The Illegal Read online

  “So, Mr. Ali, renowned journalist of Zantoroland, how are your eggs this evening?”

  “They are almost as excellent as you,” Yoyo said.

  Keita admired his father’s answer. One was required to use the term “Your Excellency” in each phrase uttered to Jenkins Randall. This way Yoyo came close, without quite satisfying the president’s requirements.

  “You must be proud of your son.” The president stood behind Keita and rubbed the back of his head.

  Keita felt the big palm moving slowly, methodically. The president’s square ring scratched his scalp.

  “Yes, I am, Your Excellency,” Yoyo said. He took in the sight of the president with his son’s head in his hands and asked, “To what do we owe the honour of a visit from Your Excellency?”

  “A father who is such a famous intellectual, with a son who is ranked—what now, in the national marathon standings?”

  “Fifth,” Keita said.

  The president removed his hand from Keita’s head and placed it on his shoulder. “Fifth!”

  “That’s correct,” Keita said.

  “Not easy, in a country known for its runners.”

  Yoyo glared at Keita, who kept his mouth shut this time. Keita didn’t want to show any respect where it was not deserved. But neither did he want to do something to cause his father harm.

  The president began walking back and forth behind Keita and Yoyo, clapping his hands once each time he paused behind Keita. “Don’t you agree that your father will be pleased to have a long and peaceful retirement and to see his son move up in the national rankings?”

  “Yes, Your Excellency,” Keita said. He remembered what had happened in the last Olympic Games, when not one of the three Zantorolander marathoners made it onto the medal podium. It had shocked the nation, because on a good day, any one of them could have won the race handily. When they returned to Zantoroland, all three were imprisoned. Two weeks later, when they were released, each used a red cane and walked with a permanent limp.

  “And you, Mr. Ali, have had quite the illustrious career. The New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, the Toronto Star, Le Monde . . .”

  “I’ve slowed down in recent years, Your Excellency.”

  “Slowing down is a good thing, Mr. Ali. Gives you time to enjoy life. To enjoy your children.”

  “Most thoroughly, Your Excellency,” Yoyo answered.

  The president—a tall man with the girth of a boulder—stooped to speak in Yoyo’s ear. “Do you follow boxing?”

  “A little, Your Excellency.”

  “Would you agree that it pains the soul to see a boxer come out of retirement and enter the ring again?”

  “I never like to see anyone hurt, Your Excellency.”

  “Precisely my thoughts. The wise boxer knows when to fight and when it is time to quit.”

  “It’s all about balance and what seems right, Your Excellency.”

  “I have just the proposition for you, Mr. Ali,” the president said. “You are the perfect person to write my authorized biography and to place it with publishers around the world.”

  “I will give that careful thought, Your Excellency,” Yoyo said.

  “This project could bring great pride to the people of Zantoroland. You would be richly compensated.”

  “Due consideration, Your Excellency.”

  The president stood still behind Keita. He let a moment pass. “Consider the comforts of a bigger home, a cook, an endless supply of good food for your family. It is a well-understood fact that journalists nearly take vows of poverty. How could a widower with children resist the miracle of the fishes and the loaves?”

  “There are the fishes and the loaves to consider, Your Excellency,” Yoyo said. “But there is also the eye of the needle.”

  The president stood absolutely still. Keita could hear him swallow.

  “Well, in my humble role as servant to the people of Zantoroland, I will not endeavour to rush you to your good senses. Enjoy your eggs, Mr. Ali. And, Mr. Ali Junior, I wish you fleet feet and a minimum of cardiovascular suffering. I’m sure that no father wishes to see his son in pain.”

  The president left with his aides.

  Keita and his father sat in silence, staring at their plates. They sat so long without speaking that both of them jumped when the telephone rang across the room on Yoyo’s desk.

  “Yes,” Keita said too loudly into the receiver.

  “Keita Ali. Anton Hamm. I’m in your neck of the woods this week and—”

  “Not now, sir,” Keita said. He hung up the phone and returned to his father.

  SHORTLY AFTER THE VISIT FROM THE PRESIDENT AND HIS men, Keita discovered a tiny device under a chair in the family kitchen. He showed it to his father, who explained that it was a bug for recording conversations.

  Yoyo led Keita outside and walked with him to a street corner that was noisy with cars, mopeds and pedestrians.

  “Aren’t you worried?” Keita asked.

  “No,” Yoyo said. “What’s the point of worrying or letting them dictate your frame of mind?”

  “Well, I’m worried about you, Father. And I don’t want to lose you.”

  A young girl walked by, balancing a platter of plantains on her head. She was barefoot, and only ten or so, but she kept the platter perfectly balanced as she walked down Blossom Street toward the market.

  “We’ve done pretty well as father and son, haven’t we?”

  Keita smiled and took his father’s hand.

  “Remember that, son,” Yoyo said. “We’ve had nearly a quarter of a century together, which is more than most people get to love each other.”

  Keita thought about how long his parents had loved each other. About sixteen years. It was true that Keita was lucky to have had so many years with his father. But he couldn’t bear the thought of being without him. Yoyo must have sensed his thoughts.

  A pack of five runners flew by them. Elite runners, out for a training session. They shouted at Keita as they went. Keita smiled and waved back.

  “You’ve done very well too, son,” Yoyo said, “but now you must make wiser use of your talent.”

  “What do you mean, Father?”

  “When you were young,” Yoyo said, “I wanted you to become an intellectual, like your sister, because I thought that the life of the mind would offer you more than a decade or two of running. But you have taken your own path, and I respect that. So now I must tell you. Use your legs to the best of your ability. Travel, and travel soon. Fly very far, and do not look back.” Yoyo Ali then hugged his son and, as they walked home, asked him to sing “I Got a Robe” with him.

  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.

  THE NEXT MORNING, KEITA 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 h
er 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.

  KEITA KNEW EXACTLY WHAT HIS FATHER WOULD SAY. IF 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.”