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