CHAPTER EIGHT

GOVERNMENT CHERRIES

THEY DROVE OUT in the tiny white van, bumping along the final section of dirt road that led to the gates of the Orphan Farm. Both Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi were in good spirits—high spirits, even—as they considered their mission to Mma Potokwane.

“You know, Mma Makutsi,” Mma Ramotswe said, “I’ve asked Mma Potokwane for some very unusual favours in the past.”

“You’ve asked for favours?” exclaimed Mma Makutsi. “It’s the other way round, Mma! She’s the one who has asked for favours. Big favours. Borrowing your husband for all sorts of reasons. That’s a very big favour in my view, Mma Ramotswe. If somebody came along and asked me if they could borrow Phuti, I would give them a very direct response.”

“No? You’d say no, Mma?”

“Of course I would. You cannot lend your husband to the first person who comes along and asks to borrow him. You say to them, ‘Get your own husband. Find your own man to fix your kitchen sink or whatever. Don’t come round to me and try to take my husband.’ That’s what I’d say, Mma. Straightaway. I’d say that.”

“But she has always returned him in good time,” Mma Ramotswe pointed out. “After he has fixed the pump or sorted out whatever needed sorting out, he is always returned to me—like a library book that’s been read—just like that.”

Mma Makutsi was not convinced. “That’s all very well, Mma, but I am sure there are many cases where somebody has lent her husband, and then the husband has not returned. Men are like that, Mma. If they find a place where the food is better, or there is more beer, they often stay there. They say to their wife that she does not understand him, and never has, and then they say, ‘And the food is better here.’ And so, the man never comes back. There is a big danger of that, Mma Ramotswe. It is a very big danger in this town these days. There are some wicked women about.”

“You’re not saying that Mma Potokwane is a wicked woman, are you, Mma?”

“I am certainly not saying that, Mma. I would never accuse Mma Potokwane of stealing husbands, or even of borrowing them and keeping them too long.”

“No, Mma, I see.”

“No, all I’m saying is that if we’re counting the favours, then you are very much in credit, Mma. It is you who have done the favours for Mma Potokwane and the Orphan Farm. It’s you who fixed their pump—through your husband, of course. It’s you who fixed that minibus she uses to take the children about the place—once again, through your husband. So all the favours are stacked up on your side.”

Mma Ramotswe understood what Mma Makutsi meant, but she was still slightly embarrassed to be facing Mma Potokwane with the request she was about to make. Yes, there was an important element of reciprocity in her relationship with Mma Potokwane, but if you set up imaginary scales and put fixing the pump or the minibus on one pan and an elephant on the other, there was no doubt in her mind as to which way the scales would tip.

They parked the van in its usual place, under an acacia tree not far from Mma Potokwane’s office. As Mma Ramotswe switched off the engine, she heard a voice call out from a stand of fruit trees a short distance away.

“I am over here, Mma. I’m picking guavas.”

They made their way to where Mma Potokwane, her skirts tucked into a pair of large green bloomers, had climbed into a guava tree to harvest the fruit.

“You must be very careful up there,” called out Mma Ramotswe. “You must be careful not to fall.”

Mma Potokwane reached for a guava and tossed it down into a small tarpaulin spread out on the ground below.

“I shall come down now,” she said. “I have picked almost all the fruit on this tree.”

Her descent was an elegant one for somebody so large as Mma Potokwane. And within not much more than a few moments, she was standing before them, extracting her skirt from its temporary constraints, and smiling broadly at her visitors.

“You wouldn’t have expected to see me in a tree, would you?” she asked.

“No, I did not expect that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But there is no reason why you shouldn’t climb a tree, Mma.” She thought, though, that there were very good reasons why people like Mma Potokwane—and like herself, for that matter—should not climb trees. Traditionally built people were not designed for tree-climbing, unless, of course, the tree was particularly strong, with boughs in a position to support their weight. A baobab tree was perhaps the best tree for a traditionally built person to climb, as these trees, with their immense girth, could support the weight of an elephant. Their branches, though, were high up off the ground and there would be the small matter of scaling the great trunk—an impossible task, she thought. For a moment she pictured Mma Potokwane high up in the branches of a baobab tree, her skirts tucked in, waving to those below. She heard her calling, “Mma Ramotswe! Mma Ramotswe! Come up and join me…”

Mma Potokwane’s voice brought her back to reality. “Except that it’s a very stupid thing for a person like me to do,” the matron said. “If you are traditionally built like me—like us, Mma—then if you fall out of a tree it is a big fall. You hit the ground with considerable force.”

“You try to avoid falling out of the tree, then, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi.

“Indeed you do, Mma Makutsi. Falling out of a tree is one of those things in life that you should certainly try to avoid.” She chuckled. “You cannot go through life wrapped up in cotton wool, but you can avoid taking unnecessary risks. Play it safe—that’s what I say, Mma Makutsi. Play it safe.”

Mma Makutsi nodded her agreement. “I am always playing it safe, Mma Potokwane. I am very reluctant to take any risks—and Phuti is the same. He is Mr. Softly-Softly most of the time.” She thought of risks she had taken recently, and found it difficult to call any to mind. Of course, she had an advantage over most people in that regard—she had shoes that would warn her of any untoward danger. She knew that this sounded absurd—possibly even deluded—and yet she had heard them as clearly as if somebody had been right there with her, whispering advice. And there had been more than one occasion when an intervention by her shoes had averted unpleasantness or even physical danger—as when they had seen a cobra on her bedroom floor and had warned her of the lurking peril.

Snakes in the wrong place, of course, could be a nightmare. In the hot weather, when the sun beat down on the land like a hammer, even snakes, cold-blooded sun-worshippers though they were, could find the heat outside too much and would slither into the house for the cool of the cement floor. They liked bathrooms, which were often the coolest rooms in a house, and they liked to lie under the bath itself or around the base of a laundry basket, or, as had occurred in the house of one of Mma Makutsi’s friends, in the bowl of the toilet itself, half submerged in the water. That was a situation too terrible to contemplate, although her friend had lived to tell the tale. She herself had not been bitten, but an aunt of hers had, a lady of generous proportions who had not even noticed at first and had only realised that something was wrong when she stood up and discovered the snake still attached to her, its fangs stuck in her flesh. Fortunately, it had not been a poisonous snake, and there had been no ill effects, at least of a physical nature. The psychological consequences of such an episode, though, could be profound. And then, of course, there was that man down in Lobatse whose bed had been invaded by a python and who had, in his half-awake state, imagined that what was wrapped around his right leg was his wife’s leg rather than the coils of a large constrictor. He, too, had survived unscathed—on a physical level.

Mma Potokwane, having now invited them into her office, led them along the rough path that ended up at her verandah. “I have just baked a fruit cake, as it happens,” she said. “I imagine that you ladies will have a slice.”

“We have been looking forward to that, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe, adding, “That is not why I come to see you, Mma Potokwane. I know that there is often a slice of your delicious cake awaiting me, but even if there were not, I would still come to see you.”

“Although perhaps not quite so often,” quipped Mma Makutsi.

Mma Potokwane laughed. “I know, Mma Ramotswe.” She paused. “Although we often have a favour to ask of our friends when we go to see them. That is only human. If I come to see Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni it is not always just for the pleasure of his company—much as we all enjoy that, of course—but it is also to ask him to do something.”

“That is what men are for, Mma,” said Mma Makutsi. “If they weren’t good at fixing things, I’m not sure we would really need them.”

This brought a swift rebuttal from Mma Ramotswe. “No, Mma,” she said, “you cannot say that. Men are not as bad as some women say they are. They are different—yes—they do not see things in the right way sometimes, but they are still nice to be around.” She paused for a moment. Mma Ramotswe was charitable, but even so, there were one or two men she considered to be beyond the pale. These were men whom one would avoid, if at all possible, rather than seek to confront. So she qualified her remark with, “I mean most men are nice to be around, even if there are one or two who…”

She saw that Mma Makutsi was watching her, and she knew Mma Makutsi was only too aware of whom she was thinking—Note Mokoti, the man she had once been married to. Mma Ramotswe had been much younger then, and the things we do in youth should not be laid too readily at our door, but even so, she had reproached herself one hundred times for allowing her head to be turned by that trumpet-playing wastrel; that selfish, preening charmer; that silver-tongued abuser…She stopped herself. She had forgiven him; she had made that supreme, conscious effort to forgive the man who had fractured her young heart and who had almost broken her spirit too, and it was wrong for her now to think about him in these terms. Hate was a welcoming host and would always encourage you to join its parties. So whenever she thought about Note, rather than dwell on the painful memories around him, she would deliberately think of something else. And what better to think of, when one is trying not to think of one man, than another man? If the man you were trying not to think about was a bad man—as Note unquestionably was—then the antidote was to think about a good man—and there were plenty of men lining up to be thought about. Her father, for example, the late Obed Ramotswe; that kind, good man who stood for everything that Botswana stood for—decency and honesty being the main values that underpinned the country. Yes, and why not? It was fashionable to pour scorn on patriotism; she had heard people do that—and even go so far as to laugh at the Botswana flag—but she would never, never do that. Those values—the values her daddy had taught her—were still there and she would never be ashamed to talk about them.

So, her father was one man she could think about when wanting to cancel memories of Note. And then there was Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, the man she had married after she had finally got rid of Note. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was the best of men, as everybody who had any dealings with him quickly discovered. And her old friend Bishop Mwamba was a good man, and Seretse Khama, of course, and Professor Tlou, who had written that history of Botswana and who had been so wise, and Dr. Moffat, who had run the hospital at Mochudi and had looked after and comforted so many, and Mma Makutsi’s husband, Phuti Radiphuti, who was so protective of the interests and welfare of his staff at the Double Comfort Furniture Store. And Mma Potokwane’s husband too—not that they saw much of him, as he was very much what Mma Potokwane herself described as a “background husband.” And Fanwell, now that she came to think of it—he was a nice young man, and if he had been a bit feckless in the past, then that was almost certainly because of Charlie’s influence. Even Charlie himself, although he still had a lot to learn; his heart was in the right place, she was sure of it, as was apparent from this business he had got himself into with the orphan elephant. Charlie would not have thought it through before acting, but the impulse to help had been there, and he deserved full credit for that.

Mma Ramotswe’s thoughts were interrupted by Mma Potokwane, who remarked as they entered her office, “Oh, there are plenty of no-good men. I have been thinking of keeping a list of the no-good men of Botswana and publishing it, price eighty pula, and worth every thebe. This would be a list of all the scoundrels—all the drinkers and boasters and idle men. It would have a picture of each of these men, perhaps, and a few lines about their typical habitat…”

“Like one of those bird books,” exclaimed Mma Makutsi. “Or those wildlife guides that tell you where you can find certain animals. Sand veld. Mopani forest. And so on.”

“It would be a very dangerous list,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some of the men would surely claim to be on it by mistake.”

“There would be what we call a margin of error,” said Mma Makutsi. “At the Botswana Secretarial College…”

Oh no, thought Mma Ramotswe. The Botswana Secretarial College again…

“At the Botswana Secretarial College,” Mma Makutsi continued, “one of the professors…”

Not professors, thought Mma Ramotswe.

“One of the professors was a big expert on the margin of error. He used to tell us, always allow for a margin of error. If you allow for a margin of error, then you will never find yourself wishing, Oh, if only I had allowed for a margin of error. So, allow for it.”

Mma Potokwane invited them to sit down while she switched on the kettle and took the cake tin off a shelf.

“As I told you,” she said, “I have been busy baking. I made four cakes yesterday: one for myself—and you, of course—and then three for the housemothers. We have three birthdays this week, one after the other, three of the housemothers, and so I have to make a cake for each of them. It is a tradition we have here at the Orphan Farm.”

“Perhaps you should be like the Queen over in England,” said Mma Makutsi. “I was reading in a magazine that she has two birthdays—her real birthday, and then an official birthday that comes at a more convenient time. The housemothers’ official birthdays could be staggered that way.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. She was an admirer of the Queen, who she thought was just like Mma Potokwane—one of those people who were single-minded in the performance of their duties. Such people just went on and on doing what was expected of them. The Queen went round opening things and shaking hands with people; Mma Potokwane spent her days chasing people up to support the orphans, to donate surplus food, to pass on children’s clothes and trainers, to find jobs for the children once they were grown up and ready to leave school. She never took no for an answer; she never gave up.

And there was Prince Charles, who she knew loved Botswana. When he came again to visit the country, she would try to invite him for tea. He would be too busy to come, of course, and there were people around him who would fend off invitations, but she knew they would have a great deal to talk about: about the rains and the crops; about looking after the world; about remembering that when all was said and done, we lived on the land and had to give the land the love that it needed if it was to continue to provide for us.

“It would be good to have two birthdays,” said Mma Potokwane. “But I think we have to be content with one.”

The kettle having boiled, she made the tea. Then, once that had been poured, a jug of milk was passed around. Mma Makutsi took no more than a dash of milk in hers, while Mma Ramotswe, who liked her tea milky—even when she was drinking her favourite red bush tea—poured a generous volume of milk into her cup.

And then there was sugar. Mma Makutsi hesitated, as if conscious of an invisible censor—her shoes, perhaps, who had once ticked her off for eating three fat cakes in a row—but then helped herself to a half-spoon, passing the sugar bowl on to Mma Ramotswe. She did not hold back from helping herself to one and a half spoons—but filled so generously as to be the equivalent of three more modest spoonfuls. Then the bowl was passed to Mma Potokwane, who took three and a half.

The cake was served by Mma Potokwane, who told her guests that there were more cherries than usual in the mixture. Cherries had been on promotion at the supermarket, she explained, and she had stocked up. “Children like cherries, you see, and I give them as a reward if a child does something especially good.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled as she imagined a well-behaved child having a sticky and glistening cherry popped into its mouth by Mma Potokwane. “Perhaps the government could do that too,” she mused. “Not for children, but for adults. There could be special ceremonies at which people who have done good things would line up to get a cherry from one of the government ministers.”

Mma Makutsi chuckled. “That’s a very good idea, Mma. That nurse—Sister Banjule—you remember her? She would be at the top of the list.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. Sister Banjule, who ran the Anglican Hospice, would be a very good candidate for this reward. She had looked after so many people at the end of their days, and done so with kindness—the greatest compliment anybody could pay a nurse or a doctor. Kindness. It was not a complicated thing, kindness—we all knew how to be kind, and we all recognised it when we came across it. Sister Banjule had looked after Mma Makutsi’s late brother, Richard, when he had died. His life had not been of much importance or significance to others—he was a very ordinary man, who had not really done very much—but she had made him feel cherished in those final few days, and Mma Makutsi had never forgotten that.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “She would be at the top of the list—right up at the top of the list, Mma Makutsi.” She looked at Mma Potokwane. She was another person who should be given a cherry by the government, but Mma Ramotswe would not mention that now, as Mma Potokwane was modest and expected no reward.

They bit into their cake. The taste of cherries, liberally sprinkled through the dried fruit that made up much of the cake’s bulk, came through strongly. Mma Makutsi closed her eyes in a transport of delight. “This is very fine cake, Mma,” she said to Mma Potokwane.

“I am in complete agreement with Mma Makutsi,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“I am very happy,” said Mma Potokwane, taking a sip of her tea. “It would be a different matter if I had guests who did not like cherries.”

The conversation moved on. “There is something we need to tell you about,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is a very strange thing. You will not have heard of something like this, I think.”

Mma Potokwane grinned. “You cannot shock me, Mma Ramotswe—if that is what you are worried about. Remember I am a matron—with hospital training—and if you are a matron, you have usually seen everything.” She paused to shake her head, as if remembering some of the more shocking things she had seen in her career. “No, I am never surprised to hear what people get up to—especially men.”

Mma Makutsi agreed with that. “Especially men,” she said.

“And sometimes ladies, surely,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We must not be too hard on men.”

“That’s true,” said Mma Potokwane. “Ladies are not always as innocent as they appear. For instance…”

She did not need to finish. All three of them were thinking of the same person, and there was no need to spell out the name. Violet Sephotho.

“But let’s not worry too much about all that,” said Mma Potokwane eventually. “You were about to tell me, Mma Ramotswe, of some shocking thing. Well, I am listening now.”

“It has nothing to do with Violet,” Mma Makutsi said. “I could tell you some shocking things about her, Mma Potokwane, but…”

Mma Ramotswe shared her reservation. “We could do that some other day, perhaps. We would not want to burden Mma Potokwane unduly.”

Mma Potokwane protested that she was perfectly happy to be burdened with disclosures about Violet Sephotho. She was by no means a gossip, but she enjoyed a scandalous story as much as the next person, and when you lived out at Tlokweng, you sometimes felt that you were missing out on some of the juicier goings-on in Gaborone itself. Not that Gaborone was a hotbed of such things, but a large town inevitably had a spicier life than a small town, and those who lived in small towns, or in the country, might be forgiven for taking an interest in what their urban cousins were getting up to.

“Well,” said Mma Makutsi, “as I was telling Mma Ramotswe only recently, when she was at the Botswana Secretarial College—at the same time that I was there, Mma—”

“And where you got ninety-seven per cent, if I’m not mistaken,” interjected Mma Potokwane.

Mma Makutsi inclined her head. “Yes, that was indeed the case, Mma, but what I was going to mention was the fact that Violet had three—”

Mma Ramotswe interrupted her. “I really think we should talk about that some other time. I really do.”

“—boyfriends,” Mma Makutsi finished.

“Three boyfriends!” exclaimed Mma Potokwane.

“A morning boyfriend, an—”

Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat. “The thing that we came to tell you about, Mma Potokwane, concerns Charlie.”

Mma Potokwane seemed disappointed to be leaving the subject of multiple boyfriends, but now gave Mma Ramotswe her full attention. “Ah, Charlie,” she said with a sigh. “He is always getting himself into difficulties. So, what’s it now, Mma Ramotswe? More girl trouble?”

“He is not having girl trouble at present,” interjected Mma Makutsi. “That is a thing of the past, now. He went off and got married. He did it very quietly.”

Mma Potokwane approved. “That will be very good,” she said. “It is always the best thing for a young man like Charlie. If a young man finds a nice girl, then everything works out well. I have seen that time and time again with the boys here. When they grow up and make their own lives, I watch the ones who had a bad start and who may have been a bit difficult. I watch them, and see what happens. If they come back with a nice girl to introduce to me, then I know straightaway that everything will be fine. That will go for Charlie too, I think.”

“I hope so,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But at the moment there is a more pressing matter. Charlie has been looking after an animal that I’m afraid is going to cause problems for him.”

Mma Potokwane shook her head. “Don’t tell me, Mma Ramotswe. A dog. I’ve seen young people do that. They get a puppy and they forget that having a puppy is like having a baby. It’s almost as much work. And then the puppy gets bigger and bigger and some of them are badly behaved and start biting people, and then there is all sorts of fuss. And the poor dog gets kicked out and ends up wandering around until it’s run over or a leopard eats it or something like that.”

“Leopards like to eat dogs,” said Mma Makutsi. “And so do crocodiles. Phuti knew a man who had a boy hunting dog called Simba. He was a very strong dog, that one, who had jaws like a hyena. Have you seen hyena jaws, Mma Potokwane? They are very big and powerful. You do not want them to bite you if you can avoid it.”

Mma Ramotswe began to steer the conversation back to Charlie, but Mma Makutsi was determined to continue her story. “This dog,” she went on, “went with its owner down to the Limpopo one day. He was looking for guinea fowl, I think, because they have them in the bush out there. Anyway, he decided to walk down to the edge of the river to see what was going on down there, and there were some flat rocks that stretched out into the water. There was quite a lot of water, as there had been good rains and the Limpopo was in flood.”

Mma Potokwane winced. “You have to be careful, you know. That river can be dangerous.”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “It can. But this man—this friend of Phuti’s—was not careful. He walked out onto those flat rocks and his dog followed him—this horrible big dog called Simba. And since he was thirsty, the dog put his head down to drink some water from the river, and that was when it happened. Right in front of that man, a crocodile suddenly came up out of the water, grabbed the dog by the nose, and pulled him into the river. There was a lot of splashing, and the man threw some rocks into the water where the crocodile had disappeared with the dog, but there’s not much you can do, Mma Potokwane, if a crocodile has you by the nose. They do the death roll, you see. Phuti told me about it. The crocodile spins his prey round and round underwater and he drowns him. That is what happens, Mma.”

There was a short silence as they contemplated the fate of the dog. Then Mma Ramotswe said, “It’s not a dog in Charlie’s case, Mma Potokwane. It’s an elephant. Charlie has got hold of a baby elephant.”

Mma Potokwane’s eyes widened, and then she let out a whoop of astonishment. “An elephant, Mma? A baby elephant? Oh, that is very funny.” Tears of mirth began to show in her eyes; she wiped them away. “That is the funniest thing I have heard for many years. An elephant!”

Mma Ramotswe was taken aback by her friend’s reaction. The fact that Charlie had ended up with an elephant was, in a sense, amusing—but not that amusing. She tried, as gently as she could, to impress on Mma Potokwane the gravity of the situation—a difficult task in any circumstances, as Mma Potokwane’s nature was one of breezy confidence. “It’s tethered to a post on wasteland behind his uncle’s place,” she said. “He’s tied it to a metal post in the ground. That’s all. There are no fences, Mma. No stockade.”

Mma Potokwane shook her head in continued disbelief. “An elephant. Would you believe it, Mma Ramotswe? Mma Makutsi, would you believe it? Had you said, ‘Charlie has a puppy,’ I wouldn’t have been all that surprised. But an elephant, ladies—an elephant!”

“You can’t keep an elephant like that,” Mma Ramotswe continued.

Mma Potokwane laughed again. “You can’t keep an elephant at all,” she said. “No, an elephant is not a chicken or a duck. It is not a goat.”

Mma Makutsi rolled her eyes. “It is definitely not, Mma. But I don’t think anybody thought it was. Nobody has been saying, ‘An elephant is just like a goat.’ Nobody, Mma.”

Mma Potokwane smiled at this contribution, before continuing, “Oh, Mma Ramotswe, I thought I’d heard everything until I heard this. An elephant!”

“It’s dangerous,” said Mma Ramotswe simply. “Very dangerous.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” agreed Mma Potokwane. “Did you read in the newspaper about that poor person up north? That late person?”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. The Botswana Daily News was full of unfortunate things that befell people. And these things were inevitable, given the nature of the world and the things that could go wrong. But you couldn’t let all that deter you, she thought. You soldiered on; you carried on doing what you thought was the right thing to do; you soldiered on.

“Well,” continued Mma Potokwane, “there was a report from up your way, Mma Makutsi—not Bobonong itself, but a bit further west, past the Makgadikgadi Pans. Up there in the middle of nowhere.” She paused. A discouraging look from Mma Makutsi warned her that she was on tricky ground. And so she added, quickly, “I’m not saying that Bobonong is in the middle of nowhere, Mma Makutsi. I’m not saying that. Bobonong is an important place because…”

She had gone too far. Had she stopped immediately after admitting the importance of Bobonong, there would have been no difficulty, but she had unwisely started to explain why this should be so, and she realised she had not the slightest idea what happened in Bobonong.

Mma Makutsi smiled. “You’re right, Mma. There is a lot going on in Bobonong. What were you thinking of in particular, Mma?”

“Oh, it’s difficult to say,” said Mma Potokwane. “These places, you know what they’re like. There’s always something.” She paused. “But let’s not worry about Bobonong. I wanted to tell you about what happened in this other place—the one I was talking about. You see, an elephant walked into a village and knocked down this poor man’s hut. He was sheltering inside it because he had heard the elephant, but its walls were made of straw and mud and the elephant just had to lean on them to knock it down. The poor man had no chance.”

“That’s very sad, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Imagine what it is like to have your house knocked over by an elephant.”

Mma Makutsi had views on that. “It’s because people are building their places on elephants’ land,” she said. “If you leave elephants alone, they’ll leave you alone. They have their own places, and all you have to do is keep away from those and you’ll be all right.”

“But there isn’t enough land,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? There are too many people and many of them want to plant crops in places where the elephants live. So the elephants think: These people are on our land, and they rush round and knock things over and frighten everybody because they’re so big and so powerful. And then somebody takes a shot at an elephant and all the elephants feel very strongly about that and begin to eat vegetables from people’s gardens and frighten everybody. And then you have a big incident.”

Having delivered her views on the subject, Mma Ramotswe sighed. Mma Potokwane, the attentive hostess, interpreted this as a coded request for a further slice of fruit cake. Reaching for the cake tin, she cut a large slice and tipped it onto Mma Ramotswe’s plate. Then she did the same for Mma Makutsi.

“Mma Potokwane,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You will be responsible for my needing a new wardrobe—all my dresses…”

“That is just shrinkage,” said Mma Potokwane. “People blame cake for that sort of thing, but they forget that dresses have a natural tendency to shrink with age.”

Mma Makutsi laughed. “Phuti’s trousers have been shrinking for a long time. He is always complaining about that.”

Mma Ramotswe took a bite of her fruit cake and then washed it down with a swig of tea. “This elephant,” she said, “this elephant of Charlie’s—you know what I am worried about, Mma Potokwane? I am worried about the children.”

Mma Potokwane frowned. “The children, Mma? What children?”

Mma Ramotswe looked out of the window. It was a cunning tactic, and it was working—just as Clovis Andersen said it would. He said somewhere in The Principles of Private Detection that the way to get people to see things from your point of view was to share their anxieties. Find out what they’re worried about, he wrote, and then talk about that. The one thing that could be guaranteed to trigger concern on Mma Potokwane’s part was the welfare of children.

“Oh, there are all sorts of children,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Old Naledi is full of children, and they like to play on that wasteland. When word gets out among the children that there is a baby elephant there, they will be onto it like…like…” She struggled to find the right metaphor, and was about to make some reference to bees and honey when Mma Makutsi interjected: “Like flies on cattle,” she said.

“Yes, like that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And what worries me is the thought that these children will be hurt. Even a baby elephant weighs rather a lot, Mma Potokwane. A baby elephant can crush a child very easily—even without meaning to.”

Mma Potokwane’s frown deepened. “That is very worrying, Mma,” she said.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe.

“You need to go to the police,” said Mma Potokwane. “Or the Wildlife Department.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “I wish it were that simple, Mma Potokwane. Fanwell suggested that to Charlie. He said, ‘Why don’t you go to the Wildlife Department, Charlie, and get them to take this elephant from you?’ ”

“And?” asked Mma Potokwane.

“Charlie told Fanwell that his friend was unwilling to do that for some reason. Perhaps he thinks he’ll get into trouble for moving an elephant without their permission.”

“And the police?” asked Mma Potokwane.

“Charlie’s friend said the police would just dump it somewhere. They are too busy with all the work they have to do. They can’t look after elephants.”

Mma Potokwane poured more tea. “This is not very good,” she said. “We can’t let it hurt the children in Old Naledi.” She paused. “Is there something else, Mma Makutsi? Is there something you haven’t mentioned?”

Mma Makutsi hesitated. “I think they may be planning to slaughter it and sell the meat. Not Charlie, but his friend. He knows a butcher, apparently.”

Mma Potokwane put down the teapot rapidly. “That is very bad news indeed, Mma.” She sank her head in her hands. “We don’t want the poor creature to die. All the time these poor elephants have been dying, dying. They are very intelligent beasts, Mma.”

What she said was heartfelt, and it brought about a short silence. Mma Potokwane had spent her life looking after people who could not look after themselves—her orphans—and she had done so with little fuss and certainly with no thought of personal reward. And it was that same sympathy that had sustained her efforts in that direction that was now aroused for this small elephant. She was practical, of course—she could not have achieved what she had achieved without knowing how the world worked—and she knew that difficult issues arose when elephants came into contact with human society, but that did not stop the prompting of her heart.

“You can see it in their eyes,” said Mma Makutsi. “You can see that they are thinking about you when they look at you. They are very wise creatures.”

“And they have very good memories,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They remember all the sad things that have happened to them. That is why an elephant often looks sad.”

“It’s a pity there isn’t somebody who can help,” said Mma Makutsi.

“I think there is,” said Mma Potokwane. “I think I know some people.”

Mma Ramotswe looked relieved. “I thought you might, Mma.”

“But I will have to get in touch with them,” cautioned Mma Potokwane. “And in the meantime…”

“In the meantime,” ventured Mma Ramotswe, “we need to find some kind person who—”

“Who is used to dealing with orphans,” interjected Mma Makutsi.

“Yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Who is used to dealing with orphans and who would be able to find a safe place for this elephant until something is arranged. That would not be too long, I think.”

“No more than a few weeks, I imagine,” said Mma Makutsi.

There was silence. From outside, there drifted into Mma Potokwane’s office the sound of children chanting a counting rhyme. Mma Ramotswe caught the words, and raised a finger. “I remember that,” she said. “I remember that from a long time ago.” It was a sound from the old Botswana—the Botswana of her childhood, when everything was quieter and more certain; when people had time for one another. It made her sad to think about that—how people had stopped having time for each other. Well, they hadn’t altogether, but it did seem that we all had less time for others in our lives. People had more material things than they used to: they had more money; they had cars; they had more food than they could eat; they had fridges purring away in their kitchens, but what had they lost? What silences, rich and peaceful, had been pushed out of the way by humming machinery?

Mma Potokwane was staring at the ceiling. “It’s always possible that we could—” She broke off.

Mma Ramotswe pressed her. “Could what, Mma?”

“That we could use the old cattle stockade we have. It’s down at the other end of the vegetable garden—on the edge of the bush there. It is still strong—they used tree trunks to make it.”

Mma Ramotswe pretended to be surprised. “I wasn’t thinking of you, Mma, but—”

Mma Potokwane cut her short. Her tone was reproving, but, at the same time, fond. “Yes you were, Mma Ramotswe. And you too, Mma Makutsi. You were both thinking of me, but I don’t mind, Bomma, because I would have been disappointed if you did not think of me. Because I’m the orphan lady, am I not? And if I won’t help, then who will?”

Neither of her guests spoke. There was only one answer, of course.

“This will only be temporary,” continued Mma Potokwane. “I will have to get in touch with my friend to see if she can provide a permanent home. Young people—and young elephants are probably no different—need a proper place. They need somewhere they can stay for a long time.”

“I think you put it very well, Mma,” said Mma Ramotswe. “You put it perfectly, in fact.”

“Thank you, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane, reaching for the cake tin. “And since we are all agreed on that, perhaps we should agree on a final slice of cake.”

“There will be no argument about that,” said Mma Ramotswe. And she was about to say, “Even from Mma Makutsi…,” but did not, of course, because Mma Ramotswe knew when not to say that which she was about to say—a rare gift, not shared by everybody.

The cake was completely finished, only a few crumbs remaining in the bottom of the tin. But that was no surprise because the adage “You cannot have your cake and eat it” was one of those sayings that was incontestably true, as Mma Ramotswe, and indeed Mma Makutsi, and Mma Potokwane too, had discovered on many an occasion.