God himself had thought: I shall invent a country that is just right for Mma Ramotswe when she comes along, and I shall call it Botswana, and it will be a good place.
And as she stepped out of the van and closed its door behind her, she looked up and drank in the air and the blue and the emptiness that was the sky; a draught more satisfying than the sweetest water; and filled, at that moment, with the song of some bird that she did not know the name of, but that she had heard oh so many times, as a girl, as a young woman, as the person she now was. That bird continued to sing that same song, learned from its mother and father, to be passed on to the next generation of birds, small creatures even now sheltering in a hidden nest somewhere, ready for their moment of launch and the beginning of the dance about the skies of Botswana that would be their brief life. And she thought: Oh, I am so fortunate to be here in this land, to be standing under this sky, ready to see my old friend Mma Potokwane, and to drink tea with her and to talk about the things that we always talk about.
Unknown to Mma Ramotswe, that same old friend was looking out of her window, having heard the sound of the approaching van. She had watched Mma Ramotswe’s manoeuvres under the habitual tree, and she had remembered how that morning she had told the farm manager, who looked after the vegetable patches and the fields, to move the tractor that he had parked under the shade of that particular acacia. She had explained that Mma Ramotswe would be arriving before too long and that it was important that her parking place be kept free, because she would expect it. The farm manager had readily agreed; the tractor would be moved. “The tractor can go anywhere; it is only a tractor,” he had said. “Mma Ramotswe is a very good woman, and she is also the cousin of my brother’s wife’s sister.”
Mma Potokwane watched as Mma Ramotswe made her way towards her office. Why had she suddenly stopped, as if she had forgotten something and had now remembered it? Why was she standing there, looking up at the sky? Of course, she did just that, she remembered; Mma Ramotswe would often stop and look at the sky; and this just went to show how wise she was, because looking at the sky was something that we all should do more often. Or so Mma Potokwane had read somewhere. People who looked at the sky, she had learned, are less likely to die than those who do not look at the sky. That was interesting and must have something to do with inner calmness and the way in which that calmness protects you from things that afflict those who are not calm—nervous conditions of one sort or another, and other illnesses too. Nerves were involved with everything, Mma Potokwane believed.
The water for the tea was already boiling when she welcomed her visitor into her office.
“It is still hot outside,” said Mma Potokwane, as Mma Ramotswe sank into the chair in which she always sat.
“The heat will bring the rain,” said Mma Ramotswe. “That is what I am hoping, Mma Potokwane.”
“We are all hoping that, Mma.”
Tea was served and the cake was wordlessly taken from its tin, given admiring looks by Mma Ramotswe, and served on Mma Potokwane’s best plates, used only on occasions such as this—the visit of particular friends or members of the Orphan Farm Board of Management; or of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, for that matter, when he called in after performing some helpful task of machinery management, coaxing life out of a water pump that had lost the will to go on, or servicing one of the farm vehicles or the ancient minibus—too ancient, he said—that was used to transport the children. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s ultimate reward for such acts of kindness, Mma Potokwane wryly observed, might be in heaven, but on this earth, in the here and now, it would take the form of an excessively generous slice of fruit cake. He would eat it with relish, and would demur, but only briefly, when a second slice was pressed upon him, and even a third. “My wife would not approve,” he would say, through a mouthful of cake. “She says I must have only