THAT WAS FRIDAY. On Saturday Mma Ramotswe went with Motholeli and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to watch Puso playing soccer for his school team against a nearby school. It was a rout for Puso’s team, with bruised knees and tears afterwards, and a man-to-man talk from Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni on the need to be a good loser. An ice cream repaired the psychological damage and a sticking plaster the physical; then there was shopping to be done and the evening meal to prepare. None of this activity allowed much time for thought, although occasionally Mma Ramotswe found herself wondering about Susan and whether she should trust the strong instinct she had developed that something was wrong there. On Sunday there was little time for brooding about work either: there was the morning service at the Anglican Cathedral opposite the Princess Marina Hospital, followed by a parish breakfast at which it was Mma Ramotswe’s turn to be one of the cooks. She dozed off at one point in the sermon, but felt that she was by no means alone in this, as when she looked about her—as one does after an unscheduled public sleep—she noticed at least three others whose heads were nodding. It was the warmth of the day, of course, rather than what the Bishop was saying. He was talking about forgiveness, which was a subject on which Mma Ramotswe had views. She was in favour of it, and when the Bishop talked about the teaching of forgiveness to children—she was fully awake at that point—she felt as if she might rise to her feet and voice her agreement. That had happened once when a visiting clergyman had been talking about charity; his words had been punctuated at intervals by increasingly loud “hear! hear!”s from a member of the congregation seated in the back row. Seemingly indifferent to the looks of disapproval from neighbouring pews, this person had continued his voluble support for the preacher until, at the end of the sermon, he had announced loudly: “I couldn’t have put it better myself!” That had led to laughter, and laughter had defused the tension that had built up until then.

But now, as the Bishop spoke, she restricted herself to just the merest nodding of the head in agreement. “Somebody asked me the other day,” he said, “when we should start teaching children about forgiveness. That is the question she asked.”

Mma Ramotswe looked up at the ceiling, so high above her in this new cathedral, and at the electric fans suspended from the ceiling, stirring the air so ineffectively with their sluggish blades.