Conflicted Destiny - Season 1 Episode 45

8 years ago

Conflicted Destiny - Season 1 Episode 45

One day in June 1993, I stumbled into our apartment, exhausted from work, and there was this sick-looking little bird, a peruke, fluttering around the living room. As soon as I saw it, I knew all was not well back home. My grandmother’s mysterious relationship with birds had somehow influenced me. I caught the little guy, fed him, and bought a cage for him, all the while waiting and wondering what bad news he had brought me. I remembered my grandmother telling me before I left Nigeria two years earlier that she would always be with me, and to look out for the birds. Since I was born, my grandmother had always done everything in her power to protect me. Even in her old age she had fought people in my defense. She had even fended off evil spirits that, according to her, had been sent to harm me. The presence of the bird brought back the mystery surrounding my grandmother. Maria Joana was perplexed by my unusual behavior with the bird, but she didn’t complain.
We took very good care of the bird for three days. When I returned from work on the third day, I was confronted with an inexplicable situation: the cage was secure, but the bird had disappeared. I knew Maria Joana wouldn’t have released the bird without telling me; besides, she had left the house that morning before I did. After a moment, I realized the meaning of what had happened. Maria Joana returned from work and found me in tears. She asked what was going on, and I told her my grandmother had just died. I explained the significance of the bird and its disappearance. My grandmother had been gracious enough to let me know about her death and had even stayed with me for three days. Maria Joana did her best to console me, even though she couldn’t understand how I could conclude that my grandmother had died without receiving any information from my family. She didn’t have to wait long to be convinced, though. Three days later, I received a phone call from Nigeria that my grandmother had passed away in her sleep three days earlier.
Seven months later and twelve thousand dollars richer, in September 1993, I was la!d off, along with most of the other workers, when construction finally wound down at the Olympic Village. The amount of work left required just a skeleton crew. I wasn’t disappointed, though, because I had made a lot of money. The most exciting part of having a job those seven months was that I could contribute to our upkeep. I bought food for the house, as well as other things that I needed. I even took Maria Joana out from time to time, and we went to many restaurants. Best of all, I never had to ask her for money.
Maria Joana and I started discussing what I could do with the money. I told her that selling used cars was a big business in Nigeria, mostly Japanese cars shipped from Belgium. After I explained how it worked, Maria Joana thought it would be a good business venture. With the money I had, we figured I’d be able to buy four or five cars in Brussels and ship them to Nigeria. Since I still had the David English passport, I didn’t think I would have trouble traveling back and forth from Barcelona to Belgium. The one thing I didn’t want to do was travel to Nigeria. I might be able to get into the country, but it was highly unlikely that I could travel from Nigeria back to Spain—or anywhere else, for that matter—with my fake passport, given Nigeria’s reputation as the forgery capital of the world. I couldn’t take that chance. My idea was to buy the cars and ship them to Nigeria, and then have my family sell them and send the money to me so I could buy some more. We settled on this plan and I bought a round-trip ticket to Brussels.
In October 1993, I flew from Barcelona to Belgium, excited to finally be embarking on a business trip—something that could potentially make me a successful businessman and enable me sustain myself and my family. Because of my success with my fake passport, I didn’t anticipate any problems with Belgium immigration. But I should have known better; black people were often treated as suspects until proven otherwise. When I arrived in Brussels, the immigration officer didn’t bother to check other passengers’ passports, but he took a very keen interest in mine. He took so long that I was almost tempted to tell him myself that it was faked and he should go to hell. Before I could say anything, he went into the inner office. When he returned, he told me that I would not be allowed entry into Belgium because their system indicated that the David English passport had been stolen several months ago. This time, I was not particularly bothered. I had pretty much gotten used to being denied entry into countries and had become more confident, knowing that the worst thing that could happen was that they would send me back to Spain. So the only thing I could say to him was that it was their country’s loss, and that I had gone there intending to buy cars and add to their economy, but if they wouldn’t let me, so be it. I asked them to give me back my ticket so I could return on the same flight that had brought me. The officers weren’t exactly rude, but they told me that indeed I would be returning on that very flight, only they wouldn’t give the passport to me. Instead, they would give it to the pilot, who would hand it over to me upon arrival in Barcelona.
They were very smart. They had realized the dilemma they would have been in if they had chosen to retain the stolen passport and send me back to Barcelona without it. They also made a wise decision by having the pilot give me my passport upon arrival instead of reporting me to Spanish immigration. If they had sent me back without a passport, Spanish immigration would have no way of knowing that indeed I had traveled from Barcelona to Belgium, and they would have been forced to return me to Belgium on arrival. And if the Belgian authorities had told the pilot to turn over my passport to Spanish immigration, I would have suffered the same fate.
As agreed, I flew back to Barcelona on the same flight that had taken me to Belgium. The pilot waited for me at the door and handed me my passport as I was getting off the plane. I passed through immigration easily; there were no immigration checks because my flight had originated from an EU country, exactly what I had expected would happen with Belgium. I took a taxi to our apartment, and on the way, I decided I was done traveling with fake passport. That meant I had to return to Nigeria and get my own passport, then come back to Spain legally and try to go to the U.S. with my own passport. Maria Joana agreed, and we decided I would return to Nigeria in November. In preparation for my trip, I went around my neighborhood collecting used clothes and shoes for my relatives in Nigeria. I was excited about returning to Nigeria, not only because it had been two years since I had last seen my family, but also to show everyone that I had gone overseas on my own, without any help. It didn’t matter that I had suffered a lot during my time away; people who returned from abroad were held in high esteem regardless of whether they had cleaned toilets there.
A few weeks before my trip, I went to the Nigerian embassy and obtained an emergency traveling document. I also went to the Spanish National Police office with my real name, which was reflected on my emergency travel document, and obtained a police clearance. The police record indicated that I had never been in trouble and had no criminal record. This was necessary because after I obtained my passport in Nigeria, I would have to go to the Spanish embassy there to request an immigrant visa.
I also knew it would be practically impossible for me to get a Spanish visa from Nigeria with a brand-new passport. I would need help getting that visa.
Maria Joana and I decided that she would join me in Nigeria after a few months so we could get married…
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