CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

GO IN PEACE; STAY IN PEACE

MR J.L.B. MATEKONI had seen crises before. Usually these involved mechanical matters—distraught owners feeling desperate about cars which were needed for some important occasion; the non-arrival of spare parts; the eventual arrival of spare parts, but the wrong ones—there were many ways in which difficult situations could arise in a garage, but he had found that the best response to these was the same in every case. He would sit down and consider the situation carefully. Not only did this help to identify the solution to the problem, but it also gave him the opportunity to remind himself that things were not really as bad as they seemed; it was all a question of perspective. Sitting down and looking up at the sky for a few minutes—not at any particular part of the sky, but just at the sky in general—at the vast, dizzying, empty sky of Botswana, cut human problems down to size. It was not possible to tell what was in that sky, of course, at least during the day; but at night it revealed itself to be an ocean of stars, limitless, white in its infinity; so large, so large, that any of our problems, even the greatest of them, was a small thing. And yet we did not look at it like that, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought, and that made us imagine that a blocked fuel feed was a disaster.

He had not wanted Charlie to hand in his resignation, but when the apprentice had asked him about the possibility of using that car as a taxi, he had resisted the temptation to refuse him point-blank. That at least would have solved the problem in the short term. It would have put an end to his immediate plans to start a taxi service, but it would not have scotched the young man’s hopes. So he had agreed to the proposition and had watched Charlie’s face light up. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had his reservations about the feasibility of the idea; there was scant profit to be made from taxis unless one over-charged—which some taxi drivers did—or drove too quickly—which all taxi drivers did. Charlie now had his driving licence, but Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had little confidence in his driving ability and had once stopped him and taken over when they were travelling together to pick up a consignment of parts and he had let Charlie take the wheel of the truck.

“We are not in a hurry,” he said. “Those parts are not going anywhere. And there are no girls to impress.”

The apprentice had sat in the passenger seat, shoulders hunched. He had been silent.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you off,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But that is my job. I have to advise you. That is what an apprentice-master has to do.”