The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (13) (12 page)

M
R. CLOVIS ANDERSEN
, author of
The Principles of Private Detection
, the great work of detection theory that had guided the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency since that momentous day on which it had opened its doors—the book now so familiar to Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi that they could quote whole paragraphs without reference to the text itself—that same Clovis Andersen, who had so unexpectedly and impossibly stepped through the front door of the agency, was now due to meet Mma Ramotswe on the verandah of the President Hotel. It was mid-morning on the day following their first encounter, and Mma Ramotswe had arranged the meeting there because she was due to go out to Mochudi that morning and she wanted to show him the village where she was born and where she went to school. It would also be an opportunity for her to talk to the great detective without Mma Makutsi interrupting every second minute. It was clear to Mma Ramotswe that her assistant was star-struck, as she had gone on for some time about Clovis Andersen after he had left the office, her eyes flashing with excitement behind those large round glasses of hers. No, Mma Makutsi should not be
allowed to monopolise Clovis Andersen just yet; she would have her fair share of the distinguished visitor’s time, but it would be important not to create the impression at this early stage that
everybody
in Botswana wore large round glasses, made rather firm pronouncements on a wide range of subjects, and reminded others of the marks they had achieved in their final examinations in whatever it was they had studied. But even as she thought this, even as she heard Mma Makutsi’s voice say
ninety-seven per cent
, she stopped herself. That was unkind, and she should not think it; that ninety-seven per cent was important to Mma Makutsi because she had started off with so little and had worked so hard to escape from a life of poverty and drudgery. She had worked hard to make something of her life when there were so many who simply sat about and took what life offered them. No, she would make sure that Mma Makutsi had ample time to spend in the company of Clovis Andersen, but not just yet …

The verandah of the President Hotel is not a place in which a great deal happens. This is not in any way to disparage it: it is important that there should be places where not a great deal happens because such places remind us that life is not entirely and exclusively made up of exciting or significant events. Every life needs spells of calm, every life needs expanses of time when nothing much occurs, when one may sit for several hours in the same place and gaze upon static things, upon some waxen-leafed desert plant, perhaps, or a patch of dry grass. Or a group of cattle standing under a tree for the shade, the slow, flicking movement of their tails the only indication that they are animate beasts, not rocks; or a sky across which no clouds, or perhaps only the merest wisp of white, move. Now, seated at her table on the verandah of the President Hotel, Mma Ramotswe had nothing much to look at while she waited. Down below, beyond the parapet, there were people in the square: sellers of clothes and dried herbs, carvers of
wooden ornaments, sunglasses merchants, purveyors of potions to put on one’s hair. All these were there, as were their customers, but Mma Ramotswe chose not to watch this market scene; rather, she looked up at the sky and wondered what it would be like not to have a sky above one’s head—to be a prisoner, perhaps, or one who could not take the sun and had to remain indoors. She had known one such person when she was at school in Mochudi; a girl afflicted by albinism, whose pale, patchy skin, as brittle and translucent, it seemed, as the bark of what they called the paper tree, was so sensitive to the rays of the sun that she would burn painfully if she spent more than a few minutes outside. And that poor girl had been unable to go to school as she could not walk those miles from the family’s village outside Mochudi, and they could not afford the creams that could protect her skin from the sun. And the other children had stared at her on the occasions that they saw her and had whispered among themselves. Mma Ramotswe felt the shame still that she had not done anything for that girl, and now she had heard that she was late, having died giving birth to her first child, and there had been no husband. There were so many lives, she thought, that could only be led with difficulty, with pain, and because we were so bound up in our own lives, so many of these were invisible to us until suddenly we saw, and knew, and felt that sudden pang of human sympathy that comes with knowing.

It was strange that the girl should come into her mind, the memory triggered by no more than looking up at the sky. But that, she told herself, was how memory worked; one would see something and then it would make one think of one thing and then of another; snatches of conversation would come back, images of things one had seen, memories that one thought one had forgotten, but that had been filed away in the back of the head, in those recesses where such things are tucked away. Clovis Andersen and
his
Principles of Private Detection …
When had she first seen that book? Right at the beginning of her life as a private detective; and she had held it in her hand and opened it at the title page with all the excitement that you feel when opening a new book and there are the words on the page, ready for you, as if the author himself is standing in front of you, clearing his throat, ready to engage you in conversation. And she had seen the name Clovis Andersen little thinking that years later, after so much had happened, she would be meeting the very man, that he would address her as Mma Ramotswe; that she would, for a short time, have the attention of the world’s greatest authority on private detection … Such a miracle, such an extraordinary development … such a privilege.

“Mma Ramotswe?”

She gave a start, and turned in her seat to see Clovis Andersen standing behind her. He was dressed in rather baggy khaki trousers with an olive-green shirt on to which far too many pockets had been stitched—the sort of outfit that people thought was standard dress for Botswana but was really only worn by visitors. It was a practical enough outfit, she supposed, but she wondered what people could possibly do with so many pockets. Did they imagine that one needed to carry penknives and compasses and the like, even when going to Mochudi?

“This is a very fine view you get from here,” said Clovis Andersen as he sat down.

Mma Ramotswe glanced at the square and remembered how, long ago, she had once asked the dress-seller down below for information because she knew that such people missed very little of what happened around them. And Clovis Andersen himself had said …

“You see that woman,” said Mma Ramotswe as Clovis Andersen settled himself into his chair. “I asked her for information once. She knows everything, I think. And you say in your book
Always ask
somebody who knows
. That is what you wrote, Rra, and I have always followed that advice.”

Clovis Andersen smiled. “I remember writing that. And I suppose it’s true, isn’t it? If you ask somebody who doesn’t know anything, then you won’t get much of an answer. At least, that’s the way I look at it.”

“But you’re so right, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I have always wondered how you know all these things. It must be experience, I think.”

Clovis Andersen looked away. “Experience and common sense,” he said. “There are so many jobs that are just a matter of common sense. Most jobs, in fact. They look complicated, but when you look closely you’ll see that all you really need is common sense.”

Mma Ramotswe considered this. It was true that private detection involved a great deal of common sense, and undoubtedly there were many other professions in which common sense would get you by, but surely there were those where the limits of common sense would very soon be revealed—being a dentist, for example, or an airline pilot …

She toyed with the idea of pointing this out to him, but decided not to. The traditional ways of Botswana were clear about correcting a person who was senior to you, or a stranger, and on both of these counts she should not directly contradict Clovis Andersen. You did not have to remain silent, of course, if such a person was wrong, but you should be careful how you voiced your disagreement. So she simply said, “Common sense is very useful. Yes.”

There was a brief silence. Then she said, “You must have seen so many things, Rra. In your career as a detective, you must have seen so many things.”

Clovis Andersen nodded. “There are many things to be seen in this life, Mma. All one has to do is keep one’s eyes open.”

Mma Ramotswe voiced her agreement. “Oh, you are so right, Rra. The big mistake is to close your eyes. There are so many who have closed eyes. You look at them, of course, and you think that they have open eyes, but then you look more closely and you realise that although their eyes are open, there is nothing going in.”

“That’s because they aren’t looking,” said Clovis Andersen. “If you do not look, you do not see.”

“That is so true, Rra,” enthused Mma Ramotswe. “That is so true.”

He went on. “There are some people who have their eyes open and are looking, but do not see anything because they are looking for something that is not there. That can happen, I believe.”

“Oh, I believe that too, Rra,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have always believed that—all along.”

“That is not to say there’s nothing there,” continued Clovis Andersen. “There may be something there, but because nobody’s looking for it, it won’t be seen. So we should always ask ourselves: are we looking for the right thing?”

Mma Ramotswe agreed again. “That is definitely the thing to do,” she said.

The waitress appeared, notebook at the ready, to take their order. Clovis Andersen ordered coffee, which made Mma Ramotswe smile; she had heard about the American weakness for coffee, but again she said nothing; people cannot help liking the things that are liked where they are born. At some point in the future she would introduce him to the pleasures of tea; there would be plenty of time for that.

The waitress moved off, and their conversation continued.

“Your cases must be much bigger ones than mine,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am always dealing with very small things. Is that man cheating on this woman; is that woman cheating on this man?
Who is stealing cattle here, or taking money there? Who is using the company truck for private business when the rule is that it must not be used for such things? That sort of thing—very different from the big cases you must have every day. Who has shot this person? Who has shot that person? Who has taken the million-dollar necklace from the neck of this big film star? Big things like that.”

Clovis Andersen looked at the floor. “Not really,” he muttered.

“And one day I can see them making a big film about your life,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “It will be very popular throughout the world, and I will say to Mma Makutsi, ‘That is our friend, Mma—that is all about our friend.’ ”

Clovis Andersen shook his head. “Oh, I don’t think so, Mma Ramotswe. I don’t think I’ll be of sufficient interest for that.”

Sensing his reluctance to talk about it—an admirable modesty, she thought—she changed the subject. She asked him about his plans to see the country, and he told her that he had organised a trip to Ghanzi over the next few days. For now, though, he was keen to see the area around Gaborone. “Mochudi, then,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is the place, Rra.” They should start the drive up to the village immediately after their tea—or tea and coffee—as it would be better to arrive there before the noonday heat made it uncomfortable to sit in the van, in spite of its ancient, if valiant, fan.

“I am looking forward to seeing it, Mma Ramotswe,” said Clovis Andersen. “I come from a similar place, you know—a small town in the Midwest. And my wife too, she comes … came from such a place. She always said …”

He faltered, and she watched him.

“It is good to talk about late people, Rra,” she said quietly. “It is what they want us to do. Late people would be happy if they knew we were talking about them.”

He looked up, as if he had heard some important piece of news.

“Do you think that’s true, Mma Ramotswe? Do you think they can hear us?”

She wanted to say yes. She wanted to reassure this man who was obviously still so full of grief. But could she? She did not know—not in her heart of hearts—whether her father, the late Obed Ramotswe, could hear her. She addressed him often enough, drawing his attention to some unusual sight she encountered along the road; she addressed him as if he were sitting there in the van with her, but she thought that it was just wishful thinking, nothing more than that. She did not think that he had altogether ceased to exist, but of where exactly he was, where that place to which he had gone was located, she had no idea, other than it was somewhere above Botswana, or on the same level as Botswana but around some corner that one day we all must turn. Beyond that, she could not be certain. All she knew was that it would be a place of cattle bells and gentle, life-giving rain; a place in which all our tears would be wiped tenderly away.