Kalahari Typing School for Men (16 page)

Not only did Mma Potokwane remember the names of all the orphans, but she also knew anybody of any consequence in Botswana. Once she met anybody, she filed away their details in her mind and, in particular, she remembered in what way they might help the orphan farm; those who had money would be asked for donations; butchers would be asked for spare offcuts; bakers would be asked for surplus doughnuts and cakes. These requests were rarely refused; it would take a degree of courage that few possessed to turn Mma Potokwane down, and as a result the orphans very seldom wanted for anything.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, who had known Mma Potokwane for over twenty years, was called out regularly to deal with any mechanical problems which arose. He kept alive the old van which they used to transport orphans—this involved much scouring of the country for spare parts, as the van was an old one—and he also attended to the borehole pump, which lost a certain amount of oil and tended to overheat. It would have been possible to recommend that their old machinery, including this pump, be scrapped, but he knew that Mma Potokwane would never accede to such a suggestion. She believed in getting as much use as possible from every thing, and thought that as long as machinery, or anything else, could be cajoled into operation, it should be kept; to do otherwise, she thought, was wasteful. Indeed, the last time that Mma Ramotswe had drunk tea with her in the office at the orphan farm, she had noticed that her china cup had been repaired several times, once on the handle and twice elsewhere.

Now, parking Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck in a place under an old frangipani tree specially reserved for visitors, they saw Mma Potokwane waving to them out of her window. By the time they had alighted from the truck and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had taken out the tool kit that he would need to repair the pump, Mma
Potokwane had emerged from the front door of the office and was advancing towards them.

She greeted them warmly. “My two very good friends,” she said, “both arriving at the same time! Mma Ramotswe and her fiancé, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni!”

“He is my driver now,” joked Mma Ramotswe. “I do not have to drive anymore.”

“And I do not have to cook anymore,” added Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“But you never did cook, Rra,” said Mma Potokwane. “What is this talk about cooking?”

“I sometimes cooked,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.

“When did you cook?” asked Mma Potokwane.

“Sometimes,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But we must not stand around and talk about cooking. I must go and fix this pump of yours. What is it doing now?”

“It is making a very strange noise,” said Mma Potokwane. “It is unlike the other times when it has made a strange noise. This time it sounds like an elephant when it trumpets. That is the sort of noise it makes. Not all the time, but every now and then. It is also shaking like a dog. That is what it is doing.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. “It is a very old pump,” he said. “Machinery doesn’t last forever, you know. It is just like us. It has to die sometime.”

He could tell that Mma Potokwane was not prepared to entertain such defeatist talk.

“It may be old,” she said, “but it is still working, isn’t it? If I have to go out and buy a new pump, then that will take money which could be used for other things. The children need shoes. They need clothes. I have to pay the housemothers and the cooks and everybody. There is no money for new pumps.”

“I was just pointing out the truth about machines,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I did not say I would not try to fix it.”

“Good,” said Mma Potokwane, bringing the pump discussion to a close. “We are all fond of that pump. We do not want it to go just yet. One day, maybe, but not yet.”

She turned to Mma Ramotswe. “While Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is fixing the pump,” she said, “we shall go and have tea. Then, when he has finished, his tea will be ready. I also have a fruitcake, and there will be a very big piece set aside for him.”

THE PUMP
house was at the other end of a wide field that bordered the row of cottages in which the orphans lived. There was a large vegetable patch at the side of this field, and then the field itself, which had been used for maize and which was still covered by the withered stalks of the last year’s crop. The borehole which the pump served was a good one, tapping into an underground stream which was fed, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni suspected, by waters that seeped down from the dam. He had always found it surprising that there should be so much underground water in a dry country; that underneath these great brown plains, which could get so parched in the dry season, there could still be deep lakes of sweet, fresh water. Of course you could not rely on there being water underground. When they had built the big stone house out at Mokolodi, they had found it very difficult to get any water at all. They had consulted the best water diviners there were, and these men had walked this way and that with their sticks in their hands, and nothing had happened; there had simply been no movement. For some reason, the underground water was not there. Eventually they had been obliged to use an old water tanker to bring water for the house.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni walked across the field, the dust on his
shoes, the dried mealie stalks cracking under his feet. The earth was generous, he thought: sand and soil could be persuaded, with a little water, to yield such life, and to make such good things for the table. Everything depended on that simple generosity: trees, cattle, pumpkin vines, people—every thing. And this soil, the soil on which he walked, was special soil. It was Botswana. It was his soil. It had made the very bodies of his people; of his father, Mr. P.Z. Matekoni, and his grandfather, Mr. T. Matekoni, before him. All of them, down the generations, were linked by this bond with this particular part of Africa, which they loved, and cherished, and which gave them so much in return.

He looked up. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni always wore a hat when he was outside; a brown hat with no hatband, made of thin felt of some description, and very old, like the orphan-farm pump. He tilted his hat back slightly, so that he could see the sky more clearly. It was so empty, so dizzying in its height, so unconcerned by the man who was crossing a field beneath it, and thinking as he did so.

He walked on and reached the pump house. The pump, which was controlled by an automatic switch attached to the water storage tank, was in action as he reached it. It sounded as if it was working normally, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wondered whether Mma Potokwane had been imagining the problem. But even as he stood there, before the pump house door, thinking of the large slice of fruitcake to which he could now return, the pump issued the strange sound which Mma Potokwane had described. It did indeed sound like the trumpeting of an elephant, but to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s ears it meant something much more worrying: it was the pump’s death rattle.

He sighed and entered the pump house, taking care to look out for snakes, which liked to lie in such places. He reached out and flicked the manual override switch. The pump groaned and
then stopped. Now there was silence, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni put down his toolbox and extracted a spanner. He felt weary. Life was a battle against wear; the wear of machinery and the wear of the soul. Oil. Grease. Wear.

He laid down his spanner. No. He would not fix this pump anymore. Mma Potokwane was always telling him to do this and do that, and he had always done it. How many times had he fixed this pump? At least twenty times, probably more. And he had never charged a single thebe for his time, and of course he never would. But there came a time when one had to stand up to somebody like Mma Potokwane. She had been so kind to him when he was ill—although now he remembered so little of that strange time of confusion and sadness—and he would always be loyal to her. But he was the mechanic, not she. He was the one who knew when a pump had come to the end of its life and needed to be replaced. She knew nothing about pumps and cars, although sometimes she behaved as if she did. She would have to listen to him for a change. He would say: “Mma Potokwane, I have examined the pump, and it can no longer be fixed. It is broken beyond all repair. You must telephone one of your donors and tell them that a new pump is needed.”

He closed the door behind him, taking one last look at the pump. It was an old friend, in a way. No modern pump would look like that, with its wheel and its beautiful heavy casing; no modern pump would make a noise like the trumpeting of an elephant. This pump had come from far away and could be given back to the British now.
Here is your pump, which you left in Africa. It is finished now
.

“
SUCH GOOD
cake,” said Mma Ramotswe, accepting the second rslice which Mma Potokwane had placed on her plate. “These days
I find I do not have the time for baking. I should like to make cakes, but where is the time?”

“This cake,” said Mma Potokwane, licking crumbs off her fingers, “is made by one of the housemothers who is a very good cook, Mma Gotofede. Whenever I am expecting visitors, she makes a cake. And all the time she is looking after the children in her cottage. And you know how much work that entails.”

“They are good women, these housemothers,” said Mma Ramotswe, looking out of the window to where a couple of the women were enjoying a break from their labours, chatting on the verandah of one of the neat cottages in which groups of ten or twelve orphans lived.

Mma Potokwane followed her gaze. “That is Mma Gotofede over there,” she said. “The lady with the green apron. She is the one who is such a good cook.”

“I knew somebody of that name once,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They lived in Mochudi. They were a big family. Many children.”

“She is married to one of the sons of that family,” said Mma Potokwane. “He works for the Roads Department. He drives a steamroller. She told me that he ran over a dog with his steamroller last week, by mistake, of course. It was a very old dog, apparently, who did not hear the steamroller coming.”

“That is very sad,” said Mma Ramotswe. “But the late dog would not have suffered. At least there is that.”

Mma Potokwane thought for a moment. “I suppose not,” she said.

“This cake is delicious,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Perhaps Mma Gotofede would teach me how to make it one day. Motholeli and Puso would like it.”

Mma Potokwane smiled at the mention of the children. “I hope that they are doing well,” she said. “It is very kind of you and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to adopt them like that.”

Mma Ramotswe lifted her teacup and looked at Mma Potokwane over the rim. There had never been any mention of adoption before this; the agreement had been to foster them, had it not? Not that it made much difference, but you had to watch Mma Potokwane: she would do anything to benefit the orphans.

“We are happy to have them,” said Mma Ramotswe. “They can live with us until they are grown up. Motholeli wants to be a mechanic, by the way. Did you know that? She is very good with machines, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is going to teach her.”

Mma Potokwane clapped her hands with delight. She was ambitious for the orphans, and nothing gave her greater pleasure than to hear that one of the children was doing well in life. “That is such good news,” she said. “Why can’t a girl become a mechanic? Even if she is in a wheelchair. I am very happy to hear that news. She’ll be able to help Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni fix our pump.”

“He is going to make a ramp for her wheelchair,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Then she will be able to get at the engines.”

Mma Potokwane nodded her approval of the plan. “And her brother?” she said. “Is he doing well, too?”

She knew from Mma Ramotswe’s hesitation that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter? Is he not well?”

“It’s not that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He is eating well and he is growing. Already I have bought him new shoes. There is nothing wrong there. It’s just that …”

“Behaviour?” prompted Mma Potokwane.

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I didn’t want to bother you with it, but I thought that you might be able to advise me. You have seen every sort of child there is. You know all about children.”

“They are all different,” agreed Mma Potokwane. “Brother and sister—it makes no difference. The recipe for each child is
just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father. One child is fat, one child is thin. One child is clever, one is not that clever. So it goes on. Every child is different.”

“He started off as a good little boy,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He was polite and he did nothing wrong. And then, suddenly, he started to do bad things. We have not smacked him or anything like that, but he has become very sullen and resentful. He glowers at me sometimes and I do not know what to do.”

Mma Potokwane listened attentively as Mma Ramotswe went on to describe some of the incidents which had taken place, including the killing of the hoopoe with the catapult.

“He did not learn to kill birds here,” said Mma Potokwane firmly. “We do not allow the children to kill animals. They are taught that the animals are their brothers and sisters. That is what we do.”

“And when Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni spoke to him about it, he said that he hated him.”

“Hated?” exclaimed Mma Potokwane. “Nobody should hate Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and certainly not a little boy who has been given a home by him, and by you.”

“It is as if somebody has poured poison into his ear,” said Mma Ramotswe.

Mma Potokwane reached forward and refilled Mma Ramotswe’s teacup, frowning as she did so. “That is probably more true than you think, Mma. Poison in the ear. It happens to all children.”

“I do not understand,” said Mma Ramotswe. “When could this have happened?”

“He goes to school now, doesn’t he? Children go to school and they discover that there are other children. Not all these children behave well. Some of them are bad children. They are the ones with the poison.”

Mma Ramotswe remembered what Motholeli had told her about the bullying. Puso was much younger, of course, but could be experiencing the same thing.

“I think that he doesn’t know where he stands,” said Mma Potokwane. “He will know that he is different from the other boys at school—because he’s an orphan—but he will have no idea how to make up for that. So he’s blaming you because he’s lost.”