Kalahari Typing School for Men (10 page)

M
R. MOLEFELO
sat on his rock, under the empty sky, watched by a small herd of cattle that had gathered not far off, and told Mma Ramotswe, his confessor, of what he had done all those years ago.

“I came to Gaborone when I was eighteen. I had grown up in a small village outside Francistown, where my father was the clerk of the village council. It was an important job in the village, but not important outside. I found out when I came to Gaborone that being a village clerk was nothing and that nobody had heard of him down here.

“I had always been good with my hands, and I had been entered by my school for a place in the Botswana Technical College, which was much smaller then than it is today. I had done well at school in all the science subjects, and I think my father hoped that I would end up designing rockets or something like
that. He had no idea that this sort of work is not done in Gaborone; in his eyes, Gaborone was a place where anything could happen.

“My family did not have much money, but I was given a government scholarship to help me in my studies at the college. This was meant to provide you with just enough money to pay the fees and to live simply for the rest of the term. That was not easy, and there were many days when I was hungry. But that does not matter so much when you are young. It is easy to have no money then because you think that it will change and there will be money, and food, tomorrow.

“The college arranged for students to stay with families in Gaborone. These were people who had a spare room, or even in some cases just a shed, which they wanted to rent out. Some of us had to live in uncomfortable places, far from the college. Others were lucky and had rooms in houses where they gave you good food and looked after you like one of the family. I was one of these. I had half a room in a house near the prison, staying with the family of one of the senior officials in the prison service. There were three bedrooms in this house, and I shared one of them with another boy from the college. He was always studying and made no noise. He was also very kind to me, and shared the loaves of bread which he got for nothing from his uncle, who worked in a bakery. He also had an uncle who worked in a butchery, and we got free sausages from him. This boy seemed to get every thing free, in fact. His clothes were all free, too—they were given to him by an aunt who worked in a shop which sold clothes.

“The woman of the house was called Mma Tsolamosese. She was a very fat lady—a bit like yourself, Mma—and she was very kind to us. She used to make sure that my shirts were washed and ironed, because she said that my mother would expect that. ‘I am your mother in Gaborone,’ she said. ‘There is one mother up
there in Francistown and one mother down here. The one down here is me.’

“The husband was a very quiet man. He did not like his work, I think, because when she asked him what had happened in the prison that day, he simply shook his head and said: ‘Prisons are full of bad men. They do bad things all day. That is what happens.’ I do not remember him saying much more than that.

“I was very happy living in this house and studying at the college. I was happy, too, because I had found a girlfriend at long last. When I was at home I had tried and tried to find a girl who would talk to me, but there was nobody. Now, when I came to Gaborone, I found that there were many girls who were eager to get to know students at the college because they knew that we would be getting good jobs one day, and if they could get us to marry them, that would mean an easy life for them. I know, I know, Mma, it’s not as simple as that, but I think that many of these girls did think that way.

“I met a girl who was hoping to train as a nurse. She had been working very hard at school and had already passed most of the examinations that she would need to get into the nurse training programme. She was very kind to me, and I was very happy that she was my girlfriend. We went together to the dances that they had at the college, and she was always dressed very smartly for these. I was proud that the other boys at the college should see me with this girl.

“Then, Mma, I have to tell you, we were so friendly, this girl and myself, that she found out she was expecting a baby. I was the father, she said. I did not know what to say about this. I think that I just looked at her when she told me. I was shocked, I think, because I was just a student and I could not be a father to a baby just yet.

“I told her that I would not be able to help with this baby and that she should send the baby off to her grandmother, who lived at Molepolole. I think I said that grandmothers were used to looking after such babies. She said that she did not think her grandmother was strong enough to do this, as she had been ill, and all her teeth had fallen out. I said that perhaps there was an aunt who could do this.

“I went back to my room in Mma Tsolamosese’s house and did not sleep that night. The boy I shared the room with asked me what was troubling me, and I told him. He said that this was all my fault and that if I spent more time at my books then I would not get into trouble like that. This did not help me very much, and so I asked him what he would do if he were in my shoes. He said that he had an aunt who worked in a nursery school and that he would give the baby to her, and she would look after it for free.

“I saw my girlfriend the next day and asked her whether she was still expecting a baby. I hoped that she had made some sort of mistake, but she replied that the baby was still there and was growing bigger every day. She would have to tell her mother soon, she said, and her mother would tell her father. When that happened, I should have to look out, she said, as her father would probably come and kill me, or he would get somebody else to do that for him. She said that she thought he had already killed somebody in an argument over cattle, although he did not like to talk about it very much. This did not make me feel any happier. I imagined that I would have to leave the college and try to find work somewhere far away from Gaborone, where this man would not be able to find me.

“My girlfriend was now becoming angry with me. The next time I saw her, she shouted at me and told me that I had let her
down. She said that because of me, she would have to try to get rid of the baby before it was born. She said that she knew a woman up in Old Naledi who would do this thing, but that because it was illegal, it would cost one hundred pula, which was a lot of money in those days. I said that I did not have one hundred pula, but I would think about ways of getting it.

“I went home and sat in my room, thinking. I had no idea of how I would get the money to pay for her to get rid of the baby. I had no savings, and I could not ask my father for it. He had no money to spare, and he would just be very cross with me if he knew why I wanted such a large sum. It was while I was thinking of this that I heard Mma Tsolamosese turn on her radio in the room next door. It was a very fine radio, which had taken them a long time to save for. I suddenly thought:
That is something that is worth at least one hundred pula
.

“You will guess what happened, Mma. Yes. That very night, when everybody had gone to bed, I went into that room and took the radio. I went outside and hid it in the bush near the house, in a place where I knew that nobody would find it. Then I went back to the house and I opened the window in that room, so the next morning it would look as if somebody had managed to force the window and had stolen the radio.

“Everything worked exactly as I had planned it. The next morning, when Mma Tsolamosese went into the room, she started to shout. Her husband got up and he started to shout, too, which was very unusual for a quiet man like that. ‘Those bad men have stolen it. They have taken our radio. Oh! Oh!’

“I pretended to be as shocked as everybody else. When the police came, they asked me if I had heard anything that night, and I lied. I said that I had heard a noise, but that I had thought it was just Rra Tsolamosese getting up in the middle of the night.
The police wrote this down in their book, and then they went away. They told Mma Tsolamosese that it was very unlikely she would get the radio back. ‘These people take them over the border and sell them. It will be far away by now. We are very sorry, Mma.’

“I waited until all the fuss had died down, and then I went out to the place where I had hidden the radio. I was very careful to make sure that nobody saw me, which they did not. I then hid the radio under my coat, and I went off to a place near the railway station where I had heard there were people who would buy things without asking any questions. I sat down under a tree, with the radio on my knee, and waited for something to happen. Sure enough, after only about ten minutes, a man came up to me and said that it was a beautiful radio and that it would be worth at least one hundred and fifty pula, if I ever wanted to sell it. I said that I was happy to sell it, and so he said to me: ‘In that case, I will give you one hundred pula, because I can tell that you have stolen this radio and it is more risky for me.’

“I tried to argue, but all the time I was worried that the police would suddenly arrive, and so I sold it to him for one hundred pula. I gave the money to my girlfriend that night, and she just cried and cried when she took it from me. She said, though, that she would see me that weekend, after she had been out to Old Naledi to have the baby got rid of.

“I said that I would see her, but I am sorry to say, Mma, that I did not. We used to meet outside a café in the African Mall. She would wait for me, and then we would go for a walk together and look at the shops. She was waiting for me, as normal, but I stood under a tree, some distance away, and watched. I did not have the courage to go up to her and tell her that I no longer wanted to see her. It would have been a simple thing for me to walk up and talk
to her, but I did not do this. I just watched from under the tree. After about half an hour, she went away. I saw her walking off, looking down at the ground, as if she was ashamed.

“She sent a letter to me through one of the other boys, whose sister she knew. She said that I should not send her away after every thing that had happened. She said that she was crying for the baby, and that I should not have made her go to the woman in Old Naledi. She said, though, that she forgave me and that she would come to see me at the Tsolamoseses’ house.

“I sent her a letter through the same boy. In it, I told her that I was now too busy with my studies to see her again and that she should not come to the house, even to say good-bye. I said that I was sorry she was unhappy, but that once she started to train as a nurse she would be very busy and would forget about me. I told her that there were many other boys, and that she would find one quickly if she looked hard enough.

“I know that she received this letter, as the sister who delivered it told her brother that she had done so. A week or so later, though, she came to the house, while we were sitting down for the dinner which Mma Tsolamosese had cooked for us. One of the Tsolamosese children looked out of the window and said that there was a girl standing at the gate. Mma Tsolamosese sent the child out to discover what this girl wanted, and the answer came back that she wanted to see me. I had been looking down at my plate, pretending that this thing had nothing to do with me, but now I had to go out and speak to her. ‘Maybe Molefelo is a secret heartbreaker,’ said Mma Tsolamosese as I left the room.

“I was very cross with her for coming, and I think that I raised my voice. She just stood there and cried and said that she still loved me, even though I was being cruel to her. She said that she
would not disturb my studies and that she would only expect to see me once a week. She also said that she would try to find ways of paying back the one hundred pula that I had given her.

“I said: ‘I don’t want your money. I am no longer in love with you because I have found out that you are one of those girls who always nag men and make them feel bad about themselves. Boys have to watch out for girls like you.’

“This made her cry even more, and then she said: ‘I will wait for you forever. I will think of you every day, and one day you will come back to me. I will write you a letter and then you will know how much I love you.’

“She reached forward and tried to hold my arm, but I pushed her away and turned to go back into the house. She started to follow me, but I pushed her away again, and this time she left. But all the time that this was happening, the Tsolamosese family was watching from the front window of the house.

“When I came back, they had returned to their seats at the table.

“‘You should not treat girls like that,’ said Mma Tsolamosese. ‘I am speaking to you now as your mother in this place. No mother would like to see her son behaving like that.’

“The father looked at me, too. Then he said: ‘You are behaving like one of the bad men in the prison. They are always pushing and shoving other people. You be careful, or you may find yourself in that place one day. You just be careful.’

“And their son, who had also been watching, said: ‘Yes. One day somebody will come and push you. That could happen.’