The Illegal Read Online Free Page B

Kano people were the rightful majority in Zantoroland and would no longer submit to the Faloo minority. In the city, rampaging began.Masked men attacked Faloo shopkeepers, breaking bones, warning them to close their businesses and stealing whatever they could carry: suits, ties, coffeepots, radios, lamps, laptops. Faloo people barricaded themselves in their homes behind locked doors.
    After looting the business district, the marauders moved uptown. Word spread like a grassfire in Keita’s district. Lena ordered her children to come inside and stay away from the windows. They turned their lights off. Keita, Charity and their mother could hear shouting and the sound of glass breaking. Then the pounding began at their door.
    “Don’t answer,” Keita said.
    “We have to,” his mother said. “If we don’t answer, they’ll just break down the door. But if I open, I’m still in control.”
    Lena opened the door. “Hooligans,” she shouted. “What would your mothers say?”
    Three men pushed her aside and came into the house. The leader was tall and gaunt and—like the others—had a white pillowcase over his head, with holes cut for his eyes and mouth. “Where is your husband?” he said.
    The leader’s voice seemed familiar to Keita.
    Lena said her husband was out of the country. The leader said no man would leave his family alone, and that just went to show how cowardly the Faloos were.
    “My husband isn’t even a Faloo,” she said. “He’s an immigrant from Cameroon. He’s a Bamileke. I’m a Faloo!” she shouted in their faces. “Do I look cowardly to you?”
    The intruders paced in the small space. One of them overturned chairs. Keita watched as one man lifted a water jug from the table and hurled it across the room. Then the mirror shattered. Keita wrapped his arms around himself. Charity got the broom and began sweeping up the shards.
    “Enough with the broom,” the leader said.
    She kept sweeping.
    “I said enough with the broom!”
    “I know your voice,” Charity said. “From the market. The eggplant stand.”
    “Charity, shush,” Lena said.
    Charity lunged for the leader’s hood, dislodging it. The man shoved Charity hard to the floor and reset his mask. But she got right back up, still holding the broom. The man yanked the broom from Charity’s hands and knocked her down again. Keita dove into the man’s midriff, pummelling and biting. He too was pushed to the floor, where he landed on his sister.
    “Do you want to die?” the leader said.
    “If you want to kill us, shut up and do it!” Lena shouted.
    “I know you,” Charity said. “David. David. That’s it. David. From the eggplant stand. Your sister goes to my school.”
    The man used the broom to knock all the bowls, plates, glasses and silverware off the table. Then he dropped the broom, signalled to his two followers and left the house.
    Lena locked the door and looked to Keita and Charity. “You must never—” But she didn’t finish her sentence. She clutched her chest, gasped and lowered herself to the floor.
    “Mom!” Keita shouted.
    Charity tipped her mother’s chin back and breathed into her mouth. Keita opened the door, checked to make sure that the thugs had disappeared, and ran from house to house until he found a neighbour who was willing to bring a car around. Keita and Charity helped lift their motionless mother into the vehicle, but there was no pulse, no breath. They inched through the littered streets, holding Lena’s hands as they approached the hospital. But they knew she was already dead. Keita took his sister’s hand, but he could not cry.
    B USINESS PEOPLE FLED THE COUNTRY, TAKING THEIR MONEY with them, until General Randall temporarily blocked Internet access, closed the banks and shut down the airport. Randall brought out his troops, put a halt to the attacks and the looting, and promisedto enforce peace and civility, as long as the Faloo people were prepared to respect him as Zantoroland’s