The Full Cupboard of Life

CHAPTER TWELVE

MR BOBOLOGO TALKS ON THE SUBJECT OF LOOSE WOMEN

THE FACT that the schools were on holiday was convenient. Had Mr Bobologo been teaching, then Mma Ramotswe would have been obliged to wait until half past three, when she could have accosted him on his way to the house that he occupied in the neat row of teachers’ houses at the back of the school. As it was, that Monday she was able to arrive at his house at ten o’clock and find him, as Mma Seeonyana said she would, sitting on a chair in the sun outside his back door, a Bible on his lap. She approached him carefully, as one always should when coming across somebody reading the Bible, and greeted him in the approved, traditional fashion. Had he slept well? Was he well? Would he mind if she talked to him?

Mr Bobologo looked up at her, squinting against the sunlight, and Mma Ramotswe saw a tall man of slim build, carefully dressed in khaki trousers and an open-necked white shirt, and wearing a pair of round, pebble-lensed glasses. Everything about him, from the carefully polished brown shoes to the powerful glasses, saidteacher, and she had to make an effort to prevent herself from smiling. People were so predictable, she thought, so true to type. Bank managers dressed exactly as bank managers were expected to dress-and behaved accordingly; you could always tell a lawyer from that careful, rather watchful way they listened to what you had to say, as if they were ready to pounce on the slightest slip; and, since she had come to know Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, there was no mistaking mechanics, who looked at things as if they were ready to take them apart and make them work better. Not that this applied to all mechanics, of course; the apprentices would be mechanics before too long and yet they looked at things as if they were about to break them. So perhaps it took years before a calling began to tell on a person.

Did she look like a detective, she wondered? This was an intriguing question. If somebody saw her in the street, they would probably not look twice at her. She was just an ordinary Motswana lady, in the traditional mould, going about her daily business as so many other women did. Surely nobody would suspect her ofwatching, which is what she had to do in her job. Perhaps it was different with Mma Makutsi, with those large glasses of hers. People noticed those glasses and clearly thought about them. They might wonder, might they not, why somebody would need such large glasses and they might conclude that this was because she was interested in looking closely at things, at magnifying them. That, of course, was an absurd vision of what she and Mma Makutsi did; they very rarely had to examine any physical objects-human behaviour was what interested them, and all that this required was observation and understanding.

Her observation of Mr Bobologo lasted only a few seconds. Now he stood up, closing the Bible with some regret, as one might close a riveting novel in which one had become immersed. Of course Mr Bobologo would know the end of the story-which was not a happy ending, if one thought about it carefully-but one might still be absorbed even in the completely familiar.

“I am sorry to disturb you,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The school holidays must be a good time for you teachers to catch up on your reading. You will not like people coming along and disturbing you.”

Mr Bobologo responded well to this courteous beginning. “I am happy to see you, Mma. There will be plenty of time for reading later on. You may sit on this chair and I will fetch another.”

Mma Ramotswe sat on the teacher’s chair and waited for him to return. It was a good spot that he had chosen to sit, hidden from passers-by on the road, but with a view of the children’s playground where even now in the holidays the children of the school staff were engaged in some complicated game with a ball. It would be good to sit here, she thought, knowing that the Government was still paying one’s salary every month, and that reading, and becoming wiser and wiser, was exactly what one was expected to do.

Mr Bobologo returned with another chair and seated himself opposite Mma Ramotswe. He looked at her through the thick lenses of his spectacles, and then dabbed gently at the side of his mouth with a white handkerchief, which he then folded neatly and placed in the pocket of his shirt.

Mma Ramotswe looked back at him and smiled. Her initial impression of Mr Bobologo had been favourable, but she found herself wondering why it was that a successful, rather elegant person such as Mma Holonga should take up with this teacher, who, whatever his merits might be, was hardly a romantic figure. But such speculation was inevitably fruitless. The choices that people made in such circumstances were often inexplicable, and perhaps it was no more than sheer chance. If you were in the mood for falling in love, or marrying, then perhaps it did not matter very much whom you would see when you turned the corner. You were looking for somebody, and there was somebody, and you would convince yourself that this random person was what you were really looking for in the first place.We find what we are looking for in life, her father had once said to her; which was true-if you look for happiness, you will see it; if you look for distrust and envy and hatred-all those things-you will find those too.

“So, Mma,” said Mr Bobologo. “Here I am. You have come to see me about your child, I assume. I hope I can say that this boy or this girl is doing well at school. I am sure I can. But first you must tell me what your name is, so I know which child it is that I am talking about. That is important.”

For a few moments Mma Ramotswe was taken aback, but then she laughed. “Oh no, Rra. Do not worry. I am not some troublesome mother who has come to talk about her difficult child. I have come because I have heard of your other work.”

Mr Bobologo took out his handkerchief and dabbed again at the side of his mouth.

“I see,” he said. “You have heard of this work that I do.” There was a note of suspicion in his voice, Mma Ramotswe noticed, and she wondered why this should be. Perhaps he was laughed at by others, or labelled a prude, and the thought irritated her. There was nothing to be ashamed of in the work that he did, even if it seemed strange for a man to have such strong views on such a matter. At least he was trying to help address a social problem, which was more than most people did.

“I have heard of it,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And I thought that I would like to hear more about it. It is a good thing that you are doing, Rra.”

Mr Bobologo’s expression remained impassive. Mma Ramotswe thought that he was still unconvinced by what she had said, and so she continued, “The problem of these street girls is a very big one, Rra. Every time I see them going into bars, I think:That girl is somebody’s daughter, and that makes me sad. That is what I think, Rra.”

These words had a marked effect on Mr Bobologo. While she was still speaking, he sat up in his chair, sharply, and stared intensely at Mma Ramotswe.

“You are right, Mma,” he said. “They are all the daughters of some poor person. They are all children who have been loved by their parents, and by God himself, and now where are they? In bars! That is where. Or in the arms of some man. That is also where.” He paused, looking down at the ground. “I am sorry to use such strong language, Mma. I am not a man who uses strong language, but when it comes to this matter, then I am like a dog who has been kicked in the ribs.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “It is something that should make us all angry.”

“Yes,” said Mr Bobologo. “It should. It should. But what does the Government do about this? Do you see the Government going down to these bars and chasing these bad girls back to their villages? Do you see that, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe mused for a moment. There were many things, she thought, that one could reasonably expect the Government to do, but it had never occurred to her that chasing bar girls back to their villages was one of them. For a moment she imagined the Minister of Roads, for example, a portly man who inevitably wore a wide-brimmed hat to shade him from the sun, chasing bar girls down the road to Lobatse, followed, perhaps, by his Under-Secretary and several clerks from the Ministry. It was an intriguing picture, and one which would normally have made her smile, but there was no question of smiling now, in front of the righteous indignation of Mr Bobologo.