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The view in this direction was more pleasing: across the backyard of the garage, one could see a cluster of acacia trees sticking up out of the dry thorn scrub and, beyond that, like islands rising from a grey-green sea, the isolated hills over towards Odi. It was mid-morning and the air was still. By midday there would be a heat haze that would make the hills seem to dance and shimmer. He would go home for his lunch then as it would be too hot to work. He would sit in his kitchen, which was the coolest room of the house, eat the maizemeal and stew which his maid prepared for him, and read the
Botswana Daily News
. After that, he inevitably took a short nap before he returned to the garage and the afternoon’s work.
    The apprentices ate their lunch at the garage, sitting on a couple of upturned oil drums that they had placed under one of the acacia trees. From this vantage point they watched the girls walk past and exchanged the low banter which seemed to give them such pleasure. Mr J.L.B. Matekoni had heard their conversation and had a poor opinion of it.
    “You’re a pretty girl! Have you got a car? I could fix your car for you. I could make you go much faster!”
    This brought giggles and a quickening step from the two young typists from the Water Affairs office.
    “You’re too thin! You’re not eating enough meat! A girl like you needs more meat so that she can have lots of children!”
    “Where did you get those shoes from? Are those Mercedes- Benz shoes? Fast shoes for fast girls!”
    Really! thought Mr J.L.B. Matekoni. He had never behaved like that when he was their age. He had served his apprenticeship in the diesel workshops of the Botswana Bus Company and that sort of conduct would never have been tolerated. But this was the way young men behaved these days and there was nothing he could do about it. He had spoken to them about it, pointing out that the reputation of the garage depended on them just as it did on him. They had looked at him blankly, and he had realised then that they simply did not understand. They had not been taught what it was to have a reputation; the concept was completely beyond them. This realization had depressed him, and he had thought of writing to the Minister of Education about it and suggesting that the youth of Botswana be instructed in these basic moral ideas, but the letter, once composed, had sounded so pompous that he had decided not to send it. That was the difficulty, he realised. If you made any point about behaviour these days, you sounded old-fashioned and pompous. The only way to sound modern, it appeared, was to say that people could do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and no matter what anybody else might think. That was the modern way of thinking.
     
    MR J.L.B. Matekoni transferred his gaze to his desk and to the open page of his diary. He had noted down that today was his day to go to the orphan farm; if he left immediately he could do that before lunch and be back in time to check up on his apprentices’ work before the owners came to collect their cars at four o’clock. There was nothing wrong with either car; all that they required was their regular service and that was well within the range of the apprentices’ ability. He had to watch them, though; they liked to tweak engines in such a way that they ran at maximum capacity, and he would often have to tune the engines down before they left the garage.
    “We are not meant to be making racing cars,” he reminded them. “The people who drive these cars are not speedy types like you. They are respectable citizens.”
    “Then why are we called Speedy Motors?” asked one of the apprentices.
    Mr J.LB. Matekoni had looked at his apprentice. There were times that he wanted to shout at him, and this perhaps was one, but he always controlled his temper.
    “We are called Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors,” he replied patiently, “because our
work
is speedy. Do you understand the distinction? We do not keep