The Illegal (20 page)

“It’s a raid, Mr. Bob. Take the back door. I’ll show you. But when I call you later, you better pick up.”

Rocco felt his veins fill with adrenalin. He could not afford to get caught in AfricTown. Goddamn that Geoffrey Moore. Sending him here, setting him up. He would not let himself get caught.

There were back stairs. There was a basement. There was a secret
underground tunnel. Getting out of there involved some crawling that ruined his clothes. He passed through two other buildings and came out in a grove of trees a few hundred metres away from AfricTown Road. He knew which way was north toward Clarkson, and there was a footpath parallel to the road, beaten by who knew how many hundreds of others who had fled just like him.

The police were swarming AfricTown’s Bombay Booty. But they would not catch Rocco. He had the cover of night, and if push came to shove, he could always run.

A
FTER THE
B
UTTERSBY
M
ARATHON,
K
EITA PAID
for three more nights in Clarkson, switching motels every day. He didn’t want to keep spending money that he needed to save to help Charity, and worried that an overly scrupulous motel clerk might report him to the police. After visiting an Internet café and receiving an email from John Falconer, who said that Lula DiStefano had invited him to visit, Keita changed his strategy. He took a small knapsack with just enough clothes to keep him going for a few days, stuffed the rest back into his bus station locker, and began walking south.

He crossed railroad tracks that seemed to demarcate the city limits. The road passed an abandoned field and, up ahead, rounded a bend out of sight. There were no signs on it and few cars. A couple of hundred metres to the west of the road, a footpath led through a wide hole in a massive, barbwire fence. Wide enough for two people to pass each other on their way through. Every pedestrian was black or mixed. Almost everyone was carrying something: shoes in hands, bags on shoulders, knapsacks on backs, sacks of flour or rice on heads. Keita hadn’t seen many black folks on the streets of Clarkson, but there were hundreds here, passing through that hole at a steady pace.

Keita’s instructions had been to begin walking the footpath from Clarkson around noon. He was to look for an older man who answered to the name of DeNorval Unthank. Unthank would head
north from AfricTown at the same time that Keita left Clarkson, meet Keita on the walking path and escort him safely to AfricTown.

In the first kilometre, he saw no one who corresponded to the description of DeNorval Unthank, so he continued on. Most people greeted him.
Hello. Good afternoon. Good day. Be with God
. A boy tried to sell him bottled water. An adolescent carrying a duffle bag tried to sell him a pair of running shoes for ten dollars. A woman sat by a makeshift table selling watermelon and barbecued corn. One young man stopped him, pointed a gun at him and told Keita to turn over all his money. Keita was in the process of saying that he had no money (he did not mention his cheque or his cash, which was zipped into a secret pocket inside his shirt) when an older woman carrying a huge purse walked up and swung it at the man.

“Junior, leave him alone.” Then she looked at Keita. “Don’t pay him no mind. That ain’t real. It’s plastic. He ain’t right in the head. He tries this on everybody, till he gets to know them.”

Keita thanked the woman.

“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Thank the Lord. But I’ll take five dollars for my troubles.”

Keita told her he had fallen on hard times and did not have any money to spare.

“Well then, next time,” she said. “Once you find a job, you can give me five dollars one day.”

“We’ll see,” he said. And he kept walking.

By the second kilometre, Keita saw a long line of shipping containers to the west of the path. Some were hooked up to electrical power lines that ran overhead, but the hookups looked makeshift. The containers were painted wild colours, just like the houses of Zantoroland: pink, purple, green, blue. Some were striped or polka-dotted. Some had murals depicting famous runners or cricket players. Most were single containers, but sometimes they were stacked two or three high. Keita watched a woman toss a rope ladder from a square hole cut into a third-floor container and lower herself to the ground. People sat in chairs outside the containers, watching
the pedestrians pass. The containers appeared to be houses, drinking holes and places where women set up to wash clothes. Sometimes, in the gaps between them, Keita would see a patch of grass covered with clothes spread out to dry. Nearby, next to water taps popping out of the ground like mushrooms, women would be washing, wringing or spreading out clothes.

The public toilets were abysmal. The first one Keita visited was so disgusting that he turned away, choosing to wait. This place looked poorer than Zantoroland. In his own country, even villagers with no education and minimal income kept clean homes and outhouses. It was hard not to think of home as he walked south on the trail beside AfricTown Road. But Keita didn’t want to let his thoughts wander. He had to stay level-headed, and he had to find a way to get money as fast as he could to Charity’s captors.

A teenage boy sat by his father, whose eyes were clouded over and bluish, like marbles. A few pairs of shoes were laid out on a rug at their feet along with a sign that said Shoe Doctor.

“Mister,” the boy shouted to Keita. “Shoe polish? Shoe repair?”

Keita smiled apologetically and pointed to his new running shoes.

“But in your bag, surely you have a pair of nice shoes? Polish, just two dollars. Repair, more.”

Keita shrugged and kept walking.

Finally, after about three kilometres, he saw a tall, thin, silver-haired black man with a white goatee walking toward him on the path. A bright red cloth was slung diagonally across his chest and belly, and as the man drew closer, Keita could see, protruding from it, the head of a baby.

“Keita,” the man said, extending his hand.

Keita shook the hand, which was relaxed and gave his a friendly squeeze. It felt instantly comforting, like that of an uncle.

“You must be DeNorval Unthank,” Keita said.

“Sent by Lula DiStefano, and at your service. Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the start of the road. Been a busy day.”

“What’s your baby’s name?”

“Xenia,” DeNorval said. “Five months old. But she’s not my baby. I’m just helping out.”

The baby gurgled. She stared at Keita. Keita smiled at her, and she broke into a smile too. DeNorval patted her bum.

“She’s dry, and she’s been fed, so we might as well keep walking and get you where you’re going.” DeNorval turned to join Keita on the walk south.

Keita didn’t think he had ever seen a man carrying a baby on his back or chest in Zantoroland.

“I trust that nobody’s given you a hard time so far?” DeNorval asked.

Keita told him about the man who brought out the plastic pistol and the old lady who stopped him. DeNorval laughed and said they worked as a team. The man threatened, and she intervened, and half the time they made off with five or ten dollars in thank-you money.

“So where is the child’s mother?” Keita asked.

“Studying math. She’s just seventeen. We have a little school in AfricTown. Not much. But she can’t go there, because she has no papers and sometimes police raid the school. But we have people in AfricTown who give lessons, so on Thursday mornings she studies with them. On the other days, she cleans houses in Clarkson.”

“And you?”

“I’m just an all-around helper. Since I wasn’t doing anything for a few hours, except walking out to meet you, I offered to take Xenia. I don’t mind. Lovely baby. And anyway, babies and I understand each other.”

They walked for a while in silence. Up ahead, on the right, Keita saw two men working to make a connection between the top of a shipping container and an electrical wire. A stepladder was perched on the container roof. One man steadied it, while the man on top looped a cable around the electrical wire.

“Dangerous work,” DeNorval said. “People die every year trying to siphon off electricity. But they need it for lights, refrigeration, fans.”

Keita asked if DeNorval worked for Lula DiStefano.

“I’m in AfricTown at her pleasure. Occasionally, when she requires services in addition to my usual work, I comply. Today she wanted someone to get you reliably to the Pit, so here I am.”

“The Pit?”

DeNorval explained about the Pit and the Bombay Booty. He said that all visitors to AfricTown were supposed to check in with Queen DiStefano or her representatives. She liked to meet distinguished guests.

“Distinguished?” Keita asked.

“Don’t kid yourself. The whiz kid, John Falconer? He’s your friend, right?”

“We met on the bus and spoke for a few hours.”

“He mentioned you had won the Buttersby Marathon. Word spreads fast around here. So, yes, Lula wishes to meet you.”

Keita nodded his appreciation. He was curious and asked about the shipping containers. DeNorval said thousands of people lived in them in AfricTown. Cut holes for ventilation, stacked them end to end, side by side or one on top of the other if they could afford it. Lula DiStefano obtained used shipping containers from port authorities in Freedom State and Zantoroland, DeNorval said. She had them hauled to AfricTown and rented them out. And occasionally she prevailed on the authorities to install more public water taps.

“So what do you do in AfricTown?”

“We don’t generally ask what people do in AfricTown,” DeNorval said. “You can safely assume that most of it is not what someone would want written down and shown to anyone.”

“I see,” Keita said.

“But confidentially,” DeNorval said, “I greet newcomers sometimes. I am sometimes asked to house guests for a short time in my premises. Baby Xenia and her mother are staying with me, for a while. And I’m a health adviser.”

“What is that?”

“Got a cut? An infection? A broken finger? A tooth that needs pulling? I can deal with minor emergencies.”

“You are a doctor.”

“I was trained in Zantoroland. For a time, I was chief of the ER at Yagwa Hospital. But I had to flee and I have no certification here. So I just call myself a heath adviser.”

DeNorval Unthank was not a fast walker, and it took an hour to cover the rest of the way to AfricTown. But Keita did not mind. He had nowhere to go and nothing to do except meet Lula DiStefano. Unthank was a good conversationalist. If he had been a physician in Zantoroland, he must have had reason to flee. Keita wished his own father had fled while there was still time. This man who was greying and gaunt—perhaps he could become a friend. An ally. But never a father. Parents could never be replaced. When they departed, they left a hole that never went away. Keita tried to imagine what his father would advise him in this new situation.
Be aware. Stay alive. Help your sister.

DeNorval steered Keita off the main path. “A little detour, to the Red Square.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ll see. We’ll be there in a minute. I have to drop off Xenia with her mother.”

A few hundred metres to the west of the main footpath, they came to a series of shipping containers, painted bright red and forming four sides of a square. Outside were water taps and a stand with a soap dispenser. What looked like a hundred men, women and children were lined up outside, waiting patiently by a sign marked In. Near another sign marked Out, people exited the square in ones and twos and walked away. DeNorval stepped to the front of the queue. People moved aside and let him by with smiles and greetings.

“Hello, DeNorval. Good afternoon, DeNorval. Good day, DeNorval.” One young man called him Dr. Unthank, but Unthank corrected him.

“It’s just DeNorval, please,” he said. “You can wash your hands here,” DeNorval said to Keita, going first. He soaped his hands thoroughly, rinsed them and shook them dry.

Keita did the same. Then they stepped into a courtyard formed by the containers. Inside, in five long rows of folding chairs, people sat with plates on their laps. On those plates, Keita saw rice or macaroni, Brussels sprouts and scoops of chili. All along one side of the courtyard, a team of men and women served food from huge cooking pots suspended over firepits with red coals. At the exit was a barrel filled with apples. Each person took one on the way out.

“We serve lunch here, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but there are a few rules. You have to wash your hands, be orderly, take only what you are given, not bring any drugs, alcohol or weapons, show up sober, be courteous and help clean up. You also have to bring your own plate and cutlery.”

“What does it cost?” Keita asked.

“It’s free.”

“Who pays for it, then?”

“Lula. She says the rent she charges for the containers includes a food tax, which she uses to pay a team of people to go to market and buy groceries.”

A woman came up and tapped Keita on his shoulder. “Are you Keita, the runner?”

Keita was stunned to be recognized. “I am.”

“I have a teenage son. Thirteen. Very fast runner. Can you teach him? He wants to be a famous marathoner.”

“I would help if I could,” Keita said, “but I don’t have a place to live yet, and I don’t even know if I’ll be living here.”

“Please live here,” the woman said. “We need someone like you to teach our boys to be great. Like you.”

“I’m far from great,” Keita said.

“You won the Buttersby Marathon,” she said. “Two hours, nine minutes and thirty-six seconds!”

“Thank you,” Keita said, “but—”

DeNorval steered Keita away. “Come. Meet Xenia’s mother.”

They approached a young woman serving rice from one of the big cooking pots.

“Maria, meet Keita. Keita, this is Xenia’s mom.”

She had a child’s face, for sure. She smiled shyly at Keita, took Xenia and strapped the baby onto her back.

“DeNorval likes to carry her in the front, where he can see her, but I like to carry her behind me.”

“What did you do in your math lesson?” DeNorval asked her.

“Long division,” she said. “Thank you, DeNorval.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said.

DeNorval led Keita to a chair, where Maria brought him a plate of food. As he ate, children and teenagers gathered around. Touching his running shoes. Admiring his calves. Asking him to teach them to run.

He asked where people could run in AfricTown.

“Nowhere,” DeNorval told him. “There is only AfricTown Road, but cars speed on it, and there’s no shoulder for pedestrians.”

After lunch, they walked out to the road, accompanied by thirty children who walked barefoot or in sandals and tried to impress Keita by sprinting past him and doing pushups and burpees.

“It would take many people to build a running trail beside this road and to see that children trained on it safely,” Keita said. “But it is possible.”

DeNorval smiled, put his hand on Keita’s shoulder and said that it was good to see him thinking.