Blue Shoes and Happiness (5 page)

“Behind what scenes?” asked Poppy.

Mma Ramotswe decided to change tack. There were some people who were rather literal in their understanding of things, and Poppy, it seemed, was one of these.

“Well, let us not think too much about whistles and such things,” she said. “The important thing is this: you want us to do something about this woman and her stealing. Is that right?”

The suggestion seemed to alarm Poppy. “No,” she said. “I do not want that, Mma. You must wait until I finish telling you my story.”

Mma Ramotswe made an apologetic gesture, and Poppy began to speak again.

“I was frightened, Mma. I could not face losing my job and so I did nothing. I did not like the thought of that man eating all that government food, but then I thought of what it would be like not to have a house, and so I just bit my tongue. But then, three days ago, Mma Tsau came to me just as I was about to leave work to go home. My husband has a car and was waiting for me at the end of the road. I could see him sitting in the car, looking up at the sky, as he likes to do. When you are a chef all you see is the kitchen ceiling and clouds of steam. When you are outside, you like to look at the sky.

“Mma Tsau drew me aside. She was shaking with anger and I thought that I had made some very bad mistake in my work. But it was not that. She gripped me by the arm and leaned forward to speak to me. ‘You think you're clever,' she said. ‘You think that you can get me to give you money not to say anything about my husband. You think that, don't you?'

“I had no idea what she was talking about. I told her that, but she just laughed at me. She said that she had torn up the letter I had written. Then she said that on the very first opportunity that she could find, she would get rid of me. She said that it might take a few months, but she would make very sure that I would lose my job.”

Poppy stopped. Towards the end of her tale, her voice had risen, and by the time that she finished, the words were coming in gasps. Mma Ramotswe leaned forward and took her hand. “Do not be upset, Mma,” she said gently. “She is just making threats. Often these people don't do what they threaten to do, isn't that right, Mma Makutsi?”

Mma Makutsi glanced at Mma Ramotswe before she answered. She thought that people like that often did exactly what they threatened to do—and worse—but now was not the time to express such doubts. “Hot air,” she said. “You would think that in Botswana we had enough hot air, with the Kalahari just over there, but there are still people like this Mma Tsau who add to the hot air. And you do not need to worry about hot air, Mma.”

Poppy looked over towards Mma Makutsi and smiled weakly. “I hope that you're right, Mma,” she said. “But I am not sure. And anyway, what was this letter? I did not write to her about it.”

Mma Ramotswe rose from her seat and walked to the window. Poppy had spoken about how chefs liked to look at the sky when they had the chance; well, so did private detectives, she thought; ladies and private detectives. Indeed, everybody should look at the sky when they could, because the sky had many answers, provided one knew how to see them. And now, as she looked at the sky, over the tops of the acacia trees and up into that echoing emptiness, it seemed to her so very obvious that Poppy was not the only person who knew about the food and that the other person who knew—who, again so obviously, must have been the cleaning woman—was taking the opportunity to blackmail Mma Tsau. Unfortunately for Poppy, she was getting the blame, but that was quite typical of life, was it not? The wrong people often got the blame, the wrong people suffered for what the right people did. And the sky in all this, the sky which had seen so much of it, was neutral, absolutely neutral.

The problem with blackmail, thought Mma Ramotswe, is this: the victim is often a wrongdoer, but, once blackmailed, attracts our sympathy. But why should we feel sorry for somebody who is simply being made to pay for the wrong that he did? It occurred to Mma Ramotswe that this was a problem that deserved serious consideration. Perhaps it was even a question to put to Aunty Emang. Aunty Emang …

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT FEMINISTS HAVE IN MIND FOR MEN

M
MA MAKUTSI made the evening meal that night for Mr Phuti Radiphuti, her newly acquired fiancé. Phuti Radiphuti was the son of the elder Mr Radiphuti, successful businessman, farmer, and proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop. She had met Phuti at the dancing classes which they had both attended at the Academy of Dance and Movement. This was not a real academy, in that it had no buildings and indeed had no staff other than the woman who took the money and the instructor, Mr Fano Fanope, an accomplished dancer who had danced, successfully, in Johannesburg and Nairobi. Word of the engagement had spread round the dance class, and Mr Fanope himself had made an official announcement at the end of one evening that the academy was proud to have brought the couple together.

“Dancing is about contact between people,” he had said in his speech. “When you dance with somebody you are talking to him, even if you do not open your mouth. Your movements can show what is in your heart. That is very important. And that is why so many happy couples meet through dancing. And that is another reason why if you have not already booked your place on our next course, you should do so now. Ladies, you could be like Grace Makutsi and find a good husband here; gentlemen, look at Mr Phuti Radiphuti, who has found this fine lady. May they be very happy together! May they have many happy hours on the dance floor and elsewhere!”

Mma Makutsi had been touched by this speech, in spite of the blatant reference to advance bookings. She liked Mr Fanope, and she knew that he was genuinely pleased about the engagement. She knew, too, that this pleasure was shared by many of the other members of the class, even if not by all. One of the other women, a person by the name of Violet, who had been at the Botswana Secretarial College with her, had smirked during Mr Fanope's speech and had muttered something to the man standing next to her, who had suppressed a laugh. Mma Makutsi had exchanged words with this woman at an earlier session, when Violet had made a disparaging remark about Mma Makutsi's green shoes (of which she was very proud) and had effectively sneered at Phuti Radiphuti. By a supreme effort of will, Mma Makutsi had replied to her courteously and had even gone out of her way to compliment her. This had been difficult indeed, as Violet had achieved a bare pass mark at the Botswana Secretarial College—somewhere around fifty per cent—and was clearly only interested in finding the richest husband available.

As she witnessed the smirk, for a delicious moment Mma Makutsi imagined what she might say to Violet if the opportunity presented itself. And in fact it did, at the end of that evening, when Violet sidled up to her and said, “Well, Mma, that's a kind thing you've done. It's very good of you to look after Mr Radiphuti like that. It must have been very hard for him to find a wife and now you have agreed to marry him. You are a really kind person. But I always knew that, of course.”

Mma Makutsi had looked at her enemy. At the back of her mind were the memories of those days at the Botswana Secretarial College when the glamorous girls, of whom Violet was more or less the leader, would sit at the back of the class and discuss their social triumphs and snigger when Mma Makutsi or one of the other hard workers was complimented by the instructor. She had said nothing then, and she really should say nothing now, but the temptation was just too great.

“Thank you, Mma,” she had said. “But I am the lucky one, you know. It's not every girl can get a husband like that.” She paused before continuing, “But I hope that you have some of my luck in the future. Who knows?” And with that she smiled sweetly.

Violet's eyes widened. “Lucky? Oh, I don't know about that, Grace Makutsi! I'm not so sure that it's lucky to be landed with a man like that. Anyway, I hope that it works out well for you. And it might.” And then she herself added, “Who knows?”

Mma Makutsi felt her heart beating fast within her. It was time for the coup de grâce. “But I am lucky, Mma,” she said. “I think that any girl who marries into that family will be very lucky. And rich too.”

Violet faltered. “Rich?”

“Ssh,” said Grace Makutsi, putting a finger to her lips. “It's not polite to talk about it. So I won't mention the Double Comfort Furniture Shop, which is one of the businesses my fiancé owns, you know. I must not talk about that. But do you know the store, Mma? If you save up, you should come in some day and buy a chair.”

Violet opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. And then Mr Fanope had appeared and had shaken Mma Makutsi's hand and led her away to speak to another member of the class who wanted to congratulate her. Mma Makutsi had glanced back at Violet, who was fiddling with her handbag, but who looked up and caught her eye and could not conceal her envy. There was so much history there; a history of shame, and poverty, and struggle, and she could hear Mma Ramotswe's voice in her head now. “That was not a very kind thing to do, Mma Makutsi,” Mma Ramotswe said. “You should not have done that.”

“I know,” Mma Makutsi answered, mentally. “But I just couldn't help it, Mma.”

And the voice of Mma Ramotswe immediately softened. “I know too,” she said. “I know.” And she did, because although she was kind, Mma Ramotswe was also human, and appreciated that there were times when it was impossible to resist a small triumph, especially one that could make one smile when one remembered it later; smile for hours and hours.

 

MMA MAKUTSI and Phuti Radiphuti had slipped comfortably into an arrangement. On four days of the week, including Monday, Phuti came for his evening meal at Mma Makutsi's house; on the other three days he ate in turn with his senior aunt, his sister and her husband, and, on Sunday evening, with his aged father. The dinners with his father were sometimes trying for him, as his father's memory was not what it used to be and he frequently repeated himself, especially when talking about cattle. But Phuti was dutiful, and he would sit for hours while his father went over and over the same ground: Did Phuti remember that fine bull that he had sold to that man who lived at Mahalapye? Could Phuti remember how much they had paid for that Brahmin cow that they had bought from that Boer farmer down at Zeerust? That had been a fine cow, but when did she die? Did Phuti remember which year it was? And what about that bull that went to Mahalapye? Did Phuti remember that one? Was he sure?

On occasion, Mma Makutsi would join him for these meals at his father's house, and she would sit through the same conversations, trying hard not to nod off during the narratives or the questions that interspersed them. What were the cattle like up at Bobonong this year? Were they thin? Were they different from the cattle down in the south? She noticed that when he was with his father, Phuti's stammer became more acute. During the dinners that they had at her house, it was barely noticeable now, which spoke to the confidence which she had succeeded in building up in him. In her company, he was now quite capable of uttering long and involved sentences, either in Setswana or in English, without any hesitation or stumbling. This new-found fluency, of which he was so proud, enabled him to say things that he had been unable to say for years, and the words flowed out of him; words about childhood, about being a boy; words about the furniture business and the comfort, or otherwise, of the various sorts of chairs; and words about the pleasure, the sheer pleasure, of having found somebody with whom he would now start to share his life. It was as if a drought had ended—a drought that had made for expanses of silence, as drought will dry up a salt pan and render it white and powdery—and the words were like longed-for rain, turning the land green at last.

She soon found out what Phuti liked to eat, and she made sure that she always cooked these dishes for him. He liked meat, of course, and T-bone steaks in particular, which he would pick up and gnaw at with gusto. He liked marrow and broad green beans doused in melted butter, and he liked chopped-up biltong soaked in gravy and then served over mashed potato. All of these dishes she did for him, and each time he complimented her enthusiastically on her cooking as if it were the first time that he had said anything about it. She loved these compliments, and the nice things he said about her appearance. In her mind she had been no more than a woman with large glasses and a difficult skin; now she found herself described as one of the prettiest women in Botswana, with a nose that reminded him of … and here he mumbled and she did not catch what it was that her nose reminded him of, but it was surely a positive association and so she did not mind not knowing what it was.

That evening, after the drama with the snake, Mma Makutsi regaled Phuti with a full account of what had turned into a memorable day. She told him of the apprentices' ridiculous account of their role in the removal of the snake, and he laughed at that. Then she told him about Poppy's visit and her curious tale of the theft of the food and the threat of dismissal.

After Mma Makutsi had finished, Phuti sat in silence for a few minutes. “So?” he said at last. “So what can you do to help this woman? I don't see how you're going to save her job for her. What can you do?”

“We could make sure that the chef—that other woman—is the one to lose her job,” said Mma Makutsi. “She's the one who should be fired.”

Phuti looked doubtful. “Maybe. But I don't see how you could make that happen. Anyway, where would you start with a case like this? What can you do?”

Mma Makutsi helped him to another portion of mashed potato. “We could find out who is blackmailing Mma Tsau. Then we could tell Mma Tsau that it is not Poppy.”

Phuti thought that this was a perfectly sound suggestion, but then a better idea occurred, and he outlined this to Mma Makutsi as he began to eat his mashed potato. “Of course it would be easier, wouldn't it, to tell Mma Tsau that if she fires Poppy, then
we
shall tell the college that she has been stealing. Surely that would be simpler.”

Mma Makutsi stared at him. “But that in itself is blackmail,” she pointed out. “You can't go round threatening people like that.”

“I don't see what's wrong with it,” said Phuti, wiping a small speck of mashed potato from his chin. “We're not getting anything from her. It can't be blackmail if you're not getting anything yourself.”

Mma Makutsi pondered this. Perhaps Phuti had a point, and yet Mma Ramotswe had always stressed to her that the end did not justify the means, and that one should not commit a wrong to set right another. And yet, Mma Ramotswe herself had been known to tell the occasional lie while trying to get at the truth. She had obtained information from a government clerk by quoting a non-existent regulation; she had pretended to be somebody she was not when looking into a family dispute for a former minister; the list was really quite long when one came to think of it. In every case, she had done this in her attempts to help somebody who needed help, and it was also true that they were not large lies, but they were lies nonetheless, and so she wondered whether Mma Ramotswe was entirely consistent on this point. She would have to ask her about it, but for the moment it was perhaps better to move on to another topic. So she looked up from her plate and asked Phuti Radiphuti what had happened at the furniture store that day.

He was pleased to leave the philosophical complexities of blackmail, and launched with alacrity into an account of a difficulty they had encountered with the delivery of a table that had only three legs. The factory was adamant that it had left their premises with four, but his warehouse man was equally firm in his view that it had only three on arrival.

“Perhaps that is another one for Mma Ramotswe,” said Mma Makutsi. “She is very good at finding out things like that.”

Phuti smiled at the suggestion. “There are bigger things for Mma Ramotswe to do,” he said. “She has big crimes to solve.”

Mma Makutsi had heard of this popular misconception. It flattered her to think that the reputation of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency had been so inflated, but she could not allow Phuti, her own fiancé, to remain in ignorance about what they actually did.

“No,” she said. “Mma Ramotswe does not solve crimes. She deals with very small things.” To portray the smallness, Mma Makutsi put a thumb and forefinger within a whisker of one another. “But,” she went on, “these small things are important for people. Mma Ramotswe has often told me that our lives are made up of small things. And I think she is right.”

Phuti thought she was right too. He was slightly disappointed to be disabused of the notion that the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency dealt with major crimes. It had been pleasing enough for him to have a fiancée at all, let alone a fiancée who pursued so glamorous a profession, and he had boasted to friends that he was engaged to a well-known detective. And of course that was strictly speaking true—Mma Makutsi was indeed a detective, and it did not matter too much that she concerned herself with mundane matters. In fact, this was probably all for the good. The other sort of detective might be exposed to danger, and that was not what he had in mind for his wife-to-be. There was little danger in the furniture business, and there would always be a place for her there should she decide to abandon detection. He wondered whether he should mention this to her, but decided against it. He did not want her to think that marriage to him would involve her submitting to his plans; he had heard that women were reluctant to accept that sort of thing these days—and a good thing too, he thought. For far too long men had assumed that women would do their bidding, and if women were now questioning that, then he was quite happy to agree with them. Not that he was sympathetic to those people who called themselves feminists: he had heard one of those ladies on the radio and had been shocked by her aggressiveness towards the man who was interviewing her. This woman had more or less accused the reporter of arrogance when he had questioned her statement that men had, in general, fewer abilities than women. She had said that his time was “over” and that men like him would be swept aside by feminism. But if men were to be swept aside, wondered Phuti Radiphuti, then where would men be put? Would there be special homes for them, where they could be given small tasks to perform while women got on with the important business of running things? Would men be allowed out of these homes on selected outings (accompanied, of course)? For some days after he had listened to the interview, Phuti Radiphuti had worried about being swept aside, and had experienced a vivid and uncomfortable dream—a nightmare, really—in which he was indeed swept aside by a large feminist with a broom. It was an unpleasant experience, tumbling head over heels, covered with a cloud of dust, in the face of the frightening woman's aggressive brush-strokes.