She looked at Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni with pride—and gratitude that he had been delivered into her care, and thanked whatever, or whomever, it was that kept watch over her life. God, perhaps, or God acting in concert, so to speak, with a committee of ancestors—her mother, her grandmother, and ladies going back a long time to the early days of her people. And Africa, too, she was there somewhere in those protective forces; wise and nurturing, Mother Africa had arms wide enough to embrace all her children.
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nudged her gently. “You’re dreaming about something, Mma,” he whispered.
She brought herself back to reality. “I was remembering,” she whispered back. “I was remembering our own wedding, Rra. Not far away from where we are.”
He smiled. “You said yes,” he said. “You said yes, just like Thato’s just done.”
“Good. It would be too late to say no at the altar. Far too late.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked concerned. “I hope that has never happened, Mma.”
“I’m afraid that it has,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There was a wedding in Gaborone a few years back when they both said no, apparently.”
“Ow!” exclaimed Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. And then, “Ow!” once more.
“Yes, they said that they had both been persuaded by their families to get married, and they decided to refuse right at the last moment.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni rolled his eyes. “Their poor families.”
“Yes. And I heard that they had already cooked the roasts and so the guests just went on and ate all the food.”
“It would not have helped anybody if they had wasted the food,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “That never helps.”
Mma Ramotswe remembered another detail. “The groom didn’t go to the feast,” she said. “I think he felt too embarrassed.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
“But the bride—or the almost bride—wasn’t embarrassed. I heard that she stayed for the feast and met another man there—one she had not met before. He was a guest of the groom’s family. She married him, I was told.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s eyes opened wide. “There and then? At the same wedding?”
“No, later, Rra. A few months later, I think.”
“Then something good came of it,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
* * *
—
THE VOWS HAVING BEEN EXCHANGED, the preacher pronounced the couple man and wife. There was applause from the congregation, and ululating cries, too. The couple turned around and smiled, and the applause became louder. Mma Ramotswe tried not to cry, but failed. She always cried at a wedding, no matter how hard she tried to remain dry-eyed. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni passed her a handkerchief that he extracted from the top pocket of his suit. The man standing next to him caught his eye and smiled, as if the two of them were exchanging some secret man’s message: women cry. Mma Ramotswe intercepted this as she wiped her eyes, and thought, Yes, we may cry, but you should do so too.
She returned the handkerchief as the congregation rose to its feet to sing. Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful river, the beautiful river…It had been a favourite of hers as a girl, when she had thought that the river must be the Limpopo, that rose very near to Mochudi, and that would always be her river. As a young girl she had felt proud that her local river should have been referred to in this hymn, so clearly crafted somewhere else, as most things were. They wrote hymns in England, she thought, and then sent them out into the world for people to sing them in all sorts of places, even here, on the very edge of the Kalahari.
The bride and groom left. Friends stopped to talk. Clothes were admired. Children ran about, laughing, playing little games of their own devising.
“Mma Ramotswe, so there you are!”
She looked up and saw Mma Makutsi waiting outside the gate of the kgotla. Behind her, Phuti Radiphuti, wearing a light grey suit and a bright red tie, smiled nervously.
“And you, Phuti,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There you are too.”
“It was a very good service,” said Mma Makutsi, “even if Phuti and I couldn’t see very well…”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Phuti. “We were not too far away.”
Mma Makutsi gave him a discouraging glance. “That’s a matter of opinion, Rra,” she said. “Who would have thought in advance that this would be a wedding with inside people and outside people? Who would have thought that, Mma?”
Mma Ramotswe sighed. “Numbers are always a problem when you have a wedding, Mma. You can’t invite the whole world, I think.”
“Oh, I know that,” said Mma Makutsi. “I’m not saying that you should invite the whole world—or even all of Gaborone, for instance. I am not saying that.”
Phuti Radiphuti made a valiant effort to move the conversation on. “And the bride was very pretty,” he said loudly. “I sell furniture to her father, you know. He has a shop somewhere up north, and it stocks some of our furniture.”
“That is all very interesting, Rra,” said Mma Makutsi sharply. “Perhaps we can talk about sofas and dining-room tables later on. What I was talking about now-now was the idea of dividing your guests into inside people and outside people. That sometimes doesn’t make the outside people feel very happy. They may sit there—or stand there, shall I say—and ask themselves: Are we not good enough to be inside people? That is what they might think, Mma. I’m just reporting it. I’m just saying what I believe they might be thinking.”
“Oh well,” said Mma Ramotswe. “The important thing is that the bride and groom are happy. This is their day, after all, not ours.”
Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni shifted awkwardly on his feet. “There is a very fine smell of beef,” he said. “That is one way of being happy—having some beef to eat.”
Phuti seized the opportunity. “That is very funny, Rra. But it is also very true. If you have a good slice of beef on your plate, then you are happy. Many studies have shown that, I think.”
Mma Ramotswe pointed to the large tent on the other side of the garden. “That is where we will find some lunch,” she said. “And then we can talk more about some other things.”
While Phuti and Grace went off to greet other friends in the crowd, Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni made their way through the throng of guests towards the catering tent, where already the outside people, having enjoyed a head start, were making inroads on the meat. And it was on the way that Mma Ramotswe suddenly gripped Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s arm.