double comfort safari club, th

《double comfort safari club, th》是2011年11月Random House US出版的圖書，作者是Alexander McCall Smith。

基本介紹

• 中文名：double comfort safari club, th
• 作者：Alexander McCall Smith
• 出版社：Random House US
• ISBN：9780307277480 

內容簡介

Readers will agree that this touching and dramatic newinstallment in Alexander McCall Smith’s beloved and best-sellingseries is the finest yet. In this story, Precious Ramotswe dealswith issues of mistaken identity and great fortune against thebeautiful backdrop of Botswana’s remote and striking OkavangoDelta.

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi head to a safari camp to carry out adelicate mission on behalf of a former guest who has left one ofthe guides a large sum of money. But once they find their man,Precious begins to sense that something is not right. To makematters worse, shortly before their departure Mma Makutsi’s fiancé,Phuti Radiphuti, suffers a debilitating accident, and when his auntmoves in to take care of him, she also pushes Mma Makutsi out ofthe picture. Could she be trying to break up the relationship?Finally, a local priest and his wife independently approach MmaRamotswe with concerns of infidelity, creating a rather unusual andtricky situation. Nevertheless, Precious is confident that with alittle patience, kindness and good sense things will work out forthe best, something that will delight her many fans.

From the Hardcover edition.

圖書目錄

Chapter OneYOU DO NOT CHANGE PEOPLEBY SHOUTING AT THEM

No car, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, that great mechanic, and goodman. No car . . .

He paused. It was necessary, he felt, to order the mind when onewas about to think something profound. And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni wasat that moment on the verge of an exceptionally important thought,even though its final shape had yet to reveal itself. How mucheasier it was for Mma Ramotswe—she put things so well, sosuccinctly, so profoundly, and appeared to do this with such littleeffort. It was very different if one was a mechanic, and thereforenot used to telling people—in the nicest possible way, ofcourse—how to run their lives. Then one had to think quite hard tofind just the right words that would make people sit up and say,“But that is very true, Rra!” Or, especially if you were MmaRamotswe, “But surely that is well known!”

He had very few criticisms to make of Precious Ramotswe, his wifeand founder of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, but if one wereto make a list of her faults—which would be a minuscule document,barely visible, indeed, to the naked eye—one would perhaps have toinclude a tendency (only a slight tendency, of course) to claimthat things that she happened to believe were well known. Thisphrase gave these beliefs a sort of unassailable authority, thestatus that went with facts that all right-thinking people wouldreadily acknowledge—such as the fact that the sun rose in the east,over the undulating canopy of acacia that stretched alongBotswana’s border, over the waters of the great Limpopo Riveritself that now, at the height of the rainy season, flowed deep andfast towards the ocean half a continent away. Or the fact thatSeretse Khama had been the first President of Botswana; or even thetruism that Botswana was one of the finest and most peacefulcountries in the world. All of these facts were indeed bothincontestable and well known; whereas Mma Ramotswe’spronouncements, to which she attributed the special status of beingwell known, were often, rather, statements of opinion. There was adifference, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, but it was not one he wasplanning to point out; there were some things, after all, that itwas not helpful for a husband to say to his wife and that,he thought, was probably one of them.

Now, his thoughts having been properly marshalled, the right wordscame to him in a neat, economical expression: No car is entirelyperfect. That was what he wanted to say, and these words wereall that was needed to say it. So he said it once more. No caris entirely perfect.

In his experience, which was considerable—as the proprietor ofTlokweng Road Speedy Motors and attending physician, therefore, toa whole fleet of middle-ranking cars—every vehicle had its badpoints, its foibles, its rattles, its complaints; and this, hethought, was the language of machinery, those idiosyncratic enginesounds by which a car would strive to communicate with those withears to listen, usually mechanics. Every car had its good pointstoo: a comfortable driving seat, perhaps, moulded over the years tothe shape of the car’s owner, or an engine that started the firsttime without hesitation or complaint, even on the coldest wintermorning, when the air above Botswana was dry and crisp and sharp inthe lungs. Each car, then, was an individual, and if only he couldget his apprentices to grasp that fact, their work might be alittle bit more reliable and less prone to require redoing by him.Push, shove, twist: these were no mantras for a goodmechanic. Listen, coax, soothe: that should be the mottoinscribed above the entrance to every garage; that, or the wordswhich he had once seen printed on the advertisement for a garage inFrancistown: Your car is ours.

That slogan, persuasive though it might have sounded, had given himpause. It was a little ambiguous, he decided: on the one hand, itmight be taken to suggest that the garage was in the business oftaking people’s cars away from them—an unfortunate choice of wordsif read that way. On the other, it could mean that the garage stafftreated clients’ cars with the same care that they treated theirown. That, he thought, is what they meant, and it would have beenpreferable if they had said it. It is always better to say whatyou mean—it was his wife, Mma Ramotswe, who said that, and hehad always assumed that she meant it.

No, he mused: there is no such thing as a perfect car, and if everycar had its good and bad points, it was the same with people. Justas every person had his or her little ways—habits that niggled orirritated others, annoying mannerisms, vices and failings, momentsof selfishness—so too did they have their good points: a winningsmile, an infectious sense of humour, the ability to cook afavourite dish just the way you wanted it.

That was the way the world was; it was composed of a few almostperfect people (ourselves); then there were a good many people whogenerally did their best but were not all that perfect (our friendsand colleagues); and finally, there were a few rather nasty ones(our enemies and opponents). Most people fell into that middlegroup—those who did their best—and the last group was, thankfully,very small and not much in evidence in places like Botswana, wherehe was fortunate enough to live.

These reflections came to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni while he was drivinghis tow-truck down the Lobatse Road. He was on what Mma Ramotswedescribed as one of his errands of mercy. In this case he wassetting out to rescue the car of one Mma Constance Mateleke, asenior and highly regarded midwife and, as it happened, along-standing friend of Mma Ramotswe. She had called him from theroadside. “Quite dead,” said Mma Mateleke through the faint,crackling line of her mobile phone. “Stopped. Plenty of petrol.Just stopped like that, Mr. Matekoni. Dead.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled to himself. “No car dies for ever,” heconsoled her. “When a car seems to die, it is sometimes justsleeping. Like Lazarus, you know.” He was not quite sure of theanalogy. As a boy he had heard the story of Lazarus at SundaySchool in Molepolole, but his recollection was now hazy. It wasmany years ago, and the stories of that time, the real, themade-up, the long-winded tales of the old people—all of these had atendency to get mixed up and become one. There were seven lean cowsin somebody’s dream, or was it five lean cows and seven fatones?

“So you are calling yourself Jesus Christ now, are you, Mr.Matekoni? No more Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, is it? Jesus ChristMotors now?” retorted Mma Mateleke. “You say that you can raisecars from the dead. Is that what you’re saying?”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni chuckled. “Certainly not. No, I am just amechanic, but I know how to wake cars up. That is not a specialthing. Any mechanic can wake a car.” Not apprentices, though, hethought.

“We’ll see,” she said. “I have great faith in you, Mr. Matekoni,but this car seems very sick now. And time is running away. Perhapswe should stop talking on the phone and you should be getting intoyour truck to come and help me.”

So it was that he came to be travelling down the Lobatse Road, on apleasantly fresh morning, allowing his thoughts to wander on thebroad subject of perfection and flaws. On either side of the roadthe country rolled out in a grey-green carpet of thorn bush,stretching off into the distance, to where the rocky outcrops ofthe hills marked the end of the land and the beginning of the sky.The rains had brought thick new grass sprouting up between thetrees; this was good, as the cattle would soon become fat on theabundant sweet forage it provided. And it was good for Botswanatoo, as fat cattle meant fat people—not too fat, of course, butwell-fed and prosperous-looking; people who were happy to be whothey were and where they were.

Yes, thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, even if no country was absolutelyperfect, Botswana, surely, came as close as one could get. Heclosed his eyes in contentment, and then quickly remembered that hewas driving, and opened them again. A car behind him—not a car thathe recognised—had driven to within a few feet of the rear of histow-truck, and was aggressively looking for an opportunity to pass.The problem, though, was that the Lobatse Road was busy withtraffic coming the other way, and there was a vehicle in front ofMr. J.L.B. Matekoni that was in no hurry to get anywhere; it was adriver like Mma Potokwane, he imagined, who ambled along andfrequently knocked the gear-stick out of gear as she waved her handto emphasise some point she was making to a passenger. Yet MmaPotokwane, and this slow driver ahead of him, he reminded himself,had a right to take things gently if they wished. Lobatse would notgo away, and whether one reached it at eleven in the morning orhalf past eleven would surely matter very little.

He looked in his rear-view mirror. He could not make out the faceof the driver, who was sitting well back in his seat, and he couldnot therefore engage in eye contact with him. He should calm down,thought Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, rather than . . . His line of thoughtwas interrupted by the sudden swerving of the other vehicle as itpulled over sharply to the left. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, well versedas he was in the ways of every sort of driver, gripped his steeringwheel hard and muttered under his breath. What was being attemptedwas that most dangerous of manoeuvres—overtaking on the wrongside.

He steered a steady course, carefully applying his brakes so as toallow the other driver ample opportunity to effect his passing asquickly as possible. Not that he deserved the consideration,of...

作者簡介

Alexander McCall Smith is also the author of the Isabel Dalhousie series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series, and the 44 Scotland Street series. He is professor emeritus of medical law at the University of Edinburgh and has served on many national and international bodies concerned with bioethics. He was born in what is now known as Zimbabwe and taught law at the University of Botswana. He lives in Scotland. Visit his website at www.alexandermccallsmith.com.

From the Hardcover edition.