Read Online The Illegal by Lawrence Hill - Free Book Online Page B

with armed guards and immigration and customs officials in uniform. The first line was there to inspect his passport, the second to inspect his visa, the third to go through his bags. At each, Anton Hamm explained that Keita Ali was an elite marathoner from Zantoroland, fresh from the Boston Marathon, come to enter races in Freedom State. Hamm said he was Keita’s manager and that he would ensure Keita obeyed all of the country’s laws, and then return him to his wife and children and his job as the groundskeeper in a tennis club in Zantoroland before the month-long visitor’s visa had expired.
    Tennis club? Wife and children? All Keita had to do was nod and smile and watch his visa and passport get stamped and then go back into the pocket inside Hamm’s business suit. With that, he was allowed into the third-richest nation in the world.
    Inside Clarkson International Airport, Hamm bought Keita a meal and a pack of gum and a few magazines, and then they boarded another flight for Metallurgia, three hours to the east.
    I N M ETALLURGIA, THE FOURTH-LARGEST CITY IN F REEDOM State, Anton Hamm put Keita up in a guest house in a trainingcentre for runners. Keita had a clean room with its own toilet and shower. The guest house had a television, daily newspapers from around the world and rows upon rows of books. They fed him, cafeteria-style, as much as he wanted to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and they showed him the starting point for dozens of kilometres of running trails.
    Keita did not dare ask any other runners lodged at the training centre how a person from Zantoroland might slip into hiding in Freedom State. But he knew that he would have to flee before his one-month visa expired, and before Hamm chose to send him back to Zantoroland. Even if Keita ran well in Freedom State, his time here was limited. To stay alive, he had only one option: to go into hiding before he was returned home.
    One evening, he went into town to watch a movie and afterwards wandered into a bar. With some hesitation, he approached a black man sitting alone and asked how he could get to AfricTown, which he knew was where the Zantorolanders lived.
    “Take the bus to Clarkson,” the man said in a low voice, “and when you get there, walk south on AfricTown Road and follow the people.”
    “And where can I find this bus?” Keita asked.
    “Three blocks down. Corner of Millard and Hadfield Streets. But be careful in AfricTown.”
    “Why?”
    “Police raid it, looking for Illegals. I wouldn’t go there until things settle down.”
    “What do you mean?” Keita said.
    “It’s never been safe to be illegal here, but since the government got elected, they’ve been deporting people as fast as they can. I don’t know what you’re running from, brother, but be careful of what you are running to.”
    Keita asked where a person could hide.
    “No papers?” the man asked.
    “No,” Keita said.
    The man said that hotels were obliged to call the police when prospective guests arrived without documentation. But some private homes and guest houses took people in—cash only and no questions asked.
    “Thanks, brother,” Keita said.
    “Peace.” The stranger shook his hand.
    Keita hesitated, but then he could not stop himself from asking, “Could I use your phone? I need to call my sister, urgently, but she’s in the United States. I’ll pay you for it.”
    “Help yourself, man. Don’t worry about the money.”
    Keita called his sister, but she was still not answering and now her voice-mail box was full. A knot formed in his stomach. Would he find Charity? Was she alive? Keita handed back the phone, thanked the fellow and walked away. He had to force back his tears. He had no family with him. No friends. Not a soul who cared the least for him. It was an odd feeling to walk the streets of a country knowing that not a single person knew your name or a thing about you—or would notice if you lived or died.
    A WEEK BEFORE THE