“I would have told you about this earlier,” she said to her employer. “But I wanted to be sure first that this was going to last. I did not want to come to you and say that I had found the right man for me, and then to have to tell you, one week later, that it was all off. I did not want that.”

As Mma Makutsi spoke, Mma Ramotswe’s sense of foreboding grew. There was much to be said in favour of honesty; she could tell Mma Makutsi right now what the truth of the matter was, and indeed not to do so would be to shelter her from information which she had the right to know. Would she not feel more betrayed, wondered Mma Ramotswe, if she were to find out that she, Mma Ramotswe, had known all along and not warned her that Mr. Selelipeng was married? If one could not get this information from a friend and colleague, then from whom might one expect it? And yet, to tell her now would be so brutal, and it would also preclude the possibility of doing something in the background to ease the pain of discovery-whatever that something might be.

She would just have to think about it further, although she knew that at the end of the day there was inevitably going to be disappointment for Mma Makutsi, who could not be protected forever from the truth about Mr. Bernard Selelipeng. But then, she thought, did she know? She had assumed all along that he would have misled her into thinking that he was single, or divorced, but it might be that Mma Makutsi knew full well that there was a wife and family in the background. Was this likely? If a person was desperate enough, she might well be prepared to take any man who came along, even one who was married. Now that she came to think of it, she knew of many cases where women had been quite prepared to consort with married men in the full knowledge of their matrimonial status, hoping, perhaps, to prise the man away from his wife or even calculating that this would never happen but at least they would have some fun along the way. Men would do the same thing, too, although they seemed less willing to share a woman with another man. But Mma Ramotswe certainly knew of cases where men had conducted affairs with married women, fully aware of the fact that the woman would never leave her husband.

Would Mma Makutsi do this, she wondered. She remembered the awkward conversation she had had with her not all that long ago, when Mma Makutsi had remarked despairingly on the fact that it was no use trying to meet men in bars because they were all married. This suggested that she considered such men to be out of bounds. And yet, faced with such a man, particularly with a charming one with a centre parting and a winning smile; might she not, in such circumstances, decide that even if he was married, this was nonetheless her chance? Time was ticking by for Mma Makutsi; soon younger men would no longer consider her, and then she would be left with only the possibility of an old man. Perhaps she did feel desperate; perhaps she was fully aware of the situation in which Mr. Bernard Selelipeng found himself. But no. No, thought Mma Ramotswe, she was not. She would not have spoken to me with that enthusiasm had she known this was a relationship that could not go any further. She would have been guarded, or resigned, or even sad; she would not have been enthusiastic.

Mma Ramotswe was pleased that she had to put such troubling thoughts to one side, as she had now arrived in Molepolole and had driven the tiny white van over the rutted track that led to the house of her old friend Mma Ntombi Boko, formerly deputy chief teller of the Standard Bank in Gaborone, a position from which she had retired at the age of fifty-four to take up residence in Molepolole and to run there the local branch of the Botswana Rural Women’s Association.

She found Mma Boko at the side of her house, under a canvas awning which she had erected to create an informal shady porch. A small brick oven had been built there, and on the top of this was a large blackened saucepan.

Mma Boko’s greeting was warm. “Precious Ramotswe! Yes, it is you! I can see you, Mma!”

“It is me,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I have come to see you.”

“I am very glad,” said Mma Boko. “I was sitting here stirring this jam and thinking: Where is everybody today? Why has nobody come to talk to me?”

“And then I arrived,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Just in time.” She knew that her friend was gregarious, and that a day without a chance to have a good gossip was a trial for her. Not that the gossip was at all malicious; Mma Boko spoke ill of nobody but was nevertheless extremely interested in what others were doing. Impressed by the orations that she gave at funerals, where people were entitled to stand up and speak of the doings of the deceased, friends had tried to persuade her to stand for the legislature, but she had declined, saying that she liked to talk about interesting things, and that there was never any talk of interesting things in Parliament.

“All they do is talk about money and roads and things like that,” she had said. “Those are important things, and somebody has to talk about them, but let the men do that. We women have more important things to talk about.”

“No, no, Mma!” they said. “That is precisely the wrong attitude. That is what men want us to think. They want us to think that these important things they discuss are not really important to women. But they are! They are very important. And if we let the men talk about them and decide them, then suddenly we wake up and find out that the men have made all the decisions, and these decisions all suit men.”

Mma Boko had considered this carefully. “There is some truth in that,” she had said. “In the bank the decisions were made by men. They did not ask me first.”

“You see!” they said. “You see how it works. They are always doing this, the men. We women must stand up on our legs and talk.”

Mma Ramotswe examined the jam which Mma Boko was making, and took the small spoonful which her friend offered her.

“It is good,” she said. “This is the best jam in Botswana, I think.”

Mma Boko shook her head. “There are ladies here in Molepolole who make much better jam than this. I will bring you some of their jam one day, and you will see.”

“I cannot believe it will be better,” said Mma Ramotswe, licking the spoon clean.

They sat down and talked. Mma Boko told Mma Ramotswe of her grandchildren, of whom she had sixteen. They were all clever, she said, although one of her daughters had married a rather unintelligent man. “He is kind, though,” she said. “Even if he says very stupid things, he is kind.”

Mma Ramotswe told her about Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s illness, and how he had been nursed back to health by Mma Potokwani. She told her about the move to Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors and the sharing of the offices, and of how well he had been handled by Mma Makutsi. She told her about the children; how Motholeli had been bullied and how Puso had been through a difficult patch.

“Boys do go through times like that,” said Mma Boko. “It can last for fifty years.”

Then they talked about Molepolole and about the Botswana Rural Women’s Association and about its plans. Eventually, after these multitudinous subjects had been exhausted, Mma Ramotswe asked Mma Boko the question which had brought her out on the visit.

“There is a girl,” she began, “or was a girl-she is a woman now-called Tebogo Bathopi. About twenty years ago she came to Gaborone from Molepolole to train to be a nurse. I am not sure if she ever managed to finish-I do not think that she did. Something happened to her in Gaborone which somebody now wants to set right. I cannot tell you what that thing was, but I can tell you that the person involved is very serious about righting what he now sees was a wrong. He means it. But he does not know where this girl is. He has no idea. That is why I have come to you. You know everybody. You see everything. I thought you could help me to find out where this woman is, if she is still alive.”