I, Eric Ngalle

by Ngalle, Eric;

  High as a kite I jumped on the southbound train and went to my friend’s house in Zagarianin, where I would spend my last days in Russia blackening white paper with iodine to the value of two thousand, seven hundred dollars. The rest, which brought the total to three thousand dollars, were real American dollars. Once I had completed the bundle, I left Zagarianin heading for Ivanovo Gorod Nevesta.

  Throughout this period, I spent my free time with Dima my half-Russian, half-Armenian girlfriend who lived in Lublino, two stops from Pechatniki. Dima would visit me in Mytishchi on Saturdays and stayed until the Monday. She was my Princess Dima and I was her Prince Charles. We would have picnics in fields of yellow summer flowers; we spent most weekends together apart from when I started dating Tania, a girl I had met in Mytishchi market. Just before Tania went away with her parents for their summer holidays to St Petersburg, she came to our house and informed me that she was pregnant. As I write these memoirs, I could have an eighteen-year-old son or daughter around Mytishchi somewhere.

  Chapter 17

  I remember very well—it was coming up May and summer was at its peak—that before making my way to Ivanovo, I decided to make a quick stop at the hostel in Pechatniki to pay another fifty dollars to Ndumbe. At the hostel, I met an English Cameroonian called Kattooh. I had heard about this guy a lot in Cameroon, he was many years older than me and like Ifoma, was a prolific footballer. I attended the same high school in Buea where Kattooh had mastered his trade as a footballer. He agreed to accompany me to Ivanovo despite people’s warnings; telling him I was an ill omen, a descendant from the devil himself. Despite this warning, Kattooh never judged me and followed me to Ivanovo on his own accord.

  I bought Kattooh and I some new clothes, branded Nike T-shirts and trainers. We looked summery; a little bit business-like but not too serious. Kattooh was worried about this contract he had entered into with me, the devil. He would say things like ‘Erico, if you do anything, if you scam me, I will kill you.’

  I listened without really paying any attention. Ivanovo is about two hundred and sixty kilometres away, about six hours’ journey but with those rickety communist buses, the journey went on and on. The bus always stopped somewhere halfway into the journey for passengers to stretch their legs and have some food. In Ivanovo, Kattooh and I went to a student hostel. Jay-Jay was always very happy to see me and that evening I entertained the whole hostel with drinks while Jerome supplied plenty of pepper soup. I was so tempted to tell Jerome what my mission in Ivanovo was but he had become that close to me, I couldn’t put him in harm’s way. I did not confide in Jerome, but I knew he knew what my mission was in Ivanovo.

  The first couple of days I scouted around the hostel area looking for clients or potential victims. I visited several markets and wherever I went, Kattooh followed me. I really did not need Kattooh—he had no role to play in the business. I was now the translator and the business head; I had all the goods and knew how to provide the service. I just wanted Kattooh to be my witness in case I ended up being killed.

  On the third day we wandered out of our comfort zone and entered an unknown territory. After walking for ages and almost giving up, we came across a café; this was a good sign, so we went in for some breakfast. We had some tea and an assortment of cold meats and Kattooh told me about his footballing heydays. I had heard about Kattooh and his footballing skills but right here right now in Ivanova, his reverie and nostalgia were more like noise in my ears. At this stage my mind had already left Russia, I was in Bulawayo somewhere, hitchhiking my way back to Cameroon.

  ‘How will my mother greet me?’ My mind would wonder. Would it be with a kiss, a tight hug, or with a slap asking how the heck I ended up in Russia? Knowing my mother, it would have been with a slap to the back of my head. I also wondered how would she react if I told her I had become an outright sinner? A scammer? I was an Ibo Nigerian. I was now an official graduate from the school of Boy Boy.

  *

  I remember when my sister Elizabeth became pregnant with her first child, Ngalle Collins Kulu. My mother went ballistic. My sister was in form three in one of the poshest girls’ boarding schools in the country—Saker Baptist College. Effectively, my sister could not continue her education, and when she found out who was responsible for my sister’s pregnancy, Mola Nganeli, my mother marched right to their college. At the time Mola Nganeli attended one of the poshest boys’ schools in the country—St Joseph’s College Sasse. If my mother were successful in reporting Nganeli to the college principal, it would have meant an instant dismissal from the school. At the entrance to the college, her brother, Uncle Evella, who at the time was a lecturer at this college, met my mother. (Uncle Evella is a doctor in America now and has been selected as the chief of our village, which has created a schism amongst our different tribesmen.)

  Fortunately, Uncle Evella’s intervention saved Nganeli and he was able to complete his studies and become one of the big sharks in Sonara Limbe’s petrol chemical plant.

  My mother’s reputation preceded her; that is why the mention of her name sends quivers down some of the villagers’ spines. It was because of her reputation that some of the villagers mocked her for standing up for me and against my father’s family. It was because of her reputation that my father’s family had rejected her and in so doing rejected me.

  *

  We were at the restaurant for almost an hour before a middle-aged gentleman, dressed in white shirt and black trousers, with perfectly polished black shoes, walked into the restaurant. I can’t remember his name but he dragged a chair over and sat at our table and ordered some more tea for us. He spoke very gently and told us he was the owner of the restaurant.

  Next, he opened his man bag and showed us the contents: a huge quantity of cocaine. He said it carried the street value of ten thousand dollars.

  He asked, ‘Where are you guys from?’

  I told him we were from Moscow and he wanted to know what we were doing in Ivanovo. This was my cue to sell him the idea of the reproductive dollars business.

  I told him my name was Ocimile Majola Thambvani and that I was an attaché to the American Embassy, and that I was looking for businessmen in Ivanovo who were interested in the buying and selling of dollars. The guy’s ears were as rigid as a lioness moving incognito towards her prey. Once I knew I had got his attention, I carried on with the rehearsed lines, ‘America is flooding the Russian market with dollars in order to render the rouble useless.’ This convinced him that I must have inside information.

  He looked around and asked, ‘Are you police officers or something?’

  I replied, ‘No, we are not police officers. We are just businessmen.’

  He left his chair and went outside for a few minutes. When he returned, we continued our small meeting in a room in the back of the restaurant. I was made to repeat everything I had told him about the business. The gentleman could not believe his ears; he said he had heard of such businesses and he himself was worried about the continuous flooding of the Russian market with the dollars. I told him I had around fifteen thousand dollars’ worth, all in its original form; the only thing missing was the chemical so I could restore the dollars into exchangeable currency. The guy could not believe what he was hearing, he said if this was possible, he would give up his drug-selling business and invest in our transactions instead.

  I told him, with an investment of five thousand dollars, he would have a one hundred per cent return. He asked where we lived and I told him we had been staying in Ivanovo for a week and that we were returning to Moscow the next day.

  He said, ‘Don’t worry guys, I will find you a room to stay and we shall do some business.’ The client then took us to a beautiful one-bedroom flat somewhere in Ivanovo. He promised to pick us up in the morning for a drive to Moscow to collect the pre-prepared bundles of dollars I had left in Zagarianin.

  In our new flat, I had to repeat again to Kattooh everything that had taken place; Kattooh was excited but again repeated his warning
about me not scamming him. For what it was worth, I told Kattooh we would split any money we made fifty-fifty.

  The client came very early the next morning. He was with another guy whom we didn’t recognise, and woke us up saying, ‘Let’s go, we’re off to Moscow.’

  It was the first time I had seen a BMW that was all black with tinted windows. We got in and drove at full speed to Moscow. Having arrived in Kiyevskaya, they parked the car across the road from the Diplomatic Corpus, where they waited for me. I jumped on a northbound train until I got to Komsomolskaya, and from there I took the overground train to Zagarianin.

  Aaron was a bit surprised to see me; I told him I was just passing through and he left me to my own devices. Inside my room I separated the three hundred iodine-stained dollars and sealed the rest of the bundles as perfectly as possible. I then placed fairy liquid in two different medical bottles and sealed them with tape, writing chemical elements on the sides of each bottle that even Sheldon, the physicist in The Big Bang Theory, would have struggled to understand. I placed all the contents into my bag.

  Once I was ready, I begged Aaron’s friend for a lift to Zagarianin station, where I reversed my journey to Kiyevskaya and re-joined Kattooh and the client. I flashed the client the well-sealed bundle. I had told Kattooh that the only time we spoke in Pidgin English was away from the client so all through this journey Kattooh was quiet unless I asked express permission from the client to translate for Kattooh. This was all part of my plan, as I could not allow any room for doubt. When we arrived back in Ivanovo I asked the client to buy some gloves and syringes from the pharmacy and he did so without any hesitation. When we got back to the house the client and his friend ordered some food and vodka, then he handed me a hundred-dollar bill and I started the process.

  I removed two dollar-sized papers from the package and gently placed the client’s one hundred dollars in the middle, forming a sandwich. I then sealed it exactly like the one I was carrying in my jacket pocket. Once it was sealed, I put on my pair of gloves and, using the syringe, injected the chemicals into the package. I then asked the client to put on a pair of gloves and place the bundle inside the freezer. I did the injecting and replacing in the freezer every hour and by the third hour I had swapped the new package with the one I was carrying in my jacket pocket.

  We drank vodka and ate smoked fish. I then placed the sealed package between two books, wrapped it tight and handed the bundle to the client to take home, telling him, ‘It must be kept in the freezer.’

  The next day at around nine in the morning the client and his friend came to the house prepared to see a miracle. We formed a circle in the living room and I brought in a bowl of warm water then I put on my gloves and proceeded to use the syringe to withdraw some chemicals from my well-labelled containers. I then carefully placed the iodine-stained dollars into the bowl. Their faces lit up when the iodine vaporised as I gently shook the bowl from left to right. It was a miracle. My face betrayed no emotion, the clients’ mouths were agape, even Kattooh was impressed.

  I then asked Kattooh to bring in the ironing board and once the last of the dollars had been ironed, I quickly carried the bowl of washing liquid and disposed of it in the toilet.

  People have said that I sold Kattooh to the devil but I did not: this is my account of what happened and it is the truth. When the clients came to see us that evening, they told us about their experience at the money exchange—how the person at the exchange had checked and re-checked the stains on the dollar, and this only served to increase their curiosity and interest in the scam. They told us how they had been asked if the dollars were homemade.

  The clients had promised to pick us up at the house early in the morning for a trip to Moscow to collect three thousand dollars’ worth of chemicals. I was happy; we were on the brink of making three thousand dollars. I had already agreed with Kattooh on a fifty-fifty split but as we were only going to have three thousand dollars, I was starting to think that maybe I should only offer Kattooh one thousand dollars—after all, he had done nothing, he was just company. Also, how was I going to separate from Kattooh and meet up later to divide the loot? I knew there was no way they would hand over three thousand dollars to us and just wait in their car while we went to purchase the so-called chemicals, one of us had to stay back as collateral.

  From the house the clients took us to watch an opera about a young man who was stuck in hell because of his brown skin and dark hair. The clients were laughing, ‘Oh, they killed a black man for no reason.’

  To cheer us up after the depressing opera, the clients took us to a nightclub where we danced and drank. At around eleven in the evening, the client and his friend said goodbye and left, while Kattooh and I stayed at the club until about one in the morning. We had been drinking and chatting with two girls the clients had introduced us to and at the end of the night, the girls joined us in a taxi headed to our abode. We never made it to the house for as soon as we left the high street, we were stopped by armed police officers; the girls were separated from us while Kattooh and I were taken to the police station somewhere in Ivanovo.

  I protested, ‘Do you know who I am? I am a Zimbabwean diplomat, if you do not free me, it will be a diplomatic crisis.’ I nagged and nagged. The young guard eventually became fed up and around three in the morning, he checked my status document, which was a laminated photocopy of my Zimbabwean passport with a stamp from Ivan Ivanovic Locev, head of Russia’s third immigration district.

  I knew that I was legal, albeit not in Ivanovo. The young guard authorised my release but said they could not release Kattooh until his documents were checked and this could only be done after nine in the morning, once the guards had been changed. Kattooh insisted his passport was at the student hostel in Ivanovo, which could only be retrieved in the morning.

  I returned to the flat but I could not sleep. When the clients arrived in the morning to pick us up, I told them what had happened. This almost derailed the whole programme for the clients were miffed; they asked that if Kattooh was a diplomat like me, how come he had not been released? I told them whilst I was carrying my documents, Kattooh had left his at the embassy. They were not going to risk going to the police station because of their involvement with cocaine; instead we took on the six hours’ drive from Ivanovo to Moscow.

  We drove into Kiyevskaya where the clients parked their car across the road from the Diplomatic Corpus. I was then handed a carrier bag with three thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills. According to the clients, I was to use this money to get enough chemicals to produce nine thousand dollars.

  The clients warned me, ‘Listen, if you fuck with us, we will kill you and your friend.’

  ‘Don’t worry my friends, everything will be just fine,’ I said and placed the money into my man bag and told the clients I would be back in around ninety minutes. My heart had never beaten faster as I walked away from the black tinted BMW. I crossed the road, and turned left at the gates of the Diplomatic Corpus. My brain was telling me to start running but I couldn’t. I had three thousand dollars on me, in central Moscow: my heart pounded.

  I walked past the attaché to the British Embassy in Kiyevskaya, I walked past Kiyevskaya overground station and looked to see if Sasha was there. I saw two police officers, with their huge German Shepherds, carrying Kalashnikovs. One of them was the young guy who had stopped me previously and spoken to me a couple of times whilst I was a temporary resident at the station. This was the time for them to stop and search me, I thought to myself. Instead, they waved at me; it was as if the gods had mysteriously whispered something into their ears.

  As I disappeared in the crowded underground station, I remembered my rites of passage as a twelve-year-old wrestler and saw the metaphor of that black boy, who had painted his face black and reddened his eyes with extract from a plant; the black boy who had failed to master the secrets of the Palapala fight, the black boy who thought brute force was the order of the day, the black boy who exiled himself from
the village after the molikilikili had brought him down, the black boy shunned, stunned and decapitated by the curse of patriarchy.

  It was June 1999—two years and one month since I had arrived in Russia.

  I had moved from being an illegal Cameroonian to being a legal Zimbabwean. I knew the skills and the routine of human traffickers, and I knew how to perform dollar scams. I walked and wondered how long it would take for the clients to realise what had happened, that they had been scammed. What was going to happen to Kattooh? Was he still at the police station in Ivanovo? Had he left the police station? Was he still in Ivanovo? Was he en route to Moscow? Whatever it was, I knew I had eight hours in Moscow before I disappeared. If anyone was following me or monitoring my movements they would have known that I was up to no good. My brain was thinking faster than my legs, so much so that when I got to the escalators at Arbatskaya Station, instead of using the outbound escalators, I struggled to use the inbound escalators. My brain could not register or understand why I was unable to go up out of the station. To the left of me I could clearly see people standing comfortably, lovers kissing and using the appropriate escalators. My brain had frozen. This was the case until a babushka took my hand and directed me towards the outbound escalators. Under her breath I heard her say, ‘Poor black boy, his brain is not enough.’ I was behaving like a coconut, I was there and not there at the same time. As she walked away, I shouted, ‘Thank you very much.’ She just shook her head.