Alexander Smith - Tea Time for the Traditionally Built People

She looked across the room at Mma Makutsi. “I am going to go to speak to one of these football people,” she announced. “I have divided the names on this list, and you might like to talk to some of them too.”

Mma Makutsi barely looked up from her desk. “I do not see what is to be gained by talking to these people,” she muttered. “They only like to talk about football.”

Mma Ramotswe was surprised at the degree of grumpiness in this answer, but she was patient. “That's what we need to talk about in this case,” she said mildly. “It is about football, you know.”

Mma Makutsi pouted. “We will never find out anything from them,” she said. “We won't have the faintest idea what they are talking about, Mma. Goals and lines and tackles and things like that. What is all of that about, Mma Ramotswe? That's what I ask you. What is that all about? What is this offside business? You hear men talking about it all the time. So-and-so was offside. No, he wasn't. Yes, he was. That sort of thing. What is the difference between that sort of language and Double-Zulu, Mma? That is the question.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at her assistant in astonishment. “Double-Zulu, Mma? What language is that?”

Mma Makutsi waved a hand in the direction of the border. “Something they speak somewhere over there. It is more difficult than Zulu. Twice as difficult. You cannot understand it. Nobody can.”

“Is there something worrying you, Mma?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “You can speak to me about it-you know that.”

Mma Makutsi looked up now, her large glasses catching the sunlight slanting in through the small window behind Mma Ramotswe's desk; the lenses flashed like the eyes of an animal caught at night in the beam of a torch. “Why do you think I am worried?” she snapped. “I am sitting here working and you are talking about football, Mma. Forgive me, Mma, but it is not easy to work if somebody is talking about football all the time.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. “I'm sorry, Mma. I will try not to disturb you, but if you are unhappy, then please talk to me. It is not easy to be unhappy all by yourself, you know. It is easier if…”

She did not finish. Mma Makutsi had taken off her glasses and sunk her head in her hands. “Oh, I am very unhappy, Mma,” she sobbed. “And I am sorry that I have been accusing you of talking about football. You were not talking about football-it's just that I am a very unhappy lady, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe quickly rose to her feet and crossed the room to Mma Makutsi's side. Bending down, she put her arms around her, feeling the heaving of her shoulders as the sobbing grew deeper.

“I could tell, Mma,” she said. “I could tell that you were unhappy. What is it, Mma? Is it Phuti?”

The mention of Phuti Radiphuti's name brought forth a wail. “It is, Mma. Oh, it is, Mma Ramotswe. I saw him. I saw him yesterday evening in his car.” She looked up at her employer. Tears ran down her cheeks, eroding the oily white cream that she rubbed each morning into her difficult complexion. Mma Makutsi wept cloudy tears as a result, like milk.

Mma Ramotswe took her handkerchief and wiped at the tears. “There, Mma. You've been wanting to cry. You saw Phuti in his car. Why be upset about that?”

“In his car with Violet Sephotho,” said Mma Makutsi. “That no-good woman. Temptress. She was smiling with that big, wicked smile of hers. She was like a leopard that has been hunting and is dragging her prey to her cave. That is what she looked like.”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. “But you do not know why she was in the car?”

“She has gone to work for him,” said Mma Makutsi. “Phuti has given her a job. She started yesterday and already she has her claws into him.”

Mma Ramotswe dragged a chair over to Mma Makutsi's side and sat down. “Now listen, Mma. You must not jump to conclusions. Remember what Mr. Andersen says? Remember that bit- I read it out to you once. He said Do not decide that something is the case until you know it is the case. Those were his exact words, were they not, Mma? They were. And if you apply them to this, all that you know is that for some reason-and you do not know what reason that is-Phuti had Violet Sephotho in his car yesterday evening. What time was it?”

“Oh, I don't know, Mma. Five thirty, maybe.”

“Five thirty? Well, what do people do at five o'clock, Mma? They go home, don't they?”

This brought a fresh wail from Mma Makutsi. “He was taking her back home with him! Oh, Mma Ramotswe, that is what they were doing. They were going back to his house for immoral conversations.”

Mma Ramotswe made a dismissive sound. “Nonsense, Mma. You have no evidence that anybody was thinking about immoral conversations, whatever those may be. What if Phuti was simply giving her a ride home-to her home-because she had stayed late in the store? What if that is all that he was doing? In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that it is the most likely explanation. Don't you?”

Mma Makutsi did not, but after a few minutes of further comforting, she appeared to pull herself together. “I must get on with my work, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “It is no good thinking about these things when I am trying to work. There will be time to think about them later.”

“You should talk about it,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is best to discuss these things, don't you think?”

Again, Mma Makutsi did not, and Mma Ramotswe decided that there was nothing further that she could do just then. It was time to go in search of Big Man Tafa, which she did, driving in her new, medium-sized blue van, which felt so alien, so wrong in every way.

Just as she was parking the van under a tree at the end of the street-a meandering, unpaved road of middle-range houses on the western edge of Gaborone -a small boy appeared. He was wearing a tiny pair of khaki trousers and a tee shirt several sizes too large for his spindly torso, had dust on his knees and a large sticking plaster across the bridge of his nose. And like all small boys who appear out of nowhere when one is looking for something, this one, she thought, would be bound to know in which of these houses lived Big Man Tafa. Small boys knew such things; they were familiar with the car number plates of every driver in the area; they knew the name of every dog associated with every house, and the vices of every such dog; they knew the best place to find flying ants when the rains caused the termites to crawl up from their subterranean burrows and rise up into the sky, unless a small boy snatched them first, tore off their fluttering wings, and popped them, delicious morsels, into his mouth; they knew which trees harboured birds' nests and which did not; and which of the area's residents would pay you four pula to wash and polish the car.

The Principles of Private Detection contained no advice on the seeking of information from small boys, but Mma Ramotswe had often thought that it should. Perhaps she could write to Clovis Andersen one day and tell him of the things that were not in the book but that might appear in a future edition. But where was he, this Clovis Andersen, who knew so much about private detection? Somewhere in America, she imagined, because he sometimes mentioned famous cases in American cities that sounded so exotic to her ears that she wondered whether they really could exist. Where was this place called Muncie, Indiana? Or Ogden, Utah? Or, most intriguing of all, this town called Mobile, Alabama? Did that town move from place to place, as the name suggested? What happened there? Would they have heard of red bush tea, she wondered. Would they have heard of Gaborone?

“Big Man Tafa?” said the small boy in response to Mma Ramotswe's question. “Yes, he lives here, Mma. He lives in that house over there. That one.”