The Double Comfort Safari Club - By Alexander McCall Smith Page 0,70

have done this just for us,” she said to the woman, who had introduced herself as Mma Sepoi.

Mma Sepoi smiled, and dropped a knee in a small curtsy. “You are my guests, Mma. I want you to be comfortable.”

They settled in, Mma Sepoi telling them about her life while they placed in the rickety cupboard the few possessions they had brought with them. It was an ability that Mme Ramotswe always admired—that of encapsulating a whole life, and often the life of an entire family, in a few sentences. So many people, she had discovered, could do it, and effortlessly too; in her own case, she needed time. Where would one start? With Obed Ramotswe meeting her mother, bashful and hesitant about marriage, when he came back for a break from his work in the mines? With her return to Mochudi and that terrible stormy night when her mother, in circumstances that were yet to be fully explained, wandered onto the railway line that ran from Bulawayo down to Mafikeng? With those early days at the school high above Mochudi, where one might hear drifting from down below the sound of cattle bells?

“I have worked here for four years,” said Mma Sepoi. “I am very happy. Some people, you know, that go into one job and then another, they say, This job does not suit me; it has this, that, or the next thing wrong with it. You know people like that, Mma Ramotswe? There are many of them. Not me. I came here after I had worked as a cleaning lady in Maun. Before that I had a job at Jack’s Camp, with the old man, not the son, but the father before him. They are very good people. They know this country better than most people, Mma. And before that I was in Nata, from the time when I was a girl. My father was a policeman there. He was very good at catching stock thieves. If a cattle thief saw him coming, just walking along the road, he would run. Like that. Off. And my father would run after him and catch him because he had been in the police running team. He was a No. 1 police runner. And his father, my grandfather, was from Francistown, and his cattle were all drowned in a big flood on the Shashi River. That happened a long time ago, Mma.”

“A lot has happened in your life,” said Mma Makutsi. “You have had a very eventful life.”

Mma Sepoi acknowledged the compliment. “I have had many things that have happened to me. But I am not complaining. I say that everything that happens has a lesson in it. You look at it and you say, ‘That happened because of this thing.’ And then when it happens next, you know why it happened in the first place.” She paused to take a breath. “That is the way I look at things, Mma.”

Mma Makutsi took off her glasses and polished them. “Are there many animals here, Mma?” she asked. The question was casually posed, but Mma Ramotswe detected an edge to it.

“Oh, there are many,” said Mma Sepoi. She pointed out of the door behind her. “Keep this door closed at night, Mma.”

Mma Makutsi redoubled her polishing efforts. “I always keep my door closed at night,” she said nervously. “It is safer that way.”

“Especially here,” said Mma Sepoi. “I got up the other night because I heard something sniffing at my door. I have a saucepan by my bed and I bang it against the wall to make a noise. Lions don’t like saucepans, Mma.”

Mma Makutsi swallowed. “I have heard that.”

“I’ll leave one by your bed, Mma. So if you need it, you can make a noise.” Mma Sepoi paused. “Of course it may not have been a lion,” she said.

Mma Makutsi looked relieved. A warthog would not frighten anybody; nor an anteater. “Of course. It may have been something else.”

“A leopard, perhaps,” said Mma Sepoi. “They are very dangerous too, you know.”

Later, on their way over to the office in the main camp, Mma Ramotswe noticed that her assistant was walking very close to her, almost bumping into her as they made their way along the narrow path. She tried not to smile; it had never occurred to her that Mma Makutsi would be nervous about being in the Delta. Had Mma Makutsi had a bad experience up in Bobonong, when she was a girl? Sometimes people could be afraid of snakes,