Mma Makutsi nodded. “I had a teacher once who was like that. I was a little girl then and there was a teacher at the school who was very strict. He had a stick and he used to beat the boys—he did not beat the girls, but we were very frightened, Mma. We thought he might beat us too one day, but he didn’t have time to do that. He was too busy beating the boys.”

Mma Ramotswe shook her head. “There used to be far too much beating…In fact, Mma, any beating is too much. There should be no beating at all.”

“But that is not the way the world is,” said Mma Makutsi. “There is still beating going on. There are still people who beat others because they think it’s the right thing to do.”

She was still thinking about the teacher. “You know, Mma Ramotswe,” she continued, “when I came down to Gaborone, I still sometimes remembered how frightened we had been. I thought of that teacher with his stick. And then, when I went up to Bobonong one time, I saw him in the street outside the general store and I wanted to go up to him and say, ‘Where is your big stick now, you big bully?’ That’s what I wanted to do. And I also thought: Wouldn’t it be good to have a big stick and to beat him?”

“Did you go up to him?”

Mma Makutsi nodded. “Yes, I walked up to him and said that I was pleased to see him and I hoped he was well.”

“While all the time you wanted to beat him with a big stick?”

“Yes, Mma.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I think that was better, you know. I think it’s better not to beat people with big sticks, even if they deserve it.”

Mma Makutsi looked rueful. “I sometimes still think about getting a stick and going back up there to beat him.”

“But you never will, you know, Mma Makutsi.”

“Probably not.”

Mma Makutsi was still puzzled over Susan’s motivation. “I can’t quite understand it, Mma. It’s one thing for me to go up to Bobonong, but for that lady to come all the way from Canada…”

“Oh, that will not be the only reason,” said Mma Ramotswe. “I think that Mma Susan has done this because she’s unhappy about something else. She’s unhappy about that man she loved and who doesn’t love her any longer. She is very unhappy about that. And she may be unhappy about her childhood in general—about all sorts of things—and she may not have many people to blame; except for one or two, of course. And so she wants to say something to these people.”

“So she thinks she can make everything better by meeting somebody who was cruel to her?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“That seems very odd, Mma.”