“I had a very unusual dream,” she said to Mma Makutsi as they attended to the morning’s mail in the office.

Mma Makutsi looked up from the envelope that she was in the process of slitting open. “Dreams are always unusual,” she said. “In fact, it is unusual to have a usual dream.”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. She thought that she understood what Mma Makutsi meant but was not quite sure. Her assistant had a habit of making enigmatic remarks, and this, she suspected, was one such remark.

“Phuti,” Mma Makutsi continued, referring to her new husband, Phuti Radiphuti, “Phuti has many dreams, every night. He tells me about them and I explain what they mean.” She paused. “He often dreams about furniture.”

“That is because he has a furniture shop,” Mma Ramotswe said. “So perhaps it is not surprising.”

“That is so, Mma,” agreed Mma Makutsi. “But he can dream about different pieces of furniture.” She paused, fixing Mma Ramotswe on the other side of the room with the cautious look of one about to reveal sensitive information. She lowered her voice. “Some nights he dreams about beds; other nights he dreams about dining-room tables. It is very strange.”

Mma Ramotswe looked down at her desk. She did not like to discuss the intimate side of anybody’s marriage—particularly when the marriage was as recent as Mma Makutsi’s. She thought of new marriages as being rather like those shy, delicate flowers one sees on the edge of the Kalahari; so small that one might miss them altogether, so vulnerable that a careless step might crush their beauty. Of course, people talked about their dreams without too much embarrassment—most dreams, after all, sound inconsequential and silly in the cold light of day—but it was different when a wife talked about a husband’s dreams, or a husband about a wife’s. Dreams occurred in beds, and what occurred in marital beds was not a subject for debate in the office—especially if the dream related to beds, as it appeared that some of Phuti Radiphuti’s dreams did.

But if Mma Ramotswe was reluctant to probe Phuti’s dreams too closely, the same was not true of her assistant. The topic had now been broached, and Mma Makutsi pursued it enthusiastically.

“There is no doubt about a dream about beds,” she continued. “The meaning of that dream is very clear, Mma. It should be very obvious, even to a person who does not know much about dreams, or other things, for that matter.”

Mma Ramotswe said nothing.

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi, “if a person says I have been dreaming about beds, then you know straightaway what the dream means. You can say to them, I know what that dream means. It is very clear.”