Mma Makutsi smiled at the receptionist and followed Teenie through the door into the works. The other woman was so small that even though Mma Makutsi was herself only of average height, she found herself looking down at the top of Teenie’s head; at a small woollen bobble, in fact, which topped a curious tea-cosy style knitted cap which she was wearing. She looked more closely at it, wondering if she could make out an opening through which a tea-pot spout might project; she could not see an opening, but there was a very similar tea-cosy in the office, she remembered, and perhaps she or Mma Ramotswe might wear it on really cold days. She imagined how Mma Ramotswe would look in a tea-cosy and decided that she would probably look rather good; it might add to her authority, perhaps, in some indefinable way.

On the other side of the door was a short corridor. The smell she had picked up when she first came into the building was stronger now, and there was noise too, the obedient clatter of a machine performing some repetitive task. From the background somewhere, there came strains of radio music.

“Our new machine is on,” said Teenie proudly. “That is it making that noise. Listen. That is our new German machine printing a brochure. They make very good machines, the Germans, you know, Mma.”

Mma Makutsi agreed. “Yes,” she said. “They do. They are…” She was not sure how to continue. She had been about to pass a further comment on the Germans, but realised that she actually knew very little about them. The Chinese one saw a lot of, and they seemed quiet and industrious too, but one did not see many Germans. In fact, she had seen none.

Teenie turned and looked up at her. The expectant, plaintive look was there; as if there was something important that Mma Makutsi might say about the Germans and which she desperately wanted to hear.

“I would like to go to Germany,” said Mma Makutsi lamely.

“Yes,” said Teenie. “I would like to visit other countries. I would like to go to London some day. But I do not think I shall ever get out of Botswana. This business keeps me tied up. It is like a chain around my ankle sometimes. You cannot go anywhere if you have a chain around your ankle.”

“No,” said Mma Makutsi, raising her voice now to compete with the sound of the German printing machine.