A Dirty Game

Chapter Fourteen

103 Fourteen ennedy and two others were taking a walk. They wondered if the crowd they saw approaching was on demonstration. They also doubted if they were simply people in celebration. ‘What could be such an anniversary? Are they Germans?’ Then a friend responded, ‘For sure, they are Germans.’ There were over three thousand Germans in black dresses. Most of them had piercings all over their bodies, some having more than three earrings on one and the same ear. They equally had frightful tattoos. Over a hundred police officers stood watching them in their demonstration. Their songs were in German. ‘Ausländer raus… Müssen raus.’ They meant that all foreigners must leave. Any time such demonstrations were up, all foreigners would try to avoid passing near them. If they must do so, the paramilitary police often guarded them. The demonstrators were ready to fight and die, even though some of them had no reason why they wanted foreigners to leave. All they knew was that their brothers were on the streets and they needed to support them. This twentieth century practice was transcending into the twenty first century and even more. Some countries like Great Britain, France, and the USA passed harsh laws to buttress the fight against racism. Germany wasn’t showing any serious concern. Rather, over the years, there had been a serious deportation of foreigners to their various countries of origin. Kennedy didn’t take the slogans of the demonstrators seriously. Not because he didn’t want to, but because something else occupied his mind. He could only think of his asylum case and his colossal sum of money back home. They walked passed the crowd. The stubborn boys continued with their hullabaloo words. The boys looked at K 104 them with lots of threats. As they were some few meters away, they saw a young African on the ground. About ten boys on him, he was beaten seriously. The police intervened. This rather annoyed the demonstrators. They wailed in their songs: Ausländer raus, nigger raus, alle raus, Müssen raus… The uproar was high this time. As the day was aging out, Kennedy found that the German society could be threatening. From this moment, a different image about the society he found himself began to germinate in his mind. They were thirsty. ‘We can drink something here,’ said Kennedy pointing to a kiosk. ‘We need to be careful,’ responded a friend. ‘Those boys can attack us here.’ The kiosk owner raised his head to them, ‘Darf ich helfen?’ he asked. ‘Please, we don’t understand German,’ said Kennedy. ‘Do you speak English?’ ‘A little bit.’ ‘We need some beer.’ They drank a bottle each. Kennedy paid and they continued along the beautiful streets of Düsseldorf. People were busy. As they walked, many people could understand they were new from their walking attitudes. Three men stopped them. Embarrassment! They were in faded jeans and appeared to be low class men. No one could predict that any of them could be a police officer. One of them whipped a card from his chest pocket and said pointing it to them, ‘Criminal Police.’ ‘Are we criminals?’ one asked. ‘Not that. Can we see your passports?’ They panicked somehow. It was embarrassing and intimidating. Kennedy was so uneasy. They had no option but to present the documents they had. ‘You are asylum seekers.’ ‘Yes, we are.’ 105 The environment and the people all seemed weird. To him, this was a serious negative impression. He was a calm man, though it was due to naivety. The police officers were off. He began to think heavily as they walked. He thought of how the Ibo boys from neighbouring Nigeria were often brutalised by the Cameroon police officers. It was at this time that he could imagine what a foreigner could face in a strange land. He thought of the time when his father took control of the Tiko council, and drove away some of the business Ibo boys who couldn’t pay their dues to the council. Some others had their huts dismantled by council orders. * * * * They soon reached the hotel. From outside, he saw the receptionist holding a piece of paper. He had just received a fax. As they passed in, he asked, ‘Hello, who is Foti Kennedy?’ ‘I am Foti, Sir.’ He answered expecting to hear more. ‘I have just received a fax. It is...