Mma Sebina agreed. “You are right. The grandmothers are the pillars. They are the ones. But most of these children who are brought up by the grandmothers know who they are. They know that their grandmother is their grandmother and that their mother was such-and-such and their father was this man or that man. But I do not know even the brothers and sisters of the kind people who brought me up. I know nothing, Mma. Nothing.” She looked down at the floor; the composure that she had shown earlier on was slipping. Now there was a note to her voice that suggested that not far beneath the surface there was a well of emotion and, beyond that, tears. “I do not have a birth certificate, Mma. I do not even have that.”

Mma Ramotswe raised an eyebrow. “So what do you have on your omang?” All Batswana had an omang, the identity card which established their citizenship. The Setswana word omang meant who? and that was the question which the omang answered.

“My omang says that I was born on the thirtieth of September,” said Mma Sebina. “I used to be proud of that. I used to be proud of the fact that my birthday was the same day as Botswana Day, that I was born on the same day as our country. But now I know that this is just because they did not know when my real birthday was. So you see, Mma, I would like you to find me a birthday. Please find me a birthday, and find me some people.”

There was a silence. Outside, from the branches of the acacia tree under which Mma Ramotswe parked her tiny white van, there came the cooing of the ubiquitous Cape doves. Mma Ramotswe saw them through the window, in the corner of her eye, the two doves, who were lovers; Mma Dove, Rra Dove, as she and Mma Makutsi called them, symbols of faithfulness, and of belonging. Find me a birthday. Find me some people.

“Can you not ask those two good people?” she asked. “Can you not ask the people who were mother and father to you?”

“They are late,” said Mma Sebina. “They are both late.”

“I see.”

“And they never told me themselves. It was only after they became late that I heard. I heard it from the nurse who looked after my mother when she was very ill. She said: ‘Your mother was very sad. She told me that there was something she had wanted to talk to you about, but she had never managed to do so. She thought that you should know.’”

Mma Ramotswe frowned. “Why did she think that, Mma?”

Mma Sebina sighed. “I have asked myself that time and time again. And I do not know the answer. Maybe it is because at the end, at the very end, people want the truth to be known. Maybe it is that.”