The Fugitivities, стр. 24
His own life, up to that point, had been, by most counts, “interesting,” special, even singular—though to him it seemed primarily a matter of cushioned apartness. Boyhood brought to his mind mostly an impression of innocence suspended in a kind of fin de siècle phoniness, an unlikely life of privilege. The details he retained most vividly were sheltered and oddly abstract. The tinkle of pickup sticks; the loving rotundity of LeVar Burton’s voice; clots of Nestlé powdered cocoa and the vibrant packaging of multipack breakfast cereal. At the time, it had seemed to him like an ideal upbringing. It could have occurred just as easily in one of those rare and famous wealthy black American enclaves that his father liked to crack awkward jokes about. But a black American in Europe? That was a weirder story, not without precedent, but not entirely relatable either. It was his father, Jonah said, who was the architect of this strange situation, who provided the illusion and snatched it away. “Remember this, boy,” he’d say if Jonah upset him. “You’re living a life other kids just like you don’t have. You have no idea how good you have it, you never will.”
Confronting one’s history was important. His father talked a great deal about history and power. The limitations placed on men by its cruelty; the force of hatred in the world, which was oppressive and could strike anywhere at any time, which he should be prepared to face down as a special condition because it would inevitably target him. This was the most terrible vision. That history would come looking with special prejudice for him. Sooner or later he would confront a penalty, and it would be his responsibility to prove that he was not going to allow that penalty, however unjustly imposed, to hold him back. That he would use the extraordinary good fortune of his upbringing to make something great of himself and serve others, in spite of the inevitable swerve of history that would come looking for him and all who were darker than him, with intentions that were not to be trusted but nonetheless grimly confronted, surmounted with grace, without complaining, without under any circumstances allowing them to see the hurt.
Often, history was taught through the television, which brought its lessons—sometimes, and sometimes not, involving darker people—into the living room. But in his father’s explanations, they all were versions of the same thing: the great contest between the forces that tried to pit man against man through hate, and the forces of quiet dignity that tried to resist this, but often failed and often paid a terrible price. The more terrible price was paid by women, who generally bore the scars of this great cosmic conflict twice over, and who were the ones left to tend to the wounds caused by male chaos, to weep at funerals, to care for and raise neglected children, to survive and patch together the human family while making a life for themselves as best they could.
On such occasions, his father adopted a tone of ancestral teaching, as if (despite his rather limited schooling) his paternal mission consisted of imparting the ways of the world from the standpoint of successes and failures not only his own but of mankind generally. His voice, always grave at the outset, could shift, depending on his humor, revealing unsettled edges like a graveled road. He was fond of marking dramatic pauses with a flick at the base of one of his blue packets adorned with an Asterix helmet. The little kick liberated a cigarette, whose consumption was momentarily deferred until oratorical triumph dictated it should be plucked and ignited to his satisfaction.
Through the gauzy spread of tobacco fumes, the Japanese television set transmitted the revolution in newscasting, a never-ending global drama beamed directly into the living room. Riots, earthquakes, rafts of the dispossessed, Ethiopian famine, the space shuttle, Nelson Mandela, Morgan Freeman, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston. He remembered his father explaining the Berlin Wall coming down, the throng of fists and scarves and gloves parading, a chorus rising and roaring to garbled cheers and astonished weeping, a white man with a sledgehammer whacking away as slabs of gray matter yawned open. “You see, son,” his father said, “this is what freedom means. Taking it into your own hands, making the arc of history bend to your will. Hell, that’s what all great men want, and it’s what all great artists do—if—if they have the opportunity and the God-given ability to meet the challenge that’s in their path.”
Jonah’s father believed strongly in the greatness of art. He also believed, and for a time had convinced enough other people with the right connections, that he was an artist. He had come to this realization while studying for a degree in business communications. If he had learned one thing from those classes, it was the importance of seizing on opportunistic timing in a volatile market. He was well aware that, to some extent, he had taken advantage of a moment, after the assassinations of the sixties, when white liberals felt guilty about race relations and wanted to be seen endorsing, supporting, and promoting radical black art. This awareness didn’t imply pure cynicism on his part. Especially in the early days, he had brought genuine anger and frustration to his work, and its expressionist élan reflected something bold and unnerving that caught the eyes of gallerists and the art press