Blue Shoes and Happiness

"The woman joined her, standing close to her. Mma Ramotswe felt her arm against hers, flesh against flesh, warm and dry as the touch of human flesh so often and so surprisingly is.  She had sometimes thought that this is what snakes said about people: And, do you know when you actually touch these creatures they aren't slimy and slippery, but warm and dry?
She moved, so that they were not standing arm in arm: two ladies, she thought, a brown lady from Botswana and a white lady from somewhere far away, America perhaps, somewhere like that, some place of neatly cut lawns and air conditioning and shining buildings, some place where people wanted to love others if only given the chance.
The photograph was taken, and the thin woman with the camera asked if she might hand over the camera and in turn stand beside Mma Ramotswe, to which Mma Ramotswe readily agreed.  An so they stood together, and Mma Ramotswe took her arm too, but was afraid that she might break it, so fragile it seemed.  This woman was wearing a heavy scent, which Mma Ramotswe found pleasant, and she wondered whether she might one day be able to wear such a perfume and leave a trail of exotic flowers behind her, as this thin woman must.
They said goodbye to one another, Mma Ramotswe noticed that the first woman was fumbling with the camera as she gave it back to her friend.  But she managed to get it back into its case, and as Mma Ramotswe walked away, this woman followed her and took her aside.
"That was very kind of you , Mma," she said. "We are from America, you see. We have come to your country to see it, to see animals. It is a very beautiful country."
"Thank you," said Mma Ramotswe. "I am glad that..."
The foreign woman reached out and took her hand.  Again there was this feeling of dryness. "My friend is very ill," she said, her voice lowered. "You may not have noticed it, but she is not well."
Mma Ramotswe cast a glance in the direction of the thin woman, who was busying herself with the pouring of orange juice from a jug on their table.  She noticed that even the lifting of the jug seemed an effort.
"You see," went on the other woman, "this trip is a sort of farewell.  We used to go everywhere together. We went to many places,.  This will be our last trip. So thank you for being so kind and having your photograph taken with us.  Thank you, Mma."
For a moment Mma Ramotswe stood quite still. Then she turned and walked back to the table, to stand beside the woman, who looked up at her in surprise. Mma Ramotswe went down on her haunches, squatting beside the thin woman, and slipped an arm around her shoulder.  It was bony beneath the thin blouse, and she was gentle, but she hugged her, carefully, as one might hug a child.  The woman reached for her hand, and clasped it briefly in her own and pressed it, and Mma Ramotswe whispered very quiretly, but loudly enough for the woman to hear, The Lord will look after you, my sister, and then she stood up and said good-bye, in Setswana, because that is the language that her heart spoke, and walked off, her face turned away now, so that they should not see her tears."

"As a young woman she had been too naive to see evil in others.  The young, Mma Ramotswe thought, believe the best of people, or don't imagine that people they know, people of their own age, can be cruel or worthless.  And then they find out, and they see what people can do, how selfish they can be, how ruthless in their dealings.  The discovery can be a painful one, as it was for her, but it is one that has to be made. Of course it did not mean that one had to retreat into cynicism; of course it did not mean that . Mma Ramotswe had learned to be realistic about people, but this did not mean that one could not see some good in most people, however much that might be obscured by the bad. If one persisted, if one gave people a chance to show their better nature, and--and this was important--if one was prepared to forgive, then people could show a remarkable ability to change their ways..."

"It seemed to Mma Ramotswe that looking at pots and pans, as Mma Makutsi put it, was a rather more useful activity than looking at blue shoes in shop windows, but she did not say this.  If Mma Makutsi wished to admire shoes in a window, then she would not spoil her fun. It was an innocent enough activity, after all; like looking at the sky, perhaps, when the sun was going down and had made the clouds copper-red, or looking at a herd of fine cattle moving slowly over the land when rains had brought on the sweet green grass. These were pleasures which would be needed from time to time, and she would wait for Mma Makutsi until she had examined the shoes from all angles.  But a word of caution, perhaps, would not go amiss, and so Mma Ramotswe cleared her throat and said, "Of course, Mma, we must remember that if we have traditionally shaped feet, then we should stick to traditionally shaped shoes."

"Mma Ramotswe leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.  She knew that there were places where the world was always green and lush, where water meant nothing because it was always there, where the cattle were never thin and listless; she knew that.  But she did not want to live in such a place because it would not be Botswana, or at least not her part of Botswana. Up north they had that, near Maun, in the Delta, where the river ran the wrong way, back into the heart of the country. She had been there several times, and the clear streams and the wide sweeps of Mopani forest and hight grass had filled her with wonder. She had been happy for those people, because they had water all about them, but she had not felt that it was her place, which was in the south, in the dry south."

"You're right," said Mma Ramotswe. "It is important just to be able to sit and think."
Mma Potokwane agreed with that. "....There should be time for work and some for play."
"And some for sitting and watching the sun go up and down," said Mma Ramotswe. "And some time for listening to the cattle bells in the bush."
Mma Potokwane thought that this was a fine sentiment.  She too, she said would like to retire one day and go and live out in her village, where people knew one another and cared for one another."Will you go back to your village one day?" she asked Mma Ramotswe.  And Mma Ramotswe replied, "I shall go back.  Yes, one of these days I shall go back."
And in her mind's eye she saw the winding paths of Mochudi, and the cattle pens, and the small walled-off plot of ground where a modest stone bore the inscription Obed Ramotswe. And beside the stone there were wild flowers growing, small flowers of such beauty and perfection that they broke the heart.  They broke the heart."