“But this child’s mother,” said Mma Tsepole. “Now that is very sad. They lived up north, near Maun. You know how it is up there, Mma Ramotswe. There are elephants—too many elephants, many people say. And they walk past the villages sometimes and destroy their crops.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. She knew about this—Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been discussing it the other day. “It is not the elephants’ fault,” he said. “Where are they to go? If they go up north they will be shot. They feel Botswana is their place too.” Now she said, “Yes, it is hard for everybody—people and elephants.”
Mma Tsepole continued, “The mother of this child—she was working in the fields, although she was ill. She was still working. And the child was with her, playing, when the elephant came. There was another woman there, on the other side of the field, and she saw the elephant coming and she shouted to warn this child’s mother. But she did not hear, and the elephant was angry because it had that condition that elephants get, where their eyes water. And the people up there know to keep well away from an elephant when it is like that.”
Mma Ramotswe was silent. She saw the scene: the field, the sun, the struggling crops, the woman tending them. And the elephant, a grey shape that came out of nowhere, as elephants can do, and that could move with such swiftness and agility, like a great dancer, when angered or afraid.
“The elephant killed the mother,” said Mma Potokwane. “The other woman saw it all happen—and so did the little girl. The elephant picked the mother up and threw her, as those creatures do, and then trampled her. The child saw it happen.”
Mma Ramotswe closed her eyes. “The poor child.” It was not much to say, she knew. The poor child.
“They shouted at the elephant and banged an old tin bath they had at the fields,” said Mma Tsepole. “That made it turn away. Sometimes they lose interest, you see. It turned and went away before it could kill the child too.”
Mma Potokwane shrugged her shoulders. “She will not remember it in the future. I think she remembers now—maybe that is why she says Mama sometimes—but she will forget. Children forget. They forget the most terrible things, Mma, if they are young enough.”
“But later, when they are older, Mma,” said Mma Tsepole. “I think it is different then.”
Mma Potokwane nodded gravely. “Yes, it can be very different.”
Daisy had moved. Now, a few hesitant steps later, she was beside Mma Ramotswe’s chair, looking up at her. Mma Potokwane smiled. “See, Mma, she has come to you.”
Mma Ramotswe turned in her chair and gazed down at the little girl. “She is very pretty,” she said.
“Yes,” said Mma Tsepole. “I think she is, Mma. She has those eyes—you know the eyes that some of them have. She has those.”
Daisy now reached out and took hold of Mma Ramotswe’s hand that had been half proffered to her. The tiny hand fastened onto a finger and gripped tight.
“She’s holding your hand,” whispered Mma Potokwane. “Look, Mma. She is holding on to you.”
Mma Ramotswe moved her hand slightly, but the child did not relinquish her grip. She leaned over and picked her up, taking her to her bosom. The child held on. She buried her head in Mma Ramotswe. She clung to her.
The two other women were silent. There was nothing that they could say.
“Yes,” Mma Ramotswe whispered. “Yes, my little one.”
And then she kissed the child gently, on her head, and put her free hand on her back and hugged her closer.
“Yes, my little one. Now you have met Mma Ramotswe. That’s who I am. I am Mma Ramotswe.”
She thought of those moments, so infinitely painful to the memory, and therefore not thought about very often, when she had held her baby who died. How small the infant had been—a scrap of humanity—but how vast the chasm of sorrow it had opened in her. She struggled with the memory, and after a short while she put it out of her mind and was back in this room, with her two friends, and this strange little girl who seemed to have taken to her so quickly.
“I must put you down, little one,” she whispered, and began to detach herself from the child. But Daisy was not to be put down, and held on all the tighter, struggling to remain exactly where she was, in the arms of Mma Ramotswe, nestling at her chest.
Mma Potokwane leaned over towards her friend. “They can cling very tight, Mma,” she said. “After they have lost the mother, they can cling very tight.”
Mma Ramotswe nodded. She understood, and she stopped trying to put Daisy down. Instead she rose to her feet, still holding the child, and walked over to the other side of the kitchen, to the door that gave out onto the back yard.
“Look,” she said. “Look out there. Can you see the trees? And look, there’s a bird there, on that branch. Can you see it?”
The child looked, but soon turned her head back to Mma Ramotswe and the comfort of her bosom.
“And look—look up there. That’s the sky, you see. It goes for a long way. And out there, not far away, is the Kalahari. And at night there are many stars there, you know. High, high—many, many stars.”
The child uttered a sound that she did not hear very well. It could have been anything, but it was probably nothing, she thought.
“Maybe you’re hungry,” she said. “Maybe that is what it is.”
Mma Ramotswe looked at Mma Tsepole, who reached for a battered tin box and took out a plain rusk. “They love these,” she said to Mma Ramotswe. “Milk rusks. I make them for the children.” She handed the rusk to Mma Ramotswe, who offered it to Daisy. A small hand reached for it but did not put it in her mouth. She held the rusk, which shed crumbs on Mma Ramotswe.
“She’s not hungry,” said Mma Potokwane. “And we should wait a little, I think, so that she can have food with her pill.”
Mma Ramotswe frowned. “Her pill, Mma?”
Mma Potokwane sighed. “The mother was ill, Mma, as we told you.”
It took Mma Ramotswe no more than a few seconds to grasp the significance of this. She gave an involuntary gasp. “Oh, Mma Potokwane…”
“Yes,” said Mma Potokwane. “That is how it is, Mma. It is hard, I know. It is very hard.”
Mma Ramotswe kissed Daisy again, and held her more tightly. She rocked her gently, as if in an effort to calm her—although the child was not upset.
Mma Tsepole turned away. She could not bear it; she could not bear it. And yet she had to, because this was her job and you could not allow your emotions to get the better of you. Others would have to do the weeping, because a housemother in tears was no help to the other children. A housemother had to be brave.