The Good Husband of Zebra Drive (5 page)

They passed a nurse in the corridor. She was carrying a pan of some sort, covered with a stained cloth, and she smiled and half-turned to let them pass. Mma Ramotswe kept her gaze studiously away from the pan and on the nurse's face. It was a kind face, the sort that one trusted, unlike, she imagined, the face of the doctor whom Mr. Polopetsi had described.

“It's changed since your father was here,” said Tati Monyena. “In those days we had to make do with so little. Now we have much more.”

“But there is never enough, is there?” said Mr. Polopetsi. “We get drugs for one illness and then a new illness comes along. Or a new type of the same thing. Same devil, different clothes. Look at TB.”

Tati Monyena sighed. “That is true. I was talking to one of the doctors the other day and he said,
We thought that we had it cracked. We really did. And now…
”

But at least we can try, thought Mma Ramotswe. That is all we can do. We can try. And that, surely, is what doctors did. They did not throw up their hands and give up; they tried.

They turned a corner. A small boy, three or four years old, wearing only a vest, his tiny stomach protruding in a small mound, his eyes wide, stood in their way. The hospital was full of such children, the offspring of patients or patients themselves, and Tati Monyena barely saw him. But the child looked at Mma Ramotswe and came up to her and reached for her hand, as children will, especially in Africa, where they will still come to you. She bent down and lifted him up. He looked at her and snuggled his head against her chest.

“The mother of that one is late,” said Tati Monyena in a matter-of-fact voice. “Our people are deciding what to do. The nurses are looking after him.”

The child looked up at Mma Ramotswe. She saw that his eyes were shallow; there was no light in them. His skin, she felt, was dry.

Tati Monyena waited for her to put the child down. Then he indicated towards a further corridor to the right. “It is this way,” he said.

The ward doors were open. It was a long room, with six beds on either side. At the far end of the room, at a desk with several cabinets about it, a nurse was sitting, looking at a piece of paper with another nurse who was leaning over her shoulder. Halfway down the ward, another couple of nurses were adjusting the sheets on one of the beds, propping up the patient against a high bank of pillows. A drugs trolley stood unattended at the foot of another bed, an array of small containers on its top shelf.

When she saw them at the door, the nurse at the desk rose to her feet and walked down the ward to meet them. She nodded to Mma Ramotswe and Mr. Polopetsi and then looked enquiringly at Tati Monyena.

“This lady is dealing with that…that matter,” said Tati Monyena, nodding at the bed on his left. “I spoke to you about her.” He turned to Mma Ramotswe. “This is Sister Batshegi.”

Mma Ramotswe was watching the nurse's expression. She knew that the first moments were the significant ones, and that people gave away so much before they had time to think and to compose themselves. Sister Batshegi had looked down, not meeting Mma Ramotswe's gaze, and then had looked up again. Did that mean anything? Mma Ramotswe thought that it meant that she was not particularly pleased to see her. But that in itself did not tell her very much. People who are busy with some task—as Sister Batshegi clearly had been—were not always pleased to be disturbed.

“I am happy to see you, Mma,” said Sister Batshegi.

Mma Ramotswe replied to the greeting and then turned to Tati Monyena. “That is the bed, Rra?”

“It is.” He looked at Sister Batshegi. “Have you had anybody in it over the last few days?”

The nurse shook her head. “There has been nobody. The last patient was that man last week—the one who had the motorcycle accident near Pilane. He got better quickly.” She turned to Mma Ramotswe. “Every time I see a motorcyle, Mma, I think of the young men we get in here…” She shrugged. “But they never think of that. They don't.”

“Young men often don't think,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They cannot help it. That is how they are.” She thought of the apprentices, and reflected on what a good illustration they were of the proposition she had just made. But they would start to think sooner or later, she told herself; even Charlie would start to think. She looked at the bed, covered in its neat white sheet. Although the sheet was clean, there were brown stains on it, the stains of blood that the hospital laundry could not remove. At the top of the bed, to the side, she saw a machine with tubes and dials on a stand.

“That is a ventilator,” said Tati Monyena. “It helps people to breathe. All three patients…” He paused, and looked at Sister Batshegi, as if for confirmation. “All three patients were on it at the time. But the machine was thoroughly checked and there was nothing wrong with it.”

Sister Batshegi nodded. “The machine was working. And we checked the alarm. It has a battery, which was working fine. If the machine had been faulty we would have known.”

“So you can rule out a defective ventilator,” said Tati Monyena. “That is not what caused it.”

Sister Batshegi was vigorously of the same mind. “No. It is not that. That is not what happened.”

Mma Ramotswe looked about her. One of the patients at the end of the ward was calling out, a cracked, unhappy voice. A nurse went over to the bed quickly.

“I have to get on with my work,” said Sister Batshegi. “You may look round, Mma, but you will find nothing. There is nothing to see in this place. It is just a ward. That is all.”

MMA RAMOTSWE
and Mr. Polopetsi spoke to Sister Batshegi again, along with two other nurses, in Tati Monyena's office. He had left them alone, as he had promised, but through the window they saw him hovering around anxiously in the courtyard outside, looking at his watch and fiddling with a line of pens that he had clipped in his shirt pocket. Sister Batshegi said little more than she had said in the ward, and the other two nurses, both of whom had been on duty at the time of the incidents, seemed very unwilling to say much at all. The deaths had been a surprise, they said, but they often lost very ill patients. Neither had been nearby at the time, they said, although they were quick to point out that they were both keeping a close watch on the patients involved. “If anything had happened, we would have known it,” said one of the nurses. “It is not our fault, you see, Mma. It is just not our fault.”

It did not take long to interview them, and then Mma Ramotswe and Mr. Polopetsi were alone in the office before Tati Monyena came back.

“Those nurses were scared about something,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “Did you see the way they looked? Did you hear it in their voices?”

Mma Ramotswe had to agree. “But what are they scared of?” she asked.

Mr. Polopetsi thought for a moment. “They are scared of some person,” he said. “Some unknown person is frightening them.”

“Sister Batshegi?”

“No. Not her.”

“Then who else is there? Tati Monyena?”

Mr. Polopetsi did not think this likely. “I think that he is somebody who would protect his staff rather than punish them,” he said. “Tati Monyena is a kind man.”

“Well, I don't know what to think,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But it's time for us to leave anyway. I don't think that there is anything more we can do here.”

They drove back to Gaborone. They spoke to each other on the journey, but not about the visit to the hospital, as neither had much to say about that. Mr. Polopetsi told Mma Ramotswe about one of his sons, who was turning out to be very good at mental arithmetic. “He is like a calculator,” he said. “He is already doing calculations that I cannot do, and he is only eight.”

“You must be very proud of him,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Mr. Polopetsi beamed with pleasure. “I am, Mma,” he said. “He is the most precious thing I have in this world.” He seemed about to say something else, but stopped. He looked at Mma Ramotswe hesitantly, and she knew that he was about to make a request. It will be for money, she thought. There will be school fees to be paid, or shoes to be bought for this boy, or even a blanket; children needed all these things, all the time.

“He needs a godmother,” said Mr. Polopetsi. “He had a godmother, and now she is late. He needs a new one.”

There was only one answer Mma Ramotswe could give. “Yes,” she said. “I will do that, Rra.”

There would be birthdays from now on, as well as shoes and school fees and so forth. But we cannot always choose whose lives will become entangled with our own; these things happen to us, come to us uninvited, and Mma Ramotswe understood that well. And just as she had not chosen Mr. Polopetsi's son, she reflected, so too had the boy not chosen her.

CHAPTER FIVE

RESIGNATION SHOES

M
MA MAKUTSI
was eager for a report the next day. She would have preferred to have gone to Mochudi in the place of Mr. Polopetsi, who she thought would not have been likely to add very much to the investigation. But she was cautious about giving offence to Mma Ramotswe after the misunderstandings of the previous day, and she kept those feelings to herself. In fact, she went further than that and told Mma Ramotswe what a good idea it had been to take Mr. Polopetsi. “If you're a woman, sometimes people don't take you seriously enough,” she said. “That is when it is useful to have a man around.”

Mma Ramotswe was non-committal about that. Men were learning, she thought, and a great deal had changed. Mma Makutsi, perhaps, was fighting battles which had already been largely won, at least in the towns. It was different in the villages, of course, where men still thought that they could do what they liked. But she was thinking of other things: she had been pondering Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni's planned investigation and was wondering whether she could discreetly suggest that Mma Makutsi assist him. She could try that, certainly, but she was not sure whether he would welcome it; in fact, she was sure that he would not. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni might not be the most assertive of men, but there were sensitivities there that surfaced from time to time.

“Be that as it may,” she said to Mma Makutsi, as they began to attend to the morning mail. “There was not very much that we could find out at the hospital. I saw the ward where it happened. I spoke to the nurses, who said almost nothing. And that was it.”

Mma Makutsi thought for a moment. “And what can you do now?” she asked.

It was difficult for Mma Ramotswe to answer that. She very rarely gave up on a case, as solutions had a habit of cropping up as long as one was patient. But it was difficult at any particular point to say what would happen next. “I shall wait,” she said. “There is no special hurry, Mma. I shall wait and see what happens.”

“Well, I don't see what can possibly happen,” said Mma Makutsi. “These things don't solve themselves, you know.”

Mma Ramotswe bit her lip and turned to the letter she had just opened. It was a letter of thanks from the parents of a young man whom she had eventually located in Francistown. There had been a family row and he had gone missing, leaving no address. There had been a girlfriend, about whom the parents knew nothing, and the young woman had eventually confided to Mma Ramotswe that he was in Francistown, although she was not sure exactly where. So Mma Ramotswe had quizzed her about his interests, which, she revealed, included jazz. From that it was a simple step to enquire of the only place in Francistown where jazz was played. Yes, they knew of him, and yes he would be playing the following evening. Would she like to come? She would not, but the young man's parents did, and they were reunited with their son. He had wanted to contact them, but was too proud; the fact that his parents had come all the way from Gaborone meant that honour was satisfied. Everybody forgave one another and started again, which, Mma Ramotswe reflected, is how many of the world's problems might be solved. We should forgive one another and start all over again. But what if those who needed to be forgiven hung on to the things that they had wrongly acquired: What then? That, she decided, was a matter that would require further thought.

“It is so easy to thank people,” said Mma Ramotswe, passing the letter over to Mma Makutsi. “And most people don't bother to do it. They don't thank the person who does something for them. They just take it for granted.”

Mma Makutsi looked out of the window. Mma Ramotswe had done her plenty of favours in the past, and she had never written to thank her. Could the remark be aimed at her? Could Mma Ramotswe have been harbouring a grudge, as people did, sometimes for years and years? She looked at her employer and decided that this was unlikely. Mma Ramotswe could not harbour a grudge
convincingly;
she would start to laugh, or offer the object of her grudge a cup of tea, or do something which indicated that the grudge was not real.

Mma Makutsi read the letter. “Where shall I file this, Mma?” she asked. “We do not have a file for letters of thanks. We have a file for letters of complaint, of course. Should it go there?”

Mma Ramotswe did not think this a good idea. They could open a new file, but their filing cabinets were already overcrowded and she did not think it would be worthwhile opening a file which might never contain another letter. “We can throw it away now,” she said.

Mma Makutsi frowned. “At the Botswana Secretarial College we were taught never to throw anything away for at least a week,” she said. “There might always be some follow-up.”

“There will be no follow-up to a letter of thanks,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is it. There will be no more. That case is closed.”

With a slow show of reluctance, Mma Makutsi held the letter over the bin and dropped it in. As she did so, the door of the office opened and Charlie, the older of the two apprentices, walked in. He had removed his work overalls to reveal a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt underneath. The tee-shirt, Mma Ramotswe noticed, had a picture of a jet aircraft on it and the slogan underneath in large letters:
HIGH FLIER.

Mma Makutsi looked at him. “Finishing work early today?” she asked. “Ten o'clock in the morning? You're a quick worker, Charlie!”

The young man ignored this comment as he sauntered over to Mma Ramotswe's desk. “Mma Ramotswe,” he said. “You've always been kind to me.” He paused, casting a glance over his shoulder in the direction of Mma Makutsi. “Now I've come to say goodbye. I'm finishing work here soon. I'm going. I've come to say goodbye.”

Mma Ramotswe stared at Charlie in astonishment. “But you haven't finished your…your…”

“Apprenticeship,” supplied Mma Makutsi from the other side of the room. “You silly boy! You can't leave before you've finished that.”

Charlie did not react to this. He continued to look at Mma Ramotswe. “I haven't finished my apprenticeship—I know that,” he said. “But you only need to finish your apprenticeship if you want to be a mechanic. Who said I want to be a mechanic?”

“You did!” shouted Mma Makutsi. “When you signed your apprenticeship contract, you said that you wanted to be a mechanic. That's what those contracts say, you know.”

Mma Ramotswe raised a hand in a calming gesture. “You needn't shout at him, Mma,” she said quietly. “He is going to explain, aren't you, Charlie?”

“I'm not deaf, you know,” said Charlie over his shoulder. “And I wasn't talking to you anyway. There are two ladies in this room—Mma Ramotswe and…and another one. I was talking to Mma Ramotswe.” He turned back to face Mma Ramotswe. “I'm going to do another job, Mma. I am going into business.”

“Business!” chuckled Mma Makutsi. “You'll be needing a secretary soon, I suppose.”

“And don't bother to apply for that job, Mma,” Charlie snapped. “Seventy-nine per cent or not, I would never give you a job. I'm not mad, you see.”

“Ninety-seven per cent!” shouted Mma Makutsi. “See! You can't even get your figures right. Some profit you'll make!”

“Please do not shout at each other,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Shouting achieves nothing. It just makes the person doing the shouting hoarse and the person being shouted at cross. That is all it does.”

“I was not shouting,” said Charlie. “Somebody else was doing the shouting. Somebody with big round glasses. Not me.”

Mma Ramotswe sighed. It was Mma Makutsi's fault, this feeling between the two of them. She was older than Charlie and might have turned a blind eye to the young man's faults; she might have encouraged him to be a bit better than he was; she might have understood that young men are like this and that one has to be tolerant.

“Tell me about this business, Charlie,” she said gently. “What is it?”

Charlie sat down on the chair in front of Mma Ramotswe. Then he leaned forward, his arms resting on the surface of her desk. “Mr J.L.B. Matekoni has sold me a car,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, so that Mma Makutsi might not hear. “It is an old Mercedes-Benz. An E220. The owner has a new one, a C-Class, and since this one has such a large mileage on it he sold it to the boss for very little. Twenty thousand pula. Now the boss has sold it to me.”

“And?” coaxed Mma Ramotswe. She had seen the Mercedes in the garage and had noticed that it had been parked at the side of the building for over two weeks. She assumed that they were waiting for some part that had been ordered from South Africa. Now she knew that there were other plans for the car.

“And I am going to start a taxi service,” said Charlie. “I am going to start a business called the No. 1 Ladies' Taxi Service.”

There was a gasp from the other side of the room. “You can't do that! That name belongs to Mma Ramotswe.”

Mma Ramotswe, taken aback, simply stared at Charlie. Then she gathered her thoughts. The name that he had chosen was certainly derivative, but was there anything wrong with that? In one view, it was a compliment to have a name one had invented being used by somebody else. The only difficulty would be if the name were to be used by a similar business—by a detective agency that wanted to take clients away from them. A taxi company and a detective agency were two very different things, and there would be no prospect of competition between them.

“I don't mind,” she said to Charlie. “But tell me: Why have you chosen that name? You'll be driving the car—where do the ladies come into it?”

Charlie, who had been tense under Mma Makutsi's onslaught, now visibly relaxed. “The ladies will be in the back of the car.”

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“And I will be in the front, driving,” he said. “The selling point will be that this is a taxi that is safe for ladies. Ladies will be able to get in without any fear that they will find some bad man in the driver's seat—a man who might not be safe with ladies. There are such taxi drivers, Mma.”

For a minute or so nobody spoke. Mma Ramotswe was aware of the sound of Charlie's breathing, which was shallow, from excitement. We must remember, she thought, what it is like to be young and enthusiastic, to have a plan, a dream. There was always a danger that as we went on in life we forgot about that; caution—even fear—replaced optimism and courage. When you were young, like Charlie, you believed that you could do anything, and, in some circumstances at least, you could.

Why should Charlie's taxi firm not succeed? She remembered a conversation with her friend Bernard Ditau, who had been a bank manager. “There are so many people who could run their own businesses,” he had said, “but they let people tell them it won't work. So they give up before they start.”

Bernard had encouraged her to start the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency when others had merely laughed and said that it would be the quickest way of losing the money that Obed Ramotswe had left her. “He worked all those years, your Daddy, and now you're going to lose everything he got in two or three months,” somebody had said. That remark had almost persuaded her to drop the idea, but Bernard had urged her on. “What if he hadn't bought all those good fat cattle?” he asked. “What if he had been too timid to do that and had left the money to sit gathering dust?”

Now she was sitting, in a sense, in Bernard's place. There was little doubt but that Mma Makutsi would be only too ready to throw cold water over Charlie's plan, but she decided that she would not do this.

“I will tell all my friends to use your taxi,” she said. “I am sure you will be very busy.”

Charlie beamed with pleasure. “I will give them a discount,” he said. “Ten per cent off for anybody who knows Mma Ramotswe.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “That is very kind of you,” she said. “But that is not the way to run a business. You will need every pula you can make.”

“If you make any, that is,” muttered Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe threw a disapproving glance in Mma Makutsi's direction. “I am sure he will,” she said. “I am sure of that.”

After Charlie had left the office, Mma Ramotswe fiddled for a moment with a small pile of papers on her desk. She looked across the room at Mma Makutsi, who was studiously avoiding looking at her, and was paging through her shorthand notebook as if it contained some important hidden secret. “Mma Makutsi,” she said, “I really need to talk to you.”

Mma Makutsi continued to leaf through the notebook. “I am here,” she said. “I am listening, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe felt her heart beating within her. I am not very good at this sort of thing, she told herself. “That young man,” she said, “is just the same as any young man. He has his dreams, as we all did when we were his age. Even you, Mma Makutsi. Even you. You went to the Botswana Secretarial College—you sacrificed so much for that—your people up in Bobonong sacrificed too. You wanted to make something of yourself, and you did.” She paused. Mma Makutsi was sitting quite still, no longer looking through the notebook, which she had laid down on the desk.