mind. Now it was up to her to decide who should get this letter. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni? No. He was not a handsome man; he was pleasant-looking in a comfortable sort of way, but he was not handsome, in that sense. And anyway, whoever it was who had left the letter had no business in sending a letter like that to an engaged man and she, Mma Makutsi, would most certainly never pass on a letter of this nature to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, even if it had been intended for him.
It was much more likely, then, that the letter was intended for the apprentices. But which one? Charlie, the older apprentice, was certainly good-looking, in a cheap sort of way she thought, but the same could probably be said of the younger one, perhaps even more so, when one considered the amount of hair gel that he seemed to rub on his head. If one were a young woman, somebody aged perhaps seventeen or eighteen, it is easy to see how one would be taken in by the looks of these young men and how one might even write a letter of this sort. So there was really no way of telling which of the young men was the intended recipient. It might be simpler, then, to throw the letter in the bin, and Mma Makutsi had almost decided to do this when the older apprentice walked into the room. He saw the envelope on the desk before her and, with a typical lack of respect for what is right, peered at the writing on the envelope.
“To Mr Handsome,” he exclaimed. “That letter must be for me!”
Mma Makutsi snorted. “You are not the only man around here. There are two others, you know. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni and that friend of yours, that one with the oil on his hair. It could be for either of them.”
The apprentice stared at her uncomprehendingly. “But Mr J.L.B. Matekoni is at least forty,” he said. “How can a man of forty be called Mr Handsome?”
“Forty is not the end,” said Mma Makutsi. “People who are forty can look very good.”
“To other people who are forty maybe,” said the apprentice, “but not to the general public.”
Mma Makutsi drew in her breath, and held it. If only Mma Ramotswe had been here to listen to this; what would she have done? She certainly would not have let any of this pass. The effrontery of this young man! The sheer effrontery! Well, she would teach him a lesson, she would tell him what she thought of his vanity; she would spell it out… She stopped. A better idea had materialised; a wonderful trick that would amuse Mma Ramotswe when she told her about it.
“Call the young one in,” she said. “Tell him I want to tell him about this letter you have received. He will be impressed, I think.”
Charlie left and soon returned with the younger apprentice.
“Charlie here has received a letter,” said Mma Makutsi. “It was addressed to Mr Handsome and I shall read it out to you.”
The younger apprentice glanced at Charlie, and then looked back at Mma Makutsi. “But that could be for me,” he said petulantly. “Why should he think that such a letter is addressed to him? What about me?”
“Or Mr J.L.B. Matekoni?” asked Mma Makutsi, smiling. “What about him?”
The younger apprentice shook his head. “He is an old man,” he said. “Nobody would call him Mr Handsome. It is too late.”
“I see,” said Mma Makutsi. “Well, at least you are agreed on that. Well, let me read out the letter, and then we can decide.”
She opened the envelope again, extracted the piece of paper, and read out the contents. Then, putting the letter down on the table, she smiled at the two young men. “Now who is being described in that letter? You tell me.”
“Me,” they both said together, and then looked at one another.
“It could be either,” said Mma Makutsi. “Of course, I now remember who must have put that letter there. I have remembered something.”
“You must tell me,” said the older apprentice. “Then I can look out for this girl and talk to her.”
“I see,” said Mma Makutsi. She hesitated; this was a delicious moment. Oh, silly young men! “Yes,” she continued, “I saw a man outside the garage this morning, first thing. Yes, there was a man.”
There was complete silence. “A man?” said the younger apprentice eventually. “Not a girl?”
“It was for him, I think,” said the older apprentice, gesturing at the younger one. And the younger one, his mouth open, was for a few moments unable to talk.
“It was not for me,” he said at last. “I do not think so.”
“Then I think that we should throw the letter into the bin, where it belongs,” said Mma Makutsi. “Anonymous letters should always be ignored. The best place for them is the bin.”
Nothing more was said. The apprentices returned to their work and Mma Makutsi sat at her desk and smiled. It was a wicked thing to have done, but she could not resist it. After all, one could not be good all the time, and occasional fun at the expense of another was harmless. She had told no lies, strictly speaking; she had seen a man walking away from the garage, but she had recognised him as one who did occasionally take a shortcut that way. The real sender of the letter was obviously some young girl who had been dared to write it by her friends. It was a piece of adolescent nonsense which everybody would soon forget about. And perhaps the boys had been taught some sort of lesson, about vanity certainly, but also, in an indirect way, about tolerance of the feelings of others, who might be a bit different from oneself. She doubted if they had learned the latter lesson, but it was there, she thought, visible if one bothered to think hard enough about it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MMA RAMOTSWE surveyed the House of Hope. It was a rather grand name for a modest bungalow which had been built in the early seventies, at a time when Gaborone was a small town, inching out from the cluster of buildings around Government Headquarters and the small square of shops nearby. These houses had been built for government employees or for expatriates who came to the country on short-term contracts. They were comfortable, and were large by the standards of most people’s houses, but it seemed ambitious to use them for institutions, such as the House of Hope. But there was no choice, she imagined: larger buildings simply were not available, least of all to charities, which would have to scrimp and save to meet their costs.
There was a large garden, though, and this had been well-tended. In addition to a stand of healthy-looking paw-paw trees at the back, there were several clusters of bougainvillea and a mopipi tree. A vegetable garden, rather like the vegetable garden which Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had established in Mma Ramotswe’s own yard, appeared to be growing beans and carrots with some success, although Mma Ramotswe reflected that in the case of carrots one could never really tell until one pulled them out of the ground. There were all sorts of insects which competed with us for carrots, and often what appeared from above to be a healthy plant would reveal itself as riddled with holes once pulled out of the soil.
There was a verandah to the side of the house, and somebody had thoughtfully placed shade netting over the side of this. That would be a good place to sit, thought Mma Ramotswe, and one might even drink tea there, on a hot afternoon, and feel the sun on one’s face, but filtered by the shade netting. And then the thought occurred to her that all of Gaborone, the whole town, might be covered with shade netting, held aloft on great poles, and that this would keep the town cool and hold in the water which people put on their plants. It would be comfortable under this shade netting in summer, and then when winter came, and the air was cooler, they could roll back the shade netting to let in the winter sun, which would warm them, like the smile of an old
