The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (4 page)

And Phuti Radiphuti, for his part, thought,
My days of loneliness are finished. My days of being laughed at because of the way I speak and because no woman would look at me—those are over now. Those are over.

He reached out and took Mma Makutsi's hand. She smiled at him. “I am very lucky to have found you,” he said.

“No, I am the lucky one. I am the one.”

He thought that unlikely, but he was moved very deeply that somebody should consider herself lucky to have him, of all people. The previously unloved may find it hard to believe that they are now loved; that is such a miracle, they feel; such a miracle.

         

WHILE MMA MAKUTSI
and Phuti Radiphuti were reflecting on their good fortune, Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who themselves had on many occasions pondered their own good luck, were engaged in a conversation of an entirely different nature. They had finished their dinner and the children had been dispatched to bed. Both were tired—he because he had removed an entire engine that afternoon, a task which involved considerable physical exertion, and she because she had awoken the night before and lost an hour or two of sleep. The kitchen clock, which always ran ten minutes fast, revealed that it was eight thirty, eight twenty after adjustment. One could not decently go to bed before eight thirty, Mma Ramotswe felt; and so she sat back and chatted with her husband about the day's events. She was not particularly interested in the removal of the engine, and listened to his comments on that with only half an ear. But then he said something which engaged her full attention.

“That woman I spoke to,” he said. “Mma What's-her-name. The one with the husband.”

“Mma Botumile.” Mma Ramotswe's tone was cautious.

“Yes, her,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I thought that maybe…that maybe because I spoke to her first…” He trailed off. Mma Ramotswe was staring at him, and he felt disconcerted.

Mma Ramotswe thought for a while before she said anything. It was important that she should handle this carefully. “Do you want to be involved?” she asked.

“I already am,” he said.

She hesitated. “In a way.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni now became more confident. “Being a mechanic is fine,” he said. “But it is always the same thing. A car comes in, I listen to what the engine has to say, I make my diagnosis, and then I fix it. That is what I do.”

There was nothing wrong with that, thought Mma Ramotswe. Being a mechanic was a great calling, in her view, and was certainly more useful than many of the white-collar jobs that seemed to carry all the prestige. A country could never have too many mechanics, but it could have too many of the civil servants who wrote complicated and obscure letters to Mma Ramotswe about her tax payments and about various forms and returns that they thought she should fill in.

It worried her that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni should find his work repetitive. Everybody's work was repetitive, if one thought about it; even in a business such as the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency there was a certain sameness to the enquiries that she and Mma Makutsi undertook. Was so-and-so being unfaithful? Was some dispatch clerk making up bogus orders and then claiming that the invoices were lost? Were somebody's impressive work record and testimonials entirely false? The same things arose time and time again, even if there were features of some cases that made them particularly amusing. That testimonial, for example, that she had been asked to check a few months ago where the writing was almost illegible and where the final sentence said,
I have never heard this person use strong language, even to himself.
Did anybody seriously imagine that real testimonials said things like that? Obviously somebody did think that. What might she write—in that style—of Mma Makutsi, if she had to write her a testimonial?
She divides the office doughnuts with complete impartiality.
That would be a good recommendation, she thought; how a person divided a shared doughnut was a real test of integrity. A good person would cut the doughnut into two equal pieces. A shifty, selfish person would divide it into two pieces, but one would be bigger than the other and he would take that one himself. She had seen that happen.

No, every job had its repetitive side and most people, surely, recognised that. She glanced again at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. She knew that many men of his age started to feel trapped and began to wonder if this was all that life offered. It was understandable; anyone might feel that, not just men, although they might feel it particularly acutely, as they felt themselves weaken and began to realise that they were no longer young. Women were better at coming to terms with that, thought Mma Ramotswe, as long as they were not the worrying sort. If one was of traditional build and not given to fretting…If one drank plenty of bush tea…

“You know,” she said to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, “all of us have things that are the same in our jobs. Even in the sort of work I do, the same sort of thing happens quite a lot. I don't think there is anything much that you can do.”

It was not like Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to argue, but now, if there was a stubborn streak in his character, it showed. “No,” he said. “I think there is something that you can do. You can try something different.”

Mma Ramotswe was silent. She reached for her teacup. It was cold. She looked at him. It was inconceivable that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni could be anything but a mechanic; he was a truly great mechanic, a man who understood engines, who knew their every mood. She tried to picture him in the garb of some other profession—in a banker's suit, for example, or in the white coat of a doctor, but neither of these seemed right, and she saw him again in his mechanic's overalls, in his old suede boots so covered in grease, and that somehow rang true, that was just what he should wear.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni broke the silence. “I'm not thinking of stopping being a mechanic, of course. Certainly not. I know that I must do that to put bread on our table.”

Mma Ramotswe's relief showed, and this caused him to smile reassuringly. “It's just that I would like to do a little bit of detective work. Not much. Just a little.”

That, she thought, was reasonable enough. She had no desire to fix engines, but there was no harm in his wanting to see her side of the business. “Just to find out what it's like? Just to get it out of your system?” she asked, smiling. Most men, she thought, fantasised about doing something exciting, about being a soldier, or a secret agent, or even a great lover; that was how men were. That was normal.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. “Please don't laugh at me, Mma Ramotswe.”

She leaned forward and rested her hand on his forearm. “I would never laugh at you, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. I would never do that. And of course you can look after a case. How about this Mma Botumile matter? Would that do?”

“That is the one that I want to investigate,” he said. “That is the one.”

“Then you shall investigate,” she said.

Even as she spoke, she had her misgivings, unexpressed. The thought of Mma Botumile's reputation disturbed her, and she was not sure whether she should put Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni in the path of a woman like that. But it was too late to do anything about it, and so she looked at her watch and rose to her feet. She would not think about it any more, or she would have difficulty in getting to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

MMA RAMOTSWE GOES TO MOCHUDI WITH MR POLOPETSI, IN THE TINY WHITE VAN

M
MA RAMOTSWE TRAVELLED
to Mochudi the next day. She decided to take Mr. Polopetsi with her; there was nothing for him to do in the garage that morning and he had asked Mma Makutsi three times if there was anything that he could help her with in the office. She had tried to think of some task, and failed, and so Mma Ramotswe had invited him to accompany her on the Mochudi trip. She enjoyed his company, and it would be good to have somebody to talk to. Whether he would contribute anything to her enquiries there was another matter; Mr. Polopetsi, she feared, would never distinguish himself in the role of detective, as he tended to jump to conclusions and to act impetuously. But there was something appealing about him that made all that forgivable—an earnestness combined with a slight air of vulnerability that made people, particularly women, want to protect him. Even Mma Makutsi, who was famously short with the two apprentices and who tended to talk to men as if they were children, had been won over by Mr. Polopetsi. “There are many men for whom there does not appear to be any reason,” she once said to Mma Ramotswe. “But I don't feel that about Mr. Polopetsi. Even when he is standing there, doing nothing, I don't think that.”

It had been a curious thing to say, but then Mma Makutsi often said things that surprised Mma Ramotswe and she had become used to her pronouncements. But what made this remark particularly unusual was the fact that it was made while Mr. Polopetsi was in the office, busying himself with the making of a pot of tea. Mma Makutsi must have been aware of his coming into the room, but must simply have forgotten his presence after a few moments and addressed Mma Ramotswe without thinking. And there was no doubt in Mma Ramotswe's mind that Mr. Polopetsi had heard what was said about him, for he stopped stirring the tea for a moment, as if frozen, and then, after a few seconds, began to rattle the spoon about the pot more vigorously than before. Mma Ramotswe had felt acutely embarrassed, but had decided that the remark was hardly unflattering to Mr. Polopetsi, even if he had scurried out of the room, his mug of tea in his hand, studiously avoiding looking at the author of the remark. For Mma Makutsi's part, she had simply raised an eyebrow when she realised that he had heard her, and shrugged, as if this was merely one of those things that happened in offices.

They drove out to Mochudi on the old road, because that was the way that Mma Ramotswe had always travelled and because it was quieter. It was a bright morning, and there was warmth in the air; not the heat that would come in a month or so and build up over the final months of the year, but a pleasant feeling of a benign sun upon the skin. As they left Gaborone behind them, the houses and their surrounding plots gave way to the bush, to the expanses of dry grass dotted with acacia and smaller thorn bushes that were halfway between trees and shrubs. Here and there was a dry river bed, a scar of sand that would remain parched until the rainy season, when it would be covered with swift-moving dun-coloured water, a proper river for a few days until it all drained off and the bed would cake and crack in the sun.

For a while they did not talk. Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window of her tiny white van, savouring the feeling of heading somewhere she was always happy to be going; for Mochudi was home, the place from which she had come and to which she knew that she would one day return for good. Mr. Polopetsi looked straight ahead, at the road unfolding ahead of them, lost in thoughts of his own. He was waiting for Mma Ramotswe to tell him about the reason for their trip to Mochudi; she had simply said at the office that she needed to go there and would tell him all about it on the way up.

He glanced at her sideways. “This business…”

Mma Ramotswe was thinking of something quite different, of this road and of how she had once travelled down it by bus, unhappy to the very core of her being; but that was years ago, years. She moved her hands on the wheel. “We don't usually get involved in cases where people have died, Rra,” she said. “We may be detectives, but not that sort.”

Mr. Polopetsi drew in his breath. Ever since he had joined the staff of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency—even in his ill-defined adjunct role—he had been waiting for something like this. Murder was what detectives were meant to investigate, was it not, and now at last they were embarked on such an enquiry.

“Murder,” he whispered. “There have been murders?”

Mma Ramotswe was about to laugh at the suggestion. “Oh no,” she began. But then she stopped herself, and the thought occurred to her that perhaps this was exactly what they were letting themselves in for. Tati Monyena had described the deaths as
mishaps
and had hinted, at the most, that there was some form of unexplained negligence behind them; he had said nothing about deliberate killing. And yet it was possible, was it not? She remembered reading somewhere about cases where hospital patients had been deliberately killed by doctors or nurses. She thought hard, probing the recesses of her memory, and it came to her. Yes, there had been such a doctor in Zimbabwe, in Bulawayo, and she had read about him. He had started to poison people while he was still at medical school in America and had continued to do so for years. These people existed. Was it possible that a person like that could have slipped into Botswana? Or could it be a nurse? They did it too sometimes, she believed. It gave them power, somebody had said. They felt powerful.

She half-turned to Mr. Polopetsi. “I hope not,” she said. “But we must keep an open mind, Rra. It is possible, I suppose.”

They were ten miles from Mochudi now, and Mma Ramotswe spent the rest of the journey describing to Mr. Polopetsi what Tati Monyena had told her: three Fridays, three unexplained deaths, and all in the same bed.

“That cannot be a coincidence,” he said, shaking his head. “That sort of thing just does not happen.” He paused. “You know that I worked in this hospital once, Mma Ramotswe? Did I tell you that?”

Mma Ramotswe knew that Mr. Polopetsi had worked as an assistant in the pharmacy at the Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, and she knew of the injustice that occurred there which led to his spell in prison. But she did not know that he had been at Mochudi.

“Yes,” Mr. Polopetsi explained. “I was there for eight months, while they were short-staffed. That was about four years ago. I was in the pharmacy.” He lowered his voice as he mentioned the pharmacy, in shame, she thought. All that had turned sour for him, and all because of a lying witness and the transfer of blame. It was so unfair, but she had gone over all that with him before, several times, and she knew—they both knew—that they could do nothing to remedy it. “You are innocent in your heart,” she had said to him. “That is the most important thing.” And he had thought about that for a few moments before shaking his head and saying, “I would like that to be true, Mma, but it is not. It is what other people think.
That
is the most important thing.”

Now, as they made their way through the outskirts of Mochudi, past the rash of small hairdressing establishments with their hand-painted grandiose signs, past the turn-offs that led to the larger houses of those who had made good in Gaborone and returned to the village, past the tax office and the general dealers, he said to her casually, almost as if he were thinking aloud, “I wouldn't like to be one of his patients.”

“Of whose patients?”

“There was a doctor who worked at the hospital when I was there,” he said. “I didn't like him. Nobody did. And I remember thinking: I would be frightened to be in that doctor's care. I really would.”

She changed gear. A donkey had wandered onto the road and was standing directly in the path of the tiny white van. It was a defeated, cowed creature, and seemed to be looking directly up at the sun.

“That donkey is blind,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “Look at him.”

She guided the van round the static animal. “Why?” she said.

“Why does he stand there? That is what they do. That is just the way they are.”

“No,” she said. “That is not what I meant. I wondered what frightened you about him.”

He thought for a few moments before answering. “You get a feeling sometimes. You just do.” He paused. “Maybe we'll see him.”

“Is he still there, Rra?”

Mr. Polopetsi shrugged. “He was last year. I heard from a friend. I don't know if he has moved since then. Maybe not. He was married to a woman from Mochudi, so maybe he will still be there. He is a South African himself. Xhosa mother, Boer father.”

Mma Ramotswe was thoughtful. “Do you know many others from the hospital staff? From that time?”

“Many,” said Mr. Polopetsi.

Mma Ramotswe nodded. It had been a good idea, she decided, to bring Mr. Polopetsi with her. Clovis Andersen, author of
The Principles of Private Detection,
said in one of his chapters that there was no substitute for local knowledge.
It cuts hours and days off an investigation,
he wrote.
Local knowledge is like gold.

Mma Ramotswe glanced at her modest assistant. It was difficult to think of Mr. Polopetsi in these golden terms; he was so mild and diffident. But Clovis Andersen was usually right about these things, and she muttered
gold
under her breath.

“What?” asked Mr. Polopetsi.

“We have arrived,” said Mma Ramotswe.

         

TATI MONYENA
was clearly proud of his office, which was scrupulously clean and which exuded the smell of polish. In the centre of the room stood a large desk on which rested a telephone, three stacked letter trays, and a small wooden sign, facing out, on which was inscribed
Mr. T. Monyena.
Against one wall stood two grey metal filing cabinets, considerably more modern than those in Mma Ramotswe's office, and on another wall, directly behind Tati Monyena's chair, was a large framed picture of His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Botswana.

Mma Ramotswe and Mr. Polopetsi sat in the straight-backed chairs in front of the desk. It was a tight fit for Mma Ramotswe, and the chair-arm on each side pushed uncomfortably into her traditional waistline. Mr. Polopetsi, though, barely filled his seat, and perched nervously on the edge of it, his hands clasped together on his lap.

“It is very good of you to come so quickly,” said Tati Monyena. “We are at your disposal.” He paused. He had made a magnanimous beginning, but he was not at all sure what he could do to help Mma Ramotswe. She would want to speak to people, he imagined, even though he had spoken to the ward nurses again and again, and had had several conversations with the doctors in question, in this very office; conversations in which the doctors sat where Mma Ramotswe was sitting and defensively insisted that they had no idea how these patients had died.

“I should like to speak to the nurses,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I should like to see the ward too, if possible.”

Tati Monyena's hand reached for the telephone. “I can arrange for both of those things, Mma. I shall show you the ward, and then we will bring the nurses back here so you can talk to them in this office. There are three of them who were there at the time.”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. She did not wish to be rude, but it would not be a good idea to interview the nurses in front of Tati Monyena. “It might be better for me to see them by themselves,” she said. “Just Mr. Polopetsi here and myself. That's not to suggest…”

Tati Monyena raised a hand to stop her. “Of course, Mma! Of course. How tactless of me! You can speak to them in private. But I don't think they will say anything. When things go wrong, people become very careful. They forget what they have seen. They saw nothing. Nothing happened. It is always the same thing.”

“That is human nature,” interjected Mr. Polopetsi. He had been silent until then, and they both looked at him intently.

“Of course it is,” said Tati Monyena. “It is human nature to protect ourselves. We are no different from animals in that respect.”

“Except that they can't tell lies,” said Mr. Polopetsi.

Tati Monyena laughed. “Of course. But that's only because they cannot speak. I think that if they could, then they would probably lie too. Would a dog own up if some meat had been stolen? Would it say,
I am the one who has eaten the meat
? I do not think so.”

Mma Ramotswe wondered whether to join in this speculative conversation, but decided against it, and sat back until the two of them should finish. But Tati Monyena rose to his feet instead and gestured towards the door. “I shall take you to the ward,” he said. “You will see the bed where these things happened.”

They left his office and walked down a green-painted corridor. There was a hospital smell in the air, that mixture of humanity and disinfectant, and, in the background, the sound that seemed to go so well with that smell—voices somewhere, the sound of a child crying, the noise of wheels being pushed over uneven floors, the faint hum of machinery. There were posters on the wall: warnings about disease and the need to be careful; a picture of a blood spill. This, ultimately, was what our life was about, she thought, and hospitals were there to remind us: biology, human need, human suffering.