Tea Time for the Traditionally Built (6 page)

Such thoughts to be thinking while walking along the side of the Tlokweng Road; but at least they distracted her, even if only temporarily, from a growing feeling of discomfort in her right foot. Now, as Mma Ramotswe turned off into the area known as the village, to walk along Odi Drive, she realised that what she was developing was a blister, and a painful one at that. She stopped, crouched down, and took off her shoe, feeling gingerly for that place where she thought the pain came from. Yes, the skin was raised there; it was a blister.

She wondered whether she should remove her right shoe, or possibly both shoes. There was a time when she would have thought nothing of that; as a child and then as a young woman she would happily walk about unshod, particularly in the sand, which gave such a fine feeling to the soles of the feet. But now her feet had become softer and the very earth seemed to have become thornier and less hospitable.

She replaced her shoe and began to walk down Odi Drive. The blister was quite painful now, and she was having to put less weight on that leg, resulting in a hobbling motion. Zebra Drive was still a long way away—at least twenty minutes, she thought, and she could imagine what her foot would be like at the end of that.

She was now only a few yards—even if painful yards—from the Moffat house on the corner. She would go and see the Moffats, she decided; if the doctor was in, then he might even take a look at the blister and give her some cream for it. And if she asked, she was sure Mma Moffat would drive her home and save her continuing agony.

Dr. Moffat was at home, and while Mma Moffat made tea for Mma Ramotswe, he examined her foot.

“A very bad blister,” he said. “But I think we can save the foot.”

Mma Ramotswe looked up in alarm and saw that Dr. Moffat was smiling. “You worried me, Rra.”

“Just a little joke, Mma Ramotswe,” he said, peeling the covering off a small square of sticking plaster. “Your foot's fine. But tell me: Why are you walking? What's wrong with your tiny white van?”

Mma Ramotswe hesitated. “Oh, Dr. Moffat, I am very sad. I am very, very sad. My van …”

“Have you had an accident?”

“No, not an accident. My van is an old one. It has been my friend for many years—right from the time I came to Gaborone. And now it is like an old cow standing under a tree waiting for the end to come. I don't know …”

She faltered. She did not know what to do, and now she wept for the van that she loved so much. It was ridiculous, she thought, a grown woman weeping for a van. But Dr. Moffat did not think it ridiculous; he had seen so much of human suffering in all its
shapes and sizes, and he knew how easy it was for people to cry. So he and Mma Moffat, who had come in with a cup of tea for their visitor, comforted her and talked to her about the little white van.

“One thing's very certain,” said Dr. Moffat. “It's the same for humans as it is for vans. When something needs to be fixed, don't just deny it. Go and see somebody—a doctor for a person, a mechanic for a van.”

“Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni will just tell me it has to go. I know he will.”

“Then speak to one of those young men—his apprentices. Get him to fix it for you.”

Mma Ramotswe was silent as she contemplated this suggestion. She would never lie to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, but that did not mean that she had to tell him
everything
.

T
HAT EVENING
, while Mma Ramotswe nursed the painful blister on her right heel, Mma Makutsi was busy in her kitchen, cooking dinner for her fiancé, Mr. Phuti Radiphuti, proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop and owner, too, of a large herd of fine cattle built up by his father, the older Mr. Radiphuti. Mma Makutsi knew what Phuti Radiphuti's culinary tastes were and had recently discovered that he was particularly partial to peri-peri chicken, a dish that the Portuguese had dreamed up in Mozambique and Angola. From there it had spread into other countries, including Botswana, where it was a favourite amongst those who liked their food to be scathingly hot. Phuti was one of these, she thought, and could happily chew on the most stinging of chilli peppers without the need of a glass of water.

“You'll get used to it, Grace,” he said. “You will not feel it at all. Peri-peri chicken, vindaloo curries—everything. It will all taste equally good.”

She was doubtful, but for Phuti's sake was still prepared to put up with what she thought to be excessively fiery dishes; and now she was making one of these, dropping several large pinches
of flaked chilli into the marinade of oil and lemon juice that she had prepared shortly before Phuti's arrival.

She dipped a finger into the sauce and then dabbed it against her tongue. Immediately she felt an intense stinging sensation and reached for a glass of water to cool the burning. How can he do it? she asked herself. This made her reflect on how often one had to pose that question about men. They did all sorts of inexplicable things, and women were always asking themselves the same question: How can they do it?

When Phuti arrived half an hour later, the chicken was almost ready. Phuti sat at her table, which was covered with a new yellow tablecloth she had recently bought, and watched Mma Makutsi attend to the final preparations.

“I am a very lucky man to be marrying somebody who can make peri-peri chicken,” he announced. “I always wanted to meet such a lady.”

She laughed. “Would you not marry me if I could not make peri-peri chicken?”

Phuti thought this very amusing. He was not quite as quick as Mma Makutsi, and he enjoyed her ability to make light-hearted comments such as this. He would have liked to have been able to reply with some witty riposte, but what could he say? Of course he would have married her, irrespective of her ability to cook peri-peri chicken. Indeed, he had not even known about that until after he had proposed.

“I would marry you,” he said, “even if you could cook nothing—nothing at all! I would marry you even if you wore glasses, which you do, of course.”

For a while nothing was said as both of them tried to work out the significance of the last remark. Then Phuti cleared his throat. “Of course I do not mind glasses, and yours are very pretty, Grace. That is what I think.”

Mma Makutsi stirred the peri-peri chicken rather more aggressively than perhaps was necessary. “The chicken is almost ready, Phuti,” she said. “I will serve you now.”

They ate in silence, and it was several minutes before Phuti spoke. “When I said …” he began. “I didn't mean …”

“Of course not. I didn't think that you meant that.”

During the ensuing silence Mma Makutsi drank several glasses of water. It felt to her as if a hot iron had been run across her tongue, and the water, curiously enough, seemed only to make each successive mouthful more fiery. When the chicken was finished, she served a dessert of pineapple and custard that she knew Phuti would like, and this seemed to dispel the gloom that had settled over the table.

“My favourite too!” enthused Phuti.

She ladled a few more spoonfuls of the custard onto his plate. “Did anything happen in the furniture store today?” she asked.

Phuti wiped a speck of custard away from the corner of his mouth. “We took delivery of a new consignment of chairs,” he said. “They came from a factory over in Durban, and when we opened the crate we saw that the legs had fallen off a number of them. Can you believe that, Grace? Four days out of the factory and the legs have fallen off.”

“That is very bad workmanship,” said Mma Makutsi. “What can those people be thinking about?”

Phuti shook his head sadly. “It is happening all the time now. People do not care how they make things. A little bit of glue, and they think that a chair will hold together with that. It's very dangerous.”

“Particularly for traditionally built people,” said Mma Makutsi. “What if somebody like Mma Ramotswe sat in one of those chairs? She could fall right down.”

Phuti agreed. “I would not like to see Mma Ramotswe sitting on one of those chairs,” he said. “She is safer in the chair that she
has, even if it is very old. Sometimes old things are best. An old chair and an old bed. They can be very good.”

Mma Makutsi did not welcome this mention of beds. Her embarrassment over the bed she had ruined by leaving it out in the rain had not entirely disappeared, and she felt the back of her neck become warm even to think about it.

“Chairs,” she said quickly. “Yes, old chairs can be very comfortable. Although I do not think that the chair I have in the office is very comfortable. It gives me a sore back at the end of the day, I'm afraid. It is not the same shape as I am, you see.”

Phuti frowned. “You are a very nice shape, Grace. I have always said that. It is the chair that is wrong.”

The compliment was appreciated, and she smiled at her fiancé. “Thank you, Phuti. Yes, the chair is very old. It has been there since the very beginning, when we had that old office over near Kgale Hill.”

“Then I must give you a new one,” said Phuti firmly. “I will bring one round to the office tomorrow. We have a whole new section for office furniture in the shop, and there are many fine-looking chairs. I will bring you a good one.”

She thanked him, but then thought: What about Mma Ramotswe? What would she feel if she saw her assistant getting a new chair while she was stuck with her old one? She could always raise this issue with Phuti Radiphuti, but if she did so he might feel that she was being greedy: one did not accept a present with one hand and at the same time hold out the other on behalf of somebody else.
Thank you, Rra, for the nice chair you have given me, and now how about one for my friend, Mma Ramotswe?
That would not do.

While Mma Makutsi wrestled with this question of etiquette, Phuti Radiphuti was clearly warming to the subject of chairs. It was always like that when he talked about furniture, she thought—his eyes lit up. And he did enjoy talking about furniture,
in the same way as so many men talked about football. That was a good thing: if one had to choose between marrying a man who talked about furniture and one who talked about football, then there was no doubt in Mma Makutsi's mind as to which she preferred. There was so little one could say about football without repeating oneself, whereas there were a lot of things to be said about furniture, or at least some things.

“What colour?” asked Phuti. “What colour would you like your chair to be?”

Mma Makutsi was surprised by the question. She had always assumed that office chairs were black, or possibly sometimes grey: her chair at the office was somewhere in between these two colours—it was difficult to tell now, with all the use it had seen.

“Do you have green?” she asked. “I have always wanted a green chair.”

“There is certainly green,” said Phuti. “There is a very good chair that comes in green.”

It was now time for second helpings of pineapple and custard. Then, with the dessert cleared away and the tea cups set out at the ready, Mma Makutsi put on the kettle while Phuti sat back in his chair with the air of a man replete.

“And something else happened at the shop today,” he announced. “Something else that I think you will be interested to hear about.”

Mma Makutsi reached for the tea caddy, an ancient round tin on which the word
Mafeking
had been printed underneath a picture of a street and a line of parked cars. “You have had a busy day,” she said.

“Yes,” said Phuti. “And this other thing that happened has something to do with our being busy. We have taken on a new person.”

Mma Makutsi ladled tea into the teapot. One spoon for each
mouth, she muttered, and one for the pot. “So what will he do, this new person?” she asked.

“She,” corrected Phuti. “She will be assistant manager in charge of beds. We have decided to start selling beds again, and we need somebody who can sell beds. It has to be the right sort of person.”

“And what sort of person is that?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Phuti appeared to be momentarily embarrassed. “A glamorous person,” he said, smiling apologetically. “Everybody in the furniture business says the same thing: if you want to sell expensive beds, get a very beautiful lady to do it for you.”

Mma Makutsi laughed. “That is why advertisements for cars always have a picture of a beautiful girl,” she said. “It is so easy to see what they are trying to do.”

“I think you are right,” said Phuti. “So we advertised a sales post and we had thirty people applying for it, Mma. Thirty. There must be many people who would like to sell beds.”

“Lazy people, perhaps,” said Mma Makutsi. “Lazy people will like to sell beds; people who are not lazy will like to sell running shoes.”

Phuti absorbed this insight. It was probably correct, he thought.

“But one of them was very good,” he continued. “She is a graduate of the Botswana Secretarial College. Eighty per cent in the final examinations.”

Mma Makutsi hesitated, her hand poised above the kettle. Somewhere, in the distant reaches of her mind, unease made its presence felt.

“Eighty per cent?” she asked.