I shall poke at the branch.”
Mma Potokwane looked doubtful, standing back as he took a tentative step forward. She raised a hand to watch as the broom handle moved up into the foliage of the tree. For his part Mr J.L.B. Matekoni held his breath; he was not a cowardly man, and indeed was braver than most. He never shirked his duty and knew that he had to deal with this snake, but the way to deal with snakes was to keep an advantage over them, and while it was in the tree this snake was in its element.
What happened next was the subject of much discussion amongst the staff of the orphan farm and amongst the small knot of orphans which was by now watching from the security of the office verandah. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni might have touched the snake with the broom handle or he might not. It is possible that the snake saw the stick approaching and decided on evasive action, for these are shy snakes, in spite of their powerful venom, and do not seek confrontation. It moved, and moved quickly, slipping through the leaves and branches with a fluid, undulating motion. Within a few seconds it was sliding down the trunk of the tree, impossibly attached, and then was upon the ground and darting, arrow-like, across the baked earth. Mma Potokwane let out a shriek, as the snake seemed to be heading for her, but then it swerved and shot away towards a large hibiscus bush that grew on a patch of grass behind the office. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni gave a shout, and pursued it with his broom, thumping the end of the stick upon the earth. The snake moved faster, and reached the grass, which seemed to help it in its flight. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni stopped; he did not wish to kill this long green stripe of life, which would surely not linger here any longer and was no danger to anyone. He turned to Mma Potokwane, who had raised her hand to her mouth and had uttered a brief ululation, as was traditional, and quite proper, at moments of celebration.
“You brave man!” she shouted. “You chased that snake away!”
“Not really,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. “I think it had decided to go anyway.”
Mma Potokwane would have none of this. Turning to the group of orphans, who were chattering excitedly amongst themselves, she said, “You see this uncle? You see how he has saved us all from this snake?”
“Ow!” called out one of the orphans. “You are very brave, uncle.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked away in embarrassment. Handing back the broom to Mma Potokwane, he turned to go back into the office, where the rest of his cake was awaiting him. He noticed that his hands were shaking.
“NOW,” SAID Mma Potokwane as she placed another, particularly generous, slice of cake on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni’s plate. “Now we can talk. Now I know you are a brave man, which I always suspected anyway.”
“You must stop calling me that,” he said. “I am no braver than any other man.”
Mma Potokwane seemed not to hear. “A brave man,” she went on. “And I have been looking for a brave man now for over a week. At last I have found him.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni frowned. “You have had snakes for that long? What about the men around here? What about the husbands of all those housemothers? Where are they?”
“Oh, not snakes,” said Mma Potokwane. “We have seen no other snakes. This is about something else. I have a plan which needs a brave man. And you are the obvious person. We need a brave man who is also well-known.”
“I am not well-known,” said Mr J.L.B. Matekoni quickly.
“But you are! Everybody knows your garage. Everybody has seen you standing outside it, wiping your hands on a cloth. Everybody who drives past says, ‘There’s Mr J.L.B. Matekoni in front of his garage. That is him.’”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his plate. He felt a strong sense of foreboding, but he would eat the cake nonetheless while Mma Potokwane revealed whatever it was that she had in store for him. He would be strong this time, he thought. He had stood up to her not all that long ago on the question of the pump, and the need to replace it; now he would stand up to her again. He picked up the piece of cake and bit off a large piece. The raisins tasted even better now, in the presence of danger.
“I want you to help me raise money,” said Mma Potokwane,“We have a boy who can sing very well. He is sixteen now, one of the older boys, and Mr Slater at the Maitisong Festival wants to send him to Cape Town to take part in a competition. But this costs money, and this boy has none, because he is just an orphan. He can only go if we raise the money for him. It will be a big thing for Botswana if he goes, and a big thing for that boy too.”
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni put down the rest of the cake. He need not have worried, he thought: this sounded like a completely reasonable request. He would sell raffle tickets at the garage if she wanted, or donate a free car service as a prize. Why that should require courage, he could not understand.
And then it became clear. Mma Potokwane picked up her tea cup, took a sip of tea, and then announced her plan.
“I’d like you to do a sponsored parachute jump, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni,” she said.
CHAPTER THREE
MMA RAMOTSWE did not see Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that Saturday, as she had driven up to Mochudi in her tiny white van. She planned to stay there until Sunday, leaving the children to be looked after by Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. These were the foster children from the orphan farm, whom Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had agreed to take into his home, without consulting Mma Ramotswe. But she had been unable to hold this against him, even if many women would have felt that they should have been consulted about the introduction of children into their lives; it was typical of his generosity that he should do something like this. After a few days, the children had come to stay with her, which was better than their living in his house, with its engine parts that littered the floor and with its empty store cupboards (Mr J.L.B. Matekoni did not bother to buy much food). And so they had moved to the house in Zebra Drive, the girl and her brother; the girl in a wheelchair, for illness had left her unable to walk, and the brother, much younger than she, and still needing special attention after all that had happened to him.
Mma Ramotswe had no particular reason to go up to Mochudi, but it was the village in which she had grown up and one never really needed an excuse to visit the place in which one had spent one’s childhood. That was the marvellous thing about going back to one’s roots; there was no need for explanation. In Mochudi everybody knew who she was: the daughter of Obed Ramotswe, who had gone off to Gaborone, where she had made a bad marriage to a trumpet player she had met on a bus. That was all common knowledge, part of the web of memories which made up the village life of Botswana. In that world, nobody needed to be a stranger; everybody could be linked in some way with others, even a visitor; for visitors came for a reason, did they not? They would be associated, then, with the people whom they were visiting. There was a place for everybody.
Mma Ramotswe had been thinking a great deal recently about how people might be fitted in. The world was a large place, and one might have thought that there was enough room for everybody. But it seemed that this was not so. There were many people who were unhappy, and wanted to move. Often they wished to come to the more fortunate countries-such as Botswana-in order to make more of their lives. That was understandable, and yet there were those who did not want them. This is our place, they said; you are not welcome.
It was so easy to think like that. People wanted to protect themselves from those they did not know. Others were different; they talked different languages and wore different clothes. Many people did not want them living close to them, just because of these differences. And yet, they were people, were they not? They thought the same way, and had the same hopes as anybody else did. They were our brothers and sisters, whichever way you looked at it, and you could not turn a brother or sister away.
Mochudi was busy. There was to be a wedding at the Dutch Reformed Church that afternoon,
