Phuti shrugged. “It is not always that easy to get a job with the diamond people,” he said. “There are people lining up for those jobs. And anyway, it is a well-paid post, this. There are many benefits.”
Indeed there are, thought Mma Makutsi. And she was sure that one of the benefits, at least from Violet Sephotho's perspective, was that of working closely with Phuti, who was very comfortably off, not only with his share of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop, that would become a full interest once his aged father died, but also with his large herd of cattle at the Radiphuti cattle post. There could be no doubt, none at all, that Violet's real motive in seeking the job was to prise Phuti away from his lawful fiancée-Grace Makutsi, assistant detective-and guide him into her own wicked, calculating, waiting arms. Oh, it was clear enough, but there would be no point in spelling this out to Phuti, because he simply would not see it. Nor, she thought, would he react well to being warned about Violet; shortly after she had become engaged, Mma Ramotswe had told her to be careful about telling one's fiancé what to do. “Men do not like it,” she said. “You must never make a man feel that he is being told what to do. He will run away. I have seen that happen so many times.”
She served Phuti his cup of tea, and they sat together at the table. She thought that Phuti had no idea of her concern, as he chatted away about other furniture matters. There was a new type of table, he said, that could be folded up and stored under a bed.
“That is very useful,” he said. “I think that there will be many people who will want to keep a table under their bed.” Mma Makutsi was non-committal; there may be many such people, but this was not the time to think about them. This was a time to think about that scheming Violet Sephotho and what could be done about her. She could try to warn her off, Mma Makutsi thought, by telling her that she was well aware of what her real intentions were. Violet, however, was not the sort to buckle under a threat; she would simply deny that she knew what the accusation was about. Another option would be to speak to Phuti's uncles. That was always an option in Botswana, where uncles on both sides took a close interest in engagements and marriages. It would be perfectly proper for her uncles to go to see Phuti's uncles and to express their concern about the danger that Violet represented to the future marriage.
Yet there was a difficulty here: this would have been a reasonable course of action, but only if she could trust her uncles to be discreet, and she feared that she could not do that. Her senior uncle, in particular, the one with the broken nose, was noted for his lack of tact. He would insist on being involved in any negotiation, and he would be bound to make matters worse. He would make demands, possibly even threats, and a family like the Radiphuti family, which spoke quietly and with circumspection, would be offended if her uncle made too much fuss. Oh, I am miserable, thought Mma Makutsi. I am stuck and miserable like a cow on a railway line who sees the train from Mafikeng bearing down upon her and cannot bring herself to move.
CHAPTER FIVE. THERE IS PLENTY OF WORK FOR LOVE TO DO
THERE WAS NO QUESTION the next morning of Mma Ramotswe's being able to make the journey into the office by foot. It was difficult enough, in fact, for her to walk to the bathroom without limping when she got out of bed shortly before six o'clock, such was the discomfort of the blister on her right foot. The plaster that Dr. Moffat had put on the day before had peeled off during the night, leaving the angry skin uncovered. That could be remedied, of course: she kept a supply of plasters in the bathroom cupboard, mainly for Puso, who was always scratching himself on thorns and nails and other things that lay in wait for passing boys. At least he had not broken anything, unlike his friend at school, an appealing boy with a wide smile, who was always appearing with an arm in a sling or an ankle in plaster. That boy fell from trees, Puso explained. “He is always climbing, Mma, and then he falls down and breaks when he hits the ground. He does not mind, though. He is a very brave boy and he will join the Botswana Defence Force when he is twelve, I think.”
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “You cannot join the Botswana Defence Force when you are twelve,” she said. “You have to be much older. Eighteen, I think. Something like that. And being a soldier is not just a matter of climbing trees.”
“It helps, though, doesn't it?” argued Puso. “If you can climb trees, you can hide when you see the enemy coming.”
Mma Ramotswe shook a finger in mock disapproval. “I do not think that is what a brave soldier is meant to do, Puso.” She paused. He had said when you see the enemy coming. But Botswana had no enemies, a fact which was a source of both relief-who would want enemies?-and pride. Her country had never been aggressive, had never espoused violence, had never taken sides in the squabbles of others. She wondered how people could sleep if they knew that somebody, in their name, was dropping bombs on other people or breaking into their homes and taking them away somewhere. Why did they do it? Why was it necessary to kill and maim other people when the other people would be just the same as yourself-people who wanted to live with their families and go to work in the morning and have enough to eat at the end of the day? That was not much to ask of the world, even if for many the world could not grant even that small request.
The contemplation of the greater suffering of the world, though, did not stop one's own small blister from hurting, and Mma Ramotswe's right foot now throbbed painfully as she lifted it onto the edge of the bath. She looked at the site of the pain, touching the skin gently, as one might touch the branch of a thorny acacia. The skin felt hot and was taut as a drum where fluid had built up underneath. She wondered whether she should take a needle to the tiny bubble and burst it, releasing the pressure and easing the pain. But she had always been taught to leave the body to sort itself out, to absorb or expel according to its own moods, its own timetable of recovery. So she simply applied another plaster, which seemed to help, and went down the corridor to make her morning cup of red bush tea.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was still asleep. Mma Ramotswe was always the first to arise in the morning, and she enjoyed the brief private time before the others would get up and start making demands of her. There would be breakfast to prepare, children's clothes to find, husband's clothes to find too; there would be a hundred things to do. But that lay half an hour or so ahead; for the time being she could be alone in her garden, as the sun came up over the border to the east, beyond Tlokweng, hovering over the horizon like a floating ball of fire. There was no finer time of day than this, she thought, when the air was cool and when, amidst the lower branches of the trees, there was still a hint, just the merest hint, of translucent white mist.
She looked past her vegetable garden, her poor, struggling vegetable garden, to the house itself. That building, she thought, contains my people; under that roof are the two foster children, Motholeli and Puso, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, my husband. And, parked outside the kitchen, to complete her world, was her tiny white van, still there but not necessarily forever. She took a sip of her tea. Nothing was forever; not her, not Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, not the house, not even Botswana. She had recently read that scientists could work out exactly when everything would come to an end and the earth would be swallowed up by the sun-or was it by some other planet?-and there would be nothing left of any of us. That had made her think, and she had raised the issue with her friend, Bishop Trevor Mwamba, over tea outside the Anglican Cathedral, one Sunday morning after the seven thirty service in English and just before the nine thirty service in Setswana. “Is it true,” she had asked, “that the sun will swallow up the earth and that will be that?”