CHAPTER FIVE
IT WAS some time before it dawned on Mr J.L.B. Matekoni that Mma Potokwane may have thought that he was agreeing to her proposition. His own recollection of what had happened was very clear. He had said, “I shall think about it, Mma,” which is very different-as anybody could see-from saying that one would definitely do something. It might have been better had he refused her there and then, but Mr J.L.B. Matekoni was a kind man and like all kind men he did not enjoy saying no. There were many who had no such compunction, of course; they would refuse things outright, even if it meant hurting another’s feelings.
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni thought very carefully. After the initial bombshell, when Mma Potokwane had revealed what she had in mind, he had remained silent for a moment. At first, he thought that he had misheard her, and that she had said that she wanted him to
Her next remark made this clear. “It’s a very good way of raising money,” she had said. “The hardship project did it last year. That man from the radio-the well-known one with the funny voice-he agreed to jump. And then that girl who almost became Miss Botswana said she would jump too. They raised a lot of money. A lot.”
“But I cannot jump,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had protested. “I have never even been in an aeroplane. I would not like to jump from one.”
It was as if Mma Potokwane had not heard him. “It is a very easy thing to do. I have spoken to somebody in the Flying Club and they say that they can teach you how to do it. They have a book, too, which shows you how to put your feet when you land. It is very simple. Even I could do it.”
“Then why don’t you?” he had said, but not loudly enough to be heard, for Mma Potokwane had continued as if he had not spoken.
“There is no reason to be afraid,” she said. “I think that it will be very comfortable riding down in the air like that. They might drop you over one of our fields and I will get one of the housemothers to have a cake ready for you when you land. And we have a stretcher too. We can have that close by, just in case.”
“I do not want to do it,” Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had intended to say, but for some reason the words came out as, “I’ll think about it.”
And that, he realised, was where he had made his mistake. Of course it would be easy enough to undo. All that he would have to do would be to telephone Mma Potokwane and tell her, as unambiguously and as finally as he could, that he had now thought about it and he had decided that he would not do it. He would be happy to give some money to whomsoever she managed to persuade to do it for her, but that person, he was sorry to say, would not be him. This was the only way with Mma Potokwane. One had to be firm with her, just as he had been firm with her on the issue of the pump. One had to stand up to a woman like that.
The difficulty, of course, with standing up to women was that it appeared to make little difference. At the end of the day, a man was no match for a woman, especially if that woman was somebody like Mma Potokwane. The only thing to do was to try to avoid situations where women might corner you. And that was difficult, because women had a way of ensuring that you were neatly boxed in, which was exactly what had happened to him. He should have been more careful. He should have been on his guard when she offered him cake. That was her technique, he now understood; just as Eve had used an apple to trap Adam, so Mma Potokwane used fruit cake. Fruit cake, apples; it made no difference really. Oh foolish, weak men!
Mr J.L.B. Matekoni looked at his watch. It was nine o’clock in the morning, and he should have been at the garage by eight, at the latest. The apprentices had plenty to do-simple servicing tasks that morning- and he could probably leave them to get on with it, but he did not like to leave the business in their hands for too long. He looked out of the window. It was a comfortable sort of day, not too hot for the time of year, and it would be good to drive out into the lands somewhere and just walk along a path. But he could not do that, as he had his clients to think of. The best thing to do was to stop thinking about it, and to get on with the ordinary business of the day. There were exhaust pipes to be looked at, tyres to be changed, brake linings to be renewed; these were the things that really mattered, not some ridiculous parachute drop which Mma Potokwane had dreamed up and which he was not proposing to do anyway. That could be disposed of-with a little resolve. All he had to do was to lift up the telephone and say no to Mma Potokwane. He imagined the conversation.
“No, Mma. That’s all: no.”
“No what?”
“No. I’m not doing it.”
“What do you mean no?”
“By no, I mean no. That’s what I mean. No.”
“No? Oh.”
That, at least, was the theory. When it came actually to speaking, it might be considerably more difficult than that. But at least he had an idea of what he might say and the tone he would adopt.
MR J.L.B. MATEKONI, trying-and largely succeeding-not to think of parachutes or aeroplanes, or even the sky, started the short journey from his house to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors. It was a journey that he had made so often that he knew every bump in the road, every gateway past which he drove, and, extraordinarily, the people whom he would often see standing at much the same place as they always stood. People like their places, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni reflected. There was that rather ragged man who used to walk about the end of Maratadiba Road, looking as if he had lost something. He was the father, he believed, of the maid who worked in one of the houses there and she had given him the spare room in her quarters. That was the right thing for a daughter to do, of course, but if Mr J.L.B. Matekoni were that man, or the daughter for that matter, he would think that the best place for a father who was slightly confused would be back in the village, or even out at the lands or at a cattle post. In the village he would be able to stand in one spot and watch everything happen without his moving about. He could watch cattle, which was very important for older people, and a good hobby for older men. There was a great deal to be learned just by watching cattle and noting their different colours. That would have kept that man busy.
And then, just round the corner, on Boteli Road, on Fridays and Saturdays one might see a very interesting car parked under the shade of a thorn tree. The car belonged to the brother of a man who lived in one of the houses on Boteli Road. He was a butcher from Lobatse, who came up to Gaborone for the week-ends, which started, for him, on Friday morning. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had seen his butchery store down in Lobatse. It was large and modern, with a picture of a cow painted on the side. In addition, this man owned a plastering business, and so Mr J.L.B. Matekoni imagined that he was a fairly wealthy man, at least by the standards of Lobatse, if not the standards of Gaborone. But it was not his prosperity which singled him out in the eyes of Mr J.L.B. Matekoni; it was the fact that he had such a fine car and had clearly taken such good care of it.
This car was a Rover 90, made in 1955, and therefore very old. It was painted blue, and on the front there was a silver badge showing a boat with a high prow. The first time he had driven past it, Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had stopped to examine it and had noted the fine red leather seats and the gleaming silver of the gear lever. These external matters had not impressed him; it was the knowledge of what lay within: the knowledge of the 2.6-litre engine with its manual transmission
