Tears of the Giraffe

“That is her,” said Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni. “She always slams doors. She has never closed a door quietly in all the years she has worked here. It’s always slam, slam.”
微妙にウチワうけだったので書いてみました。

It would have to be handled tactfully. Mma Ramotswe knew that Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni would be happy to live in Zebra Drive – she was sure of that – but men had their pride and she would have to be careful about how she conveyed the decision. She could hardly say: “Your house is a terrible mess; there are engines and car parts everywhere.” Nor could she say: “I would not like to live that close to an old graveyard.” Rather, she would approach it by saying: “It’s a wonderful house, with lots of room. I don’t mind old engines at all, but I am sure you will agree that Zebra Drive is very convenient for the centre of town.” That would be the way to do it.
とありますが、これはモダナイズされた女傑ラモツエさんだからこそ、というような感じですね。後述にMatekoniさんがある女性にゼブラドライブに住むことになったということを説明するときに、最後の「街に近い」というのを付け加えるので、これはかなり良かった判断だということなのでしょう。強いオンナだからこそこういうのを忘れないというのがすてきですよね。男の人もわりとそう思うだろうなーと思います。ああ、でも日本人男性は、ちょっとラモツエさんの体重にはいくらなんでもちょっと遠慮しちゃうかな。アフリカンビューティーですけどね（でも現代はやっぱりヤセているほうがよくなってきているらしい）。

Nowadays, of course, there were plenty of people who appeared to be turning away from that morality. She saw it in the behaviour of schoolchildren, who strutted about and pushed their way around with scant respect for older people. When she was at school, children respected adults and lowered their eyes when they spoke to them, but now children looked straight at you and answered back. She had recently told a young boy – barely thirteen, she thought – to pick up and empty can that he had tossed on the ground in the mall the other day. He had looked at her in amazement, and had then laughed and told her that she could pick it up if she liked as he had no intention of doing so. She had been so astonished by his cheek that she had been unable to think of a suitable riposte, and he had sauntered away, leaving her speechless. When she was young, a woman would have picked up a boy like that and spanked him on the spot. But today you couldn’t spank other people’s children in the street; if you tried to do so there would be an enormous fuss. She was a modern lady, of course, and did not approve of spanking, but sometimes one had to wonder. Would that boy have dropped the can in the first place if knew that somebody might spank him? Probably not.
まあこれはお説教ぽいので引用だけですけどね。今回結構私の中で、ええ〜と違和感を覚える部分がありましたね。Matekoniさんが持ってかえってきたアレについて相談しなかったことと、あとダイアモンドのとこ。そうなの〜？という感じでした。もっとサラっとした感じでお説教してほしいですよねぇ。といった感じ。

I came to Africa twelve years ago. I was forty-three and Africa meant nothing to me. I suppose I had the usual ideas about it – a hotchpotch of images of big game and savannah and Kilimanjaro rising out of the cloud. I also thought of famines and civil wars and potbellied, half-naked children staring at the camera, sunk in hopelessness. I know that all that is just one side of it – and not the most important side either – but it was what was in my mind.
これは依頼人のお話なのですが、ステレオティピカルであろう私が想像するのも全く同じようなアフリカだったので、そうそう、と思った部分。

For a few moments after her visitor had finished her story, Mma Ramotswe sat in silence. What could she do for this woman? Could she find anything out if the Botswana Police and the American Embassy had tried and failed? There was probably nothing she could do, and yet this woman needed help and if she could not obtain it from No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency then where would she be able to find it?
“I shall help you,” she said, adding, “my sister.”
なぜ泣けるの？と思う方（はいないでしょうけど）は２９ページから３０ページあたりを読んでいただくと分かると思われます。

“Are you happy here, Motholeli?” she asked. “I am so happy,” said the girl. “And every day of my life is getting happier.”
なんともいえない強い気持ち。

“I want to be a geologist,” he said solemnly. “We have a geologist who stays in our hotel sometimes. He teaches me about rocks.” She smiled encouragingly. “It would be an interesting job, that,” she said. “Rather like being a detective. Looking for things.”
She handed the piece of quartz back to him. As he took it, his eye caught her engagement ring, and for a moment he held her hand, looking at the gold band and its twinkling stone. “Cubic zirconium,” he said. “They make them look like diamonds. Just like the real thing.”
あっはっはっはっは、という感じ。ジオロジストになりたいだなんて、誰かさんみたいだわと思ってにっこりしながら読んでいたのにすごいオチでした。なんだか幸せな笑い。