4: The Illiterates.

Chapter 4: The Illiterates.

Naomi returned to the hotel room with me.
She occasionally reminded me that my €150. had expired, i didn’t pay attention. I knew that she would be happier when i finished my plans.
Somehow she had started to suspend herself to me.

Pathetically, those young girls were tired of the jobs they did for money. I associated more with the prostitutes in Europe for a reason. They were the only group of girls who were readily available to do anything. There were not many female Nigerian students in Western Europe. Most of them were in the UK or US. The few that we saw in Europe were too full of themselves. They believed that we who were the street soldiers were all illiterate, touts and criminals. Secondly most of the Nigerian female students over there in Europe already had one or more guys back in Nigeria whom they believed would marry them as soon as they finished whatever they came to do in Europe. Therefore, the only available ladies were the Sxs workers.
Most of the sex workers were already tired of life and were looking for a man to call their husbands. They preferred white and Igbo boys. With white men, they were assured of resident permits but with Igbo boys, they were assured of good welfare package.

Within two days of meeting with me, Naomi started falling in love. I had also started treating her like a queen. I would hold her hand in public and feed her ice creams. I would carry her upstairs on our way back to the hotel.
News had gone to her madam who summoned her in Mercadet. I had wanted to follow her but she declined. I wanted to meet that Madam to hear what she was going to tell Naomi.

When she returned from the meeting with her madam, she had told me that she had been warned to stay away from me or anything called boyfriend until she paid up her balance which was still close to €35,000. I was almost tempted to initiate another war with her madam instantly but since i didn’t know when i would get the resident permit i came for, i had decided to stay calm and watch things from the sideline. However, one thing was clear; Naomi had become my girlfriend and i had also started to love her. It meant that there was obviously going to be a small war.

It seemed that it was a curse on me. I seemed to attract small wars and fights wherever i go. But looking at it from a different angle, i didn’t see any offence i committed by loving a girl. I didn’t tell her to stop what she was doing or not to pay up her madam but she also has the right to love and be loved. On that single note, i decided that i will battle it out with Aunty Franca; that was her name. She had a cute little daughter called ‘Promise’.

Three days after meeting with Nonso, He called me. He said that he had submitted my documents to the foreign office in the outskirts of Paris. The authorities had given me three months to wait before my interview. Since it was a long date, i decided to also rent an apartment rather than staying in a hotel.
I started the hunt for an apartment by asking some black people i met on the streets. Eventually i got lucky.
Ernest was an Edo guy who lived with his wife at a small town called Grigny Center. It was a town of about 20km away from the center of Paris. I had met with Ernest in Mercadet where i was drinking Jim Beam with a visitor who had come to see me from Hungary.
We had talked about a new apartment and he had told me that he knew someone who had an empty one. We had taken a train from Gare Du Nord to the Grigny Center to check out the apartment. It was still available.
It was two bedrooms and a parlour. The price was €600/month.
I paid for the apartment and went to the local shopping mall in the town. I bought two mattresses at €120, each, four pillows, two bedsheets, pots and some other items. We took them back to the apartment and arranged them.
When i returned to Paris, i told Naomi that we were moving out of the hotel the next day.
She had asked where we were going and i told her. We had spent our last night in the hotel discussing on how we were going to live. She had called her friend  Lisa to meet us at the hotel with their bags.

We had all slept on the same bed in the same room that night. It was a strange night and strange moment sleeping on the same bed with two young beautiful ladies.
The following morning, we had hired a cab and drove to Grigny Center. The girls were extremely happy. They hugged me with every little chance.
Since there was a gas cooker in the house before we came, we needed a small fridge and some electronics for the sitting room.
We had gone out to the electronic shop and purchased those things.
I had also called Robin back in Holland to send my laptop down to Paris.
I also bought a big bag of rice and other food items.
The entire project took a hit on my cash but i didn’t care. Money wasn’t going to stop me from enjoying Paris.
It even crossed my mind at one time, to get Naomi pregnant and marry her. Despite my resolve to settle in Nigeria later on, there were times when i did get tired of life. During those times, i would consider settling down and starting a normal life of getting a job and raising a family. But it seemed that i was destined to explore more places.

That was how i started living with two beautiful girls in the same apartment.
Initially, Naomi slept with Lisa in their room. She would stay with me in my room until mid night, then she would return to their own room to sleep. But eventually, she started sleeping in my own room. We were practically married unofficially. She was also wary of Lisa.
Naomi had gone out once and returned to find Lisa in my room. She didn’t say anything but i saw the look on her face, it was that of suspicion.

Life in Paris started as soon as we moved from the hotel to Grigny. It was time to start visiting the beautiful places in Paris.

Grigny Center was a town on the top of a hill. One could see the Paris Eifel Tower from there. Eifel was the tallest point of Europe.

“There are some things you can’t learn at any university, except for one, the University of Life…the only college where everyone is a permanent student.