There and Back on Time

By Samson Akpaka

Zuby was an African immigrant in Europe.
After his asylum process in Germany, he joined the local drug dealers, but when police found drugs in his room, he disappeared to Portugal.
In Portugal, Zuby met Jennifer, a teenage prostitute from Nigeria, and decided to help her quit the job. He nearly got killed while trying to save Jennifer from human traffickers.
Madam Grace planned to kill Zuby since he was able to convince Jennifer to quit prostitution. She chased him all over Portugal, sending hired killers to eliminate him.
Zuby succeeded in evading her until he ran back to Germany with Jennifer.
He started drug business again in Germany.
With German Police on his tail, he disguised himself in different forms to hide from them while he controlled a drug business in Berlin. He managed to survive until he ran back to Nigeria.
There and Back on Time is the first book of the Global Runs series. The thriller opens up the world of human traffickers. In the book, one is expected to find the routes taken by the human smugglers who own apartments in North Africa where they prepare the teenagers for onward transportation to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Africa
• Release date: Nov 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482824704

Samson Akpaka

With his entry into the writing world, Samson Akpaka won the best writer of all time on Nairaland.com. He went on to become a master storyteller with his experience as an immigrant in Europe. He was born and raised in Nigeria.

Book preview

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

The Temporal Camp

The refugee camp in Dusseldorf, Germany was inside an abandoned ship. The German authorities had converted the ship to a living quarter.

I had stopped at the Dusseldorf Central Train Station and walked all the way to the camp as I was told by Afam, a man I met few days back in the city of Oberhausen.

There was a long stretch of bridge from the land to the ship. I walked on it until I got to the entrance door of the abandoned ship; it was locked.

A knock on the metal door produced an elderly woman who peeped from a spy hole on the gate

Was ist los? she asked in German.

I kept silent since I didn’t understand what she was saying.

She opened the gate and motioned for me to come in.

Bist du neurer hier? she asked again.

I remained silent again.

She turned around and called on a middle aged man to come.

The man spoke English language.

Would you like to talk in English or French? the man asked me. I nodded before saying ‘English’.

Are you from Sierra Leone, Liberia or Nigeria? he asked.

I became confused. Afam had told me a day before that I was the one to tell them where I came from and not them naming some countries for me to choose from.

I composed myself and answered Cameroun. He wrote down Kameroun with a ‘K’ and asked me for my name.

Solomon Ebot, I answered.

He wrote it down again and asked for my date of birth.

After writing down everything he needed from me, he called another man who led me to a room with number 27 written on the door. There were two double-decker beds in the room; the two lower beds had been occupied. I had nothing with me; therefore I just climbed on the top bunk and lay face-up staring at the wooden ceiling.

At about 12 pm, a bell rang and everyone started scrambling downstairs. I followed them to the base of the ship where the engine was supposed to have been. There were rows of seats and tables carefully arranged on the basement. At the head of the hall was a buffet setup of assorted food; rice, small breads, honey, butter and so on. It was time for lunch.

There was already a long line of other asylum seekers. I joined up from the rear. As I walked past the first table, I picked up two plates as I had seen the lady before me did. I got to the food table and got served some rice and chicken in one plate. Then I received bread, one sachet honey and butter in one plate. I took a pack of orange juice and looked for an empty place to sit.

When I got to a vacant seat, I sat near the Middle Eastern girl whom I was following.

Are you new here? I asked the girl.

She ignored me and continued eating.

Some Middle Eastern men were eating about six meters opposite me and they stared at me from time to time.

When we finished eating, I headed to room number 27. Before I got to the room, a young man of about twenty-eight years stopped me. He was African.

Are you Nigerian? he asked.

I kept quiet as if I had not heard him. I was told to deny being a Nigerian. It was unpatriotic for me but I had no other choice if I was to avoid being sent back to Nigeria.

He continued talking and asking some questions about Nigeria. From his intonation, I figured he was a Nigerian too, a fellow Igbo tribesman for that matter but I was a Camerounian on the Ship.

I am from Cameroun, I said to him.

He let out a devilish laugh and said his name was Ifeanyi; he was from Anambra in Eastern Nigeria.

Despite the temptations to spill it out, I maintained that I was a Camerounian. The man could have been a German spy.

He told me that he had come from France where he had lived for two years without taking asylum, his visa had expired and the police was closing in on him. He had decided to leave France and cross over to Germany to seek asylum. He warned me not to talk to the Middle Eastern girl I met during lunch. He said that her people could kill me if they saw me around her again. That was a very good warning from him. It was then that I figured out why the Middle Eastern men kept staring at me during the lunch.

After the conversation with Ifeanyi, I went back to room 27.

When it was time for dinner, we ate again and went to our beds.

The following morning, some names including mine were called out during breakfast. We followed a man to an office outside the ship but in the same city of Dusseldorf. We were registered appropriately and finger-printed. Then we were given train tickets to our various permanent refugee camps scattered all over the Republic of Germany.

I was posted to Eisenhuttenstadt, a town between Frankfurt-Oder and Cottbus in the German state of Brandenburg. The town was very close to the Polish border. I was given a travel plan which would help me to connect trains through different train stations. I was to enter a train in Dusseldorf Central Station to Dortmund, then stop there and enter a different train to Osnabruck. I would stop at Osnabruck and wait for half hour before boarding another train to Hannover. At Hannover, I would board another train to Braunschweig., and after, board another to Magdeburg. The train from Magdeburg would stop me at Berlin Zoologischer Garten Station where I would board another to Eisenhuttenstadt, my final destination.

It was a cheap ticket, therefore I had to use the inter-regional trains. It also meant that I stopped and changed trains in all of the above mentioned cities.

I, a twenty-two year old Camerounian, arrived at Eisenhuttenstadt by 6:15pm. It was a long journey but I loved traveling. I entered bus 31 from the train station to the Asylum Camp.

When I got to the gate, I gave them the clearance papers I was given in Dusseldorf and they admitted me.

I was taken to Room 22 upstairs in one of the five buildings inside the massive premises. The compound was fenced with barbed wires. The compound next to it was the deportation camp, the terror compound of our time in camp.

Unfortunately for me, the dinner time had passed that evening before I arrived at the camp; therefore I was given an orange juice and some hard bread to eat and wait until the next day. They also gave me a clean white bed sheet and two pillow cases.

I dropped off the items in the room and went downstairs. There were many people playing outside; football, tennis and so on. I strolled past a group of boys; about four of them. They were speaking Igbo, my native Nigerian Language. I pretended not to understand them and walked past them towards another group.

The new group was speaking a language I couldn’t figure out; therefore I walked past them again towards where some girls were playing volleyball.

CHAPTER TWO

The Beginning

It all started when I left Nigeria on 31st July, 2002.

We had boarded Alitalia airline at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, Nigeria and landed in Accra Ghana on transit. We left Ghana the same night and got to Milan’s Malpenza airport the following morning. The whole night was like a dream.

Back at the airport in Lagos, I had walked down the aircraft isle looking up at the storage base for my seat number. My ticket had pointed to seat Number 20A. I had found my seat at the left side of the flight. A strange and suspicious looking girl was sitting on it. The lights were still on, so I took a good look at her face first. She was about nineteen or twenty.

That’s my chair I said confidently as if I had been traveling by flight all my life.

She looked scared and surprised.

Check your ticket for your own seat number, I continued.

She had opened a local handbag and brought out her ticket. I took a look at it and saw 20B.

What! I had thought 21 came after 20 in numerical order, what was 20A and B again.

I was a little confused, so I settled on the window seat, whether it was 20A or 20B.

My travel had been fun due to the fact that Amanda, my seatmate was also a first time air traveller. She was going to Napoli according to her, to live with her aunty who had lived there for twenty years and had a boutique.

When we landed at Malpenza airport in Milan, we proceeded to the transit hall. I left the craft before Amanda. The next time I saw her, she was being questioned by two uniformed women whom I suspected to be either Italian police or immigration. I quickly looked away from them and proceeded to the transit hall. Before I left Lagos, I was warned to mind how I interacted with people I didn’t know. They said it could lead to my deportation back to Nigeria.

I boarded a new, smaller aircraft from Milan to Dusseldorf Germany. We got to Dusseldorf an hour and some minutes after leaving Milan.

Two neatly dressed police officers stood on the way from the aircraft to the arrival hall. They stopped me and asked for my passport which I gave them. While they were flipping towards the visa page, my hand was stretched out in a do-quick-and-give-it–back manner. They gave the passport back to me after searching through it.

I could have been in a lot of trouble if they had asked me a question. The passport I travelled with didn’t belong to me. It belonged to a man who had lived for years in Germany.

Matthew, who owned the passport and who was supposed to welcome me at the Dusseldorf airport was there before I arrived.

I followed him down to the train station inside the airport where he bought two train tickets. We boarded a train from Dusseldorf to Oberhausen, a small city near Dortmund.

When we got to his apartment, the first thing that caught my attention was Nnenna, a Nigerian girl who was supposed to be Matthew’s girlfriend.

Welcome, we have been waiting for you, she said in Igbo, my native language.

She popped a bottled of champagne and shared it among the three glasses on the glass table.

Welcome to Deutschland, she cheerfully toasted as we drank from our glasses.

After the drinks, she pointed to the bathroom in case I wanted to shower but I told her I wanted some rest.

She went into the kitchen and brought out four fried chicken legs in a ceramic plate and kept it on the table opposite me, after which she announced that she was going to the mall to shop. She left with Matthew some minutes later.

Two hours later, Nnenna returned alone and when I asked after Matthew, she answered that he won’t be coming back until the next morning.

You haven’t eaten your chicken legs, she observed.

Truth was that I didn’t know it was for me since she just kept it there and said nothing.

I wasn’t hungry but I am now, I lied, and instantly grabbed one of the chicken legs and shoved almost all of it into my mouth at once.

After the meal, I went into the bathroom to shower.

The bathroom was full of liquid soaps which were strange to me. I had come with a local soap from Nigeria; therefore I tied my towel and went to the room to get the soap from my bag.

Nnenna stared at me lustfully as I opened my bag to get my soap but I pretended not to notice. I went back into the bathroom and closed the door. The key latch on the door was damaged so the door could not be locked. When I turned on the shower, very hot water burst through the funnel and landed on my body.

I shouted in pain and quickly turned the steaming water off.

The bathroom door opened almost immediately and Nnenna was standing there staring at me from my head, to my face down, to my manhood hanging between my legs.

The water is too hot, I complained.

She knew what had happened without any explanation.

Sorry, I didn’t show you how to mix the water, she apologised as she stepped inside the bathroom. I was completely naked but the effect of the hot water on my body subdued every thought in my head.

She laughed as she lectured me on how to balance the water between hot and cold. When she finished, she looked directly at my manhood and smiled at it.

You have a big dick, she said coyly as she left.

The silly manhood had already started getting excited. I had just arrived in a strange country with strange weather and strange buildings and strange yellow people with yellow hair and flashy cars, but all my mind could think of was what was beneath Nnenna’s cloths. I had just found myself in that circumstance and I decided not to make any move on her whatsoever.

When I finished my bath, I changed to a pair of short jean pants and a polo shirt I had brought from Nigeria.

Did this girl say that Matthew will not come back until next morning??

That was almost twelve hours to stay alone with her. Something was definitely going to happen. All the girls that had seen my joystick from the past five years had also felt it inside them and Nnenna was not going to be an exception.

I sat in the sitting room watching a program being presented in a strange language but I didn’t care. It wasn’t interesting since I couldn’t understand what they were saying but I pretended to be enjoying it

What else was there to do?

The only option left was either to sleep or chat with the beautiful girl going from the kitchen to the bedroom.

A plate of hot, creamy food landed on the table in front of me and brought me out of my reverie.

What part of Igboland are you from? I asked Nnenna.

Enugu State she replied.

She was from my home state. Things were getting more interesting.

I am from Enugu State too I said.

We introduced our various towns, and chatted some more and surprisingly ate from the same plate while talking. According to her, she was a student.

When we finished eating, she went into the bathroom to have her bath.

Solomon! I heard her voice call out from the bathroom.

I moved to the bathroom door and knocked.

She asked that I come in.

I opened the door slowly and peeped into the bathroom, Nnenna was naked.

I asked you to come in, not stand at the door she said and started smiling,

Are you afraid of a naked woman? she continued.

I decided to take control of the situation from there.

Tell me what it is, I can hear you from here I responded.

I need you to massage my back with this sponge she said as she stretched her hand to give me a sponge.

I… I… I… can’t do that, Matthew will be… I stammered.

Matthew will not find out unless you tell him she interrupted me.

I staggered into the bathroom like a drunken sailor and took the sponge.

I was in a dilemma. If I refused to do her this favour, I could have managed to make an enemy under the same roof. If I did it, I could get in trouble with Matthew if he found out. I was already in the situation and there was no way out, therefore I started rubbing her back with the sponge. She eventually turned around and faced me with two beautifully crafted breasts staring at me.

King David would have sent Matthew to the war front to be killed just to take Nnenna from him if it was during his era.

I didn’t wait for the invitation to rub the breasts. It was part of her body. I had massaged and rubbed her back down to her buttocks and as far as I was concerned, the difference between the buttocks and the breasts wasn’t much.

I massaged the breasts with the sponge while she closed her eyes. Somehow I managed to drop the sponge and started the massaging with my bare hands. My manhood was already bulging from my jean pants and was so visible that there was no hiding place for it.

She threw water at me and pulled me close to her body, then she planted a kiss on my lips and I lost every sense of control and reasoning.

Later on after we finished what we started inside the bathroom, she explained to me that her visa was going to expire in one year. If she didn’t get pregnant, the Germans would send her back to Nigeria. She told me that Matthew was not her boyfriend.

After my encounter with Nnenna, we sat down to chat in the living room. She told me how she had come to Germany.

Her parents were some kind of rich people who lived in Nigeria. They had sent her to study engineering in Essen, a big city near Koln (Cologne). She lived alone in Essen which was 20 minutes train ride from Oberhausen where we were at that time.

She was also a beautiful girl and charcoal black in complexion.

During our chat, she had told me that she wanted a baby to make her get Mothershaft, a kind of resident permit to live in Germany.

I had thought about the proposal of getting her pregnant and had no decision on it yet.

I had just arrived in Germany and I had not even called back home to tell them that I had reached my destination safely. The thought woke me out of my silly fantasies.

I stood up and asked Nnenna to escort me outside to make some calls to Nigeria. She had excused herself and went inside the room to put on make-up.

I opened my bag, fished out a €100 bill from it and searched for my international passport. It was nowhere to be found. I recalled that Matthew had taken it from me to keep. Then I remembered that it actually belonged to him.

I told Nnenna that I couldn’t find my passport but she told me not to be afraid. She said I could always tell the police that I was from Liberia and that I had been missing for long and that I didn’t even know how I got to Germany. It was funny but it was better than nothing.

We went outside to the business district of the town and I called my elder brother who was already getting worried. I told him to spread the news to my parents that I was already in Germany.

After the phone calls, Nnenna took me to a bar where Igbo boys gathered every evening to joke and drink. I kept quiet and listened for a few minutes. It was getting dark when we left for home. We got home around 8 pm. Nnenna called Matthew and confirmed that he would be coming back the following morning. The phone was on loudspeaker. Matthew had asked about me and was told I was sleeping. He had laughed and asked Nnenna to wake me up and give me the phone. I changed the tone of my voice and spoke like I was just waking up. He asked how I was doing and if Nnenna had given me food. Finally, he said he would be back around 6 am and hung up.

I and Nnenna laughed but my laughter was cut short by a kiss from Nnenna’s red lips. I didn’t care about the lipstick as I licked everything on my way to her tongue.

We held each other and kissed and caressed and squeezed and massaged until my manhood reminded me that it was still part of the set up.

As we kissed each other, my mind drifted away into Heaven where I had a hard time entering through the pearly gates.

St Peter was there with the same sword he used in cutting out the ear of one of those Gentiles who wanted to crucify his master. I greeted him nonchalantly as he opened the Book of Life to check if my name was among those scheduled to go into Heaven.

What did you say your name was again he asked.

Solomon Ebot I stammered.

Your names are not here he shouted as he reached for that rusty sword.

I took to my heels and it was only when I hit my head on the wall that I returned to Matthew’s sitting room, back to Nnenna and back to the cold weather of Europe.

At about 12 am, we finished drinking our orange juice and she announced that she was going to sleep in the room. It was a one- room apartment so I had to sleep in the sitting room.

Grin, grin grin. It was the doorbell.

I woke up with a start.

Who could be ringing the doorbell as early as 2 am?

It was Matthew.

I pretended not to have heard the bell anyway as I heard the room door open and Nnenna opened the passage door for him.

He was pretty cold as he went straight to the kitchen to plug the electric kettle into the power socket to make coffee. They talked for a while and Nnenna went back to the room pretending to have been sleeping since 6 pm the previous day.

Matthew did not come into the sitting room as he feared he could wake me up, not knowing that I was awake.

Around 7am, I went to the toilet to urinate. Nnenna was already in the kitchen baking God-knows what. I ignored her and went back to the sitting room.

She joined me 10 minutes later and sat at a considerable distance away from me as if I was an enemy. We occasionally made eyes at each other but there was no talking.

The German ZDF TV was telling us how the weather was going to be that day across the entire Country.

I went into the kitchen and brought a can of beer.

Why do you want to drink beer this morning? Nnenna asked.

I ignored her and opened the beer, took a deep drink and put it on the table.

My man, it looks like you like beer? A voice said coming into the sitting room. It was Matthew.

Good morning I greeted.

He responded and said something about the beer again.

I have been bored since yesterday doing nothing, so let me drink one beer first so that my head will clear today I joked.

He laughed as he told me that he would have a one week leave in three days’ time and would take me out to meet people.

Another three days alone with Nnenna, she was surely going to get pregnant.

No problem I managed to say ignoring Nnenna.

I want to go with you guys Nnenna chipped in.

I kept quiet as Matthew told her that it was going to be boys alone but that we could attach her to our plan if she would make a special dish called Chapatti for him.

Laughing, she agreed to make the food, and after that we chatted until it was time for Matthew to leave the house again.

Matthew left for work after midday and it was I and Nnenna all alone in the same house again. The atmosphere was awkward initially but after a few cans of Becks beer, we got fired up and got talking.

Her plan was to ditch Matthew when she got pregnant. I didn’t see how that was my concern until she said I was going to stay with her when she had the baby.

I sat up, because I couldn’t see the differences between a married man and her proposal. I played to her tune and agreed to the devilish plan. I was new in town and didn’t know anywhere to go. I gave my elder brother in Nigeria, Nnenna’s phone number to reach me if he wanted to talk since I had no phone of my own.

Her phone had beeped and it was my brother. He asked after my wellbeing and other sundry questions. Then he gave me the phone number of Afam, a young man from my neighbouring village back in Nigeria who travelled to Germany in 1999.

I called Afam later and he agreed to come to Oberhausen where I was. He lived in Essen.

Nnenna, what exactly do you think I am going to be doing in this country? I asked Nnnena who was sitting beside me.

You will first of all, go and take up asylum she said. She explained that the Polizei will eventually catch me if I didn’t. She also explained how I was going to visit an asylum camp and declare myself, then they will send me to a bigger camp after clearance and I could spend anything from one to three months during the whole process depending on how lucky I was. It sounded scary and funny at the same time.

We were still talking about the asylum process when the doorbell rang.

The Police officers were three males and one female. They had come to search for what I couldn’t figure out. They had opened the door to the stairs and walked up to our door before ringing the bell. They were looking for Mr Matthew.

Our door bell had beeped two minutes earlier. Nnenna had asked who it was in German language and they had answered ‘Polizei’

They flashed four badges at once and asked for Matthew.

He went to work, Nnenna replied.

They flashed a search warrant as two of them moved into the room.

I sat quietly in the sitting room like a statue trying hard to breath. One of them asked Nnenna some questions while looking at me. She told them I was her fellow student at one University in Essen. I smiled for the