cinder-block building and tin roof that popped and muttered with the changing sun and clouds. A week after they began school, Alice got a call from the school nurse. “The children have lice,” she said.
“Oh,” said Alice, her voice noncommittal.
“You must come now, madam.”
“Can I pick them up at the end of the day?” She was preparing for a pan-African conference on indigenous populations, to be held in Gaborone the following week. Twenty-seven representatives from thirteen Commonwealth African countries would be attending.
“No, mma, you must come immediately. Otherwise, the lice will jump onto the heads of other children.”
She grabbed a bunch of papers, stuffed them into her bag, and left the office. She found White Dog sitting under her favorite tree outside the school. Alice called her, picked up the children, and drove to the pharmacy, where Ari Schwartz stood behind the counter. He was a Canadian who’d come out to Botswana after his wife died. He had no children and no other family and had wanted to do something useful with his life. He studied Setswana every night at home; there were few words he didn’t know, but because he was tone deaf and Setswana was a tonal language, nothing prevented him from saying kubu, the word for hippopotamus, when he meant khubu, the word for belly button.
“Yes, Alice, what can I do for you?”
“The children have been sent home from school.”
“Let me guess. Lice?” He leaned over the counter and looked over the tops of his glasses at Moses and Lulu. His eyes were bright, and he had big pendulous ears and a rich tenor voice.
He tried Setswana. “Lice, is it?”
Moses grinned as though he’d won a prize.
“Is your head itching, eh? Back of your neck, around your ears?”
Lulu spread out her palms and held them over her hair as though containing the lice.
“This will take care of those little buggers.” He passed a glass bottle filled with a vile-looking brown liquid over the counter to Alice. “Every other day for a week, shampoo their heads. And you’ll need to comb out the nits with this.” He held up a metal comb. “Plastic works for European hair, but not their hair …
“Your servant’s children?” he asked confidentially.
“No,” said Alice. She didn’t know what to call them. “I’m looking after them.”
They got back in the truck, and Alice’s scalp began to itch. It itched all the way home, just where Ari had suggested: at the back of her neck, around her ears.
“Into the bathtub,” she said to the children, helping them out of the truck.
Itumeleng was washing clothes in the tub, her daughter sitting on the floor next to her, playing with clothespins. She looked up from her sloshing. “Why are you here, mma?”
“Lice,” said Alice.
“What is this lice?”
“Little bugs in the hair.” Alice scratched her head.
Itumeleng picked up her daughter, and ran to the servant’s quarters.
“For Christ’s sake,” muttered Alice. “It’s not bubonic plague.” She scooped the wet clothes out of the tub into a large bucket and filled the tub with warm water. She slammed down the toilet seat and sat on it. “Get in,” she said to Lulu and Moses.
They shed their clothes. Moses banged his knee on the lip of the tub as he climbed in. “Ha!” he said, sitting down. Lulu joined him. Her ribs jutted out against her skin. She folded her arms over her brown chest.
After their shampoo, Alice sat Moses down in a chair in the kitchen and shone the brightest light in the house on his head. She pulled the metal comb through his short, curly hair. He fidgeted and whined while Lulu watched. The comb was useless. The nits clung to each hair, and she needed to pull off each one between two fingernails, like a mama baboon.
Lulu’s hair was thick and plaited. Alice undid the plaits and sectioned off the hair. “A o lapile?” she asked after an hour, pulling out another hard-clinging nit. Are you tired? Lulu nodded gravely. After two hours Lulu had hardly moved. My god, she thought, this child has a will of iron. Afterward, she gathered sheets and towels and clothes, filled the bathtub, and washed everything in sight.
She drove the children to school the following day and worked nonstop on the conference. That was Wednesday. On Thursday, she got a call from the nurse. “There is an egg on Lulu’s head.” Alice pictured a raw egg sitting on top, the yolk a big raised polka dot. The nurse’s voice was disapproving.
“Yes, I’m