Mma Makutsi watched them leave. She was at a complete loss as to what to do. It was difficult to see what could be done to make the bed fit, short of sawing it in two and making a couple of single beds out of it—but what would happen to the heart? Could one rend the heart in two? One could not.

And it was at that point that the idea came to her: she would buy some doughnuts.

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SIX

A CHAIR IN A TREE

IT WAS A CONSIDERABLE RELIEF for Mma Ramotswe when she eventually got out of the office with Mr. Polopetsi and set off in her tiny white van. There had been the embarrassment of being found looking at a photograph of Phuti Radiphuti and smiling—just smiling, she insisted to Mma Makutsi.

“I was not laughing, Mma,” she insisted when she saw the look on her assistant’s face. “This is a very fine photograph. It’s just that the person taking it has made him look so severe, with those folded arms. Like a judge.”

Mma Makutsi had reached out for the photograph and taken it from her. “That is a private photograph, Mma,” she said in an injured tone. “That is why I keep it in my private drawer.”

It was the first time that Mma Ramotswe had heard the term private drawer used to describe the drawers in Mma Makutsi’s desk. And she could not see why her assistant should object so strongly to her looking in there, given that she had often found Mma Makutsi herself rifling through the drawers of her—Mma Ramotswe’s—own desk, and had thought nothing of it. She knew that Mma Makutsi was not looking for anything personal, but was searching out a refill for a pen or a box of paper clips or something of that nature. That’s what the drawers of office desks were for, was it not? And there was nothing personal about pen refills or boxes of paper clips. She was about to point this out to Mma Makutsi, but decided against it: there were times when an apology was best, she thought, even when one really had nothing to apologise for. If only people would say sorry sooner rather than later, Mma Ramotswe believed, much discord and unhappiness could be avoided. But that was not the way people were. So often pride stood in the way of apology, and then, when somebody was ready to say sorry, it was already too late.

“I’m very sorry, Mma Makutsi,” Mma Ramotswe said. “I did not realise that that was your private drawer. I will not look for keys in there again.”

Mma Makutsi looked puzzled. “What keys?” she asked. “There are no keys in those drawers.”