Suddenly the rear lights of Mr. Botumile’s car glowed through the dust and he swung into the driveway of a house. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, reacting quickly, slowed down and then drew in to the side of the road. He would wait a minute or so, he thought, before he drove past the house. This would give Mr. Botumile time to get out of the car, if he was going to get out, or pick up his waiting girlfriend, if that was what he had in mind.

By the time he drove past, Mr. Botumile was out of his car. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni saw him walking up a short path towards the door of the house. He saw the door open, and he saw a woman standing there, waiting. It was not much more than a brief glimpse, but it was etched indelibly in his mind—the man, his lover, the dispirited dust-covered vegetation in the yard of the house, the angle of the gate, which was off its hinge, the stand-pipe at the side of the house. Was this what a clandestine affair looked like?

He went further down the road until he came to a place where he could turn without being seen from the house. Then he drove back slowly, this time with the camera ready on his lap. As he drew level with the house, he slowed down slightly, and, manipulating the camera with one hand while the other hand was on the steering wheel, he took a photograph of the house. Then, his heart beating hard with the sheer excitement of it, he accelerated back in the direction of the Tlokweng Road. He felt confused. It had been an exhilarating experience in one sense, and he had felt the satisfaction of seeing what he had expected to see. But the act of taking the photograph seemed to him to have been an intrusion of a quite different degree from that of following Mr. Botumile. He glanced down at the camera beside him on the seat of the truck; the sight of it, with its prying lens, made him feel dirty. This was not like being a mechanic; this was like being…well, it was like being a spy, an informant, a seeker-out of the tawdry secrets of others.