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show his agreement, but faltered. “Within reason, Mma,” he said. “But you are right about that. Women have so much work to do in a house and they deserve a holiday from that; of course they do. But…”
    She waited. “But what, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni?”
    “But they cannot stop altogether, because if they did, then what would happen to the men, Mma? What would they do?”
    “That is what women sometimes wonder, Rra,” she said.
    He cleared his throat. “They would never…they would never leave us altogether, would they, Mma? These ladies who call themselves feminists, are they saying that all women should get up and walk away? Is that what they want, do you think?”
    Mma Ramotswe tried not to laugh at his sudden anxiety. She understood why some women should want to walk away—she herself had walked away from the dreadful Note Mokoti—and there were many of her sisters who would do well to walk away from their drunken and abusive husbands. But there were also many men—and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni was one of them—who had done nothing to deserve such a response. “Of course not, Rra. There may be some ladies who say that all women should walk away from men altogether, but they are very few in number, I think.”
    He still looked worried. “Are there any such ladies in Botswana, Mma?”
    She nodded. “Yes, there are, Rra. There are ladies like that.”
    He shook his head in dismay. “Are they happy, do you think, Mma?”
    “They say they are.”
    “But do you think they really are? Happy inside?”
    She hesitated. “I think some of them are, Rra. And some of them, anyway—not all of them, but some of them—may not like men very much, Rra. They may prefer to be with other women, you see.”
    He stared at her. “Somebody told me that one day. I have heard such a thing.”
    She shrugged. “Different people like different things, Rra.”
    He lowered his voice, although there was nobody else present. “Do
you
know any ladies like that, Mma?”
    She nodded. “Yes, I do, Rra. They are just like anybody else, you see—they are ordinary people.”
    He looked at her doubtfully. “Except for…well, they are unlike other ladies who are fond of the company of men.”
    “You could say that. But these days, Rra, things like that are not very important. There are parts of Africa, I’m afraid, that are being a bit unkind about these things and do not want people to be happy…in the way they want to be happy.”
    “That is very unkind.”
    They had negotiated the trickiest part of the conversation and come out on the other side more easily than she had imagined. She loved her husband, not least for his kindness, which had been evident in what he had just said. Unfortunately, there were many men who were not so kind, and they were often the ones who were in a position to make others unhappy; and would continue to do so, she imagined, until women asserted themselves more and then gently, very gently, took the reins of government into their own hands, or at least took their fair share of power—which was exactly half. Would that ever happen, she wondered? She thought it might be beginning—there were places where it was and they were working well. As long as the right sort of women became involved, of course, and not people like…She shuddered. She did not like to think of Violet Sephotho, but every so often she did.
    “Violet Sephotho,” she muttered.
    Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked up sharply. “Is she one of those ladies, Mma?”
    Mma Ramotswe smiled. “I do not think so, Rra. She is one who is always chasing men.”
    “I hope that the men she chases are fast runners,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni.
    “Some of them cannot run fast enough, Rra. Then they are caught. It is the same way in which a lioness catches one of those tiny antelopes they like to eat…”
    “Duiker,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. “Their meat is very sweet.”
    Mma Ramotswe remembered something. “I have heard certain ladies being referred to