Against All Odds

by R. A. Lang

  Later, I discovered that the receptionist was also in on the robbery. She had entered a fake girl’s name in the visitor’s book at the reception by using correction fluid and covering someone else’s name. Therefore, it looked like I was at home the entire evening entertaining someone I’d never met.

  The police assumed that the girl who I’d never met must have been the thief. Because I was at the wedding party all evening, it was easy to prove that it was also a part of the cover-up.

  Because I was a European working in Kazakhstan, I didn’t have the normal Kazakh police working on the case. Instead, I had an internal affairs police investigator, who was very keen to do all he could to help, especially for some extra $$$s.

  He came to the quick conclusion that because my residence had deliberately hidden the security camera footage, fired all guards who had worked the night of my robbery, and added a false visitor to the visitor’s book, they were clearly covering up the whole incident and therefore responsible. I guess it didn’t take a genius to work that out.

  Under Kazakh law, my residence’s administration had to compensate me for the full replacement value of both my watch and camera. Antonina, together with the internal affairs police, launched a full criminal investigation.

  Three more Kazakh police investigators came to my apartment to interview the deputy director of the company who owned the apartments and the administration manager. The president’s daughter was the main owner, so they didn’t want any bad publicity.

  The actual director wasn’t in Atyrau that day, so his deputy had to answer all the questions. Antonina questioned him with regard to the missing security camera footage, and he explained that the technician had accidentally switched off the cameras for the entire weekend. Supposedly, they only realised on Monday, after my things had been taken, that nothing had been recorded.

  The police took the staffing logbook so they could find out which guards were on duty that night. After a few weeks, they were able to find the guilty guard who had been fired in a distant village. They brought him to the police headquarters in Atyrau and kept him detained until I was able to visit whilst he was questioned.

  I’d never seen the guard before because he was always on duty at the rear of the building, at the entrance of the car park. Apparently, the usual reception guard needed to take his break, so he had someone stand in for him just as I was returning from the wedding party, somewhat drugged!

  He noticed the gold watch when I walked past him to the elevator. I was with a friend from Uzbekistan who worked at a local hospital. She had accompanied me to the wedding party and just wanted to see me get home safely.

  Actually, she left my apartment after just five minutes, but she decided not to return home. Instead, she hung around for a while for the drug she had slipped into my drink to take its full effect. She had spent quite some time talking to the security guard regarding my watch, long enough for me to be fast asleep. After that, she returned to my apartment, together with the security guard, to take my watch and camera.

  Once she and the guard had my things, she wasted no time leaving Atyrau and returned to a town called Aksai, which was near the southern Russian border. The police needed to interview her because she was the last person to be seen with me while I still had my watch. This delayed the investigation by a few weeks, until they were able to locate her and bring her back to Atyrau.

  When she finally returned to Atyrau, the police took her into custody in their headquarters for questioning. She was detained in a prison cell in between questioning for a full week. For a while, she claimed she was innocent, but after several days, she admitted that she had organised the robbery with the apartment security guard and receptionist.

  The receptionist was also involved, as she had entered the false visitor name in the guest book that evening and lent them a master key so they could get into my apartment.

  After the receptionist saw the police visit and revisit the building, she took ten days off. Later, she became sick and quit her job. She was not seen there again.

  I was advised to leave my apartment and move to a hotel near my office where I would be safer. I moved to the hotel just behind my office, so I was only at risk for the five minute walk to the office. Each day I walked to and from the office, I felt it might be my last.

  During that time, I had been calling Haitian and listened to her warnings. When I asked her how she knew all that was going on, she explained that it was what she did. It was only then that I discovered she was a voodoo priestess.

  I made the mistake of telling Antonina about Haitian and what she was doing in my house. That caused Antonina to want to speak to Haitian practically every night of the week, despite what it was costing me. Conversations lasted for a ridiculous length of time, and soon Antonina demanded that I give Haitian everything she needed.

  Haitian was renting a small bar just down the road from my house, which is where I had the misfortune of meeting her. One night, Antonina called her, and Haitian was in a terrible state. She claimed that someone had broken into her bar and stolen all her stock. She needed to borrow two thousand dollars from me, which she promised to return when she made it back.

  Antonina demanded I help her so I sent the money, but I really was not comfortable with the decision. Just four weeks later, Haitian begged me for another two thousand dollars. She said that if she didn’t pay the Chinese owner the overdue rent, she would lose the bar.

  I thought about the request and sent another two thousand dollars. I figured that, if she lost the bar, I would never see my original two thousand dollars.

  As it all worked out, Haitian had to leave the bar because the Chinese owner had obtained legal support to evict her. Haitian promised to return my second loan if it wasn’t accepted for her rent payment, but of course, being the same as the other island types, I never saw that money again.

  Because Haitian was now out of work and Ronnie was only earning a low salary working as a barman in a beach hotel, they asked for even more money. They claimed they couldn’t afford to pay the utility bills each month, and I later learnt why.

  In the beginning of January 2011, it was time for me to take a break from the stress and hostilities I was enduring in Kazakhstan and return back to the island. Antonina began performing and wouldn’t allow me to go alone, and told me she would have me stopped at the airport if I didn’t take her with me.

  Antonina couldn’t be reasoned with and demanded to go on holiday with me and see my house for the first time. Her real reason was to meet Haitian, as she was unnaturally fascinated with voodoo. There was a lot of paperwork required for her one night stay in Amsterdam and her longer stay on the island.

  She needed to fly to Astana to visit the Netherlands Embassy to get both visas required to accompany me. The visas took five days to be issued so she needed to stay in a nearby hotel at additional expense.

  Finally, she was granted the two visas, and I used my company’s travel department to buy the flights.

  All seemed to be going normally until the day came for us to fly out of the country. The problems began when we encountered the Kazakh border police in Atyrau airport.

  The previous year, Antonina had her handbag stolen while a man held a knife to her throat. In her police report she had reported that her bag had contained her passport. Later, she had found her passport but forgot to inform the authorities. In the meantime, they had cancelled her original passport.

  At Atyrau airport, the border police found that her passport had been cancelled in their computer system and did not permit her to leave for the flight to Amsterdam. After all the expense getting her the two visas, I decided that I would also stay behind until she’d sorted out her passport problem. I should have continued without her!

  We had our luggage removed from the aircraft, and we were escorted behind the scenes with the Kazakh border police. They kept us there for another two hours until we’d hand written statements in triplicate, just like in the internal affairs pol
ice station.

  There was no alternative; we had to get a new passport for Antonina before I could take my much-needed holiday. The complications were just about to begin. In Kazakhstan, as Antonina was in possession of a supposedly stolen passport, it wasn’t going to be easy applying for a replacement.

  She had to take a nine hour drive to Aksai in northern Kazakhstan, very near the Russian border, to apply for a new passport. Several people had to be bribed because her not stolen passport had caused so much confusion as it had been cancelled, but was still in her possession. It cost over two thousand dollars in bribes to get her a new passport that would allow her to fly a week later.

  When we finally got through the border control police a week later, it was a great relief, or so I thought.

  Without any reason, Antonina started performing the minute we boarded the flight to Amsterdam. Upon arrival in Amsterdam, she became worse. The minute we got into our hotel room, she started screaming at me to open my laptop and sign into Skype before I could even take off my coat.

  Once she had spent two long hours talking to her mother, daughter, brother, and others, she closed the computer and started threatening me with the Kazakh KGB. She demanded my mobile phone so she could have the KGB in Amsterdam collect her and fly her home. I was convinced she was going insane. That was just the start of her unusual behaviour for having a Caribbean holiday.

  The next day was wasted with shopping all over Amsterdam for her entire family. She made me buy so much that I had to buy two extra suitcases to carry the lot to the island, and later back to Kazakhstan. If I refused to buy something, she would start screaming in the middle of the street for all to see.

  The next day, we flew from Amsterdam to the heat and sunshine of the Caribbean, which I hoped would improve her behaviour. I could not have been more wrong. I bought myself a new laptop in the airport so I could leave it in my island house, to save myself from carrying my old laptop back and forth through airports each time. As events worked out, I never got to use that new computer.

  Haitian and Ronnie, who were still housesitting, were both at the airport waiting for us. They didn’t have a car, so all four of us, along with four suitcases had to squeeze into the same taxi.

  The minute Antonina saw my Caribbean hideaway she became even more crazed. Haitian stirred up as many problems as she could until things became completely out of control. It was a holiday from hell, a holiday I could never have imagined possible.

  I rented a car so I could take Antonina around the island and show her how beautiful the place was. I also let Haitian and Ronnie use it so they could go out and give us a little time to ourselves. That didn’t work. Even with the car keys on the table, Haitian refused to leave my house.

  I became so desperate to get them out of my house, even for just a few nights that I even offered to pay for a hotel and give them daily spending money. But Haitian still refused to go. I could not get her out, not even for a couple of hours.

  What it boiled down to was that Haitian was protecting her free lodging by doing everything she could to split Antonina and me up. That way, they would always need to housesit and never leave my house. I certainly didn’t have any plans to marry the crazed Kazakh, but just needed to be patient until the court case for my watch was over and leave Kazakhstan permanently.

  Because Haitian was a voodoo priestess, my tiled floor was always a mess with candle wax. I could feel a strong presence in the house almost every night before I was finally introduced to the spirit. He liked to be called Brave, but he is better known in voodoo books as Elohim.

  I was surprised to learn that Antonina was very much into voodoo, and she encouraged Haitian to continue performing voodoo ceremonies, despite my strongest objections. I became an outcast in my own home even though they were all living off my back. I even took them all deep sea fishing, which was also a waste of time and money, but at least the opportunity meant I was out of the house.

  Antonina kept promising me that when I was back in her country, she would create a very big problem for me. At the time, I ignored all her threats and laughed them off. I wasn’t doing anything wrong or behaving in a bad way so I couldn’t think of anything she could possibly do to cause me a problem.

  During my holiday from hell, my mother came for a day visit. She was on holiday cruising the Caribbean and arrived on her cruise ship that stopped off at the island as part of the tour to other island destinations.

  Antonina insisted in joining me when I went to collect my mother from the port terminal for her five hour stop-off, to make sure I didn’t have the opportunity to explain all that was being done to me. My mother arrived on time at nine o’clock in the morning, so we first drove her back to my house, where Haitian and Ronnie remained, to continue depriving me of any privacy.

  It was impossible for me to talk to my mother about the events that were taking place all day, every day. That was frustrating to say the least. I wasn’t even left alone in the kitchen to make my mother a soft drink.

  I went outside with my mother thinking I might have the opportunity to talk freely with her, but that was also a waste of time: Antonina, Haitian, and Ronnie followed us out.

  While we were sitting outside on my veranda, a wild pigeon flew in and perched itself on my outdoor swing. The swing was large and could seat three people. It had a canopy above to shade its occupants or shelter them from the rain.

  The pigeon landed on top of the canopy and looked like it was quite at home. While there, it kept looking at us the whole time. After about half an hour, Antonina reached up to the bird, picked it off the canopy, and brought it to meet everyone.

  The bird remained completely calm and undisturbed while we each took a turn to stroke it. We put it on my green table below the kitchen window, and we gave it some bread and a little bowl of water. It wasn’t hungry or thirsty; it just watched our every movement.

  Because my mother only had five hours on the island, we couldn’t spend any longer at my house. We returned to the capital, just a twenty-five minute drive away.

  On my mother’s first visit to the island back in June 2010, she had bought some wooden ornaments, which were made in the Amazon rainforest from the mopa mopa tree. She was very fond of her last purchases, and she wanted to return to the shop to buy some more. Of course, we were not permitted to go alone as Antonina insisted on tagging along with us.

  By the time we had parked and my mother had been to the shop, we only had enough time to stop for something to eat before taking her back to her cruise ship.

  That was the last I would see of my mother until April 2012, due to my overseas work schedule and life. It took a serious medical problem to stop me in my tracks, but when I next saw my mother, she was there to help as usual. The moment we waved goodbye and walked back to the car and out of sight, Antonina started performing again. She was in a worse state of hatred and jealously after she had met my mother.

  Back in Kazakhstan, she had an eight year old daughter who was sadly retarded and was desperate to try for another child. After several abortions during a previous relationship with a Lebanese man she had suffered damages, making another pregnancy life-threatening.

  She didn’t want to listen to any of the advice the medical profession had given her in the past and wanted to be checked using voodoo. Of course Haitian was only too keen to oblige and made the necessary arrangements for Brave to visit to carry out the procedure. Apparently, she claimed that Brave was studying medicine.

  The next afternoon Haitian called Brave and he arrived in the house just moments later. His energy caused two plastic parrots to start singing as they were designed to do whenever their motion sensor picked up movement. It was certainly clear that something had entered the room, as there wasn’t anyone near the parrots at the time.

  Brave possessed Haitian’s body and Antonina was instructed to fully extend her right arm so Brave could take a blood test. To my total disbelief, and before my very eyes a little squirt of blood spurted out of
Antonina’s vein. Haitian swabbed the tiny little perforation before instructing Antonina to stand in front of her while she (Brave) examined her. Brave always used Haitian to communicate and needed to push his hands into Antonina’s abdomen to feel his way around.

  After a short time he made his diagnosis and explained that if she ever tried to have a child, it would either kill her, or the child would be badly deformed. Apparently, a previous pregnancy had resulted outside her womb, which resulted in half of her reproductive system being removed on her right side.

  Antonina wouldn’t accept any of the facts and insisted that Brave helped her. Brave explained that he’d need to call on other spirits who were better qualified, and who may have been able to make some internal changes to reduce the risks if she did become pregnant.

  Brave always had his price in return for his help and needed some kind of offering, before he would begin to help. His preferred offerings were normally of a macabre nature and his favourite included blood. Due to all that was going on I offered myself, which he immediately refused. He claimed that I was already a member of his temple, so I couldn’t be considered.

  Brave didn’t like material items either, but all I could think of to offer was a gold bracelet that I’d bought in Istanbul the previous year, while I was auditing a shipbuilder there. I couldn’t think of anything else, so Brave finally accepted my gift.

  Later that very afternoon, at around six o’clock, Antonina became very sick. She claimed that she was having terrible, unbearable pains in her abdomen and couldn’t handle it any longer. She was crying with the pain and began begging for it to stop. Strangely, Haitian ran to us shouting that her father had just called her. She explained that her father had picked up what was going on during one of his voodoo ceremonies in Haiti, which Brave had told him about.