The road curved round to the right, back in the direction of town. On either side of the road was scrub bush of a neglected and desolate nature, half-heartedly grazed by a small herd of thin cattle, dusty even after the first fall of rain, dotted with stunted acacias and discouraged thorn bushes. The road was now little more than a track, so deeply rutted in the centre that it was safer to drive with the wheels on one side up on the thick verge of sand. A lesser vehicle might quickly be bogged down and sink in this sand, but not Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s truck, with its wide tyres and its low-ratio gears.

The doctor’s gate appeared without warning in the fence. Beyond it, another track, but not a very long one, leading to the house itself, which was set down beside a small stand of eucalyptus trees; a house which must once have been a farmhouse, back in the nineteen-fifties, in Bechuanaland Protectorate days, before Botswana. Along the front of the house ran a verandah, with squat white-painted pillars supporting a sloping tin roof that had been painted deep red. Here and there, where the weather had made its mark, the paint had worn off and the corrugated surface of the tin below was revealed, rusty patches of discolouration. A single telephone wire ran from the roof of the house to a pole by a water tank, and then to another pole, marching off to join other wires near the side of the road. Oddly, inconsequentially, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni muttered, “That carried my voice.” And Motholeli, looking up, said, “What?”

“That telephone wire,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “It carried my voice when I phoned the doctor to make your appointment.”

She frowned. “Yes. And is that him, that man? Is that the doctor?”

He had come out and was watching them from the shade of the verandah, a tall man, his tight greying hair looking almost white against the dark of his skin.

“Where is he from?” asked Motholeli. “Is he a Motswana?”

“He is half Motswana,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Motswana mother, Zambian father. But he has lived here a long time. He is a very clever doctor, I think. He is called Dr. Mwata.”

They parked by the side of the house and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni unloaded the wheelchair from the back. Then he picked up Motholeli and helped her gently into the chair. This is why I am here, he thought; this is why I have come here.

Dr. Mwata had emerged from the verandah and was looking down at Motholeli. “So this is the young lady,” he said.