there was very little chance of that, but he tried anyway. The apprentices had whistled, and the older one, Charlie, had said, “That is a very fine car, Rra! Ow!” But no sooner had Mr J.L.B. Matekoni turned his back for a moment than that very same apprentice had leant forward to admire himself in the car’s wing mirror.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had realised then that it was hopeless. Between these young men and himself there was a gulf that simply could not be crossed. The apprentice had recognised that it was a fine car, but had he really understood what it was that made it fine? He doubted that. They were impressed with the spoilers and flashy aluminium wheels that car manufacturers added these days; things which meant nothing, just nothing, to a real mechanic like Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. These were the externals, the outside trim designed, as often as not, to impress those who had no knowledge of cars. For the real mechanic, mechanical beauty lay in the accuracy and intricacy of the thousand moving pieces within the breast of the car: the rods, the cogs, the pistons. These were the things that mattered, not the inanimate parts that did nothing but reflect the sun.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni slowed down and gazed at the fine car under the thorn tree. As he did so, he noticed, to his alarm, that there was something under the car-something that a casual observer might not notice but which he would never miss. Drawing up at the side of the road, he switched off the engine of his truck and got out of the cab. Then, walking over to the blue Rover, he went down on his hands and knees and peered at the dark underbelly of the car. Yes, it was as he thought; and now he went down on his stomach and crawled under the car to get a better view. It took him only a moment to realise what was wrong, of course, but the sight made him draw in his breath sharply. A pool of oil had leaked out onto the ground below the car and had stained the sand black.
“What are you doing, Rra?”
The sound surprised Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, but he knew better than to lift his head up sharply; that was the sort of thing that the apprentices kept doing. They often bumped their heads on the bottom of cars when the telephone rang or when something else disturbed them. It was a normal human reaction to look up when disturbed, but a mechanic learned quickly to control it. Or a mechanic should learn that quickly; the apprentices had not done so, and he suspected that they never would. Mma Makutsi knew this, of course, and she had once rather mischievously called out Charlie’s name when he was underneath a car. “Charlie,” she had cried, and there had followed a dull thump as the unfortunate young man had sat up and hit his head on the sump of the car. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had not really approved of this little joke, but he had found it difficult not to smile when he caught her eye. “I was just checking up that you were all right,” shouted Mma Makutsi. “Be careful of your head down there. That brain needs to be looked after, you know.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni wriggled his way out from under the car and stood up, dusting his trousers as he did so. As he had thought, it was the butcher himself, a corpulent man with a thick neck, like the neck of a bull. It was obvious to anyone, from the very first glance, that this was a wealthy man, even if they did not know about the butchery and the plastering business, nor indeed about this wonderful car with its silver badge.
“I was looking at your car, Rra,” he said. “I was underneath it.”
“So I see,” said the butcher. “I saw your legs sticking out. When I saw that, I knew that there was somebody under my car.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. “You must be wondering what I was doing, Rra.”
The butcher nodded. “You are right. That is what I was wondering.”
“You see, I am a mechanic,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have always thought very highly of this car. It is a very good car.”
The butcher seemed to relax. “Oh, I see, Rra. You are one who understands old cars like this. I am happy for you to go back under and look.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni acknowledged the generosity of the offer. He would go back under the car, but it would be more than out of mere curiosity. If he went back, it would be on a mission of repair. He would have to tell the butcher of what he had seen.
“There is oil, Rra,” he began. “Your car is leaking oil.”
The butcher lifted up a hand in a gesture of tiredness. There was always oil. It was a risk with old cars. Oil; the smell of burning rubber; mysterious rattles: old cars were like the bush at night-there were always strange sounds and smells. He kept taking the car back to the garage and getting them to fix this problem and that problem, and yet these problems always recurred. And now here was another mechanic-one he did not even know-who was talking about oil leaks.
“I have had trouble with oil,” he said. “There are always oil leaks and I always have to put more oil in the front. Every time I make the journey up from Lobatse, I have to put in more oil.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni grimaced. “That is bad, Rra. But you should not have to do it. If the person who serviced this car made sure that the rubber seal on the rod that holds the oil cylinder was in its proper place, then this sort of thing would not happen.” He paused. “I could fix this for you. I could do it in ten minutes.”
The butcher looked at him. “I cannot bring the car in to your garage now,” he said. “I have to talk to my brother about our sister’s boy. He is a difficult boy, that one, and we have to work something out. And anyway, I cannot be paying all sorts of mechanics to look at this car. I have already paid a lot of money to the garage.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his shoes. “I would not have charged you, Rra. That is not why I offered.”
For a few moments there was silence. The butcher looked at Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and knew, immediately, what sort of man he was dealing with. And he knew, too, that his assumption that Mr J.L.B. Matekoni would want payment was a gross misreading of the situation; for there were people in Botswana who still believed in the old Botswana ways and who were prepared to do things for others just to help them and not in prospect of some reward. This man, whom he had found lying underneath his car, was such a man. And yet he had paid such a great deal of money to those mechanics and they had assured him that all was in order. And the car, after all, worked reasonably well, even if there was a small problem with oil.
The butcher frowned, slipping a hand inside his collar and tugging at it, as if to loosen the material. “I do not think there can be anything wrong with my car,” he said. “I think that you must be wrong, Rra.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni shook his head. Without saying anything, he pointed to the edge of the dark oil stain, just discernible beneath the body of the car. The butcher’s gaze followed his hand, and he shook his head vigorously. “It is impossible,” he said. “I take this car to a good garage. I pay a great deal of money to have it looked after. They are always tinkering with the engine.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni raised an eyebrow. “Always tinkering? Who are these people?” he asked.
The butcher gave the name of the garage, and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni knew immediately. He had spent years trying to improve the image of the motor trade, but whatever he, and others like him, did they would always be thwarted by the activities of people like the butcher’s mechanics; if indeed they were mechanics at all- Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had strong doubts about the qualifications of some of them.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni took his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his brow.
‘If you would let me look at the engine, Rra,” he said. “I could very quickly check your oil level. Then we would know whether it was safe for you to drive off to have more oil put in.”
The butcher hesitated for a moment. There was something humiliating about being called to account in this way, and yet it would be churlish to reject an offer of help. This man was obviously sincere, and seemed to know what he was talking about; so he reached into his pocket for the car keys, opened the driver’s door, and set about pulling the silver-topped lever that would release the catch on the engine cover.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stood back respectfully. The revealing of an engine of this nature-an engine which was older than the Republic of Botswana itself-was a special moment, and he did not want to show unseemly curiosity as the beautiful piece of engineering was exposed to view. So he stood where he was and only leaned forward slightly once he could see the engine; and quickly drew in his breath, and was silent-not in admiration, as he had expected, but in shock. For this was not the engine of a 1955 Rover 90, lovingly preserved; he saw, instead, an engine which had been cobbled together with all manner of parts. A flimsy carburettor, of recent vintage and crude construction; a modern oil filter, adapted and tacked onto the only original part that he could make out-the great, solid engine block that had been put into the car at its birth all those years ago. That at least was intact, but what mechanical company it had been obliged to keep!
