As she travelled in to work on the crowded minibus, she noticed a heavily made-up woman in the seat in front of her. The woman had applied such a thick layer of cream to her skin that when the morning sun slanted in through the minibus window, it flashed off her face, as if off a signalling mirror. Miles away, thought Mma Makutsi, miles away up in the hills overlooking the dam, they might spot this flash of light and wonder what message was being sent to whom. No, that was a ridiculous thought, but look at her, Mma Makutsi said to herself, she's every bit as bad as … Violet Sephotho came to mind again, no matter how hard she tried to think about other things. And when the woman in the front turned and smiled at somebody at her side, Mma Makutsi found herself thinking: flirt, just like Violet Sephotho; unable to keep her eyes, and her hands, no doubt, off men. Such women were a danger to the public, and the Government should put up large warning signs like those health notices you saw. These would say: Watch Out for Women Like This! And underneath would be a picture of Violet Sephotho, or somebody looking quite like her.

In normal circumstances, thoughts like these might have helped; an amusing fantasy about a troublesome opponent may defuse the threat that the opponent presents; in normal circumstances … but these were not normal times at all; far from it. These were times of war, even if hostilities had not yet been formally declared. And this realisation induced a sinking feeling in Mma Makutsi, because she realised that Violet Sephotho had a weapon in her armoury that she simply did not have. Glamour.

That was the worst of it—that dreadful conclusion. I am a lady with glasses, thought Mma Makutsi. I need the glasses to see. I am also a lady with a certain skin problem. That is not my fault, and there is not all that much you can do about your skin. We are given a skin at the beginning, and that is our skin. If the skin you have has some blotches, then you have to find a man who does not mind about these things—a man who looks at you, sees your skin, and then goes under the skin to see what lies beneath; to see whether the person inside the skin can cook, or likes to listen to him, or can keep a house and a yard neat and clean, and will be kind to his aged father—even if the aged father makes strange noises when he is eating, and often even when he is not eating. That is what you hope a man will look for under a blotchy skin.

But unfortunately men are weak. They may know that they should look for these finer qualities in a woman, but they do not always do it. They see, instead, the clothes that a woman wears, and they look at her figure and the way she walks, and at the bright things she puts in her hair—beads, silver combs, and the like—and they cannot help it, poor men, they are dazzled, just as a mouse is hypnotised by the swaying of a cobra. And then the cobra strikes and it is all over for the mouse, just as it is for the man. For the mouse, it ends in a quick scuffle of dust and a few convulsive movements; for the man, it ends in the noise and fuss of a wedding, when all the uncles and aunts, especially the aunts, come up to him and surround him and touch and prod him and then he is finished and that is the end of the man.