Mma Makutsi looked in through the glass wall. Her eyes met the gaze of the man in the office. Of course, she thought. Now I see.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHARLIE PICKS UP A PASSENGER

THE TAXI LICENCE for which Charlie had applied would be approved, he had been told, but the document itself, the important piece of paper, would not be ready for at least two weeks. For a young man of Charlie’s age, and attitude, that was a long time—too long a time to wait for a mere bureaucratic formality. And so he had decided to start plying his trade rather than wait for the officials in the public transport department to get round to picking up their rubber stamps and validating his papers. Those idle civil servants! he thought. There are too many of them in this country. That is all that we make—civil servants. He smiled. He was a businessman now—he could think such thoughts.

The car which he had acquired from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had been cleaned and polished until it shone. Charlie lived as a lodger with a maternal uncle, who had a small two-room house at the side of a busy street off the Francistown Road. The now gleaming Mercedes-Benz looked out of place among the shabby cars that stood outside these modest houses and Charlie was worried that it would be stolen. On the first night that the car spent in its new quarters, Charlie had decided to tie a piece of string to the front grille of the vehicle and then feed the other end of the string through the window of the room in which he slept. That would then be tied to his big toe before he got into bed.

“You will certainly wake up if the car is stolen,” said his uncle, who had watched, bemused, as the string was unwound from its ball.

“That is why I am doing it, Uncle,” Charlie had replied. “If I wake up when the car is moved, I can get out of bed and deal with the thieves.”

The uncle had stared at his nephew. “There are two problems that I see,” he said. “Two. The first is this: What if the string does not break? This new string is very strong, you know. I think it could probably take the weight of a man. It could pull your toe out of the window, with you still attached.”

Charlie said nothing. He stared down at the ball of string. The label proclaimed: Extra Strong.

“Then there is another problem,” said the uncle. “Even if the string woke you up and then broke before it pulled your toe off, what would happen then? How exactly are you going to deal with your car being driven away? Run after it?”

Charlie put the ball of string down on the table. “Maybe I will not do this,” he said.

“No,” said the uncle. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”