I, Eric Ngalle

by Ngalle, Eric;

  The following day Sasha brought me toothpaste and a toothbrush. I was in so much pain I could not move my body. My legs, hands, lips and eyes were all sore and swollen, my clothes stuck to my body. Sasha took me to a place, some sort of mission, where the homeless people in that region gathered for food.

  A couple of days later I caught sight of my friend Alphonse. I had seen him from the distance and noticed he was limping along. I shadowed him to see if he was being followed. He had one of my shoes and one of his shoes on. When I finally approached, he didn’t shake my hand but just looked at me with disdain and scorn. He told me he had been taken to Komsomolskaya and held at the house of the clients. He had met Essilor and Barthelemy and they had told him what had happened, how I had duped them and taken their client away from them. Alphonse went on to say I should have informed him and Chief, but there was no point crying over spilled beans. He told me the clients were actively looking for me and that I must avoid Essilor and Barthelemy as they too were vying for my blood. Alphonse was only saved by the fact that he’d been saving his money at the diplomatic corpus in Kiyevskaya. Upon his detention, the clients took him there and he handed them two thousand dollars, which was how he’d secured his release. That was the last time I saw Alphonse.

  I spent around a week in Kiyevskaya overground train station, sleeping among passengers. Some came, some left and some, like me, who had nowhere to go, remained. There were many homeless people in that station. The officers who patrolled the station would wait until one was deep in the land of nod and snoring before coming to wake one up and ask, ‘Have you got a ticket?’ Those without tickets would be asked to leave the station but as soon as the officers left, they would return. It was a cat and mouse situation. This particular morning though, Sasha did not bring me breakfast. Her smile had disappeared. Her perfect makeup, her mannequin face, looked rough, dishevelled, and little tears dropped from her eyes as she spoke to me.

  I hugged her. She sobbed loudly. She was going to Voronezh—her father had been shot and killed during a botched robbery at their family home. She hugged me even tighter, and it seemed an age before she let go; time stopped, passers-by stared. I have woken up many nights dreaming of this moment. I am rubbish at painting, otherwise I would have painted this moment, as it is forever ingrained in my mind. I was flying, floating—this was where I wanted to be, this moment.

  She reached into her wallet and gave me an envelope and said, ‘This is two hundred roubles. I will be back soon.’ Her security friends were looking at me with disdain. She took a few steps backwards. She crossed the road and slowly disappeared into the crowd. I never saw Sasha again. Sometimes I have wondered if she was a ghost or an angel or an Ogbanje Child (children who come and go, a phenomenon common in West African society).

  That was the beginning of the end of my sojourn at Kiyevskaya overground station. Sasha leaving brought with it a change of guards and the new guys were hostile, just doing their jobs I guess, and if you didn’t have a ticket that was it. It was during the chaos of this cat and mouse between train security staffs and us the homeless and stateless that I got talking to another black guy. I cannot remember his name but he was an Ibo Nigerian, and two Russians joined and entertained us with vodka concealed in a Coca-Cola bottle. Again, I was the translator as the Ibo boy didn’t speak the language. During the conversation, the two Russians said, ‘We have a house not far away from here and you can come and stay overnight.’ This was the best news ever, the Ibo was happy, I was happy, they took us to the platform and we jumped on the train. As we sat on the train we laughed and joked. I thought nothing of it; this is how stupid and naïve I was.

  After a while an announcement was made by the train driver, ‘This train is now heading for the depot.’ All the carriages were empty, we were the last people on the train, which was in total darkness. Yes, we were the last people to get off the train, we followed the tracks, and the smaller of the Russians had a torch. There were no houses to be seen. Once our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the only thing we could see was the train tracks.

  The Ibo guy turns to me and says in pidgin, ‘Let’s run, these guys are thieves.’ I didn’t have to wait for a second invite and we started running down the tracks. The Russian guys were shouting, ‘Stop. Stop. We’re going to fuck you, we’re going to fuck your mothers to hell.’ In the distance we could see a light and we ran towards it—it was the depot. When we got there, the night workers must have thought we were devils, two black men in the middle of nowhere out of breath. Some were washing the trains whilst other sat playing cards and drinking vodka.

  They walked towards us with folded fists. I told them that we were being followed by two Russians who had attempted to rob us. Stupidly, or maybe they didn’t anticipate anyone to be at the depot, the two Russians came in and were still mouthing off. That was the worst mistake they made that night: they were battered by the guys on duty and dragged out of the depot. We spent the night with those guys at the depot until the morning shift took over. We were not asked for tickets and the train took us back to Kiyevskaya. I had had enough. I sold my sleeping bag to the Ibo boy for fifteen roubles and decided to go to Pechatniki. If I was going to be killed in Russia, I figured it would be better if I were among my own people.

  The skies were extra dark that evening in Moscow, and as dreadful as it was, Pechatniki was my only destination. The prospect of meeting Essilor and Barthelemy pained me, knowing fully well what I had done: I had placed them in harm’s way. According to what Alphonse had told me, even though Essilor and Barthelemy claimed to the clients that they didn’t know my intentions, the fact that they were associated with me meant they had received some beatings. I stayed on the train as it went around and around central Moscow. As I drifted into the land of nod, I could see my mother.

  *

  I had brought a girl back to the house and my mother was asleep in her room. I only discovered this not to be true when my mother kicked the door open. Both the girl and I were standing in front of my mother naked. I quickly put on some shorts and my mother used one of my cravats to tie our hands together and started marching us down the street, past my father’s compound and halfway to the top of the hill. We met my brother and his friend Charleston Ellison (they had been out drinking) and my mother explained to them what she’d caught me doing.

  She said she was taking us to her parents. My brother and Charleston Ellison pleaded with my mother not to be so harsh. As they begged, she was crying, and I was thinking of my street credibility. All their pleas were falling on deaf ears; my mother had her mind made up. This was the case until my brother said he was going to see his friend who had a small shop just up the road, and would buy my mother three bottles of Amstel Beer. My mother finally climbed down but warned me vehemently, ‘Have you grown horns? Are you the child of the devil? If you want to start fucking, go and find your own house, do not bring the devil under my roof.’

  After that night I was forever indebted to Charleston Ellison and my big brother. This marked a thaw in the hostile relationship I had with my brother: he did love me really. My mother and I laugh about this incident whenever we talk on the phone. As for the girl, she never spoke to me again. I am sure she had told her friends about the incident because every time I went past her house into Longstreet, to buy puff and beans, she would burst into laughter among her friends.

  *

  I changed trains at Kurskaya and joined the green line, and I carried on until I reached Pechatniki, not knowing that coming to Pechatniki would be the worse decision I ever made. It was here I came closest to being killed; not by Russian skinheads, but by fellow English Cameroonians. My own kind, my own people.

  Chapter 14

  All the rough, red-eyed and long throated black people I had first seen at Sheremetyevo airport in May in 1997 were here in Pechatniki. I met Miranda (remember this name) who pestered me for money along the corridors of Pechatniki, I met Ndumbe (who went on to date Miranda) who told me old wives’ tales abou
t knowing my friends back home, I met Sister Hanna whose family hail from New Layout in Tiko, I met Ifeoma the Great, I met Derek (a taxi driver who dated one of my nieces), I met Weston (who was accused of picking out people at the airport he’d take to his shack and, after relieving them of their money, would leave them at the mercy of skinheads) and most of all I met Jerome who became spiritually connected to me as soon as we met.

  Of all the seventy or so Cameroonians who resided at Pechatniki, only around ten were registered students, the rest were victims of human trafficking. Having suffered my fate, they too were stranded in a state of limbo. The Cameroon Embassy did not have money to repatriate them. Most started selling cocaine, sexual promiscuity was rife and ill treatment and barbarity dished out. People did whatever they could to gain floor space for sleeping, all kinds of alliances were formed. I slept in Ndumbe’s room and on any given night there would be at least fourteen people in the room. Francis would be having sex with Mandy, Ndumbe with Miranda, while the rest of us would be wanking or permanently sleepless. The only person who didn’t have sex was a guy called Touré, who begged and pleaded for Sister Hanna to sleep with him but Sister Hanna was a lady of class and standards. Life in Pechatniki had a routine. By six in the morning everyone left the hostel, some people had found work loading and offloading trucks in Rigskayaya market, while one guy, Peter, ran a small market stall. Peter was well posh and his room well-maintained. Those who didn’t work left the hostel during the day for fear of police raids.

  The girls had it worst. They had to cling to boys to make ends meet, hence sexual gambling and promiscuity was the norm.

  Those who had jobs (I am using the term loosely as there were no contracts or laws to protect them) always came back with stories of being stopped by the police or skinheads.

  Pechatniki was across the road from a skinhead headquarters. People preferred to walk in groups rather than catch the bus as that meant one had to go past the skinhead headquarters; these guys where not shy and attacked in broad daylight with no remorse. I remember I made the mistake once of catching the train alone on a Sunday. In my compartment there was just a babushka and myself. Next to the door was a group of clean-shaven boys, girls and men wearing long boots, their jeans with chains that dangled all the way to their boots. They carried blades and knuckle dusters. They looked at me piercingly and were gesturing with their hands, telling me they were going to slit my throat. They were aged between twelve and forty years old, one of them had a tattoo of a cross on his forehead, his ears and on his nose; they all had little crosses on them. They sipped from a green bottle that they passed around.

  When the train came to a stop the babushka asked me in Russian, ‘Young man, could you please help me with my bag of potatoes?’ I picked up the bag and held her hand, helping her off the train. The group of skinheads moved toward the door, held it open for a few seconds before letting it close, they never came out. I took deep breaths while they gave me all sorts of gestures from middle fingers to flashing me their buttocks. The babushka then said to me, ‘Please go home. Today is your lucky day.’

  Once again, my understanding of the Russian language had saved me from a severe beating and God knows what else. By helping the babushka, I had effectively saved my life; given how respectfully old people are treated, the skinheads had seen my gesture as friendly even though it pained them a great deal. When I got back to the hostel and told this story, Ifeoma the Great said that the skinheads, apparently, had a member of parliament in the Russian Duma, who had declared Sunday a day of bashing all dark-skinned people.

  All in all, things were good. I had met with Barthelemy and Essilor and had bought them pepper soup, we drank plenty of beer. Essilor forgave me and although our friendship never got back to where it once had been, we developed a mutual respect. Barthelemy on the other hand never forgave me and, when the time came, he exercised his revenge on me.

  Ndumbe had been pestering me about helping him obtain his registration at the university and would invite me to share breakfast with him and Miranda. He had four hundred dollars but the fees were a thousand dollars. After a lot of persuasion I decided to go with him to his university, which was how I met the rector of Moscow State University who was in charge of international students, and effectively laid down the foundations to becoming a human trafficker. I had gone full circle: from meeting human trafficking foot soldiers in Cameroon, to meeting the barons at Sheremetyevo and now meeting the source of all those university invitation letters. He was a tall skinny dude, had no idea that the invitation letters he had been issuing to Diamonds and his entourage, who were spread across Moscow, were responsible for human trafficking on such an unimaginable scale.

  He greeted us and offered a cup of tea as was customary. ‘So, how can I help you?’ he asked quietly after we were done with the pleasantries. This was my moment. I told him that I was Ndumbe’s guardian, that I had finished my studies at Stavropol State University and was on my way back to Cameroon. I told him I had asked for some money from back home to pay Ndumbe’s fees and that I was going to pay two hundred dollars, with the rest in a month’s time. He hesitated at first but then agreed. I excused myself and took Ndumbe outside where he handed me the four hundred dollars, he also handed me his passport. I asked Ndumbe to wait for me outside, placed two hundred dollars in the passport as promised and handed it over to the rector and kept two hundred for myself. The rector removed the two hundred dollars, placed it in his pocket and called for his secretary. He handed over Ndumbe’s passport to her and muttered something about registration.

  We were then told to wait at the receptionist in the corridor. After an hour or so we were called back, the secretary handed Ndumbe his passport with a six-month’s student registration visa inside. Ndumbe was none the wiser; I didn’t tell him a single thing. This was the second seed I planted that would become cause for the attempted murder that was to take place a couple of weeks later.

  Before leaving the campus, I went to see the rector again and told him I had another friend who wanted an exit visa so he could travel to Zimbabwe. He advised me to come back and see him the next day. When I returned, he took me into a police barracks. Everyone there greeted him with warmth, and two young officers searched us. I was then introduced to the head of Russia’s third immigration district. Once the introductions were done, the rector left. I explained my problem—I wanted to return to my country, Zimbabwe, but I needed an exit visa. I handed my passport over and he sent me to another office, where two female secretaries photocopied my passport and gave me a letter and told me to take it to the post office. I handed my passport across the counter along with the letter. The lady looked at it for a few minutes before issuing me with some forms. Once I had finished, I handed them over, along with my passport and seventy-five roubles. She gave me another letter to take to the immigration office inside the police barracks and I was searched once more before being shown upstairs.

  I handed my passport to the secretary with the letter from the post office and was told to wait. Another hour passed before my name was called, ‘Mr Ocimile Thambvani?’ I had completely forgotten what my new name was. When I went to the cubicle, I was handed my passport with three months’ Moscow residential status and an exit visa. Maybe, just maybe, my ancestors had not abandoned me after all. I was now officially a Zimbabwean citizen with residency and an exit visa, all I had to do now was to look for money to get an air ticket to Zimbabwe from where I would hitchhike back to Cameroon. As I left the hostel I remembered when I was ten years old.

  *

  We had been warned not to play with the nest of a weaverbird. There was a eucalyptus tree bang in the middle of the compound that hosted a community of weaverbirds but one day while trying to get to Mola Mongambe’s farm and harvest some pineapples, I came across a nest. It had three weaverbird chicks inside and ignoring the warnings of our elders, I took the nest with the little chicks to the house and played with them and fed them.

  By the time my mother
got home I had been struck by an intense fever and had fainted. When I woke up, Aunty Frida our neighbour was in our house, helping my mother with me. I was burning up. Cold towels were placed on my head and Aunty Frida placed a spoon between my teeth to prevent me from biting my tongue. Even though I was at death’s door my mother still slapped me from time to time saying, ‘Have you gone nuts? Why did you bring the weaverbird’s nest into the house?’

  The following day, my mother took me to visit a juju man in WoPa Takesh called Mola Mwambo to perform a ritual on me. My mother brought with her a cockerel as payment for his services and a little chick. Using his hands, Mola Mwambo ripped the chick’s head right off and made a circular motion round his head with the chick’s head. The poor chick was still alive, flapping, as he handed me the decapitated head and told me to do the same circular motion around my head. He then took me to the backyard of his house and I had to do the same circular motion with the chick’s head again. I chucked the chick’s head over my shoulder and walked into the house without looking back. In the kitchen the rest of the chick was placed in charcoal, along with dried matove and palm nut chaffs. I basked in the smoke until the chick disappeared. Mola Mwambo then told me to go home, that I was cured. Lo and behold, I was cured and I have never suffered fainting fits again. I have often wondered what was wrong with my mother? Why didn’t she just take me to the hospital?