To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) Read Free Page A

thanked whatever, or whomever, it was that kept watch over her life. God, perhaps, or God acting in concert, so to speak, with a committee of ancestors—her mother, her grandmother, and ladies going back a long time to the early days of her people. And Africa, too, she was there somewhere in those protective forces; wise and nurturing, Mother Africa had arms wide enough to embrace all her children.
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nudged her gently. “You’re dreaming about something, Mma,” he whispered.
    She brought herself back to reality. “I was remembering,” she whispered back. “I was remembering our own wedding, Rra. Not far away from where we are.”
    He smiled. “You said yes,” he said. “You said yes, just like Thato’s just done.”
    “Good. It would be too late to say no at the altar. Far too late.”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked concerned. “I hope that has never happened, Mma.”
    “I’m afraid that it has,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There was a wedding in Gaborone a few years back when they both said no, apparently.”
    “Ow!” exclaimed Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. And then, “Ow!” once more.
    “Yes, they said that they had both been persuaded by their families to get married, and they decided to refuse right at the last moment.”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni rolled his eyes. “Their poor families.”
    “Yes. And I heard that they had already cooked the roasts and so the guests just went on and ate all the food.”
    “It would not have helped anybody if they had wasted the food,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “That never helps.”
    Mma Ramotswe remembered another detail. “The groom didn’t go to the feast,” she said. “I think he felt too embarrassed.”
    “I’m not surprised,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
    “But the bride—or the almost bride—wasn’t embarrassed. I heard that she stayed for the feast and met another man there—one she had not met before. He was a guest of the groom’s family. She married him, I was told.”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s eyes opened wide. “There and then? At the same wedding?”
    “No, later, Rra. A few months later, I think.”
    “Then something good came of it,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
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    —
    THE VOWS HAVING BEEN EXCHANGED, the preacher pronounced the couple man and wife. There was applause from the congregation, and ululating cries, too. The couple turned around and smiled, and the applause became louder. Mma Ramotswe tried not to cry, but failed. She always cried at a wedding, no matter how hard she tried to remain dry-eyed. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni passed her a handkerchief that he extracted from the top pocket of his suit. The man standing next to him caught his eye and smiled, as if the two of them were exchanging some secret man’s message: women cry. Mma Ramotswe intercepted this as she wiped her eyes, and thought, Yes, we may cry, but you should do so too.
    She returned the handkerchief as the congregation rose to its feet to sing. Shall we gather at the river, the beautiful river, the beautiful river… It had been a favourite of hers as a girl, when she had thought that the river must be the Limpopo, that rose very near to Mochudi, and that would always be her river. As a young girl she had felt proud that her local river should have been referred to in this hymn, so clearly crafted somewhere else, as most things were. They wrote hymns in England, she thought, and then sent them out into the world for people to sing them in all sorts of places, even here, on the very edge of the Kalahari.
    The bride and groom left. Friends stopped to talk. Clothes were admired. Children ran about, laughing, playing little games of their own devising.
    “Mma Ramotswe, so there you are!”
    She looked up and saw Mma Makutsi waiting outside the gate of the kgotla . Behind her, Phuti Radiphuti, wearing a light grey suit and a bright red tie, smiled nervously.
    “And you, Phuti,” said Mma Ramotswe. “There you are too.”
    “It was a very good service,”