There was more tea. This time it was not the red bush tea that she usually drank, but ordinary tea, which Mma Ramotswe would drink out of politeness, but with no great enthusiasm for the caffeine that she found made her feel a bit too enthusiastic, almost impulsive. But no harm would come from sharing one cup with Mma Tsepole, as they chatted about the housemother’s relative in Lobatse—the one who had been ill—and about how she feared that this relative might not see out the year.
“There is nothing wrong with her,” said Mma Tsepole, “other than the fact that she is very old, Mma, and her heart is saying, ‘I am very tired with all this beating.’ That is what happens, you know, Mma Ramotswe: your heart eventually says, ‘Oh, my goodness, do I have to go on and on like this?’ ”
Mma Ramotswe nodded in agreement. “That is what happens, Mma. And I think that when it does, you should just say, ‘It is time to go now,’ and then you should become late without making too much fuss about it.”
“Oh, that is very true, Mma Ramotswe,” said Mma Tsepole. “That is what I always say. And that is what my auntie—the one down in Lobatse—says as well. She is ready to go, but there is a cousin down there who is always taking her to the doctor. And the doctor says, ‘You are very old now, Auntie,’ and my auntie says, ‘Yes, I am very old and I do not want to trouble you.’ And then the cousin says, ‘But what about some more pills, please? Auntie needs pills.’ And so it goes on.”
“That is very sad,” said Mma Ramotswe, taking a sip of the strong brown tea Mma Tsepole had given her.
“I will miss her,” said Mma Tsepole. “She has seen so many things in her life, and all those old things, the things that happened a long time ago, she remembers. Every detail is there, Mma. She remembers Protectorate days, when we were still Bechuanaland. She remembers the old steam trains that came down from Bulawayo, and how the police band used to play at the railway station when the train came in. A band, Mma, playing for a train coming in. Can you imagine that?”
The question was rhetorical, but Mma Ramotswe could remember it. Life had been like that in those days, when there was not very much going on and the arrival of a train was something of an event. We had lost that sense of excitement, she felt, because now there was so much happening all the time and nobody paid attention to anything because they had seen it all before. In the days that Mma Tsepole was talking about, people waved to one another on the road. You did not need to know the other person, you just waved, because that was what people did. Now, of course, people just ignored strangers; they took no interest in the story of the other person because they had no time for such things.
Mma Tsepole enquired about various people known to Mma Ramotswe, and Mma Ramotswe assured her that as far as she knew, they were well. Then there was a lengthy discussion about the merits of macaroni cheese. Was this, in Mma Ramotswe’s opinion, a good food to serve to children twice a week, say, or should it be kept as a special treat? Some people said one thing, Mma Tsepole complained, and others said the opposite. Whom was one to believe, especially nowadays, when everybody considered themselves experts on everything? Mma Ramotswe had no idea, and nor did Mma Potokwane. “Perhaps we should believe nobody any longer,” said the housemother, somewhat sadly, and then added, by way of a tactful afterthought, “Except Mma Potokwane, of course.” And Mma Potokwane had laughed and said, “Do not believe me, Mma, except some of the time, perhaps.”
Mma Ramotswe became aware that a child had entered the kitchen. She and Mma Potokwane had seated themselves at the table, their mugs of tea before them, and suddenly she was just there; quiet and unannounced, a little girl still unsteady on her legs, but with that rootedness to the ground that comes with a low centre of gravity. She was barely three, Mma Ramotswe thought, although it was sometimes difficult with children who had been undernourished: a five-year-old might have the frame of a three-year-old if there had not been enough food. That was relatively rare in Botswana, but it still happened; there were still many poor people whose eked-out living was too small to give their children the start they needed. Poverty in Africa lurked on the edges of plenty, waiting for its chance to nip at the heels of those who did not get their fair share, and these children, every one of them, had fallen through the net of the traditional family and village systems of support. They were the children who had no grandmother to look after them on the death of their mother, or whose grandmother had simply too many children around her skirts to manage. The most burdened shoulders in Africa might also be the oldest.
The little girl stood just inside the doorway, a tattered soft toy in her hand, an ancient threadbare dog or cat—it was hard to tell, so loved and cuddled had it been. She was watching them with that intense, unremitting gaze of the young child, and her eyes now fixed on Mma Ramotswe.
Mma Ramotswe turned to Mma Tsepole. She raised an enquiring eyebrow, and Mma Tsepole nodded.
“That is little Daisy. She has a Setswana name, but the older children decided to call her Daisy. I think they had seen the name in a school book.”
Mma Potokwane smiled encouragingly at the child. “Daisy,” she said. “You say hello to these aunties.”
But the child, for all the boldness of her stare, was too shy to speak.
“She is learning words,” said Mma Tsepole. “I think I was telling you about that the other day, Mma Potokwane. Her words are coming at last.”
Mma Potokwane nodded. “Sometimes children are too traumatised to speak when they get here,” she explained. “Sometimes it takes months and months before there is anything. Then suddenly you hear the first dumela, the first hello, and it is like the coming of the dawn. You know, that moment when the sun first comes up over the trees and makes everything gold. Like that.”
“She is talking to the other children now,” said Mma Tsepole. “Just single words—you know how it is. Water. Sun. Hot. Words like that, but you can hear them.” She paused. “And Mama too. You hear her say that.”
Mma Ramotswe caught her breath; that the child should say that which she did not have: the missing bit of her world.
Mma Tsepole lowered her voice; this was her habit when talking about her charges, even if they were too young to understand.
“Her mother was ill,” she said. Her voice lowered further. Now it was a whisper. “With that illness.”
Mma Ramotswe knew what she was talking about. It had cut like a scythe through the land, and now, although there were pills that could keep it at bay, there were still those who were beyond the reach of medicines, or who were visited with other complications, and fell.
“Yes,” continued Mma Tsepole. “The mother was ill, although it was not the illness that killed her. And the father…”
Mma Potokwane took over. “The father was no good. He drank, and he ended up in prison for a while. Then they lost sight of him. The village headman’s wife tried to find somebody to take the little girl, but nobody could. That happens more and more. Too busy. Gone away. Too many children on their hands already—I’m not blaming them, but it’s hard. It’s hard for everybody.”