The Double Comfort Safari Club - By Alexander McCall Smith Page 0,13

waiters, and the like—can appear charming on the surface, but only because their job requires that of them. She herself had seen this with one of the waitresses at the café that she frequented at the Riverview shopping centre. It was a good place to sit, affording a ringside seat of all the comings and goings that took place in the car park and around the small craft market that had sprung up, and she had got to know all the waitresses by now. She had found them very helpful and pleasant, but then she had seen one of them mocking a customer behind her back. The episode had not lasted for long, but she had spotted it and then looked away, out of shame for the young woman who was making fun of the customer. Mma Ramotswe had felt outraged. It was the sort of thing that would never have happened in her father’s Botswana, that Botswana in which young people had shown respect for older people, not out of fear or for any other craven reason, but simply because they had lived longer and had acquired something that could only be described as wisdom. Yes, wisdom: that was something that came to everybody, although it came in varying quantities and at different times. Wisdom, which was an understanding of the feelings of others and of what would work and what would not work; which stood by one’s shoulder and said this is right or this is wrong, or this person is lying or this person is telling the truth. And now here was this waitress, who was seventeen, perhaps, pulling a face and imitating the expression of that harmless woman who, admittedly, was wearing a dress that was quite unsuitable for one of her figure—such legs should not be displayed, even in modern Botswana—and what if that poor woman heard the giggling and turned round and saw herself being parodied?

Wildlife guides, of course, were in a different class from seventeen-year-old waitresses; they were experienced people who had undergone rigorous training and passed the Wildlife Department’s legendarily difficult examinations. They had to know the names of all the plants and which animals ate them and which ones could be used for medicines. They had to be able to read the ground and tell from among the myriad markings in the sand which creature had passed that way, and when. Here the S-shaped trail of a snake; here the tiny footprint of a dassie; here the place where the elephant had snapped the half-grown acacia as if it were matchwood. And they had to know the history of Botswana too, in case they were asked by their clients to explain something. Where was Bechuanaland? Who was Seretse Khama? When did they first discover diamonds in Botswana? And, tell me, who was Robert Moffat? There was so much to know, and anybody who knew all that surely would have more than his fair share of wisdom, and would hardly be one to be dismissive or insincere in his dealings with visitors.

“I think that we shall find that he is a good man, this guide,” she said.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked doubtful. He did not think that the mere fact that one was a qualified guide meant that one would be worthy of a gift of three thousand dollars. “Well,” he said, “you may be right or you may be wrong. But just think for a moment: What happens if you find that you are wrong, and that he is not a good man? What then?”

“We give him the money,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Or, rather, we send his name and address to the lawyer and he sends him three thousand dollars. I am not a court of law, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, and it is not for me to make a judgement on whether anybody deserves anything. In this matter I am really only a …” She searched for the right metaphor. “I am really only a postman. That is what I am.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sighed. “I see. And I suppose you’re right, Mma. I do not sit in judgement on my clients’ cars—every car receives the same consideration.”

“Well, there you are,” she said. “I have finished my drink now, and the children will have done their homework. They will be getting hungry, I think.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni lifted his glass and drained the last of his beer. “Before you start cooking,” he said, “I have something to tell you. I did not get a