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be, how confusing and frightening it must be not to know why you are where you are. Of course she would help.
    â€œWe shall do this for you,” she said, glancing across the room at Mma Makutsi, who nodded enthusiastically. “We shall do our best.”
    â€œWe cannot guarantee results,” chimed in Mma Makutsi, “but my co-director and I will do our best, Mr. Sengupta.”
    Co-director!
It was as Mma Ramotswe had imagined it would be. There should be a new saying, she thought—after all, somebody had to be the first to coin a saying, no matter how well known and widely used it later became. This one, she thought, could become popular:
Give a secretary a new title, and it sticks.
She smiled at the thought. Life was like that: it revealed just how true all the sayings were. In that respect, at least, there were never any real surprises, no matter how surprising things seemed to be on the surface.

CHAPTER THREE

THE ONLY PURRING BABY IN BOTSWANA
    M MA RAMOTSWE returned home that evening well before Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He had a meeting of the Mechanical Trades Association and did not get back to Zebra Drive until shortly after seven, by which time she had fed the children and was busy preparing a stew for their own dinner. It was this stew that he smelled as he walked in the back door, took off his work shoes, and went into the kitchen to greet his wife.
    â€œIt was a long meeting,” he said. “But now … that smell, Mma! That is a very fine stew.” He sniffed at the air. “It is enough to make me forget all about the meeting.”
    â€œI have had a long day too,” said Mma Ramotswe. “Some big things happened today—just as I told you they would.”
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni went to the fridge and took out a small bottle of beer. Mma Ramotswe did not drink, but she kept a supply of cold beers for her husband for this sort of occasion.
    He sat down at the kitchen table, the opened bottle of beer before him. “So,” he began, “this very important day of yours—I’m listening.”
    She told him about the visit of Mr. Sengupta and his sister.
    â€œI know that person,” he interrupted. “He is a charitable man: theLions Club and so on. And I seem to remember Mma Potokwane telling me that he gave her five or six boxes of notebooks and crayons for the children to use.”
    â€œI am not surprised to hear that,” said Mma Ramotswe. “He has taken in this poor woman who has lost her memory. That is another example of his kindness, it seems.”
    She retold the story of the Indian woman and her plight. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni listened intently, and shook his head in disbelief. “It seems very unlikely, Mma. Surely …”
    â€œDr. Moffat said it can happen,” she said.
    â€œOh, I’ve heard of it, of course,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, taking a sip of his beer. “But I’ve always thought it was one of those things that people talked about but nobody ever came across. Like
tokoloshes
and such things.”
    He used the common word for malignant spirits—the sort of thing that people would talk about when they were frightening one another around the campfire. He knew, of course, that there were no such things as
tokoloshes
, but when one was alone at night, on a remote path perhaps, when the sounds of the bush about you were magnified by the darkness, and there were no lights nor moon for comfort, then it was only too easy to believe in the things that you did not believe in. Even the bravest among us would feel a little frightened in such circumstances, and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni knew that most of us are not quite as brave as we would like to be—although sometimes we can surprise ourselves in that regard.
    Mma Ramotswe did not want to talk about
tokoloshes.
She finished her account of the Sengupta visit and then went on to tell him about Mma Makutsi’s telephone call.
    â€œI knew that