’s judgement on matters of human nature and local politics, while she deferred to him on business issues and agriculture. Was the price of cattle too low at the moment, or was it reasonable enough, given the price that the canning factory and the butchers were prepared to pay? Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni would know the answer to that, and in Mma Ramotswe’s experience he was always right on these issues. What about that new politician, the one who had just been made a junior minister; was he to be trusted, or was he interested only in himself or, at a pinch, in the welfare of his own people in the town he came from? Only in himself, Mma Ramotswe would say without hesitation; look at him, just look at the way that he holds his hands clasped in front of him when he talks. That’s always a sign; always.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni parked his car just inside the gate. He liked to leave it there, allowing ample room for Mma Ramotswe to drive past in her tiny white van, if she needed to go out. Then, changing from his garage shoes, which were always covered in oil, to the scuffed and dusty suede veldschoens that he liked to wear outside, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni made his way to the back of the yard where he had planted several rows of beans under an awning of shade netting. In a dry country like Botswana, shade netting made all the difference to a plant’s chances, keeping the drying rays of the sun off the vulnerable green leaves and allowing the earth to retain a little of any precious moisture left over from watering. The ground was always so thirsty; water poured upon it was soaked up with a parched eagerness that left little trace. But people persisted in spite of this and tried to make small patches of green amid the brown.