Part 6 (2/2)
”I wanted Mma Ramotswe to see Mataila,” she said. ”She may be able to advise us. How is he today?”
”It is the same as yesterday,” said Mma Kerileng. ”And the day before that. There is no change in that boy.”
Mma Potokwane sighed. ”It is very sad. Is he sleeping now? Can you open the door?”
”I think that he's awake,” said the housemother. ”Let us see anyway.”
She arose from her chair and led them down a highly polished corridor. Mma Ramotswe noticed, with approval, how clean the house was. She knew how much hard work there would be in this woman; throughout the country there were women who worked and worked and who were rarely given any praise. Politicians claimed the credit for building Botswana, but how dare they? How dare they claim the credit for all the hard work of people like Mma Kerileng, and women like her.
They stopped outside a door at the end of the corridor and Mma Kerileng took a key out of her housecoat pocket.
”I cannot remember when we last locked a child in a room,” she said. ”In fact, I think it has never happened before. We have never had to do such a thing.”
The observation seemed to make Mma Potokwane feel uncomfortable. ”There is no other way,” she said. ”He would run off into the bush.”
”Of course,” said Mma Kerileng. ”It just seems very sad.”
She pushed the door open, to reveal a room furnished only with a mattress. There was no gla.s.s in the window, which was covered with a large latticework wrought-iron screen of the sort used as burglar bars. Sitting on the mattress, his legs splayed out before him, was a boy of five or six, completely naked.
The boy looked at the women as they entered and for a brief moment Mma Ramotswe saw an expression of fear, of the sort one might see in the eyes of a frightened animal. But this lasted only for a short time before it was replaced by a look of vacancy, or absence.
”Mataila,” said Mma Potokwane, speaking very slowly in Setswana. ”Mataila, how are you today? This lady here is called Mma Ramotswe. Ramotswe. Can you see her?”
The boy looked up at Mma Potokwane as she spoke, and his gaze remained with her until she stopped speaking. Then he looked down at the floor again.
”I don't think he understands,” said Mma Potokwane. ”But we speak to him anyway.”
”Have you tried other languages?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
Mma Potokwane nodded. ”Everything we can think of. We had somebody come out from the Department of African Languages at the university. They tried some of the rarer ones, just in case he had wandered down from Zambia. We tried Herero. We tried San, although he's obviously not a Mosarwa to look at. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”
Mma Ramotswe took a step forward to get a closer look at the boy. He raised his head slightly, but did nothing else. She stepped forward again.
”Be careful,” said Mma Potokwane. ”He bites. Not always, but quite often.”
Mma Ramotswe stood still. Biting was a not uncommon method of fighting in Botswana, and it would not be surprising to find a child that bit. There had been a recent case reported in Mmegi of a.s.sault by biting. A waiter had bitten a customer after an argument over shortchanging, and this had led to a prosecution in the Lobatse Magistrate's Court. The waiter had been sentenced to one month's imprisonment and had immediately bitten the policeman who was leading him off to the cells; a further example, thought Mma Ramotswe, of the shortsightedness of violent people. This second bite had cost him another three months in prison.
Mma Ramotswe looked down at the child.
”Mataila?”
The boy did nothing.
”Mataila?” She stretched out towards the boy, ready to withdraw her hand sharply if necessary.
The boy growled. There was no other word for it, she thought. It was a growl, a low, guttural sound that seemed to come from his chest.
”Did you hear that?” asked Mma Potokwane. ”Isn't that extraordinary? And if you're wondering why he's naked, it's because he ripped up the clothes we gave him. He ripped them with his teeth and threw them down on the ground. We gave him two pairs of shorts, and he did the same thing to both of them.”
Mma Potokwane now moved forward.
”Now, Mataila,” she said. ”You get up and come outside. Mma Kerileng will take you out for some fresh air.”
She reached down and took the boy, gingerly, by the arm. His head turned for a moment, and Mma Ramotswe thought that he was about to bite, but he did not and he meekly rose to his feet and allowed himself to be led out of the room.
Outside the house, Mma Kerileng took the boy's hand and walked with him towards a clump of trees at the edge of the compound. The boy walked with a rather unusual gait, observed Mma Ramotswe, between a run and a walk, as if he might suddenly bound off.
”So that's our Mataila,” said Mma Potokwane, as they watched the housemother walk off with her charge. ”What do you think of that?”
Mma Ramotswe grimaced. ”It is very strange. Something terrible must have happened to that child.”
”No doubt,” said Mma Potokwane. ”I said that to the doctor who looked at him. He said maybe yes, maybe no. He said that there are some children who are just like that. They keep to themselves and they never learn to talk.”
Mma Ramotswe watched as Mma Kerileng briefly let go of the child's hand.
”We have to watch him all the time,” said Mma Potokwane. ”If we leave him, he runs off into the bush and hides. He went missing for four hours last week. They eventually found him over by the sewerage ponds. He does not seem to know that a naked child running as fast as he can is likely to attract attention.”
Mma Potokwane and Mma Ramotswe began to walk back together towards the office. Mma Ramotswe felt depressed. She wondered how one would make a start with a child like that. It was easy to respond to the needs of appealing orphans-of children such as the two who had come to live in Zebra Drive-but there were so many other children, children who had been damaged in some way or other, and who would need patience and understanding. She contemplated her life, with its lists and its demands, and she wondered how she would ever find the time to be the mother of a child like that. Surely Mma Potokwane could not be planning that she and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni should take this child too? She knew that the matron had a reputation for determination and for not taking no for an answer-which of course made her a powerful advocate for her orphans-but she could not imagine that she would try to impose in this way, for in any view it would be a great imposition to foist this child off on her.
”I am a busy woman,” she started to say, as they neared the office. ”I'm sorry, but I cannot take ...”
A group of orphans walked past them and greeted the matron politely. They had with them a small, undernourished puppy, which one of them was cradling in her arms; one orphan helps another, thought Mma Ramotswe.
”Be careful with that dog,” warned Mma Potokwane. ”I am always telling you that you should not pick up these strays. Will you not listen ...”
She turned to Mma Ramotswe. ”But Mma Ramotswe! I hope that you did not think ... Of course I did not expect you to take that boy! We can barely manage him here, with all our resources.”
”I was worried,” said Mma Ramotswe. ”I am always prepared to help, but there is a limit to what I can do.”
Mma Potokwane laughed, and touched her guest rea.s.suringly on the forearm. ”Of course you are. You are already helping us by taking those two orphans. No, I wanted only to ask your advice. I know that you have a very good reputation for finding missing people. Could you tell us-just tell us-how we might find out about this boy? If we could somehow discover something about his past, about where he came from, we might be able to get through to him.”
Mma Ramotswe shook her head. ”It will be too difficult. You would have to talk to people near where he was found. You would have to ask a lot of questions, and I think that people will not want to talk. If they did, they would have said something.”
”You are right about that,” said Mma Potokwane sadly. ”The police asked a lot of questions up there, outside Maun. They asked in all the local villages, and n.o.body knew of a child like that. They showed his photograph and people just said no. They knew nothing of him.”
Mma Ramotswe was not surprised. If anybody wanted the child, then somebody would have said something. The fact that there was a silence probably meant that the child had been deliberately abandoned. And there was always the possibility of some sort of witchcraft with a child like that. If a local spirit doctor had said that the child was possessed, or was a tokolosi, then nothing could be done for him: he was probably fortunate to be alive. Such children often met a quite different fate.
They were now standing beside the tiny white van. The tree had shed a frond on the vehicle's top, and Mma Ramotswe picked it up. They were so delicate, the leaves of this tree; with their hundreds of tiny leaves attached to the central stem, like the intricate tracing of a spider's web. Behind them was the sound of children's voices; a song which Mma Ramotswe remembered from her own childhood, and which made her smile.
The cattle come home, one, two, three, The cattle come home, the big one, the small one, the one
with one horn,
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