Mma Ramotswe felt a growing irritation. Mma Makutsi could be very dogmatic, and had been known to defend an indefensible position long after she had been shown to be wrong. These were hand-carvings—they were not the product of some ridiculous machine. No machine could make these curves in wood; no machine could put the eyes in exactly the right place. It was impossible. “You’ve seen a picture of such a machine, Mma?” she asked.

“You do not need to see pictures of things to know about them,” Mma Makutsi answered blandly.

It had been a pointless discussion, and she had replaced the hippo in the drawer. It was not her fault if Mma Makutsi could not appreciate art, and could not tell the difference between handmade and machine-made objects. Yet as she replaced the hippo, she sneaked a look under its belly. Made in China would have settled the argument in favour of Mma Makutsi, but there was no such label, and she was reassured.

Later that day she gave the hippo to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “I have bought you a present,” she said. “I spotted it at that market at Riverwalk.”

He took the hippo in his hands and examined it carefully. “It is very beautiful,” he said. “I am very happy with it. It will be a … a treasure.”

“You’ll see that even the eyes are just right,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Look at how they have made the eyes.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni peered at the hippo. “Very accurate,” he said. “I wonder if they have a machine to help them do that, Mma? Do you think so?”

Now, sitting at her table in the Riverwalk Café, waiting for her meeting with Mma Mateleke, she let her gaze wander over the nearest stall. There were no carved hippos—fortunately—but clothes: shirts, dresses, and aprons. A breeze caught one of the shirts and filled it with air for a few moments, and she watched it moving, writhing, as if it were worn by a ghost, now a sedately dancing ghost, now the ghost of an agitated contortionist.

She was watching the shirt when Mma Mateleke arrived. She was late, she explained, because of a baby who had been unwilling to be born. “Sometimes,” she said, “I think that there are some babies who know something about the world. They say, I don’t think I want to go out there!”

Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Sometimes it is not easy to be born into this world.”

“But would we prefer it to be otherwise?” asked Mma Mateleke, settling herself into her chair.

“No,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We are very lucky to be alive.”

For a moment Mma Mateleke, who had been smiling, hesitated, her smile fading.

Mma Ramotswe noticed. “You don’t feel lucky to be alive just now?”