Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni reached out and took the photograph. He peered at it. The woman looked like Mma Ramotswe, it was true; but on closer examination, of course it was not her. Of course not. The eyes were different; just different. He put down the photograph. He had been blind. Jealousy, or was it fear, had made him blind.

“You were worried,” she said. “Oh, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, I can understand now. You were worried!”

“Only a little bit,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “But now I am not.”

Mma Ramotswe looked at the photograph again. “It’s interesting, isn’t it,” she said. “It’s interesting how we can look at things and think we see something, when it really isn’t there at all.”

“Our eyes deceive us,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He was feeling waves of relief, like that relief which follows a flood in a dry land after rains, sudden, complete, overwhelming; he felt that, but could not find the words for his emotions, and so he said again, “Our eyes deceive us.”

“But our hearts do not,” said Mma Ramotswe.

A silence followed this remark. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni thought, simply, Yes. But Mma Ramotswe thought: Is that really so, or does it merely sound right?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE PROPER PLACE OF MERCY

IT SEEMED TO MMA RAMOTSWE that a rather unusual, and unsettling, period had come to an end. If one believed those columns in magazines about the stars—and she had never understood how people could imagine that the stars had anything to do with our tiny, distant lives—then some heavenly bodies somewhere must have moved into a more favourable alignment. Perhaps the good planets had drifted from their normal position—which was directly above Botswana, and particularly above Zebra Drive, Gaborone, Botswana—and had now made their way back. For everything seemed to be in the process of satisfactory resolution. Mma Makutsi no longer spoke of resignation and seemed quite content with her new, vaguely defined post of associate detective; Charlie was back in the fold, the unfortunate No. 1 Ladies’ Taxi Service no longer in existence, and, as a matter of tact, no longer mentioned, even by Mma Makutsi; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni seemed to have lost interest in conducting enquiries and had had his ridiculous anxieties laid to rest. Everything, in fact, seemed to have settled down; which was exactly the way Mma Ramotswe liked it to be. The world was full of uncertainty, and if the life of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency and Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors, together with the lives of those associated with those two concerns, were all on an even keel, then at least some of that uncertainty was held at bay.