Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni leaned forward again. She noticed that the moisture from the rain had penetrated the cap of the pen which he had been carrying in his pocket so that the ink had run into the fabric of his shirt. That would be a difficult stain to remove; she would have to soak the shirt.

“And then he asked me what was wrong with her and I told him. I told him what they had said at the hospital, that there had been…”

He stumbled on the term, as if to utter it brought pain. Transverse myelitis of the spinal cord, leading to paralysis. She had looked at those words on the doctor’s letter so many times; she knew them so well. They were the words in which the sentence had been delivered; the sentence that meant that Motholeli would be in her wheelchair for the rest of her life.

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni repeated the name of the condition slowly, forcing his tongue round the awkward syllables. Then he sat back. “And he said that he had seen cases of that before.”

Mma Ramotswe was non-committal. “I see. He knew about it.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni nodded his head eagerly. “Then he said something very strange, Mma—something very exciting. He said, ‘I have dealt with cases like that. I have dealt with them satisfactorily.’ Those were his exact words. That is what he said.”

She did not move. “Satisfactorily?”

“Yes, satisfactorily. That very word.” He paused, watching the effect of what he was saying. Mma Ramotswe was quite still. “Then he said—remember he is a doctor, Mma—then he said, ‘You bring that child to me and I can get her to walk again.’ That is what he said, Mma Ramotswe. That is what he said. I am not making it up, I promise you. I can get her to walk again. I am telling the truth.”

Of course you are telling the truth, thought Mma Ramotswe. And then she muttered, “Oh,” and then, “Oh,” again, and closed her eyes. She wanted Motholeli to walk again—she would have given anything for that. But they had been told in the clearest terms by the doctors at the Princess Marina Hospital that this would never happen precisely because it could not happen. Dr. Moffat had explained it to them too, when she had raised it while having tea with his wife. He always spoke quietly, so quietly that people had to strain to catch what he was saying, but she had heard every word of what he had said on that occasion. “Once the infection has done its damage to the spinal cord, there is nothing that can be done. It is like a rope that has been cut in two. I’m sorry.”

And she had said, “But can you not tie a rope together again?” She had said, “A rope can be mended.”