The Double Comfort Safari Club - By Alexander McCall Smith Page 0,29

hand and throw it at the snake. Do not do that. That snake has its purpose, even if it is a mamba or something like that. But that is a very difficult lesson to teach people, you know, and I think that there are some people who will not be content until there are no snakes left in Botswana. Foolish people.

“We live in Gaborone, Mma. My father had a bottle store—you may know the one, over by the supermarket. Yes, that one. People used to call it a gold mine, and I wondered why they did that when it was a store and not a mine. Then, when I got a bit older, I knew that they were talking about how much money the store made, which is true. My father made quite a bit of money. Then he died. That is often the way it works, Mma Ramotswe: a man makes a lot of money and then he dies before he has the time to enjoy the fruits of his labour.

“My poor father would have liked to have enjoyed his money. I said to him, ‘Daddy, you are an old man now, and an old man does not have to work. You have earned the right to sit in the sun now. You are entitled to count your cattle.’ He thought about this, but he was worried about looking after the bottle store. ‘You have a good manager,’ I said. ‘He can run the store for you and you can retire. That is the way to do it.’ I did not want to run the bottle store, Mma, because I was studying biology and I wanted to work in a laboratory. You understand that, I think, Mma Ramotswe. I have heard people talking about you. They say that you are a lady who understands everything.

“My father listened to my advice. He was sad that I did not want to take over the bottle store, as it would have given him great pleasure to see a big sign above the store saying Kereleng and Son. But he wanted me to be happy and to do the things that I wanted to do, and so he put the manager in charge. ‘He is a very good businessman,’ he said to me. ‘I shall not be surprised to find out after a year that I have not one bottle store, but two. Perhaps even three!’

“I said, ‘I am very happy for you, my daddy. Now you can go back to the village and talk to all the old men there. You will have a lot to talk about after all these years.’

“He went back to the village, Mma Ramotswe, and I got a job in the Ministry of Agriculture, in their laboratory. I was very happy doing that work, and my father was very happy out in the village. He wrote to me every two weeks and told me what he and his friends were talking about. Which was not very much, Mma—you know how old men are. They always talk about the same things and tell the same stories many times. Do you remember when we had that drought, the bad one? Do you remember that man who brewed the beer that made everybody sick? Do you remember …

“He was very happy. But then, Mma, he became late. It was very sudden. He was talking with his friends and he just fell off his chair. It was a good way to leave, and he had had a good life. I was sad, of course, but I knew that he would have a good place in heaven, and that made it easier to bear. I was in charge of all his affairs, and went to see the manager of the bottle store. He yelled and wailed when I told him that my father was late. ‘What is to happen now?’ he cried. ‘Oh, what is to happen?’

“I said to him, ‘What do you mean—what is to happen? What do you mean?’

“He looked away. He would not meet my eyes. Then he said, ‘Nothing. I did not mean to say that. It is just that when one is very sad all sorts of meaningless words come out. I did not mean to say anything but that I am sad. I am very sad, Rra.’

“I thought no more about it, but when I went round to the bottle store a few days later, I found that it was closed. There was a woman hanging