CHAPTER FOUR
A1 EXCELLENT FINE
WHEN HE CAME INTO the office that morning, Charlie, having greeted Mma Makutsi perfunctorily, said to Mma Ramotswe, “There is something that I would like to ask you, Mma.”
From behind her desk, Mma Makutsi sniffed loudly. She had several sniffs at her disposal: one, the basic sniff, was purely functional, designed to clear the nose; another was the sniff of doubt, a sniff that carried a message of scepticism as to what had just been said; and then there was the sniff of disapproval, an unmistakably negative sniff, leaving those at whom it was directed in no doubt at all as to Mma Makutsi’s feelings.
This was the sniff of disapproval, and prompted a sideways look from Charlie. Mma Makutsi stared pointedly at the papers on her desk in front of her.
“I said good morning,” Charlie muttered. “You heard me, didn’t you, Mma Ramotswe?”
Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. Charlie’s greeting of Mma Makutsi had been offhand, but she did not think it had been deliberately rude. Young men often sounded rude even when they were intending to be polite—it was something to do with their difficulties in doing more than one thing at a time: occasionally they were too preoccupied to hear remarks addressed to them. Either that, or they heard what was being said and tried to respond, but did not give sufficient attention to their response. That, she thought, was what had happened here.
“Perhaps you mumbled,” said Mma Ramotswe. It was a gentle reproof, but it was enough to provoke a spirited rebuttal from Charlie.
“I didn’t mumble, Mma. I said good morning loud and clear.” He paused. “There are some people who need to get their ears washed out, I think.”
Mma Makutsi shot him a stern look. “There is nothing wrong with my ears, Charlie. I can hear perfectly well. When people say good morning in the correct, polite fashion, I can always hear them when they do that. Interesting, isn’t it?”
Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. “I am sure that we all wish one another a very good day,” she said. “But tell me, Charlie: What is it you want to ask me?”
Charlie, who had been standing a little way away from Mma Ramotswe’s desk, now came closer. Lowering his voice in what could only have been an attempt to prevent Mma Makutsi from overhearing, he said, “I was hoping to borrow your van this morning, Mma. Just until lunch time. Then I will bring it back to you.”
Mma Makutsi sniffed. This was a sniff somewhere between the sniff of doubt and the sniff of disapproval. Reacting to this, Charlie said, “I shall definitely bring it back by two this afternoon, Mma.”
Mma Ramotswe occasionally lent Charlie the tiny white van. She had done this when he was helping a friend move house, a friend whom Charlie had described in glowing terms. “He is one of those people who always helps others, Mma,” he said. “He was a big figure in the Boy Scout movement too. He was at the scout meetings every week, Mma, every week, doing all sorts of good deeds.”
She had tried not to smile.
“No, Mma,” Charlie insisted, “I am not making this up. He helped a lady find her false teeth when she dropped them in a ditch. He was the one who found them. It was almost in the papers.”
This had brought a burst of laughter from Mma Makutsi, who had been listening to the conversation. “How can anybody lose their false teeth in a ditch?” she asked. “What was this lady doing there? Eating her breakfast? And how can something be ‘almost in the papers’? Either it is in the papers or it is not.”
Charlie had put up a spirited defence of his friend. “You may think I’m lying, Mma Makutsi, but it’s true. She might have been going somewhere and maybe she tripped up and lost her teeth. These things can happen, you know.” He paused. “I am just telling you one of the good things he has done.”
“And he turned water into beer at somebody’s wedding?” said Mma Makutsi. “And walked across the dam—on top of the water? Just a few things like that?”
Mma Ramotswe had ended that contretemps by giving Charlie permission to use the van, and had done so on two occasions since then: on one to take a relative to hospital, and on another to take a supply of animal food out to his uncle’s cattle at the height of the last drought. That had been an errand of mercy of which no person in Botswana would disapprove. At a time of drought, the tragedy of starving cattle touched something very deep in the national psyche and it would be unthinkable not to help another to save a herd.
Now she asked, “What for, Charlie? What do you need the van for?”
Charlie hesitated. From behind him he thought he could hear the faintest of sniffs, but perhaps it was just the breeze against the fly-screen gauze.
“It’s to help a friend move something.”
Mma Ramotswe waited, but when no further explanation was forthcoming, she asked, “What does your friend want to move?”
Charlie said, “I’ll put petrol in, Mma. I’ll put ten litres in. That will be more than I’ll use, but I don’t mind. You can keep the extra, Mma.”
“That’s not what I asked you, Charlie. I asked you what your friend wants to move.”
Charlie shrugged. “Just something, Mma. He hasn’t told me exactly what it is.”
This was too much for Mma Makutsi. “He hasn’t told you? Oh, Charlie, you’re being very naïve. Do you know what that word means? It means you are being very stupid.”
He glared at her. “I am not being nave,” he retorted.
“Naïve,” said Mma Makutsi. “It’s naïve. And that is what you’re being.” She shook her head. “You’re exactly the sort of person they’re talking about at airports, Charlie. At airports they say, ‘Do not carry anything for people you don’t know.’ That’s what they say. And you know what they’re talking about? I’ll tell you: bombs, Charlie.”
Charlie laughed. “Bombs, Mma? I can tell you—I am not going to be moving bombs in Mma Ramotswe’s van. Ha!”
“I didn’t say you were going to put a bomb in the van,” snapped Mma Makutsi. “I said that was what foolish people do. They agree to carry something for somebody they meet at an airport and then they find they’ve been carrying a bomb. And they are very sorry, I can tell you.”
Charlie laughed again. “You say they’re very sorry, Mma Makutsi. But how can you be sorry if you’re blown up? You won’t be around to feel sorry about anything. You’ll be blown up.” He paused. “I’m surprised you didn’t know that, you being a detective.”
“Do you think I don’t know what happens when you’re blown up, Charlie? What I meant—and I’m sorry you’re finding it a bit hard to grasp—is that those people are very sorry when they are caught carrying these bombs. That is before the bombs have exploded, you see. They are caught and then they say, ‘Oh, I’m very sorry—I didn’t know that the parcel had a bomb in it.’ That’s when they are sorry.”
Mma Ramotswe felt it was time to bring the discussion to an end. Mma Makutsi and Charlie could argue for hours once they got going, and she did not want that. So she said, “You can borrow the van, Charlie, but be careful with it, please.”
He thanked her effusively. “You’re very kind, Mma Ramotswe. You’re kinder than…” He glanced at Mma Makutsi and then quickly looked away. “You’re kinder than some other people.”
A final shot came from Mma Makutsi. “Make sure they don’t hand you a bomb, Charlie. That’s all I’d say to you. Look at the thing your friend asks you to carry before you carry it—not after.”
Mma Ramotswe reached for the van’s keys from her drawer and handed them to Charlie. He put them in his pocket and, with a polite nod to both of them, left the office.
“What’s he up to, Mma?” asked Mma Makutsi.
Mma Ramotswe shrugged. “Helping a friend out, I think. Perhaps taking somebody somewhere. These young people move about a lot—they’re always getting a new room in somebody’s house. And then they have to take all their things—their sound systems and…and…” She struggled to remember the sorts of things that people of Charlie’s age possessed.
“Clothes,” said Mma Makutsi. “They have lots of clothes these days. Even young men. Lots of clothes. Trainers and so on.”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. “Would you like to be that age again, Mma Makutsi?”
Mma Makutsi shook her head. “I would not, Mma. I would hate to have to worry about what other people thought of me. You know, they all worry about that—all the time. I heard a programme on the radio about it. They were talking about anxiety in young people. They said that it’s a big problem these days. They’re all anxious.”
“But we—”
Mma Makutsi was confident. “We have stopped being anxious, Mma. Now we say to ourselves, ‘What is going to happen is going to happen.’ And once you say that to yourself, you stop being anxious.”
“I hope so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Though, now you come to mention it, I worry about Charlie. I worry that things will go wrong for him because he is a young man and he doesn’t always think things through as carefully as he should.”
“Do you think he’s going to do something foolish with your van, Mma? Such as carrying stolen goods in it?”
“I hope not.”
“Because if he did that,” Mma Makutsi continued, “you could be in serious trouble, Mma. You could go to prison.”
Mma Ramotswe said that she thought that unlikely. But even as she downplayed Mma Makutsi’s suggestion, she remembered that innocent people did go to jail. It did not happen very often, especially in Botswana, with its careful judiciary and its largely honest police force, but there were always exceptions and she knew of several law-abiding men who had ended up being wrongfully convicted of an offence. Honest men…she did not know of any honest women who had been convicted of things they had not done, but there was always a first time. And for a few moments she imagined herself in an ill-fitting prison outfit, cutting grass along the side of a road in a working party, perhaps, while along the road drove the righteous and the respectable. And she imagined one car in particular driving past and slowing down so that the driver could get a good look at the convicts, and she would look up from her scythe and see none other than Violet Sephotho at the wheel, staring at her with an expression that would be a mixture of pity and intense satisfaction. That would be hard to bear—far harder than any shame at the fall from respectability, or any anger at the wrongfulness of conviction. It would be unbearable, she decided, and she felt a rush of relief as she reminded herself that this was fantasy, that it had not happened, and that it was highly unlikely ever to occur, even if Charlie really was planning to do something illegal with the van. No, surely he would not do that—not Charlie, whom she had known for years now, and who was maturing at long last. Not him. And yet, and yet…how many victims of the bad behaviour of others ever imagined that the person they trusted would behave badly towards them, would let them down? None of them, she suspected, and that conclusion made her ask herself whether she should have insisted that Charlie give a fuller explanation of why he wanted the van.
She arose from her chair and made her way to the window, through which she could look out over the small stretch of cleared bush at the back of the garage; it was here that she parked the van under the shelter of an acacia tree. Now, the van was just moving away and it was too late to run after Charlie, demanding further details.
“Too late?” asked Mma Makutsi.
Mma Ramotswe nodded. “He’ll be all right. I trust Charlie.” She did—to an extent. In the essentials, Charlie was a good young man. His fecklessness—and fecklessness is never the fault of a young man, in the same way as a tendency to bite or chew things is never the fault of a puppy—was improving, and anyway did not detract from the goodness of his soul. That, Mma Ramotswe thought, was what counted: the goodness of the soul. She knew that people sneered at that idea—especially now, when it was unfashionable to talk about such things, but she still believed that we all had a soul. And how could one not believe in such a thing, given that it was so obvious when we looked into the eyes of others and we were able to understand what they were feeling, without a single word being uttered? Or when we were walking in the bush and heard the sound of cattle bells, and looked up and saw the sky over Botswana, and felt the wind against our cheek? Of course there was a soul; of course there was.
Mma Makutsi sniffed—the doubtful sniff this time. “You believe him, Mma? I don’t,” she said.
MMA RAMOTSWE and Mma Makutsi were busy for the rest of the morning and neither noticed the passage of time. Mma Makutsi went off to collect the mail—in her own car—and when she returned, shortly after twelve, she reported to Mma Ramotswe that she was sure she had seen Charlie in the white van. “He was driving somewhere,” she said, adding, “very fast.” She paused, and gave Mma Ramotswe a meaningful look. If you lent your van to somebody like Charlie, then could you expect anything but that he push the engine to the maximum?
“I didn’t have the time to look closely,” she continued. “Whoosh! He was gone. Just like that, Mma. Whoosh!”
Mma Ramotswe smiled. She suspected that there was a considerable amount of exaggeration in the report of this sighting. She felt tempted to quote Clovis Andersen, who said, if she recalled correctly: Never overstate what you see. Just report—don’t embellish. If you see a husband you are observing holding the hand of a young woman, do not say that you saw him kissing her. It never helps a case to try to make it stronger with hyperbole.
Hyperbole…Mma Ramotswe had been delighted to make acquaintance with that word, which she had never encountered before. She had a good vocabulary in English—as well, of course, as her natural command of her mother tongue, Setswana—and she had a small and shaky understanding of Zulu, acquired from a friend in her schooldays. But even with her excellent English, there were occasional words that sent her to the dictionary, and hyperbole had been one of them. She liked the sound of the word, with its sharply rising consonant at the beginning and its round vowels at the end. This was a word that could be shouted out at the top of one’s lungs, if one wished. It would also be a good name for a favourite cow, she thought, or even for a child—a girl, she thought, as it would hardly suit a boy.
And she had been able to use it on occasion too, which was an additional bonus when it came to newly discovered words. She had tried it on Mma Potokwane, casually suggesting that reports of a large snake that had frightened residents of Tlokweng village involved hyperbole. “People are always making small snakes into large snakes,” she said. “And innocent grass snakes all become black mambas too, Mma. People are given to hyperbole in these matters, Mma Potokwane.”
But Mma Potokwane had taken it in her stride. “There is no hyperbole, Mma Ramotswe,” she retorted. “I saw the snake myself, and I am not one to exaggerate. It was two metres long, at the very least. And it was a mamba. I know those snakes. It was a mamba—not a hyperbole.”
“I would not like to be bitten by a hyperbole,” muttered Mma Ramotswe. She could not stop herself; she had to say this, although more or less immediately she regretted it.
“They are very dangerous, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane.
Now, on hearing Mma Makutsi’s report, she said, “That’s a bit of hyperbole, Mma. My van cannot go whoosh. It is a very slow van.”
Mma Makutsi stared at her through her new glasses, adjusting their position on her nose as she did so. “I am not a hyperbole, Mma. He was driving fast. You know how Charlie is.” She paused. “And where is he, Mma? He has been away for hours now. He said he would not be long—but where is he? I am just asking, Mma—that is all I’m doing. I am not criticising you in any way—I’m just asking where Charlie is and wondering when he will come back.”
Charlie eventually returned shortly after two. It was Mma Makutsi who heard the van approaching and rose from her desk to look through the window.
“He’s parking now, Mma,” she reported. “Now he’s getting out and he’s looking at the van. I wonder why he’s doing that, Mma? Surveying the damage, perhaps?”
Mma Ramotswe joined her at the window. She saw that Charlie had moved to the other side of the van and was bending down to examine something, possibly the near-side front wheel. Then he straightened up, walked to the back of the van, and examined something there.
“He might have scraped it,” said Mma Makutsi. “You remember how he scraped Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck once? You remember that? And he said that the scrape had been caused by lightning, but it hadn’t of course. You remember?”
“It’s very easy to scrape against something,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Let those who have never scraped a car throw the first stone, Mma.”
“I am not throwing any stones,” retorted Mma Makutsi. “I am just saying that if it were my van, Mma, then I would be out there, checking the van for scrapes and bangs and such like.”
“Do you think so, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi nodded. “I will come with you, Mma. Just to check up.”
They went outside and made their way over to the acacia tree and the van. Charlie saw them coming, and waited for them nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. “I am back now,” he called as they approached him.
“Is everything all right, Charlie?” asked Mma Ramotswe. She did not want to be seen examining the van too obviously, but she did shoot a glance in the vehicle’s direction. Mma Makutsi was less reticent; she moved over to stand beside the van and peered down at the open loading area at the back.
Charlie watched Mma Makutsi nervously. “Everything is A1 excellent fine,” he said.
Mma Makutsi looked up. “A1 excellent fine, Charlie? That sounds very good. No lightning strikes this time?”
Charlie ignored this. “My friend was very grateful to you, Mma,” he said to Mma Ramotswe. “He said you are very kind and will certainly go to heaven when you die—which he hopes is not for a long time yet, of course.”
“What did you transport?” asked Mma Makutsi, peering again at the loading area. “It must have been something rather heavy.”
Charlie frowned. “Personal effects, Mma Makutsi. And they were just average heavy.”
Mma Makutsi reached out to rub the metal surface of the tailgate. “This bit,” she said, “I don’t know what you call it—this bit here.”
“Tailgate,” said Charlie, glancing at Mma Ramotswe.
“Yes,” continued Mma Makutsi. “This tailgate is a bit bent, Charlie. Or am I imagining something? Can you see it, Mma Ramotswe? If you come over here and take a look, you’ll see that the whole tailgate seems to be a bit bent.” She paused. “Not that I’m accusing anybody of anything—least of all you, Charlie.”
Mma Ramotswe joined Mma Makutsi at the rear of the van. She could see what the other woman meant—the tailgate appeared to have buckled slightly. She turned to Charlie. “Did something happen, Charlie? I think that Mma Makutsi may be right. This bit is bent, see? Look, see the way it goes down there and then comes up again.”
Charlie struggled to look unconcerned. “An old van always has irregularities, Mma. Even a new one sometimes is not quite straight.”
Mma Ramotswe shrugged. “I don’t think it matters,” she said. “It still works, does it?”
Charlie stepped forward, brushing Mma Makutsi aside as he closed the tailgate. “It still works,” he said. “Look.”
Mma Ramotswe hesitated. It was clear to her what had happened: Charlie and his friend had overloaded the van with whatever they were transporting—perhaps a heavy sofa. They had rested the sofa on the tailgate while they decided how to manoeuvre it into the van, and the weight had caused the buckling. It was entirely excusable damage—the sort of thing that could happen to anybody who underestimated the strain that an object could place on a surface. Who had not done that sort of thing at some point in their lives? And yet one part of her thought that Charlie should not get away with it. If he had confessed to what had happened, nobody—not even Mma Makutsi—would have been able to make much of it. But he had not confessed, and in one view he should be confronted with the damage and told to apologise. But now, she thought, was not the time. Mma Makutsi would make a big thing of it, and there was no call, she felt, to do that.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Let’s not worry. It’s too hot to be standing out here.”
Charlie breathed out in relief. “I have bought you a box of chocolates,” he said to Mma Ramotswe. “They are to thank you for lending me the van.” He reached inside the van for a small box of chocolates and handed it to Mma Ramotswe.
“You don’t need to do this, Charlie,” she said. “But these are very nice. I like these chocolates.”
Mma Makutsi peered at the box. “You need to be careful of those, Mma Ramotswe,” she said. “They are very full of calories, those chocolates. I have read about them in a health magazine. They said, ‘These chocolates are very full of calories—thousands and thousands of calories—and are best avoided by healthy people.’ I am just telling you what the magazine said, Mma. I am not saying that I think you shouldn’t eat them. I’m not saying that.”
Mma Ramotswe opened the box. “Would you like one yourself, Mma?”
Mma Makutsi hesitated, and Mma Ramotswe saw at once that she was torn.
“One won’t do you any harm, Mma. Two might—but not one.”
Mma Makutsi reached for a chocolate. “You’re quite right, Mma Ramotswe. One chocolate is always going to be all right.”
They went inside. Charlie had agreed to work in the garage that afternoon, so they did not see him in the office. And he was still working there when Mma Ramotswe left the office shortly before five. As she drove home, she sniffed the air. There was a strange smell, and it seemed to be inside her van. She opened a window, and the smell largely disappeared. But not altogether, and when she pulled up outside her house on Zebra Drive, she got out and peered into the back of the van. There was definitely a smell, but there was no sign of where it was coming from. What was it? A musty smell—an unfamiliar smell. The smell of an old sofa, perhaps—one that had had numerous cups of tea and beer spilled on it in the course of its career. Perhaps, she thought; but then she thought, perhaps not.