Chapter 21: Selling out.
On our way to Grigny with the
Peugeot 406, i called Aunty Franca.
”I can put an end to all this thing
but it is going to cost you more
money. You started this problem.
I warned you but you think you
are clever. You will give me
another €2000 and you are paying
it today. Prepare to meet with me
in Thirty minutes. I will be in an
open crowded place where you
can not do anything to me. You
can come with your thugs, i am
not afraid of them. Tell Ernest
that i want to see him there too. I
am looking for a good place to
invite you. I will call you back in
twenty minutes. If you like, don’t
come with the money. The next
mistake from you will be very
disastrous” i said and hung up.
About ten minutes to enter Grigny
Center, i called Franca back.
”Where are you people now, i
want to come there” i said.
She said they were in Saint-Lazare.
Saint-Lazare is in the middle of
Paris and since i was going South
towards Grigny and Evry, i told
them that we would meet at the
North in Saint-Dennis train station
near the Parc Des Princes in one
hour.
Getting from Saint-Lazare to Saint-
Dennis will take about fourth
minutes, therefore i figured it will
give me enough time to operate in
Grigny.
We stopped at the mall and went
into the Second hand electronics
shop of the Arab man.
He was in when we came. I called
him aside and told him that i wish
to leave France and wanted to sell
some of my things. He agreed to
follow me to the apartment.
We got to the apartment and it
was open. The lock had been
damaged. We walked quietly into
the place and found out that my
laptop had been stolen and so was
the TV. The only valuable thing in
there was the Mattresses. The
Arab man said he would only pay
€100 for the two foams. It was
better than nothing. I took the
money from him and handed it
over to the cab driver and said,
”Lets go”.
On our way back to the Paris
center, i called Efosa.
”How many of you broke into my
apartment” i asked.
He kept quiet.
”Give Franca the phone” i said.
”Hello Solomon, are you there
now”? She asked.
”The meeting is temporary
cancelled. Your thugs broke into
my house and took my Laptop and
TV. Two of them are worth €1000.
Call me when you people have all
the money” i said and cut of the
call.
Franca called.
She pleaded that i pitied her.
According to her, she wanted us
to meet and end the whole thing
since nobody was looking after
her daughter.
”Are you going to push your
daughter out to the street for
prostitution when she is 16
years”? I asked her.
She stammered while saying that
it was not the topic at hand.
”Why haven’t you asked about
Naomi”? i asked.
She kept quiet.
”Like I said, the meeting is
cancelled for now. Go home, i will
contact you soon again” i said and
switched off my phone.
I asked the cab driver to stop me
at Gare du Nord. I gave him
another €20 and he drove off. I
walked into the massive structure
of Gare du Nord Train station of
Paris and checked the TGV fast
train to Marseille. It loaded up for
Marseille until 1am in the
morning. Since we were on the
run, it would be good to use the
midnight train. It meant that we
get to Marseille early in the
morning. I went to the TGV
counter and bought two tickets to
Marseille, then as i walked out of
the Gare du Nord to the outside, i
saw Franca and Ernest. Efosa and
Luke wasn’t with them anymore.
Since i wasn’t expecting them at
the Gare, they had seen me before
i saw them.
I was crossing the road to the side
where they stood and before i saw
them, they had bowed their heads
down to stop me from knowing
them. Fortunately for me, Ernest
usually carried one bag which he
always put around his neck. I had
spotted the pattern and it
triggered the sudden look at his
figure. It was him quite alright. I
had pretended that i didn’t see
them since i was on a dark sun
glasses. The traffic light which was
green while i was crossing from
the Gare towards the shops across
the road had changed from green
to yellow. It was a matter of
seconds before it turned red and
as soon as it turned red, the
waiting vehicles would start
moving fast towards each
direction.
I was almost across the road but i
suddenly turned back and started
running back to the Gare. Ernest
and Franca saw what i did and
also tried to cross the road but it
was late for them as the car horns
chased them back to where they
were standing. I had narrowly
escaped being hit by a car, many
eyes were on me as i quickly
entered into the Large Gare du
Nord and disappeared into an
escalator. I walked down to the
metro area and entered a metro
train standing there on line 4. I
didn’t know where it was going
but i needed to move away from
the Gare. The digital clock on the
platform showed that the train
would move in two minutes, that
was a long time to wait. I had
estimated that it will take about
one minute for the traffic to turn
green, then the two people would
cross to the Gare. It would take
them another minute to get to the
line 4 if they knew where to look
for me. I counted on the luck that
they could have started to look for
me in another line. I hated
counting on luck and as a result, i
was on high alert.
A bell rang after two minutes and
the train door began to close,
then i saw them. Ernest was
ahead of Franca by 5 meters. He
had heard the door closing bell
too and had started running to
meet up.
The doors of the train were
almost jamming up together when
Ernest put his hands against them
and squeezed himself inside the
last coach. I was on the second
coach up front. Aunty Franca had
missed the train. I was sure
Ernest didn’t know i was in the
train. He had jumped in from
instinct since line 4 was headed to
the only place almost every
Nigerian visited in Paris; Mercadet
Metro station.
As the train moved to the next
station at top speed, i thought
about the next thing to do. It
would take the train only a minute
to stop at the next station,
therefore it was urgent that i
came up with a good idea and
fast.

Chapter 22: Nike Shop.
I wrote a quick message to
Franca. It read, ”I can see you
standing at the line 4 station in
Gare du Nord, come up to the
Nike Shop, let us finish this
business”.
I sent the message at the same
time the train was stopping at the
first station in Barbes-
Rochechouart.
As soon as the train came to a
halt, i saw Ernest holding his
phone on his left ear while looking
into the back coaches. He had
looked into the coach 5, 4, 3 and
was about to look into 2 where i
was hiding, then he had suddenly
turned around and jumped into
another train heading back to
Gare du Nord where we had just
come from.
Great!.
I figured it was Franca who called
him and told him that i was at the
Nike shop.
I followed the metro train all the
way to Simplon station and
stopped.
I called a cab standing across the
road and asked him to take me to
Marne-la-Vallee where Naomi was
waiting for me.
She was happy when she saw me.
I brought out some new phones
from my pocket and she grabbed
the Samsung instantly.
”I like this one baby” she said with
a smile.
It was the first time i had seen her
smile for long. It was almost sad
that i was the cause of all the
current troubles she was facing.
She could have continued with
whatever business she was doing
but fate had brought us together.
There was no need to blame
myself. No matter how hard i
tried to change things, it still
meant that destiny pointed
towards the decisions i made. Our
destinies was that we must meet
someday. If the Gods didn’t wish
us to meet, there was nothing we
could have done.
”You can have it baby, its for you.
We will leave this place by 11pm. I
have tickets to Marseille with me”
i said.
After resting for a while, i
switched on my phone. I had
switched it off when i got to
Simplon station.
A few minutes later, Ernest called.
I switched on the recording
application and started recording.
”You stupid man, i didn’t know
you are such a loser. They told me
everything you have done. I will
catch you in this Paris, just watch
out” he yelled.
”Ernest, i didn’t know you are also
involved in the human trafficking. I
should not have gotten involved.
But what you people are doing to
the girls is very bad. How can you
send them to the streets in the
cold weather to stand and wait for
men, can you allow your own
blood sister to do the same”? I
asked calmly.
”Is it your business, do you know
how much those girls cost to
bring to Europe? Do you know
what their Madams went through
to bring them here? In fact, my
own sister is doing the samething
in Italy. So if you know what is
good for you, you better tell that
useless Naomi to return to Franca
and beg her for forgiveness or two
of you will die soon” he said and
cut off the line.
I replayed the recorded
conversation to the hearing of
Naomi who was busy operating
her latest Samsung phone. She
didn’t care about what i was
doing. She had made up her mind
that she no longer wished to be a
street sex worker. She had agreed
to return to Marseille And start
language school rather than waste
her young age on the cold streets
of Paris.
After arranging our bags, we
removed our cloths and played on
the bed until it was time to go.
At 10:40pm, I went outside to get
a cab and when i returned, we
entered and drove to Gare Du
Nord. It was time to leave Paris
Metropolis for a while.
The documents i applied for
wasn’t going to mature until after
the interview. It was at the
interview that the authorities give
out the temporal resident permit
card if they believed the story you
told them. As it stood, i won’t be
going for my interview until after
some weeks. I didn’t even have
much faith on the interview thing.
As days went by in Paris, i
discovered that it would have
been better if i had processed and
applied for the documents by
myself instead of using Nonso
Ukeh. It was a mistake dealing
with him but i didn’t know how it
worked.
We got to Saint Charles train
station in Marseille around
4:30am. The temperature was
different from that of Paris.
Marseille wasn’t as cold as Paris
but the wind from the
Mediterranean Sea breezed past
the entire City. We had gotten
down and walked into a coffee
shop.
”Give us two cups of hot
Chocolate” i had said to the lady
attendant. She had disappeared
and reappeared after a minute
with two cups of chocolate.
I paid her and gave one to Naomi
who was lying half asleep on my
legs.
We drank and waited for the day
to break properly.
After thirty minutes at the coffee
shop, we walked outside and
entered a cab. The cab took us to
a cheap hotel near the Station.
We entered and rented a room of
€40/day. It was a nice well
organised room. Since we were
tired, we dropped our bags and
changed to sleeping cloths, then
we slept until 12pm.
I woke up before Naomi and sat
on the only chair in the room. I
watched her as she slept. A
million things zigzaged through
my mind as i watched the little
sweet girl sleeping on the bed.
I thought about how the whole
thing was going to end. One thing
was for sure, I was not going to
settle down in France and not in
any European Country for that
matter. My hope was that when
my sojourn around the World was
over, i would retire in a small
farmhouse in an isolated place in
my village where my only close
friends would be the birds but
there on the bed was another
human being who had suspended
her life to me. She was not part of
the original plan, therefore it was
only a matter of time before we
go our separate ways but i hoped
to make sure that i helped her lay
a good foundation before our time
was over.
I was an angel because most of
the people i knew didn’t care
about the sufferings of those girls
in Europe. They only minded their
businesses and each time the
topic came up, they usually
maintained that the girls knew it
was going to be that way for
them. But we ourselves didn’t
know how it was going to be for
us in Europe, we had hoped for a
safe haven where we were going
to become rich overnight but it
was not to be what we hoped..

When this story wan continue nah

Am really enjoyin dis fairy tale story

Life on the Run continues on January 12..... At www.globalruns.com