On the phone, Viola merely gave her name and said she had grown up in AfricTown and that her mother—Rebecca Hill—had been Lula’s hairdresser back in the day.
“Uh-hunh,” Lula said.
Viola said she had been out on her own for years now and that she was a reporter for the Telegram.
“I’m awake now, honey chile,” Lula said. “I remember everything about you. How are you keeping?”
“I’m fine, thank you. I’m calling about a story we’re working on.”
“At this hour of the morning, I know you ain’t calling to discuss the weather. You workin’ for the man now, so spit it out, girl.”
“Did a girl named Yvette Peters work for you?”
“Shit, yeah,” Lula said. “She was one of my, um, dancers. You get news of her? She disappeared a while back, and we’ve all been wondering.”
“Yvette Peters is dead, Mrs. DiStefano. She died in a Zantoroland prison.”
“Zantoroland? Dead? That’s awful,” Lula said. “Poor kid. She was a good kid. Good heart. But I can’t talk any more about this, darling. Don’t you quote me, or I’ll have my boys rip your kidneys out. And you know I’m good for it.”
“Her own mother tells me that Yvette worked at the Bombay Booty. I’m looking at my notes: ‘sex worker.’”
“An exotic dancer at the Pit,” Lula said. “Clear? You want your kidneys, girl. Most people do, but you got special need of every organ, being you’re already in a wheelchair. You come out the other end right good, girl. Reporter now. Well, get going. You got work to do, and I ain’t feeling friendly at this hour.”
Lula hung up on her. It was strange to be dismissed by someone who had once done so much for her. But that was Lula DiStefano: an angel one moment, and a shark the next.
Viola hadn’t spent much time in AfricTown since the accident, and that was twenty years ago. She was run over by the drunk driver of a stolen pickup truck, lost her legs, became something of a one-day wonder in the news. The journalists came in a mob, with camera crews, lights, tape recorders stuck on the end of poles like marshmallows on whittled sticks, pushing into her hospital room until the nurses turfed them out. Viola had never seen reporters at work before. And sure enough, she became one herself.
Now she aspired to write the very sort of news articles that had been written about her, and her mother. Drunk driver in stolen truck runs over mother and daughter in AfricTown. Mother killed, eight-year-old daughter loses legs but survives. Deaths in AfricTown were a dime a dozen and didn’t usually attract attention. But the spectacular nature of Viola’s loss and survival triggered an avalanche of news. Yes, she was an actual citizen of Freedom State. Yes, her mother was too. That helped, for sure. Fundraising drives were held. Money was raised. Even the people of AfricTown contributed. Lula DiStefano personally contributed fifty thousand. Viola’s amputations and follow-up surgeries were all paid for, as was her extensive physiotherapy, her prosthetic limbs and her first wheelchair. Or, as some preferred to call it, her mobility enhancement device. She could walk with prosthetic legs, but they were slow and awkward. So when she had to take notes and balance the notepad on her lap, or when she needed to move fast and had a flat surface before her, Viola preferred a chair. She had two: a regular kicking-about chair for daily living in Clarkson, and a chair for training and racing. Abs of steel, biceps like guns, that was Viola Hill. Every part of her worked just fine, apart from the fact that her body ended with two stumps, mid-thigh.
Viola had just enough to write the story. No time for fancy stuff: seventeen-year-old prostitute from the Bombay Booty, apparently a citizen of Freedom State, ends up mysteriously in Zantoroland, where she dies in prison. Confirmation from the Zantoroland Ministry of Citizenship, confirmation from a source in AfricTown, and a colourful quote from the distraught mother. That was the best Viola could do in two hours. She filed the story, scanned some photos of Yvette Peters, and emailed them with the photo she had taken of the mother. She managed to leave the hotel in time to cover the marathon. It was a morning race. As long as she filed her marathon story by 1 p.m., it too would make the evening edition of the paper.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AS HE RAN UP THE TOUGHEST HILL IN THE BUTTERSBY Marathon, with Billy Deeds still on his shoulder, Keita Ali slowed just enough to control his breathing. To destroy his opponent’s will, he had only to sing a few bars and sound as if he could carry on forever. Keita opted for a country song. He liked country music with catchy melodies and words that told a story. He would sing like the marathoners who had run past his family’s church in the Red Hills of Zantoroland. He would sing as if Deacon Andrews and his parents were still alive. He would sing as if he had not been hiding for weeks in Freedom State, and had no reason to wonder what had happened to his sister or to fear for his own life. So, from the hit country song “Ain’t Mine,” Keita sang loud and clear.
I’m so tired of running for you, babe,
Running all time.
But you’re running for another heart,
And the heart you want ain’t mine.
“Faggot,” Deeds said.
Keita kept singing.
I know I’m not the one you want.
I know you’d never die for me.
But I’d run for you until I caught
Your heart and turned it back to me.
Instead of accelerating, Keita sang louder, while the runner behind him gasped and cursed. “Nigger,” his competitor said. Not to worry. “Faggot.” Bring it on. “Fagganig.” If Keita had his way, Deeds would lose a minute each time he cursed.
Keita sang right up the hill and slapped a few hands on his way. At the twenty-five-kilometre marker, which was the seventeen-kilometre point for the outbound runners, he high-fived a strong, muscular, fifty-something man who was running toward him down the hill. He was moving fast for a man that old. The way things were going, Keita doubted that he would even be alive at that age. But the man thumped like an elephant. He ran as if nobody had ever taught him not to slap the pavement with the soles of his feet. Keita had learned, even as a boy, that you can’t afford to run and slap your feet. It wastes energy and degrades the tibia. Keita supposed it didn’t matter for middle-aged recreational runners in Freedom State. There weren’t any middle-aged athletes in Zantoroland. People in his country didn’t run for recreation. You ran to win, or you didn’t run at all.
Fifty metres behind the muscular man was a female racer. She looked awfully good. She was black. Or mixed, maybe. His own country had tens of thousands of people who looked just like her. The legacy of nocturnal carousing by its various colonial rulers. She reminded him of home. She was running smoothly, not slapping her feet like the big man in front of her. She was moving much more easily than the man and looked ready to pass him. Keita figured she was running at a 3:10 marathon pace. If all went well for both of them, she would finish an hour behind Keita. Perhaps he would look for her.
A huge smile broke out on her face, and she called out that he was looking strong. She held out her hand. Keita high-fived it as he finished the song. She had a nice hand. Warm, soft, smooth and with a little pressure against his. It was a hand of friendship, one of encouragement and of solidarity.
Now it was time to put some distance between himself and the madman in second. Keita stopped singing and grabbed two cups of sports drink at the next water station. He downed them fast, tossed away the empty cups, grabbed two more drinks, swallowed them too and accelerated. And that was the last he saw of any competitor in the 2018 Buttersby Marathon. He didn’t expect the name-caller to hang on to second place. Or third. Keita didn’t look back. He knew he had crushed the guy. Crushed him like an ant. It felt good.
THE MOBILE PHONE VIBRATED ON HIS WAIST. DAMN. ROCCO ran on, tempted not to answer. But he had received firm instructions before he had been sworn into his new role in cabinet. He had to keep the phone charged at all times. Have it on his bedside table. Take it along to the crapper. Even in the middle of the Buttersby Maratho
n, Rocco, who’d worked for four months as federal minister of immigration, had to have his mobile wired to one ear, with a tiny mike clipped on his running shirt. Hell. He looked like a secret service man.
He gave in and pushed the button. “Calder,” he said.
“Mr. Minister, are you all right?” It was June Hawkins, his executive secretary. She managed his schedule, organized his life and knew how to reach every government official—in Freedom State and in other countries—that Rocco might need to contact as minister of immigration. She was a darling and totally devoted to the job, but her timing sucked.
“June,” he said. “I’m running.”
“Happy birthday, Mr. Minister.”
“Running right now.”
“Just calling to wish you good luck. I thought the race started at ten thirty.”
“No, June, I’ve been at it for more than an hour.”
“Well, don’t run too hard, Mr. Minister, and remember to hydrate.”
“Got it,” he said. The woman was so formal. He had asked her a hundred times to call him Rocco, or Rock, but she wouldn’t have it. It was just her background. Rumour had it she was born and raised in AfricTown. He’d have to ask her about that, if he could ever get her to relax and have a friendly conversation. AfricTown. It was like a whole other country. An island of poverty, right inside one of the world’s richest countries. He had to credit her for climbing up and out. And he had to remember to be kind to her. People expected that of him. He knew what they called him behind his back. Mr. Clean. Because he kept fit. Didn’t smoke. Didn’t party. Looked like a Boy Scouts troop leader. Sure, he was known to chase a few skirts, but he’d be fine as long as the media had no reason to turn it into an issue.
“Carry on, Mr. Minister.”
“Thanks, June. And don’t call for another two hours.”
“Right-o, Mr. Minister.” She hung up.
Rocco hadn’t lost his stride. He was feeling good. And he was well under target for a 3:15 marathon. Not bad. He wondered how many fifty-year-olds would finish ahead of him. Well, surely a bunch. Not to mention hundreds of other runners. No matter how fast he ran, a ton of people would beat him to the finish line. That was the thing about marathoning. It kept you humble—
His phone again.
“Calder,” he said.
“Rock?” said a voice. Young man. All he had to say was “Rock,” and Calder knew who it was. It was Geoffrey Moore, the twenty-eight-year-old smartass who ran the country. Geoffrey was the prime minister’s executive assistant. Unelected. Barely out of university. Barely shaving. You could still see the pockmarks on his face from the ravages of adolescent acne. Unmarried. Untravelled, except of course for his doctorate from Harvard University. Nobody in cabinet farted without his say-so. He was a young conservative. Rocco was a conservative too, but it seemed wrong to him that a twenty-eight-year-old should be. At twenty-eight, weren’t you supposed to be a Marxist or something? If you started out as a conservative at age twenty-eight, where did you go from there? The only thing left was fascism.
“Whoa-Boy,” Rocco said. The PM used that term for his pet, so Rocco replayed it to irk the kid.
“Rock, are you okay? Sounds like you’re having an asthma attack.”
“I’m in a race, Whoa-Boy.”
“A race?”
“Sixteen kilometres into a marathon.”
“Good luck with that. Listen up. Anybody asks about the hooker, don’t say a word. Not one fucking word.”
“Hooker?”
“The girl. The one who died in Zantoroland.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Hasn’t anyone briefed you on this?”
Rocco felt a flash of anger. He was the federal minister of immigration, spearheading the government’s crackdown on Illegals. A crackdown that wasn’t working. A crackdown so ineffective that the same electors who had brought the Family Party to office were now demonstrating weekly outside the Parliament Building. Calling for mass deportations. Calling for AfricTown to be bulldozed. And now, apparently, a girl had died. But when it came to the important stuff, did anyone tell him anything? “No,” he replied.
“There was a hooker. Deported to Zantoroland. Died in prison there.”
“Was she here illegally?”
“Don’t know. It’s a real cock-up. Don’t say a word, if anybody asks.”
“I’m the minister of immigration. Somebody is going to ask.”
“Just say that you don’t know but will investigate. No. Not ‘investigate.’ Don’t commit to anything. Say that you know nothing about it and have no comment.”
“That’ll make me look good.”
“Good luck in the race, Rock. Gotta go. Some of us have work to do.”
Rocco hung up.
Some of us have work to do. Geoffrey sounded like a fifteen-year-old prep school boy. Whiny. Wimpy. But not to be underestimated. The kid lived, breathed, slept, ate and shat politics. He had paid a visit to Rocco not long after Rocco moved into his corner office. Geoffrey had scowled at the rowing machine stashed in Rocco’s private bathroom and had advised him to get some art by AfricTown painters on his wall. The idea, he said, was to display a cosmopolitan face while accelerating deportations.
The halfway turn was just four kilometres down the road. Rocco began to descend a long, steep hill. His feet slammed the pavement. Running downhill was as hard as running up. Sure, it didn’t leave you winded, but it banged up your knees and quadriceps. He ran a few hundred metres down the hill, rounded a corner and saw that there was still a long descent. Later in the race, it would hurt to run back up this hill.
Three police motorcycles approached from the opposite direction, headlights on, red emergency lights twirling. Rocco could see the race leaders coming. Three guys. One black as night, the other two white as ghosts. One of the white guys had fallen twenty metres behind. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to tell which runner would win. The black dude looked beautiful. Smooth as a sail. Rocco studied him coming. He was running way faster up this mother of all hills than Rocco was going down it with gravity on his side. The white guy, on the other hand, had his arms pinched up like lobster claws and was listing slightly to the left as he ran. The Kenyan, or Zantorolander, or whatever the hell he was, was in the process of dropping the white dude from Freedom State.
Okay, fine, shoot him. Go right ahead and line Rocco up to face the firing squad. He was guilty. It was unfair to assume the black guy had to be from Zantoroland or Kenya—but what could you do? Freedom State didn’t have any decent marathoners. Maybe you ran harder when you were hungry. Maybe it was being in the mountains and training at altitude. Maybe it was the cow’s milk over there. Maybe it was just genetic. Blacks were natural runners. Was that such a horrible thing to observe? Did that make him a racist? Was it Rocco’s fault that the two fastest marathoners in the world were from Zantoroland, and that a Zantorolander held the world record, and that Zantorolanders had cleaned up in the last Boston Marathon? Was it Rocco’s fault that among the world’s top ten marathoners were three Zantorolanders, three Kenyans, two Ethiopians and a Moroccan? Wait. That made nine. The tenth was a Canadian. But he didn’t really count as a Canadian, because he was black and born in Kenya. Rocco had read about that in Track and Field News. Canada, all the way across the world, had been smart about recruiting this immigrant, giving him Canadian citizenship. Now the country of snow and ice had a chance to win a medal in the next Olympic marathon. If only Freedom State could be so enterprising.
Here they came. The leaders were only a few metres away. The one good thing about an out-and-back marathon was that you got to see the leading runners up close, even though it was depressing to think that he was only at the seventeen-kilometre mark when these dudes had already run twenty-five kilometres. By the time Rocco made the halfway turn and fought his way back up this hill, the winner would be across the finish line.
All the runners around Rocco were cheering and clapping for the race leader. Roc
co joined in. Man alive, was that black dude moving. Rocco reached out to high-five him. Weirdest thing was, the guy actually high-fived him back. His hand was dry. Not sweating. Okay, this was completely unbelievable. The black dude’s name was on his race bib in block letters: Roger Bannister. And he was singing “Ain’t Mine,” that corny country hit that played constantly on the radio.
I know I’m not the one you want.
I know you’d never die for me.
But I’d run for you until I caught
Your heart and turned it back to me.
It was a dumb song, but he had a good voice. Why was he singing? Maybe he was trying to psych out his opponent. It was working. The white guy in second was trying to hang on, but it was a struggle. He was five metres back and bent all out of shape. And he was swearing. Well, that was just plain unsportsmanlike!
Rocco was all for keeping the right mix of people in Freedom State. Every voter knew that the Family Party had come to power promising to deport Illegals, to manage its borders more efficiently and to ensure that people of traditional European stock weren’t overrun in their own country. Rocco had not been the public face of this campaign. He had been recruited because of his success in business and his reputation for customer service. Two years of free service for any used car that he sold. Customers loved him. He won 60 percent of the votes in his riding and was appointed transportation minister. But then suddenly he was switched into the immigration portfolio. Hell of a job. Nobody told him anything. The Prime Minister’s Office ran the show. Rocco would ride out his term and then go back into business.
It was one thing to advocate changes to the immigration and refugee system, and quite another to be uncivil, mean-spirited and rude. What on earth was that second-place man bitching about? What was his problem with the black dude in the lead? Had the black guy been parachuted into the race from overseas to pick up the race money? Well, tough luck. That was sport. You wanted to have a real race, you had to compete with the best. Who was this fellow in the lead? He had no more white in him than an ebony carving, so why was he calling himself Roger Bannister? Maybe he was from Zantoroland. Maybe his parents had named him so, dreaming of bringing a great runner into the world.