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Was it bad
conscience about her colour, or a desire to assert pride in her race
and face, that led the Queen of Sheba to declare, “Nigra sum sed
formosa”? The line is telling- “I am black, but comely”- and lends
itself to both these interpretations; as if royalty and wealth were not
enough to ensure her esteem; as if she needed the refuge of her beauty
to escape the ghetto of her skin. None of this, of course, could have
mattered to Solomon, fair-minded sage and seducer, committed as he was
to building a large and racially diverse harem and lineage.

In our time colour
has mattered, nowhere more so than in America, where the theatre of
race has repeated itself for four centuries as suffering and tragedy.
Long before Michael Jackson morphed into a white man, and Barack Obama
entered the White House, there was another charismatic and talented
figure who sought to transcend race. Anatole Broyard is less well-known
today than the singer or the President, but at one time, at least in
America, his name too was “musical in the mouth of fame”.

He has been the
actual subject of an essay by Henry Louis Gates, and a memoir by his
daughter, Bliss Broyard, as well as the presumed model for Coleman Silk
in Philip Roth’s novel The Human Stain. Gates’ profile, the first to
appear, conveyed in its tenor the suggestion that Broyard had sloughed
off familial roots that were entirely black. Things were far more
complicated than that, and during his lifetime Broyard managed, to an
extent, to shield the details of his heritage with a natural bodyguard
of Caucasian- looking hair, skin, and eyes. The Broyards were descended
from a French soldier who came to America in the eighteenth century.
Intermarriage with mixed race women had produced a line of Broyards who
could pass for white, as Anatole’s parents, and eventually himself,
chose to.

One of the more
startling revelations in the biographical accounts concerns the fact
that Anatole Broyard’s two children had grown up unaware of their
father’s racial dissembling. His wife was Norwegian, and knew of his
family history; it was she who pressed him, to little effect, to
disabuse the children of their perceptions. He found any number of
reasons to put off disclosure. As he lay dying in 1990, Anatole Broyard
called his children to his hospital bed and hinted at a certain matter
he wanted to reveal. Even then he could not bring himself to speak, and
it was ultimately his wife who broke the news to their children.

This sheer
incapacity, or unwillingness, to tear off an elaborate veil of identity
prompts Gates, in his essay about Broyard, to call him “the
Scheherazade of racial imposture”.

The Broyard case
reveals just how fraught and futile can be the effort to untangle the
single, shining thread of individual identity from the knot of race,
genes, gender, cultural heritage, and vocation.

Anatole Broyard was
born into a society in which, like many others, the colour of one’s
skin improbably assumes a moral quality; it could be the virtue that
recommended one for social privilege, or it could be the vice that
damned one from birth. Broyard’s parents chose to pass for white when
they arrived New York from New Orleans because it was the only way they
could secure proper employment.

What Gates saw as
Broyard’s “racial imposture” could not have been gratuitous. Nor was it
without its cost. Anatole Broyard might have been, as T.E. Lawrence
said of himself, “a standing civil war”; and the victims of that
lifelong inner unrest were not only the darker-skinned siblings and
relatives whom he chillingly broke off contact with [and who appeared,
to much perplexity, at his funeral] or the blacks about whom he could
be bizarrely scathing, but ultimately the man himself. His writing
hand, exercised no doubt by the work he did for the New York Times,
seems to have been mysteriously inhibited, foreclosing on the full
fruition of a literary talent whose early offerings had bred
expectation in admirers.

Yet for all his
unwillingness to salvage any relics from a rejected heritage, from the
ghetto of his past, there were those who saw in his gait and physical
tics a distinct African – American air. The body may only go along so
far with its own evasions.

The ironies and
nuances which surround colour in our world were visible in the sequence
of events that brought Barack Obama to the American presidency. His
entire campaign persona was calibrated to give the impression of an
eloquent and outraged citizen, not, mind you, an eloquent and outraged
black citizen. But the mere sight of this biracial candidate was enough
to evoke the grim history of white injustice and black rage, with all
its implications. His demeanour may have been reassuring to many white
Americans, but there were some in the black community who felt that
Obama’s psychic share in their tortured patrimony was minimal at best,
and that his physical share, owing to a Kenyan father and a white
mother, was nil.

George Berkeley
wrote that “to be is to be perceived”. The strange workings of being
and perception were brought home to me in a peculiar manner. A few
years ago I encountered, by chance, a man with whom I had been at
university. We were participants at a two-week event, and over that
time renewed our acquaintance amid much bonhomie and reminiscence. One
day, quite casually, he revealed that when we were at university he had
disliked me fiercely because he thought I looked Igbo.

For some reason he
did not explain, the Igbos had incurred his enmity, and I, with my
Igbo- looking skin [if such a thing exists] and my Igbo circle of
friends, was guilty by resemblance, if not in fact.

To hate, after all,
is human, but I found his past, secret animus somewhat ridiculous
because of its tenuous connection with anything that I had actually
done, any act that had struck and inflamed the flint of his tribal
grudge. On my own part I thought it would be logical for me to dislike
him not for being from his tribe, or for being squat, bald and
potbellied but for being talkative and crude.

The human eye
trained in recognizing difference is nothing if not the window of
discontent, of dissatisfaction with another, or oneself. This is a
world not only of mirrors but also of other people’s eyes. Among black
people, among Nigerians, the tendency has been to adapt to the judgment
of other people’s eyes, to derive our sense of being not from anything
inherent and authentic, but from what the overt and insidious catechism
of the white West. How else to explain the legion of black men and
women with bleached skin, with blonde wigs and blue contact lens if not
as individuals seeking to escape the perceived ghetto of their skin by
being aesthetically beholden to the ideal beholder?

Going beyond
sartorial imitation, beyond acquiring a foreign language- none of which
I carp against- to actually attempt to usurp the legacy of white genes
defies comprehension. Self contempt has many guises.

All of the foregoing invariably serves to illustrate a sense that by
creating societies where colour is a crucial emblem of difference and
individual worth, by persisting in judging a mind by its cover, we are
condemned to making, and acquiescing to, wholly untenable distinctions
between amateur and professional human beings.

Dear Father, he began.

J Mensah was
drafting a reply to the letter from Kojo’s principal. He raised the
wick of the paraffin lamp and drew the blank sheets of paper closer to
the brightened copper glow, bemused as it threw the shadow of his
bespectacled head in a grotesque oblong on the wall. The house was
silent at last, the area around the dining table where he sat stood in
partial shade. The children were asleep, huddled on mats on the cold
floor; now and then a sleepy chest revved with cough.

Father George
Fraser’s cursive Latin-sequined prose resounded in J Mensah’s head with
all the sonority of a Sunday morning hymn. With paternal relish he
recalled the phrases about Kojo being an outstanding student who had
time and again repaid the attention of his teachers; a young fellow of
undoubted promise who Fraser would have no hesitation in recommending
for a scholarship when the day arose eventually deo volente.

The reek of
fermenting cassava frothing in clay vats at the backyard wafted citric
through the window and J Mensah longed for a shot of scotch to dull the
whiff. In his father’s time, a life such as he now lived and one such
as he hoped for his son lay beyond dream. Chosen as a boy for a
Presbyterian school education, he had risen gradually in Her Majesty’s
service. He commanded deference and admiration, solely on the strength
of a Presbyterian school education and a gradual rise in Her Majesty’s
service. In his mind’s eye he saw Kojo – official-looking, achievement
embodied, almost regal in wig and gown, like the young England
returnees whose photographs he had seen in the West African Pilot. It
could be a life without precedent in their family.

Two years earlier,
Kuffour, his nephew, had left Fourah Bay College and sailed for
Liverpool en route to beginning a medical degree at London University.
Much to J Mensah’s puzzlement the boy had gone incommunicado for the
first year, only to resume contract with a brazen telegram requesting
an urgent transfer of a hundred pounds sterling because SITUATION
CRITICAL. Where did the twerp think he would pluck that sort of money
from? Certainly not from the cocoa plantation. This year the crop was
promising to be poor. A blight had set in, charring the yellow pods
that jutted breastlike from the trunk. At best there would be a few
dozen bags; not up to the usual yield. And there was one more thing to
worry about: Nana, the girl.

She was the
daughter of Mr. Reeves’ housekeeper Obi, and after the first evening
when he saw her J Mensah had made discreet inquiries. She was tall,
nimble-limbed, dark, with quiet enigmatic eyes. Obi’s means and
ambitions did not stretch to giving her a formal education but she had
doubtless been instructed in the fine wifely arts of cooking, cleaning,
and submission. As yet there had been none of the traditional preludes
to matrimony; no visits with bottles of White Horse and kolanut; no
delegation of relations hinting in that oblique, flowery way at the
obvious. J Mensah knew he had to get around to all of that soon.

The other day he
had brought Mr. Reeves from the District Treasury over to the house at
close of work. As they drew up in the Mini the scene was suddenly abuzz
with children jumping excitably, ostensibly at the sight of their
returning Papa.

– These all yours? Reeves had asked wryly, as he stepped out of the car.

– No ….not all of them….. nephews, nieces, that sort of thing, J Mensah had replied.

– I see, Reeves said, with a nod.

Reeves hadn’t
pressed the matter further, so J Mensah let it rest there, not inclined
to reveal that he was the father of thirteen children. Reeves was
patting the smaller children on their heads and pulling a cheek here, a
nose there J Mensah was uncomfortable, and in as menacing a tone as he
could summon he warned the children not to put their dirty hands on the
man’s shirt.

– I always say family is important. And your people…. Well, you really do extend your families now, don’t you?

J Mensah grinned,
certain there was an edge to what seemed like faint praise. But he
understood that the man could mean no offence. With his portly step,
thinning black hair, permanent stubble chin and fondness for
suspenders, Reeves was by far the most urbane of the insular pink bunch
that made up the district English gentry. On occasion he would ask J
Mensah up to his plinth balanced bungalow on Mission Hill. There, in
the evening sibilance of the avocado trees they would sip sundowners.
Obi would be kept on his feet all the while, ferrying a steady supply
of Reeves’ finest Scotch. When Obi appeared, staid and stocky, jangling
tray in hard, Reeves would chuckle: “Not exactly a gentlemen’s
gentleman Obi, but then again neither am I, ay!”. And then he would
light another Dunhill and return to regaling his guest with talk about
his childhood, his days in India and elsewhere in the service of what
he called “The British Vampire”

They said you could
never tell; could never be too sure with these oyibos, but J Mensah
presumed there was pith and core to the acquaintance. It was Reeves
after all who had taught him how to drive when he decided a year
earlier to splash the proceeds of a cocoa windfall on a Vauxhall. They
went out to the football pitch at St. Patricks College, where Reeves
had a friend among the iron-fisted Irish priests who ran the place.
Behind his cassocked back Reeves called the man Padre Picasso because
he was an avid watercolourist, whose real name was Seamus Flanagan.

The students came
out in their blazers and ties to watch as J Mensah learnt to manouever
the gear and steering and brakes, Reeves at his side, the Vauxhall
chugging away like an outlandish white insect gorging itself on grass.

On hearing that J
Mensah’s son was due to write the finals, it was also Reeves who
suggested that Kojo come up the hill and use his library, winking at J
Mensah and remarking; “Let the boy dust my tomes. I should be surprised
if he managed to get any swatting done in that kraal of yours.”

So when the rest of
the family was trudging the muddy pelt of road that led to the yam and
cassava plots, children wielding hoes and matches, women expertly balancing basins on their heads, Kojo would dress up neatly and wheel his father’s old Raleigh up the hill.

The library
consisted of one ceiling-high mahogany shelf, stacked top to bottom
with bound volumes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Conan Doyle and Kipling.
There were also the Britannica volumes, pages teeming with revelation.
Kojo was especially fascinated by the illustrations of prehistoric
animals, hard to imagine as the phantasmal forebears of the antelope,
perhaps the mangy-dog. About the books there hung the faint odour of
vintage dust. There was a desk and a wrought-iron chair in the room;
several photographs hung from the walls, flecked with damp: Reeves as a
young cherub, sitting between a bewhiskered man in a top hat and a
pleasant-faced, plump woman in a frilly dress and bonnet. Also, a
picture of Reeves and his chums beaming proudly, a Bengal tiger
prostrate at their feet, mahouts on an elephant in the background

Reeves was usually
gone by the time Kojo arrived the house, so he was let in by Obi.
Occasionally, too, a young girl named Nana would be on hand to give him
entrance, demure and elusive, disappearing almost immediately into the
quarters reserved for the housekeeper and his family at the back of the
bungalow. Kojo would go straight to the polished desk and begin by
working on his précis, selecting a piece from Nuttall and Turner’s
African Passages. Sometimes he would fall into a light drowse, from
which he would be jolted by the chime of the grandfather clock, or the
shrill cries issuing from a nest-festooned mango tree at the side of
the house.

One such day he
started awake to the receding rays of sunlight streaming in through the
slats of the window. It was nearly six o’ clock. He had to get home.
His throat was dry from thirst, and he had got through the day on a
meagre breakfast of akara and pap, shared with his siblings.

Obi was away from
the Reeves residence that day, so he and Nana had been the only two
around, even though as was customary she hadn’t made herself seen all
day. Gathering his books into the raffia satchel, he made his way
through a dim corridor which led onto the sitting room and out the
front door. A bedroom door was open, and a diagonal of light lay on the
floor, orange and webbed

Kojo happened on
the scene before there was time to retreat into the shadows: Reeves was
entwined on the bed with a girl who was unmistakably Nana. Black and
pink legs spliced in sweaty coupling; the mosquito net had slipped its
mooring on the four-poster.

They broke their
embrace when they saw him. Reeves drew away and got up, chest rank with
hair. He said nothing and Kojo looked away instantly, conscious only
that behind him Reeves slammed the bedroom door with a force that shook
the frames of the house Kojo clutched his satchel tightly in
nervousness. He hadn’t known what to expect and Reeves had probably
been under the impression that the boy had gone home.

Stricken now with
panic over the consequences of his trespass and discovery, Kojo hurried
out through the front door and sullenly past the avocado trees with the
last of sunlight drizzling through their leaves. The sight of the river
seething with phosphorescence, always a delight to him, now failed to
detain his gaze. And in his hurry to leave he had accidentally
forgotten to put back the copy of Othello he had been reading before he
fell asleep.

J Mensah noticed the mask of worry on Kojo’s face when the boy returned from his day at Reeves place.

The boy had offered
a desultory greeting on the verandah as he ate his fufu and melon soup
and gone straight into the house without another word. If there were
anything the matter he would get to hear of it sooner or later. Kojo’s
tacitly acknowledged position as his father’s favourite son meant that
he was treated with infinite forbearance, but it certainly did not pass
without comment the following day when he refused to make his daily
journey up the hill to Reeves bungalow. He skulked about when the women
and the other children were going off and didn’t seem to be acting with
any sense of urgency.

That evening his
father was forced to confront him. And then it all came out. J Mensah
sat quietly through the nervous, stuttered narration, only becoming
visibly moved when his son blurted out the name Nana.

Are you sure of this? J Mensah asked, staring his son in the face curiously.

Papa, would I lie? I carry my two eye see them! Insisted Kojo.

J Mensah nodded
thoughtfully and waved his son away. Liaisons like this were not
exactly a rarity in Kabala, and there were fair-skinned, kinky-haired
children to show for it, even though the European fathers had sometimes
taken off and left their local mistresses in the lurch. But how could
this be happening to him?

The next day at
work Reeves picked up a hint of frost in J Mensah’s reply to his
chitchat, none of the usual warmth. But he imagined that anyone with
four wives and thirteen children had a right to feel burdened every now
and then, the weight of obligation like a python-heavy press on the
shoulders.

– Say, what been
happening to Kojo these days? Haven’t seen the chap around for a while.
Everything alright? Reeves chirped cheerfully.

J Mensah muttered
some words to the effect that Kojo had taken ill with fever and had to
be treated with a remedy that Reeves knew must consist of bits of leaf
and bark, a proper witches brew. Fortunately for J Mensah the white man
hadn’t seemed to sense a lie, in the event of which he would have
resorted to his catch phrase: “come out of the bushes”. This was the
phrase he mused when pressing for elaboration, meaning you should stop
beating about hiding behind a thicket of obliquity.

J Mensah could not marry the girl again, not after this Obi would
have to understand. Reeves of course had acted in total ignorance of
the girl’s connection to J Mensah. There was nothing to forgive,
because only anger sought placation and J Mensah was no longer angry.
He would ask Kojo to return to his studying and tread with greater
caution in the event of open doors. This was one of the many
inscrutable, inevitable things that happened between men, and Kojo
would grow to understand.

The Nigerian Film
Corporation (NFC) has called for entries for its 2010/2011 annual film
essay competition. Submission of entries for the competition with
‘Film: A Tool for Socio-Cultural Integration and Tourism Promotion’ as
its topic, will open on July 1 and close on August 31, 2010.

A statement by
Brian Etuk, head, public affairs of the NFC explained that the topic
was chosen to promote Nigeria’s tourism potentials to the world.

The competition,
Etuk disclosed, is open to people aged 18 and above only. He added that
staff of the corporation and members of their family, are exempted.

Essays to be
considered, Etuk noted further, must have a minimum of 10 pages and a
maximum of 15 pages. They should be typed double space with Calibri
font type, 14 point size and on A4 paper.

Hard copies of entries can be submitted to the headquarters of the
NFC at 213T, Liberty Dam Road, Jos, Plateau State or its offices in
Lagos, Abuja and Kano. The NFC’s Lagos office is located at the
National Theatre Annex while its Abuja office is on the First Floor,
Shippers Plaza, Wuse Zone 5, Abuja. NFC is within the State secretariat
in Kano. Entries can also be sent by e-mail to md_nfc@hotmail.com