The Colors of All the Cattle (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #19)

by Alexander McCall Smith

MR. J.L.B. MATEKONI, owner of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, and one of the finest mechanics in Botswana, if not the finest, was proud of his wife, Precious Ramotswe, progenitor and owner of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Many men are proud of their wives in one way or another, although not all of them are as vocal in their pride as their wives might like them to be. This is a failing of men, and must be added to the list of men’s failings, although all of us have failings and weaknesses—men and women alike—and it is not always helpful to point them out.

AMS feelings about men and women are interesting. The characters are always talking about the relationship between the sexes. He’s quite opened minded for an old white guy if his writing is a reflection of own feelings. Mma Makutsi feels a bit like my gran when she is on a judgmental streak though.

They had met, and after a great deal of anxious hesitation he had eventually plucked up enough courage to ask her to be his wife. And she—oh, heaven-sent good fortune—had agreed. As to his pride, there were so many reasons for this. Mma Ramotswe was a fine-looking woman, a woman of traditional build, a woman of sound and sensible views, a woman who embodied all that was praiseworthy in the national character. Yet she was also human. She was reluctant to condemn other people for not being quite as good as they might be. She was not one to expect unattainable standards. She understood that many of us would like to be better in our personal lives but somehow could not seem to achieve it. She recognised that sometimes the best we could do was simply to muddle through, getting some things right but also getting many things wrong. She knew all that, and was never too quick to blame or offer reproach. She was kind; she was forgiving. She did not think that people should be punished too severely for their actions, as long as they acknowledged that what they had done was wrong. If you punish somebody harshly, she said, then you are simply inflicting more pain on the world. You are also punishing not only that person, but his family and the people who love him. You are punishing yourself, really, because we are all brothers and sisters in this world, whether we know it or not; we are all citizens of the same village.

We should all be more like Mma Ramotswe. Kinder and less judgmental.

Being a good cook was not dissimilar to being a good mechanic—you had to have a feeling for what you were doing, and that was something that you either had or did not. He thought of his two apprentices, Charlie and Fanwell. Fanwell had a feeling for engines—he sympathised with them; it was as if he knew what it felt like to be in need of an oil change or to be labouring under the disadvantage of ill-fitting piston rings. Charlie, for all his bluster and his bragging, never really had that. An engine could be telling him something as plainly and as unambiguously as it could, but he would fail to pick up the unmissable signs of distress. And then, when the inevitable mechanical failure occurred, rather than trying to understand what signs had been overlooked, he would bully the engine.

Fanwell was much more gentle. At a very early stage in his training he had grasped the need to listen to what a vehicle was saying. He understood that at heart engines wanted to oblige us; it was their destiny to fire properly and to run sweetly for as long as their owner wished. Engines knew that, and, if only you treated them correctly, they would do your bidding. But hit an engine, or subject it to any of the other cruelties that thoughtless owners could devise, and the engine would become as stubborn as a mule. It was the same, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought, with cooking. If you were gentle, if you blended ingredients together gently, folding them in with all the delicate care of a mother tucking a child into bed, then they would co-operate. If you took the trouble to understand what temperature cooking oil liked, then it would seal the beef perfectly or soften the onions to just the right consistency. If you tasted a soup regularly, adding salt and pepper pinch by pinch rather than all at once, then the result would be perfectly seasoned rather than too salty or too hot. This was an art, he was convinced, and it was one to which Mma Ramotswe seemed to have been born.

He is a JLB Matekoni in the making.

Of course, there were certain traditionally minded people, some of them curmudgeons by instinct, who thought it wrong that boys should be taught to cook, but these people were out of touch with the modern world and their opinions no longer needed to be given much weight. And this came rather close to home—at first, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni himself had been doubtful as to the appropriateness of teaching boys to cook, but he had soon been set right on that by Mma Ramotswe.

“Mind you,” he ventured, “there are some men who do not eat meat. They’re called vegetables.”

Mma Makutsi was well aware of that particular issue. “Oh, I know about people like that, Mma,” she said. “But you can always tell—or, at least, I can always tell. I’m not sure if ordinary people can tell, though…” The reference to ordinary people was one that cropped up occasionally in Mma Makutsi’s conversation. Ordinary people, clearly a large category of persons, were either those who had not attended the Botswana Secretarial College—Mma Makutsi’s alma mater—or those who had no experience of being a private detective. Both of these backgrounds seemed to endow one with qualities of understanding and percipience well beyond that enjoyed by even the most worldly-wise members of the general population.

Late people are still with us. And they were. They were with us in the things that they had said, which we remembered long after they had gone; they were with us in the love that they had shown us, and which we could still draw about us, like a comforting blanket on a cold night; and, if the late people had had children, they were with us in the look in the eye of those children, in the way they held their heads, in the way they laughed, or in the way they walked, or did any of the other things that were passed on, deep inside, within families.

fons et origo

The fount and origin. (Of something)

He readily agreed with those who said that modern cars lacked individuality—he understood exactly what they meant—but at the same time his view as a mechanic could hardly be anything other than that when the time came for a car to be put down, it had to be put down. That was what vets did with animals that had no chance of recovery: to save them suffering, they would be painlessly eased out of this world. A mechanic, he thought, should do the same thing with a vehicle that had reached the end of its natural span of years. The owner might be attached to it, just as people were attached to their pets, but there was a point at which the heart should be stilled and the hard decision be made. It was the last kindness an owner could show an animal or a machine.

A person could not be forced to stand for office—that would be absurd. She imagined the scene. An official might call on some poor unfortunate citizen and say to her: I’m terribly sorry, but you have been elected President of Botswana. I know you don’t want to do it, but there you are: this is a democracy, and that is how democracies work. She allowed herself a smile at the thought. How would Mma Potokwane react if that happened to her? Would she be able to excuse herself on the grounds that she had quite enough to do in running the Orphan Farm, without taking on the country as well? That would be a cogent and powerful excuse: the children relied on Mma Potokwane, as did the housemothers who looked after them. If she were to go off to live in State House, then who would make the duty rosters, who would order the food for the kitchens, and who would cajole local businesses into sending out the support they gave—the surplus equipment, the spare food, the blankets and toys—all of that? Of course, Mma Potokwane might be delighted to accept, and might come up with some substitute matron from somewhere. She would make, Mma Ramotswe was sure, a very fine president, if perhaps a little bit—just a touch—on the bossy side. With Mma Potokwane installed in the president’s office, she would be able to go and visit her and talk about how things were going in the country. They would eat Mma Potokwane’s fruit cake, which would be delivered from the presidential kitchens—wherever they were...

Snort! Forced to be president. Our problem is the opposite, we have to force some people not to be president.

“Assistant to an assistant to a detective,” corrected Mma Makutsi. It was important, she felt, to get terminology right, especially when it came to job descriptions and positions. You had to watch people—if you were not careful, all sorts of people would promote themselves well above their real station in life, causing nothing but confusion and uncertainty. That this principle should apply to her as well was not something she had given much thought to—in fact, she had given it none, which was just as well, given her own record. Talk about criticising others for the things you do yourself! remarked her shoes, but in a voice so muted, a tone so reedy and slight, that it might have been the sound of the wind in the acacia, the sound of dust blowing over the land, the sound made by the beating of a bird’s wing on the yielding air.

Mma Makutsi! Talk about getting too big for your britches! Her shoes need to speak louder on that one!

“There is a lady called Violet Sephotho. She is going to stand too.” Puso’s eyes narrowed. “I hate her,” he said. His sister gave him a sideways look. “You’ve never met her, Puso. You don’t know who she is.” “I don’t care,” said Puso. “I hate her. She is very smelly.” Mma Ramotswe put an arm around the boy’s shoulder. “We don’t hate people, Puso. We don’t hate anybody.” He looked at her sullenly. “Why?” he asked. “Because hate makes you very tired,” said Mma Ramotswe. She wondered whether there was more to say, but suddenly she felt tired herself.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni heard this in silence. Then he sighed. It was not the first time that this had happened; this was what Mma Potokwane did—she decided for people, but did it in such a way that they thought they were making their own decisions. But they were not, and once they reflected on what had happened they often realised that they had ended up doing exactly as Mma Potokwane wanted them to do. He remembered, in particular, the occasion on which Mma Potokwane had enrolled people for a sponsored parachute jump in aid of the Orphan Farm. He himself had been one of those targeted—not as a sponsor, but as a jumper—and he had spent an unpleasant period of time in utter terror at the prospect. Then, on another occasion, Mma Ramotswe had been inveigled into baking two hundred scones for sale at an Orphan Farm fund-raising bazaar. When he heard about this, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had queried the figure of two hundred. Was Mma Ramotswe sure that she had not agreed to baking twenty scones? It was very easy to add a zero to any sum, and perhaps that had been done here. But no, it was two hundred, and Mma Ramotswe had spent an entire Sunday mixing the ingredients and sliding the baking trays into the oven. That was another case of what he now called the Potokwane effect, and here it was again.

The Potokwane Effect! Love it!

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni explained how he had only heard the story second-hand, and that sometimes these stories tended to be exaggerated in the re-telling. But he had been told that the girl who worked in the grandmother’s kitchen had seen the snake watching her through a small hole in the floor and, panicking, had fetched the grandmother. After that, every sound the grandmother heard—and an old house is full of sounds—she imagined was the sound of the mamba moving around beneath her feet. It was not long, then, before she begged her grandson to find her a new house. This new house was some way out of town, and much smaller and cheaper than the one she had been living in. There had been no cash adjustment, said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni; the grandson had pocketed the profits he made when he knocked the old house down and erected a new one. “And the snake?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “What would you like the answer to be, Mma?” She thought for a moment. “I would like to hear that it moved out of the old house when the bulldozers came to knock the house down. I would like to be told that it ran off and searched for another place to live. I would like to hear that the first house it came to was the grandson’s, and that it moved in there, under his bed perhaps, or just behind the laundry basket in the bathroom.” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni laughed. “And bit him?” “No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I would not wish that on anyone—even on a man who knocks down his own grandmother’s house. Just frightened, Rra. B...

We all want to hear of a little justice happening so we feel that things are proceeding as they should. I too, have a few people I would like to hear got a dose of what they’d been putting out over the years.

He was in no doubt about the answer. “Not if what you end up doing is the right thing.” He paused. “And I think I can say, Mma Ramotswe, that what you’re doing—and I suppose also what Mma Potokwane is doing—is exactly the right thing. And I am very proud of that.” She reached out to touch him on his forearm. “Thank you, Rra. It will be easier for me if I know you are with me.” “I am,” he reassured her. “You are a heroine, Mma. You are an eighty-four-horse-power, six-cylinder heroine—you really are.”

When men compare you to a car, it’s real love!

Mma Makutsi sighed. “You don’t understand, Charlie. The word chairman covers both men and women.” She paused. “Mind you, Mma Potokwane, many people these days just use the word chair. Perhaps you’d like—” She was not allowed to finish. “Certainly not, Mma,” said Mma Potokwane. “I am not a chair—I am a person.” Mma Makutsi did not press the point. Mma Potokwane’s protestations were all very well, but, now that she came to mention it, she did look remarkably like a chair—a great, accommodating upholstered armchair. You could certainly sit on Mma Potokwane and feel perfectly comfortable: she was the sort of chair into which one might sink after a hard day’s work—sink, and possibly not reappear until hours later, emerging from voluminous feather-filled cushions. That was the sort of chair that Mma Potokwane would be, whereas poor Mr. Polopetsi, if he were ever to be a chair, would be a wooden kitchen chair, hard and uncomfortable, because he did not carry much spare flesh; unlike Mma Potokwane, who had more padding and spare flesh than the Bank of Botswana had currency reserves—and those reserves, as everybody knew, were considerable.

opprobrium.

I. noun—[ mass noun] 1. harsh criticism or censure • the critical opprobrium generated by his films. 2. public disgrace arising from shameful conduct • the opprobrium of being closely associated with gangsters. 3. [ count noun]—‹archaic› an occasion or cause of reproach or disgrace.

“I am very sorry that I said unkind things about Mma Potokwane,” he confessed. “I’m ashamed of the words I used.” Mma Makutsi had to admit that his words were surprising, and quite unlike him. But, she thought, we all think such words from time to time, and occasionally thought stronger words than that; and she felt that one should not be too hard on those who actually uttered them. Even Mma Ramotswe must have her moments when…She stopped herself. No, she could not imagine Mma Ramotswe ever thinking uncharitably about somebody else—although, now that she came to think about it, there were occasions on which Mma Ramotswe became quite short with people. But that was only when they deserved it, and she was always, always prepared to forgive.

Let’s face it. Mma Ramotswe is a saint, that is one of the reasons we love her so.

Mma Ramotswe did not approve of cynicism—she still took people on trust, she still gave them the benefit of the doubt, but at least she had learned not to be disappointed when people failed to do what they said they would do.

She would have to sit down with him one day and give him some basic lessons in the ethics of the profession, as set out by Clovis Andersen in that superlative first chapter of The Principles of Private Detection. That chapter, entitled “Behaving Properly,” laid out the basis of professional ethics in investigation.

Charlie needs to read Clovis Anderson! Mma Ramotswe needs to write Mr. Anderson and get a few more books. He’s got a garage full of them. He should send them some for their loyalty.

Charlie was pleased to have been let off. Sometimes he felt that Mma Ramotswe could make you feel bad just by looking at you; she did not have to say anything, she just looked, and her look was impossible to ignore, because it said so much without actually saying anything.

Tea, thought Mma Ramotswe—no matter what was happening, no matter how difficult things became, there was always the tea break—that still moment, that unchangeable ritual, that survived everything, made normal the abnormal, renewed one’s ability to cope with whatever the world laid before one. Tea.

Tea is all those things and more.

And then the sky opened up, freed of its veils of darkness, a great pale blue bowl above…above me, thought Mma Ramotswe—and all the other people who were getting up now in Botswana; above people for whom this was their first day on this earth—the tiny, fragile babies—and above those for whom it was their last—the aged people who had seen so much and who knew that the world was slipping between their fingers…all—or most of us, at least—trying our best, trying to make something of life, hoping to get through the day without feeling too unhappy, or uncomfortable, or hungry—which was what just about everybody hoped for, whether they were big and important, or small and insignificant. She sighed. If only people could keep that in their minds—if they could remember that the people they met during the day had all the same hopes and fears that they had, then there would be so much less conflict and disagreement in this world. If only people remembered that, then they would be kinder to others—and kindness, Mma Ramotswe believed, was the most important thing there was. She knew that in the depths of her being; she knew it.