Against All Odds

by R. A. Lang

  He explained it all had to stop immediately or Antonina wouldn’t survive the spiritual treatment she was receiving. Haitian quickly prepared some coloured beads, some herbs and wrapped them in paper along with my gold bracelet. I asked why my bracelet, as it certainly wasn’t cheap. She said it had to leave the house as quickly as possible or my house would be cursed forever! Typical, I thought, I lose again due to all the damn voodoo nonsense going on.

  Haitian, together with me, had to drive to the ocean just down the road from my house to an area where we wouldn’t be seen by anyone. Haitian instructed me to go to the water’s edge, turn my back on the ocean and throw the package over my shoulder and return back to the car without looking back.

  This I did and returned back to the house. Antonina was already feeling some relief so I guessed the spirits had left her alone. She then started on me, promising that she’d make serious problems for me back in Kazakhstan, so I went out into my garden to smoke a cigar. The moment Antonina saw me sitting outside she came rushing out screaming and shouting, telling me to return back inside. This I did, as I knew the entire road would be listening to her performance.

  This was the final straw for me and I told Haitian that it was the last time she was going to listen to Antonina. I added that there was not to be any more voodoo ceremonies performed in my house, but I somehow knew that my demands would be ignored; they always were.

  Haitian and Ronnie continued to worry that my so-called girlfriend would ruin their convenient free living situation so they needed to accelerate the current problems they’d worked so hard to create. It was blatantly clear to me that the voodoo, lies, and harassment were never going to stop until I was either dead or a single man again.

  In total defiance to my demands, Haitian had convinced Antonina to attend yet another voodoo ritual that was supposed to protect us all. A ceremony that would also prevent anyone else doing voodoo against us.

  I, as always, objected strongly to the ceremony but I was aggressively outnumbered. In the meantime, Haitian had already arranged for her cousin from Haiti, who was already on the island, to visit my house to help perform the ceremony.

  Haitian had also purchased a white dove, a cockerel and a large sack of mixed plants, chemicals and perfumes, which were needed to conduct the ceremony.

  The following afternoon, her cousin who was a voodoo priest arrived at two o’clock and immediately began arranging plastic bowls, candles, plants etc., while we changed into clothes which could never be used again once the ceremony was over.

  Antonina was given the white dove to hold while I was handed the cockerel. I was still not showing any interest in the event and continued to protest. My words fell on deaf ears as the ceremony was explained to Antonina who was fascinated in all that was going on.

  Four illustrations representing the spirits that were to be invited were placed on the tiled floor in front of the priest and the candles were lit; blue for me and red for Antonina.

  Various coloured liquids and fragrances were poured over the leaves in each of our plastic bowls and mixed together. Antonina was the first to be bathed in the mixture after first being covered with talcum powder, and that was where the Dove played its part. It was dipped into the bowl to allow its white feathers to soak up the liquid before being used as a type of sponge to drip the liquid all over Antonina.

  The floor tiles were awash with the green liquid as the procedure was repeated time and time again.

  After Antonina’s ritual was completed, the priest stood up and came to where I was sitting. He took the cockerel from me and began by sprinkling my chest and shoulders with talcum powder just as they’d done to Antonina.

  Next, he held the cockerel firmly by its back legs and dipped it into the green liquid in my bowl. With the liquid dripping all over the floor, he gently touched the bird against me, beginning with my shoulders, then chest and eventually my head, each time dipping the bird back into the bowl to soak up more of the liquid. When some of the liquid entered my eyes, it felt like acid, which lasted for another thirty minutes until the burning sensation had worn off.

  The cockerel was returned to me as I was made to sit back down. Voodoo chanting continued for another twenty minutes and towards the end, I felt a kind of choking feeling in my throat. The choking feeling lasted for about two minutes until it suddenly stopped. During all this time, the bird stared into my eyes, not moving or flinching at all. The moment my choking sensation finished, the bird looked away for the first time.

  It was at that moment the priest got up and took the cockerel from me and immediately twisted its head off before I could do anything to prevent it. To my surprise, there wasn’t a single drop of blood from the headless cockerel. It didn’t struggle, nor flap its wings. Its headless body didn’t react in any way, but just lay still on the tiled floor a few feet away from where its head was dropped.

  I asked what the choking sensation was while the cockerel seemingly stared into my eyes. Haitian didn’t want to give any explanations at the time, but later told me it was my spirit. She added that nobody could do voodoo to me again as my spirit had been moved into the cockerel and that the cockerel’s spirit was set free in the sacrifice.

  Sick and tired of all the nonsense, I told Haitian that the ceremony was the last to be performed in my house and if she didn’t like it, she should find somewhere else to live.

  Fortunately the dove’s life was spared, and the bird was released outside the front of my house directly after the ceremony was finished.

  Like after all Haitian’s previous voodoo ceremonies, the plastic bowls, clothes, towels and dead chicken were taken to a quiet place close by where nobody could see and dumped. I could only imagine the tens of thousands of plastic bowls that must be dumped in the waste ground back in Haitian’s own country.

  Haitian continued to occupy my house twenty-four hours per day and spent her time just eating and sleeping. I did not have my house to myself for a single minute. Haitian ate a huge fried meal five times per day, and then went to bed to sleep it off. Her inadequate boyfriend would be out of the house for the majority of the day working at his hotel bar. This suited him, as he was petrified of her voodoo ceremonies and especially of Brave, who didn’t like him.

  My house was always filled with the smell of fried garlic and onions because that was the base for everything Haitian cooked; she didn’t know any other ways to prepare food. If I ever tried to sit outside to smoke one of my Cuban cigars, Antonina would again come out and start screaming at me for the entire street to hear, so I became a prisoner in my own house … some holiday I was having.

  So many times I wanted to go out and do the usual things people do whilst on holiday: go out for a beer, eat out, or visit friends on the island, but I was denied everything. I couldn’t wait for the two weeks to come to an end so I could put some distance between Antonina and my house sitters, and try to recover some earnings I’d lost due to all of them.

  There wasn’t anything I could do to evict Haitian and Ronnie because on the island, and under Dutch law, it was illegal to make anyone homeless. It didn’t matter whether they were misbehaving or homeless before moving in, so I needed to think up a plan to change the situation and permanently remove them all from my life, and permanently.

  I began to think about resigning from my job in Kazakhstan once I’d been compensated for the theft of my watch, which would just leave Haitian and Ronnie to deal with upon my return.

  The strangest thing was the pigeon which had arrived during my mother’s visit came back regularly just to see what was going on. It used to stand on my table and just look at me. It was totally relaxed and I could pick it up any time I wanted.

  Each new day, my holiday became worse and worse until the two weeks were finally at an end. Brave had continued to visit and kept reminding me that I should not return back to Kazakhstan. He repeated his warning that death was waiting for me on Tuesday March 15th and I should keep away from my hotel room door, especially ar
ound ten past six in the evening.

  Brave assured me that he would be with me on the night to help prevent my death, but I was so sick and tired of voodoo by this time I didn’t pay much attention to him.

  When the time came to haul all the suitcases back to the airport, I knew it would take a few months to make back part of the money I had just wasted.

  We eventually arrived in Kazakhstan without stopping over in Amsterdam because I was damned if I was going on any more thankless shopping trips. My plan was to finally attend the court hearing in Atyrau for the theft of my Rolex and avoid Antonina for the rest of my life. Then for my own safety, I would leave the country and never return.

  Thinking my agonising days would soon be over, I was yet again very mistaken. Unbeknown to me at the time, they were just about to explode out of all proportion!

  Antonina went to visit her family in Aksai the day after we arrived back in Kazakhstan because she couldn’t wait to take the two extra suitcases full of presents back to them.

  That was quite a relief because I was finally alone and able to relax and try to forget about all that had happened on my holiday from hell. A friend of mine, whom I worked with, visited me in the evenings because he wanted to know all the grim details of my hellish trip.

  My temporary relaxation was soon to be cut short. Antonina called me screaming, and she demanded that I open my laptop and sign into Skype so she could see I was alone in my hotel room. I did what she ordered, but seeing me alone with my friend was still not enough for her.

  She instructed me to carry my laptop all around my hotel living room, bedroom, and even bathroom so she could see I didn’t have any lady visitors with me.

  I did what she instructed, but she continued screaming at me and said she didn’t believe me. She was threatening me with the police, the KGB, and some of her Kazakh mafia friends. She warned that they would go to my room and arrange it so I would never be seen again.

  Andy, listening to all this, offered to let me stay on the sofa in his room for my own protection, but I declined his offer. Antonina returned to Atyrau three days later, and she immediately wanted to speak to Haitian to tell her how terrible I had been behaving. The lies were blatantly obvious, but Haitian enjoyed listening to them and encouraged Antonina to call her at least once per day and give her more stories.

  Life, as usual with this Kazakh, was totally out of control. I didn’t have any idea what to do. Antonina, Haitian, and Ronnie had wasted thousands of my hard earned dollars, and I needed to make it back before contemplating quitting my job and getting the hell out of Kazakhstan.

  Waiting to attend court over my watch was quickly moving to the back of my mind. I began to focus my attention more towards all the danger I was exposed to, which was increasing by the day, and began to take Brave’s warning more seriously.

  As it happened, that was already a part of Antonina’s sick and disturbing plan. It materialised that there wasn’t going to be any court hearing over my stolen watch. I discovered that Antonina was a friend of the girl who had organised the robbery and that she’d already been paid off. The two male Kazakh lawyers were just a pretence to make me think the proceedings were going ahead as normal, plus they were out of work at the time and needed money.

  I realised I would never recover my losses for paying for the transportation, food, accommodations and day rates for the two lawyers, and began to think about packing my bags and just getting the hell away from the country.

  Antonina became increasingly aggressive until the night I told her she could not waste any more money phoning Haitian every day. I was sick of that woman making the hell I was already living in even worse.

  That really didn’t go down very well. On March 15th, I was on the phone with Haitian in the evening. I explained that, after the enormous cost of my holiday from hell, plus all the damn shopping and the money I had loaned her for her bar, it was time for me to start looking after myself.

  I continued to explain that I wanted her and Ronnie permanently out of my house and life as I was disgusted with what they’d caused for me under my own roof, and that I was sick and tired of voodoo when the unforeseen happened.

  I didn’t see Antonina coming over to the sofa I was sitting on when she attacked me from my left side. She smashed a white soup bowl into the side of my head, just behind my left ear. The bowl shattered under the incredible power of her blow into dozens of smaller pieces.

  I felt a terrible stinging and burning sensation, which caused me to drop the telephone and fall back on the sofa with my head resting on a cushion.

  I remained conscious, but only just. I felt a hot and cold tingling coming from where Antonina had hit me. I opened my eyes, but I could only see green for several minutes. Suddenly, I felt a strong need to get up and forced myself to do just that before Antonina attempted to try murdering me a second time, but with a large carving knife.

  Antonina was immensely and extraordinarily strong for a woman and after an intense struggle, I removed the knife from her and threw it out of the window where it landed in the snow.

  The cushion my head had been on was completely saturated with blood and I could feel it continuing to run down my back. Due to the intense struggle, my blood was over the carpet, the coffee table and even sprayed all over the windowpane.

  I reached for my mobile phone and started to call my company’s emergency number. Antonina screamed across the room that if I went to hospital, she would call her friends in the KGB, and I would be taken away long before any help arrived, and never seen again!

  She told me she would explain that I was attacking her and her daughter. She said I would go to a Kazakh jail, which I would not survive more than a few hours.

  Knowing that she really did have such powerful contacts, I closed my phone, and quickly made my way to my bedroom, and wedged a chair under the door handle for added safety. I took the above photo as evidence of what she’d done to me, should I need it, and wondered how I could survive the rest of the night.

  Wedging the chair behind my door handle didn’t work. The crazed Kazakh kicked and kicked the door until she had smashed her way through it. She was holding yet another knife, this time a bread knife, and she tried to stab me to death yet again. She was slashing the air with the knife, trying to cut me. I struggled with her a second time, while my blood was squirting all over the white bedroom walls until I managed to take the knife off her.

  I was sure by that time that I wasn’t going to survive the night. Antonina returned to the living room, and after a few minutes, I started to hear thumping sounds. I looked out of the bedroom and saw her throwing herself at the kitchen table trying to hurt herself so she could blame me.

  When she looked at me, I could tell she had hurt herself, but there weren’t any marks on her, which was a relief. After that, she called a medical team to come to her aid because her heart problem had started again. Her heart problem must surely have saved my life that night.

  A paramedic team arrived and took her away for observation. I was finally alone and safe, at least for the rest of the night, or so I thought.

  At four o’clock in the morning, I was woken up with a loud banging at my door. What could possibly be happening now? I thought. I ignored all the knocking and banging in case it was Antonina returning to complete her murder attempt. The banging grew louder so I went to the door and looked through the peephole only to see two Kazakh men. At first, I thought they might have been the KGB who’d come to take me away. I asked through the door who it was and they said they were my company’s security. I opened the door to find two rather skinny Kazakh men. They claimed there had been an official and documented complaint made about me by a Kazakh woman called Antonina.

  I couldn’t take any more, so I told the Kazakhs to get out of my room. I didn’t want more problems from them. They refused to go and made me accompany them to their office. There, they interrogated me and made me take a breathalyser test because Antonina had told them I was very drunk and h
ad tried to kill her and her daughter!

  Fortunately for me, I hadn’t been drinking anything and passed the test without any sign of alcohol, which convinced them that her story was certainly not true, if only the part about being drunk.

  They could see the blood still seeping from my fractured skull; it completely covered the back of my T-shirt and had soaked into my jeans.

  I told the security staff to take the shattered pieces of the soup bowl so they could take Antonina’s fingerprints. I figured she couldn’t make her story stick with only her fingerprints on the shattered pieces, but in my absence someone had already been to my room and removed all the fragments before the staff could retrieve the evidence.

  I then realised that the KGB were now involved because I couldn’t imagine anyone else being able to get into my room to remove all the evidence.

  The sun was already beginning to rise, and I had just an hour to clean myself up and make it to the office. I couldn’t stop the bleeding, so I tried to cover it up with a thermal neck tube I used in the severe cold weather.

  I arrived at the office, but instead of taking off my coat as usual, I kept it on to conceal the continuing blood flow. I walked over to where Chris was sitting. He didn’t notice the look on my face as I approached him.

  I went straight to his desk so he could see what Antonina had done to me. The look on his face was one of shock and horror when I partially opened the collar of my coat and pulled down my neck tube, which was already soaked in blood by that time. He said I had to go to hospital immediately, but I told him I couldn’t due to Antonina’s threat.

  I explained to Chris that I needed to leave the country as quickly as possible because I would not survive much longer. I was supposed to give thirty contractual days’ notice to terminate my contract, but Chris explained to the senior manager that there was no time to waste because my life was in imminent danger.