Critic Soqaga revisits O. Bolaji's ASK TEBOGO

Book: ASK TEBOGO

Written by Omoseye Bolaji

Published by: The Eclectic Writer’s Club

Review by Ishmael Mzwandile Soqaga

In the first Chapter of the book ‘Ask Tebogo”, Tebogo Mokoena the renowned Free State private detective is shown with Khanyi, affectionately enjoying their burgeoning love together.  Patently, a good time for the two lovers and inevitably they smooch each other until late in the night.  Eventually, after Tebogo left Khanyi he suddenly received a call and it was strange for someone to call Tebogo at about 10:00 O’clock in the night.  Usually Tebogo received night calls at around 08:00 latest.  Nevertheless, it was an urgent and important call from Reg of Lengau Associates.  Tebogo without any delay met with Reg and Thabiso.  The duo told him that their worker and colleague, DAVE, was murdered in his shack which he rented and he was set on fire in the process! Dave, the one stabbed and murdered brutally was superficially known to Tebogo. 

The first important thing Tebogo did to get a clue about Dave in order to commence investigation was to ask about Dave's personal life.  Reg and Thabiso were however unable to provide Tebogo with any tangible information about Dave’s personal life.  It was actually surprising to Tebogo when he noticed that Reg and Thabiso had nothing to offer so that the investigation could be a success.  Fortunately, they remembered a book which Dave kept in his office.  It was a big exercise book; in fact it was a manuscript which Dave wished to publish in the future.  The pertinent manuscript contained marvellous writings which Dave called “Essays”.  Essentially, Reg and Thabiso told Tebogo about Tumelo who was the "landlord" where Dave rented the shack. 

The true adventure for Tebogo's investigation into the murder of Dave commences in Chapter Three where Tumelo is conspicuously glowing as a handy person to Tebogo.  After all pertinent questions and honest answers from Tumelo, Tebogo was astonished to hear that Dave used to go to “Janet’s Place”.  I think Tebogo was certain that Dave could not be stabbed and set on fire without any precipitate reasons.  Like his presupposition in the beginning when he was talking with Reg and Thabiso that “Surely he must have friends, and a girl friend, if not a wife,”- was actually logical.   

Janet's Bar... “Or Janet’s Bar”, as many people call the place. “It’s run by a certain woman, Janet.  She sells beer, home made liquor, food and stew and the like.  She works herself to the bone but seems to enjoy it.  And the money she makes!  Dave used to go there every evening to relax, he would take a beer; and on the weekends maybe two.  He never got drunk.  He never got excited.  He was still always quiet.”

In the following chapters, before the culprit was eventually arrested, certain characters are featured in the book.  Eventually after Tumelo finished talking with Tebogo the courageous private sleuth, he was introduced to Mary, Tumelo's sister, to gather more fact’s about Dave's personal life.  Habitually, as he is known Tebogo the sleuth could masquerade and conceal his true identity and to Mary and to others around he became known as the friend of Dave.  In addition, Tebogo's meeting with Janet the owner of the Janet Bar assisted him to meet with different people.  Karabo, another sister of Tumelo whom we heard being mentioned in Chapter Five is completely vivid in Chapter Six.  Karabo, would suggest - "whisper" - as to who killed Dave, pointing out that Dave could have been possibly killed by her sister's (Mary) boyfriend, Khaya.  According to Karabo, on one night – a few weeks before Dave’s death, that current boyfriend of Mary came to the house late in the night, drunk shouting: “Dave must die!  I’ll kill him! I don’t give a damn about him! He must die!"

Like I said beforehand, Janet became very convenient to Tebogo as she introduced him to many people, mainly women whom others claimed to be in love with Dave or were somewhat "seduced" by him or vice versa!  Refilwe in Chapter Eight is one of the women claimed to be in love with Dave and she actually admitted that she enjoyed having sex with Dave!  Aida too is another woman who used to spend time with Dave but because of her smoking, Dave was uneasy and could not carry on with her.  At her house, Aida is having an alluring library which obviously mesmerised Dave.  Aida claimed to be kissed by Dave. 

At Tumelo's house, Tebogo managed to meet with Khaya; and Tebogo, when he was alone with Khaya tried cunningly to exaggerate that people are stating that Khaya threatened to kill Dave.  Khaya did not deny that he spoke such thing against Dave; however his excuse for saying that was the influence of alcohol.  He did not mean it in a real sense.  Imperatively, from Khaya, the famous Free State sleuth Tebogo Mokoena learned about another person whom Janet did not tell him about.  William “The man, lover of one drunkard of a washerwoman called Desire. " Khaya frowned. “Certainly, I was not around that very early morning when the shack was ablaze... the day before, however I was around the front of this house around 5:00 in the morning and saw William skulking around this house from the outside.”

Radiantly, Desire the "washerwoman" is seen in Chapter Seven and we begin to learn how close she had been to Dave.  Tebogo here when he was with Desire made it plain that he was not really close to Dave - he avoids concealing his true identity like he was normally doing especially when he was with Mary. In Chapter Eleven when Tebogo was in Janet's Place without anything he could certainly say it can be a conclusion of the investigation.  He once again approached Janet and asked her about Desire's "man" which Janet did not mention before.  Precisely, while Tebogo was seated at Janet's Place, subsequently Desire herself appeared.  Of course they enjoyed to be together. We read, inter alia:

“Desire came to my side and indicated that we move on.  I followed her as she was the “leader” now; and on we went in the night, past houses, past a laterite road and into near darkness.  What was going on?  We seemed to be heading towards a hilly area.”At the hilly area the two began to be romantically intoxicated, but Tebogo was just  on a mission to find out about Dave’s life and liaisons.

... “So there it was.  How could we men resist women?  But I had to do so now; I ain’t that weak! I touched her gently and said into her ear:  “Take it easy fine, lady.  Please confirm to me: is this the very spot where you seduced Dave too, and he (Dave) succumbed.”

She reacted almost violently. “So he told you!” she said. What an admission!

Tebogo's investigation into the murder of Dave was leading to some rosy findings as Desire confessed that she was at Dave's place around 12:00 in the night.  She would believe that none saw her when she went to Dave and when she left, or so she thought.  In Chapter Twelve it is clear that Tebogo as an experienced and respected private detective knew in his mind who was probably the perpetrator (killer).  The glimpses he got from Khaya in Chapter Ten and the secret "love" between Desire and Dave; and for Desire to go stealthily to Dave’s place at around 12:00 was too convincing for Tebogo to reach the conclusion of his investigation.

As  we recall in the beginning, when Tebogo received a call from Reg at unexpected time which was 10:00 in the night, he swiftly responded.  Dave was brutally murdered and Reg through Thabiso his second in command advised that they should consider Tebogo to be the one who must investigate the murder of Dave.  Dave's personality was rather  strange, but at the very same time he was an important man and valuable employee.  Reg of Lengau Associates and Thabiso would know him as a very private person, disciplined, punctual at work and he did his job well, ate at 1:00 everytime if he was in the office, never had close friends.  He did not flirt with women.  Both Reg and Thabiso never visited Dave at his rented place because they felt that they were not welcome in this wise .

Dave from where he was staying at Tumelo's shack which he rented and at the place where he used to enjoy drinking “Janet's Place” people would give a similar description about his personality.  From snippets here and there, Dave had also been in exile, even in Europe.  To Reg and Thabiso, Dave was from Limpopo.  To investigate the murder of Dave who was commonly known as a private and introverted person, certainly it was not an easy task to accomplish.  People whom Tebogo interacted with during his investigation about Dave's murder would describe Dave as:

Tumelo's testimony:

Dave was a loner. "He had people he did talk to, but to call them friends?  He stayed in our compound but it was rare indeed to see any male visitor going to his room; certainly he never received female visitors.  Even I that I went to his place maybe once a week he was a bit lukewarm to me.  Yeah, we’ll watch his TV, but he did not talk much.  He was not one for gossips or for commenting on any domestic problems one told him about."

Mary vouchsafes: "We all thought he was quite strange in the beginning when Tumelo brought him here; it even seemed he was downright unfriendly.  Actually a woman would soon see through him that he was just shy and unused to women.  You only saw him when he was coming back from work, mainly.  He could be in his room for hours-reading?  Or watching TV.  The children were always a sort of nuisance to him, because he was always giving them small money cakes and the like.

"Of course we tried to stop the children from bothering him too much, but it was not easy.  He had his own quiet way of showing you when he was not happy about something-you would just see it on his face; and it was painful ‘cos he was so nice and quiet in his ways that no one wanted to hurt his feelings.  Many times-sometimes, he lent me money and I always repaid him on time.  Many other times he bought drinks for me, during weekends."

Karabo: "It’s a great pity about abuti Dave.  He was a good person as everybody agreed.  Not all that friendly, or so it appeared.  He was not comfortable mixing with women, or the neighbours in general, come to that.

"The children liked him a lot because he was generous towards them.  They even used to bang on his door shouting for tjhelete (money) which I did everything to stop.  But Mary did not co-operate with me... she thought it was good for the children to be a nuisance to abuti Dave.  She did not realise that although Dave was good to the children he did not really like them so much.  He was just a generous somebody."

Obviously, Dave was having his own unique character both in the township where he stayed and in the work.  Primarily it can not be tumultuous as to why the author could not reveal the precise reasons for why Dave detested to be visited in his place by both male and female. We are in the dark as to why he did not like people to visit him in his place, but all these elements add to the intrigue, suspense, and bafflement.

However, we understand from the book that when Tebogo was starting with the investigation of Dave's brutal murder, a manuscript which contained riveting essays by Dave was discovered at his office.  The manuscript is indeed splendid, and Tebogo during his investigation sporadically used to read from it.  Dave titled the manuscript “Essays by Dave Khumalo” which are 30 in numbers.  “The Gravy Train, AIDS, Hobbies/Relaxation, How Does My Domestic Survive and many more constitute part of 30 essays by Dave Khumalo.  Tebogo in the conclusion of the book in the last page would ponder about the manuscript: “I thought of the late Dave’s “Essays”.  I had made my mind up, one way or the other, to publish the manuscript for him..."

Notwithstanding, from the description people gave about Dave it will always be questioned as to whether Dave was a genuine "saint" in society.  To recall, Thabiso earlier on told about the guy who found him alone in the office and claimed that he knew about Dave and the guy disclosed a bizarre injunction that they should be careful in respect of Dave.  Indeed Thabiso did ask the guy who seriously warned them about Dave, but the guy said Dave had done something embarrassing and terrible in another Province before coming here.  The Province is Western Cape.  In fact, one can assume that Dave managed to escape from the " embarrassing and terrible" thing he did in Western Cape, but in the Free State he could not.  Moreover, his character which of course is very strange is actually questionable.   Dave in the book is always depicted as genial to women, he might secretly kiss and have sex with them.  However, as a talented person who has the ability to observe the environment where he is living, and providing his persectives and understanding through his writing, definitely he was supposed to know better.  As a reader, you may ponder and tentatively conclude that perhaps Desire never disclosed to Dave that she has a man whom she stayed with? Again it is significant to reckon as why Khaya reacted with such bitter swearing that Dave must die.  Khaya as a heavy drunker he would hate to be told to follow the paragon example of Dave who drinks decently.  Desire on the other hand triggers the death of Dave as her man, William saw her by the time she left Dave's place.  She thought nobody saw her but William later explained to Tebogo:

 “I swear I’m telling the truth.  I travel regularly; or at least don’t sleep at home every night and one morning I was supposed to come home anytime from 90.00, and told Desire that the night before.  But unexpectedly I arrived very early and while around our area here I saw Desire coming from the shack of Dave.  At around almost 5.00 early in the morning.  It was obvious she had slept there!  I did not let her see me; I hid, but was destroyed in my mind.  Meanwhile Desire went back to my place to sleep, and by the time I entered the house she was still sleeping.  I did not let her know I saw her coming from that shack. Maybe I was misunderstanding things?..."

Then an incandescent William decided to make Dave pay. As he confessed late on:

"I tried to control myself but it was not easy.  I managed to pretend I was just feeling sick throughout that day, and as luck would have it Desire had to go to one of her sick Aunts elsewhere in the township overnight.  Around 12.00 that night I went to Dave’s shack.  Everybody was asleep, but I heard music in his room.  Obviously he had dozed off temporarily but would soon awaken to lock his door.  Since the door was open, I entered, saw him dozing on his bed and I stabbed him through his heart...  " Then the fire. A doleful story, yet with many enchanting, illuminating layers. 

*ASK TEBOGO, Number 4 in the Tebogo Mokoena Mystery series, created and written by Chief O. Bolaji, was originally published in 2004. Bolaji has been conferred with the Chancellor's Medal by the University of the Free State (see pic above). Here is the complete Tebogo Mokoena Mystery series:

Tebogo Investigates (2000)

Tebogo's spot of bother (2001)

Tebogo Fails  (2003)

Ask Tebogo (2004)

Tebogo and the Haka (2008)

Tebogo and the epithalamion (2009)

Tebogo and the pantophagist (2010)

Tebogo and the Bacchae (2012)

Tebogo and Uriah Heep (2018)

THE WORSHIPPERS. By Victor Thorpe

The love the main hero, Paul Okoro, has for his lady, Aimee is endearing. There is a special chemistry between them from the first time they meet at a stadium, etc. She is beautiful, uncomplicated, understanding, and as he gets to learn, very tough in her own way. She is even something of an expert in the martial arts. She is also a professional, a young lawyer. She embodies the type of perfection, the wish-fulfillment of any young man I guess. But this is not to suggest that she is not real; she very much shares the hair-raising adventures of her man. Having said that, one finds it hard to believe - or imagine - that she kept on goading, more or less forcing her husband to consort with prostitutes!!
- M Chukwu