The Illegal (6 page)

I got a robe, you got a robe

All God’s children got a robe

When I get to heaven gonna put on my robe

I’m gonna shout all over God’s heaven, heaven, heaven,

Ev’rybody’s talkin’ ’bout heaven ain’t goin’ there heaven, heaven

I’m gonna shout all over God’s heaven.

When they had finished, Yoyo put his arm around his son’s shoulder and said, “The time has come. Call the marathon agent.”

It was March 2018, and those were the last words of advice that Keita received from his father.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
K
EITA ROSE TO FIND HIS FATHER ALREADY
out for the day. He set aside yet another note from Hamm.
Would you like to talk? No obligation to do business.
He went for a run and returned to hear the phone ringing. A man’s voice said that Keita could save his father’s life only if he put twenty thousand U.S. dollars in an envelope and deposited it on the counter by municipal tax wicket number 5 at the town hall before the end of the business day.

Keita had no possibility of raising twenty thousand dollars in hours. His father, if he were still alive, would know it, and so would his father’s captors. Still, Keita tried everything. He spent two hours at his father’s bank in Yagwa, trying to persuade them to let him have access to his father’s funds. Finally, a woman who had difficulty holding back her tears took him into her office and said that even if they could allow Keita to take the money—which they couldn’t—his father’s accounts had dwindled and there weren’t more than a thousand dollars left. Keita had noticed that his father no longer wore new clothes or used their car, which sat dormant outside their house, or ate much beyond a bit of boiled rice or an orange picked from a park tree.

As a nationally ranked marathoner in Zantoroland, Keita had access to free cafeteria meals each day, and he received shoes, shorts and shirts. But he was given no cash and had no savings, and in a country where the average annual income was three thousand dollars, Keita couldn’t find a single person to help him come up with the money. He emailed Charity at Harvard but got no response. He tried calling her apartment number but could not get through. A call to her cellphone led straight to voice mail. Keita did reach Charity’s landlord in Boston. He had no idea where she was but promised to leave an urgent note on her door. Keita spoke to every one of their neighbours on Blossom Street, but nobody had money to spare.

Keita knew all this was part of the technique used to break the will of the people attached to those who fell victim to The Tax. They
were meant to feel that nothing could be done for their loved ones and that nothing would be done for them either, if their turn came.

Keita tried to imagine what his father would say to him now.
Be calm, and be strong, and be sure to take care of yourself. You have a full life ahead of you to live, so do everything you can to have that life and to live it lovingly.

Keita spent hours at his father’s desk with the lamp burning. He read through Yoyo’s newspaper and magazine articles, which were stacked in a neat pile. He rummaged through the teapots and extracted his father’s notes.
Deportees from Freedom State? All Faloo? Money laundering?
Keita could not figure out exactly what his father had been working on, but he kept reading his words over and over again. He read them aloud, in his father’s voice and accent, to comfort himself. He read them as the ransom deadline came and went. Then he carefully put them away.

Keita knew what he had to do next. He rummaged through the closet for a spade, and went out the back door and dug a grave next to his mother’s plot. He dug until his hands bled, and he kept digging until he had dug enough.

At dawn, Keita took the blanket from his father’s bed, borrowed a wagon from the market and pulled it to the town square, where he found his father lying naked and dead at the Fountain of Independence.

K
EITA KNEW EXACTLY WHAT HIS FATHER WOULD SAY.
I
F
Keita stayed in Zantoroland, he would die. He was his father’s son, and that in itself would be a death sentence. He had to get out and stay alive and find his sister. Charity was the last person in the world who truly knew and loved him. She was all he had. Keita would rebuild his life with his sister in another land. It didn’t really matter where they went, as long as it was far from Zantoroland.

Keita called the hotel where Hamm always stayed, and agreed to meet the agent for lunch. Then he bathed, scrubbed the dirt from his
nails, put on his best shoes, pants and shirt, packed essential clothes and running gear into one large and one small knapsack, and locked the door to the family bungalow.

Would the little trouble with Keita’s belly catch Hamm’s eye? In the last few months, his hernia had been sore and had been expanding. In addition, Keita was experiencing bouts of weakness and dizziness. These affected his running only in the unlucky moments that they coincided with a training run. Keita had taken to wearing longer, slightly baggy shirts and hoped that the hernia would cease to grow. He did not know if Hamm required his protégés to submit to medical exams. He hoped not.

The lobby of the Five Stars International Business Hotel featured a pet monkey for the entertainment of its international business guests, although monkeys were not native to Zantoroland. On a branch of a fake tree in the lobby, the monkey sat leashed, eating a peanut. When Keita walked in the door, a concierge-bouncer the size of a heavyweight boxer bore down on him in three strides.

“Sir!” he said. “Do you have business here?”

Keita leaned on the British accent of his former English tutor. “I am meeting one of your guests. Mr. Anton Hamm. You’ll see him inside the café, on the right.” Keita pointed.

The concierge turned to look, and in that moment, Keita strode past him.

When Anton Hamm stood in greeting, he towered above Keita and even above the concierge. Hamm’s hand felt like the paw of a bear. He shook Keita’s hand gently but applied enough pressure for Keita to understand how easily his own fingers could be crushed.

“Coffee?” Hamm said, inviting Keita to take a seat.

Keita sat and glanced at the menu. Everything in U.S. dollars. Coffee cost twelve.

“It’s on me,” Hamm said.

When the waiter came, Keita asked for café au lait and a madeleine.

“Most of the runners I do business with have never heard of a café au lait,” Hamm mused.

“It’s good for dunking,” Keita said. He pushed away images of his parents, but they kept coming, like waves on a beach.

Hamm ordered the same. When the waiter left, he said, “I should give up coffee myself, but I’m saving that for later.”

“Saving it?” Keita repeated. His voice was emanating from another body.

Hamm was talking again, but Keita was having trouble paying attention.

“One day when I’m old,” Hamm said, “a doctor will tell me, ‘If you want to recover your health, there’s something you’ll have to give up.’ So then I’ll be able to offer him coffee. I need to keep something around to give up later.”

Hamm had a loud laugh. It made Keita imagine the sound of the overfed Zantoroland cabinet ministers who were known to dine at the Five Stars.

When the café au lait arrived, Keita slid three sugar cubes into his mug. Hamm rocked back slightly in his wooden chair and Keita heard the faint crack of wood. Hamm raised his index finger to summon the waiter and asked for another chair. When it came, Hamm stood and handed the one he had occupied to the waiter.

“This one needs to be fixed,” he said, easing his weight onto the replacement.

A mosquito buzzed around Hamm’s head, and his right hand shot up near his ear. He squished the insect between his thumb and forefinger.

“Fast hands,” Keita said. He played table tennis but had never been able to catch a mosquito like that. His father had taught him table tennis. His father and mother had taught him everything.

Keita kept his hands flat on the table, so the cracks and the blisters wouldn’t show.

Hamm looked at Keita and shrugged. “I have little patience for things or people that aggravate me.” Hamm grinned. “By-product of throwing the shot.”

“Maybe I’ll give up running and take up the shot put,” Keita said.

“It’s all about explosive energy,” Hamm said. “That, plus head games. Shot putters mess with each other’s heads.”

Hamm ordered toast and poached eggs. Keita scanned the menu. If his father had interviewed someone in the hotel restaurant, he would have come home with a story about the most expensive item. Steak frites with Belgian hollandaise, with a side of grilled white asparagus. Forty-eight U.S. dollars. Keita wondered what a meal like that would cost in America.

“I’ll take the oatmeal,” he said to the waiter. Keita would eat oatmeal another day in another country if he played his cards right.

“Have it with the berries and cashews,” Hamm said. “Good for runners and full of natural stimulants.”

“Would you also like brûlée?” the waiter asked.

“Brûlée?”

“With a custard and baked brown sugar glaze.”

Keita nodded to the waiter. His father was dead and Keita was ordering the most expensive meal of his life.

Had they tortured Yoyo again? Or killed him quickly? Did he ask for anything before he died? Keita imagined his father saying:
I’ve had a good life, so go ahead and do it quickly.

Hamm spoke of the times he had seen Keita run lately: in a ten-kilometre race and in a half-marathon. He mentioned Keita’s times; he had memorized them.

“You run very well,” Hamm said, “but you could use more coaching. If you like, I’ll see that you get some advice from one of the running coaches in America.”

“Why would American coaches know anything? Their runners never win. They’re barely faster than the runners from Canada or from Freedom State.”

“Don’t knock Freedom State,” Hamm said. “They’re investing a lot of money to develop a marathon infrastructure. They may see a breakthrough.”

“How do I sign up?” Keita said.

Hamm took a thick envelope and passed it over the table. “Inside,
you’ll find two thousand dollars U.S. The same amount that every runner gets. No exceptions.”

“Thank you,” Keita said. “But I meant the contract. What are the rules?” Although he was asking questions, Keita would sign any paper necessary to leave the country.

“The contract is straightforward,” Hamm said. “Inside Zantoroland, you can race as you see fit. Outside Zantoroland, I own you. I decide when and where you will race. I pay the entry fees and get you there, arrange your room and board while you’re overseas, and I bring you back. I also arrange and pay for your passport and visas.”

“What is the percentage?”

“Since I absorb all the costs, I take eighty percent of your winnings. You get the remaining twenty percent, in American dollars, at the end of each running tour, once you are back here.”

“Seems steep.” Keita said it only because he didn’t want to appear desperate.

“If you don’t want it, we won’t waste any more time.”

“I have two conditions,” Keita said.

Hamm laughed. “You are in no position to impose conditions.”

“Then consider them requests.”

“Shoot,” Hamm said.

“I want to run Boston. This year.”

“The Boston Marathon is in a few days. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“You’re cutting it awfully close,” Hamm said.

“You’ve been telling me for years to get in touch. Well, here I am, and ready to go.”

“Boston usually leaves an extra spot for me. I’ll get you in. What’s the second condition?”

“When are you leaving?”

“I’m flying to the United States tonight.”

“I propose to travel with you.”

“It will cost me extra to get you a flight that fast. You will have to run like hell in America to make this up to me.”

“Understood.”

Hamm stood for a handshake. Keita risked taking it and was relieved that the agent did not attempt to crush his hand.

A
S SOON AS HE LANDED AT
B
OSTON’S
L
OGAN
I
NTERNATIONAL
Airport, he began emailing and calling Charity. He left more messages on her voice mail, but still she did not reply. He had imagined that she would greet him with hugs, screams of joy and tears. They would console each other for the death of their father, and Charity would be able to advise Keita about how to apply for asylum in the United States. Perhaps he would be allowed to stay because of his promise as a marathoner. If not, he would have to go into hiding until a solution presented itself.

Keita had imagined that after the tears and the strategic discussion, Charity would feed him and fête him and tell him all about her life at Harvard, that she would feign disdain that he had chosen the path of athletics over a career of the mind but nevertheless be proud of her brother and bring her friends out to cheer for him on race day. For his sister, he wanted to turn in the fastest race of his life.

The phone lines at home were unreliable, but Charity had always kept in touch. Keita tried to remember when she had last called. Finally, he used some of his precious cash to take a taxi to her apartment. The note Keita had dictated days earlier remained tacked to Charity’s door. Her landlord said that though her rent was paid, he had not seen her in a few days.

The race organizers had shifted the date of the marathon to early March, because in recent years temperatures had climbed too high on the traditional race date in April. But this was a cold March day. Exposed to the freezing wind for thirty minutes before the starter’s pistol fired, Keita did not feel well. During the long wait, other runners kept shoving past him. When the gun finally went off, Keita tried to follow the leaders.

There were so many elite runners pushing and shoving that just
fifteen minutes into the race, he was left unfocused and spent. The lead runners from Zantoroland ran in a pack to protect one another from the shoving, but they were moving too fast for Keita. It was the most prestigious marathon in the world, but Keita’s thoughts kept turning to his father and his sister. Where was she? To make matters worse, the hernia was throbbing, and Keita experienced a dizzy spell. He had neglected to drink enough water before the race, and then he missed the first water station. His lips were cracking, and he thought obsessively about drinking water.