Lion of Soweto

Chapter 26

Ring! Ring!!

The visitor's bell goes off jolting Molefi off his late afternoon snooze. He sits up expecting someone to be at the gate since the security guys refuse to do so. Akida is fast asleep on the sitting-room settee. Same for Bandele who's deep in slumber upstairs. It's Thursday afternoon – occupants of the Polemann Castle are resting in preparation for the flurry of weekend activities.

When the ringing won't stop, Molefi exits the building in search of Pono who should by now attend to the visitors. But then aren't the security guys supposed to ward off the irritant? These lads sometimes act strange – they open the gate for some visitors and ignore others, using criteria one finds hard to decode.

Before Molefi gets to the gate, Pono emerges from the corner with wet hands, having been washing the Toyota Prado SUV. The two men get to the gate at the same time.

"Yes, what can I do for you?" Pono asks on opening up.

Standing outside are four Polemann residents – the first two being a mother and her daughter. The others are female students.

The mother speaks first. "We're here to see Bandele – my daughter and I."

Turning to the other pair, Pono asks, "And you two?"

"We have complains about the flat."

Knowing fully well that property maintenance services aren't handled here at the castle, Molefi welcomes them still. "Come in, please." People seeking financial assistance sometimes use poor flat maintenance as an excuse to gain access to Bandele.

"Thank you." They chorus and then walk into the castle, sitting in the living room. Mother and daughter exchange glances at the opulence on display. The students can't have enough feel of the rug's succulence.

Molefi turns to the woman. "I haven't seen your faces here before. Is all well?"

"I'm Loretta Mpofu. My two daughters and I moved into one of your flats last month. Here is one of them." She points at her Afro-wearing schoolgirl, Dineo.

The teenage girl nods.

"What can we do for you?"

Perhaps taking Molefi for Bandele on account of the aide's confident carriage, Loretta raises her voice to state her case. "Sorry to bother you, Nkosi," she lifts to her feet, touching her flowery blue blouse in the chest region before flapping her eyes seductively.

Molefi corrects her. "I'm not Bandele. The boss is upstairs."

"Oh." Her shoulder drops as her face straightens. "Since we moved in three weeks ago, we've been bathing cold water only because the warm-water tap is faulty. We submitted a maintenance request form but nothing has been done. It will soon be winter when we need hot water every day, so we're here to report it. Kindly treat this as an urgent matter, please."

To Molefi, the lady's flailing hands and twitchy eyes say something different from her stories. They're not here to report a malfunctioning tap or any domestic issue for that matter. If the climatic conditions here in the castle are the same as on the street, summer should follow spring and not winter, as she claims. Her motive is clear.

As for the other group, Molefi seems to have a soft spot for one of the ladies whose physique and comportment reminds him of his ex-girlfriend, Mpho. Reserving the best for the last, he opts to attend to mother and daughter first before engaging the pair in a long tete-a-tete. He must start making friends in Soweto. Who knows, he might need them someday.

Molefi addresses the woman again. "Are you aware that we out-source all flat maintenance projects to a private company? They are the ones to handle your kind of complaints."