Calviniah…Calviniah was her sister, and at lunch she had made a request of her. It was not uttered as a request—not in words that were normally used for asking—but the intention behind it was as clear as if it had been spelled out.
She looked at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Calviniah,” she said. “The woman who was at the wedding.”
“The one you thought was late?”
“Yes. That lady. I had lunch with her.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “What did you have?” He looked at his plate again. “Meat?”
Mma Ramotswe did not answer the question. “She’s unhappy.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni waited. If a woman was unhappy, in his experience this could mean that there was a badly behaved man in the background. That was not always the case, but it was often so.
“She has a daughter,” Mma Ramotswe continued. “She works as a diamond sorter.”
“She won’t be unhappy about that,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “That’s a very good job. Lots of people would give anything for that job.”
“I know that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The daughter must be pleased. But I don’t think it’s anything to do with the job.”
“Illness?” asked Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Is she sick?”
“No, I don’t think it’s that. The daughter has become very unfriendly towards her. Calviniah cannot understand why.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni finished the last piece of meat on his plate. “Children can break your heart,” he said. “I knew a man whose son did not speak to him for ten years. Then he came home and expected his father to give him money. After ten years of silence.”
“Why?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Why would you not speak to your father for ten years?”
“An argument over cattle,” replied Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He smiled. “Cattle never argue over people, but people always argue over cattle.”
“I think Calviniah was asking for help,” she said. “I think she wants me to do something.”
“You could speak to her, I suppose,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
“I could. But she might just tell me to mind my own business. People don’t like outsiders to interfere in their private family business.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni said that he understood that.
“But I still have to do something,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And there’s another thing…” She mentioned Poppy, the woman who had lost all her money.
“Money lost is money lost,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. Then he said, “Poppy?”
“Yes. She was at school with us in Mochudi. She went to Francistown.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni pushed his empty plate across the table. “I know about that woman.”
Mma Ramotswe frowned. “There will be many Poppies. It is a popular name.”
“No, it is the same one,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “She had a big store up in Francistown. There would not be two Poppies who had a store.”
Mma Ramotswe asked him whether he knew how she had lost her money.
“She met a man,” he said. “He was called Flat. That was his name; it was not a nickname. Flat Ponto. He used to work in the motor trade. He was quite a good mechanic, but he had a reputation for being lazy. You know how it is with some people—they’re good at what they do, but they don’t do enough of it.”
Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I’ve known people like that, Rra. If people had batteries, then you might think that theirs needed charging. Not enough energy.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked down at his plate again. “Perhaps they’re not getting enough meat, you know. Sometimes that’s the explanation.”
There was silence.
“Meat has lots of iron in it,” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni continued. “Iron makes your muscles strong. It gives you the energy you need to do things.” He paused. “I’m not saying that’s always the explanation, but I think that in some cases—some cases, Mma—that might be what’s happening.”
“Possibly,” said Mma Ramotswe, looking straight ahead. “But this man she met…the mechanic, the iron-deficient one…”
“He became very religious,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “He joined one of those marching churches, but I think he found all that marching a bit too much.”
“Perhaps it required too much energy,” remarked Mma Ramotswe. “And this poor man, with his iron problem, couldn’t keep up.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded. “Something like that happened, I expect. Anyway, you know what he did? He started his own church. He called it the Church of Christ, Mechanic.”
Mma Ramotswe’s eyes opened wide with astonishment. “What a strange name, Rra. What did he mean?”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shrugged. “He was not trying to be funny, Mma. He thought that it was a good name. He thought that Jesus would have been a mechanic if there had been cars. He was a carpenter, you see.”
“I know that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “And this church of his—did anybody join?”
“Oh, yes. There were many people who joined. Two hundred, I heard.”
Mma Ramotswe thought for a few moments. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. I don’t think that God really cares what church you belong to. I think it’s much the same to him whether you are Christian or Jewish or Muslim. He listens to everybody, I think.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought that she was right. He was not a man with a very sophisticated theology, and there were times when he had his serious doubts. But when all was said and done he thought that there was something beyond us, something other than the human, and that if you closed your eyes and thought about this thing long enough you could hear its voice within you. That was enough for him.
“One of my customers goes to his church,” he went on. “He is very pleased with it. He said that they have a big braai every Sunday lunch time, with lots of sausages. They go to the Notwane River in the rainy season, otherwise they have their picnic near the dam. And they sing hymns while they eat the sausages. He says it is very spiritual. That’s the word he used, Mma—spiritual. They do the baptism in the river or the dam. They put them right under the water, still wearing their clothes.”
She pictured the scene. She saw a river and the sinners being led into the water and being submerged, and all the time the people on the banks would be singing and eating sausages. She smiled.