She pointed to her friend, a thin woman with a camera around her neck. Such thin arms, thought Mma Ramotswe, with pity; like the arms of a praying mantis, like sticks.

Mma Ramotswe did not mind, and gestured to the woman to stand beside her while the other woman took her camera from its case.

“You can stand here with me, Mma,” she said to the woman.

The woman joined her, standing close to her. Mma Ramotswe felt her arm against hers, flesh against flesh, warm and dry as the touch of human flesh so often and so surprisingly is. She had sometimes thought that this is what snakes said about people: And, do you know, when you actually touch these creatures they aren’t slimy and slippery, but warm and dry?

She moved, so that they were now standing arm in arm: two ladies, she thought, a brown lady from Botswana and a white lady from somewhere far away, America perhaps, somewhere like that, some place of neatly cut lawns and air conditioning and shining buildings, some place where people wanted to love others if only given the chance.

The photograph was taken, and the thin woman with the camera asked if she might hand over the camera and in turn stand beside Mma Ramotswe, to which Mma Ramotswe readily agreed. And so they stood together, and Mma Ramotswe took her arm too, but was afraid that she might break it, so fragile it seemed. This woman was wearing a heavy scent, which Mma Ramotswe found pleasant, and she wondered whether she might one day be able to wear such a perfume and leave a trail of exotic flowers behind her, as this thin woman must.

They said goodbye to one another. Mma Ramotswe noticed that the first woman was fumbling with the camera as she gave it back to her friend. But she managed to get it back into its case, and as Mma Ramotswe walked away, this woman followed her and took her aside.

“That was very kind of you, Mma,” she said. “We are from America, you see. We have come to your country to see it, to see animals. It is a very beautiful country.”

“Thank you,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I am glad that …”

The foreign woman reached out and took her hand. Again there was this feeling of dryness. “My friend is very ill,” she said, her voice lowered. “You may not have noticed it, but she is not well.”

Mma Ramotswe cast a glance in the direction of the thin woman, who was busying herself with the pouring of orange juice from a jug on their table. She noticed that even the lifting of the jug seemed an effort.