“I’m so sorry, Mma,” said Charlie. “I don’t think the rain has done the bed any good. Was it an old one?”

Mma Makutsi stared at the bed that had been her pride and joy. “It was brand-new,” she said, her voice faltering with emotion. “It had never been slept in. Not once.”

Charlie poked at the surface of the velvet heart-shaped headboard. He did not exert much pressure, but the waterlogged cloth gave way under his finger, exposing sodden padding material behind. He picked at this, twisted it between his fingers, and then dropped it. “What is this red bit, Mma? Or should I say, what was it?”

“A heart,” muttered Mma Makutsi. “The headboard was a heart.”

“Why?” asked Charlie. “Why have a heart?”

Mma Makutsi did not answer. She had moved round to examine the side of the bed. The rain, she saw, had penetrated everywhere and there was a steady dripping of water from the lower edge of the mattress. She hardly dared raise her eyes to the velvet heart, but she did so now and saw that the water dripping from that part of the ruined bed was dyed red, as if it were blood. And she said to Charlie, in her sorrow, “Look, the heart is bleeding,” and he reached out and touched her lightly on the shoulder. It was an uncharacteristically sympathetic gesture from the young man, who was normally all jokes and showing-off, but who now, in the face of this little tragedy, proved himself capable of understanding, and did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER EIGHT

AS IF THE WORLD ITSELF WAS BROKEN

WHEN MMA RAMOTSWE arrived back at the office, having dropped Mr. Polopetsi off at his home, there was no sign of Mma Makutsi. The office door was unlocked, and the younger apprentice said that Mma Makutsi and Charlie had dashed off together to deal with something that had been left out in the rain. They had not said when they would be back.

“And Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?” asked Mma Ramotswe. “Has he been washed away too?”

The apprentice thought this very funny. “He went off in his truck. He said that there was a car, an important car, that would not start because of the rain, and he went to fix it. There are some cars that do not like all this rain, Mma. You see, the water can get in the distributor—you know what a distributor is, do you, Mma? It is the part that sends the electricity to the—”

“Yes, yes,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Women know about distributors these days. But why has everybody gone off like this? What if a client were to come here?”

The apprentice shook his head. “There have been no clients, Mma. I have not seen any, and I have been here all the time except when I went off to the shops for some meat.”