“Not only have I seen your name there,” said Mma Ramotswe, “but I have also seen your photograph, Rra. Last week I saw you handing over a big cheque to the nurses' charity. That was very kind of you.”

“They are good people,” said Mr. Molofololo. “And I admire the nursing profession. If I had been born a woman, Mma— which I am happy to say I was not—then I would have been a nurse, I think.”

Mma Ramotswe glanced at Mma Makutsi, whose eyes flashed at this. She inclined her head slightly, a sign that she hoped would be understood by Mma Makutsi, a sign that said, I shall handle this.

“You might have been quite happy to be born a woman, Rra,” she said politely.

Mr. Molofololo's answer came quickly. “No, I would not. I would have been very sad.”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “I think that most people are happy with what they are. Men are happy to be born men, and women are happy to be born women. It is not better to be the one or the other, although I must say that I am very relieved indeed that I was not born a man.”

Mr. Molofololo opened his mouth to say something, but Mma Ramotswe continued quickly, “And as for being a nurse, well, Rra, there are many other things that a woman can be these days. Everything, in fact. Would you not like to have been a doctor if you had been born a woman? Or a pilot with Air Botswana—how about that?”

Mr. Molofololo was silent for a moment. Then, “You're quite right, Mma. My daughter is always saying to me, Daddy, you must remember that the world is not just there for you. It is there for minorities too. No, you are right, Mma, we must remember the rights of women.”

“Who are not in a minority,” said Mma Makutsi from behind her desk. “In fact, there are more women than there are men because men die earlier than women. They die earlier because they drink too much and sit about. So we are the majority, Rra.”

Mr. Molofololo cast his eyes up towards the ceiling. “Not in the world of football, Mma,” he said. “And that is what I have come to see Mma Ramotswe about.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled at him apologetically. “Mma Makutsi is an assistant detective, Rra. She is very good at investigating a wide range of matters. And she is the fiancée of Phuti Radiphuti. You will probably know the father of that man …”

Her remarks had the desired effect. Mr. Molofololo half turned in his seat and gave Mma Makutsi a nod. “I'm very happy to meet you, Mma. I did not know that it was you. Mr. Radiphuti—the older one—is a friend of many years.”

“That is very good,” said Mma Ramotswe. And it was; Mma Ramotswe liked people to know one another, and if the bond between them went back over more than one generation, then all the better. That was how it had always been in Botswana, where the links between people, those profound connections of blood and lineage, spread criss-cross over the human landscape, binding one to another in reliance, trust, and sheer familiarity. At one time there had been no strangers in Botswana; everybody fitted in somehow, even if tenuously and on the margins. Now there were strangers, and the bonds had been weakened by drift to the towns and by other things too: by the conduct that had sired the wave of children who had no idea who their father, or their father's people, might be; by the cruel ravages of the disease that made orphans in a country where the very concept of an orphan had been barely known, as there had always been aunts and grandmothers aplenty to fill the breach. Yes, all that had changed, but in spite of it, the old bonds survived, as she saw now in Mr. Molofololo's recognition of the fact that Mma Makutsi was not just a secretary given to irritating interjections, but a person with a place.