The Travelling Mask

The Scottish Gazette
February 12, 2024

Auction of Nigerian Mask

Protests in London Spark Calls for Repatriation When an Auction House Sells the Alèkwu Mask amid Growing Controversy.

By Greg Macdonald.

Outside the Nue Auction House in London: a heated protest over the sale of a notable Nigerian artefact, the Alèkwu mask. This incident yesterday,  February 11, sparked discussions afresh about colonial history and the restitution of cultural treasures. Despite fervent appeals from advocacy groups to halt the sale and return the mask to Nigeria, it was sold for £240 million. The mask, which was likely removed from Nigeria during colonial times, holds cultural and spiritual significance for the Idoma people, who view it as a protector of their community.

Robert Morley, CEO of Nue, found himself at the heart of this controversy. On the day of the auction, a sizable crowd gathered outside Nue’s headquarters, chanting slogans like “Return Our Heritage” and displaying signs such as “End Colonial Looting.” This diverse assembly of activists, scholars, and members of the Nigerian diaspora voiced their frustration at what they saw as the continued exploitation of African cultural heritage by Western institutions.

The atmosphere outside the building remained charged with intensity as the protesters’ energy grew throughout the day. Traditional Nigerian music and drumming filled the air, underscoring the protesters’ message. Some participants, dressed in traditional Nigerian attire, performed acts supposedly illustrating colonial exploitation and the subsequent loss of cultural identity. Others formed a human chain around the building, determined to block the auction.

As tensions rose, some activists attempted to breach security, leading to a brief confrontation with police and several arrests. Despite the increased police presence, the demonstrators remained resolute in their demand for the return of the mask.

“To auction a piece of our heritage is to perpetuate the legacy of colonialism,” stated Adebola Ogunleye, a representative of the protest group. “The Alèkwu mask is a living part of our culture and spiritual identity. It belongs in Nigeria, not in a private collection far from its home.”

Morley defended the auction house’s decision, explaining that Nue had legally acquired the mask and was simply performing its role as an auctioneer. However, this justification did little to alleviate the full-blown discontent, with many accusing the auction house of profiting from the sale of culturally significant artefacts.

The dispute over the Alèkwu mask forms part of a broader global debate about returning cultural objects taken during colonial times. There is increasing pressure on museums and collectors in Europe and North America to repatriate these items. Nigeria, in particular, has been actively seeking the return of numerous artefacts taken during British colonial rule.

Experts in cultural heritage have criticised the sale of the Alèkwu mask as a significant ethical lapse in Western institutions. “Selling such an important artefact without considering its cultural value or the wishes of its originating community is deeply problematic,” commented Dr. Emma Craig, a historian at the University of Edinburgh. “We need to confront our colonial past and take meaningful steps towards restitution and reparative justice.”

Following the protest, the debate over the Alèkwu mask’s rightful place remains unresolved. While the Nigerian government has not yet issued an official response, it is expected that calls for the mask’s return will continue. The artefact now belongs to a newly undisclosed owner, but the impact of the protest is likely to provoke ongoing discussions about the ethics of ancestral claims in a postcolonial world.

“No matter how dark, the hand always knows the way to the mouth.”  —Unknown

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1.

ROBERT KNOWS IT is yet another betrayal towards his unclaimed children, and that is, in part, why he’s been chasing the dragon ever since. His eyes flutter open and close like moth wings in the dying light, lulled by the relaxing soft kora music playing on the radio as he sits in the back of a moving London taxi. 

In his intoxicated state, he rationalises that even though his children may never discover that their own father deceived them, the presence of his Scottish DNA within them is a fair exchange. He convinces himself that this lineage is compensation, a trade-off that somehow balances out his betrayal, as if his heritage grants them something valuable enough to offset the truth he’s hidden from them.

The taxi glides to a smooth stop, the hum of the engine fading as it idles by the curb. Robert, however, remains lost in thought, his gaze fixed on the cityscape beyond the window, unfocused and distant. The bustling world outside barely registers; the sound of traffic and the chatter of pedestrians all blur into a muffled background noise.

The driver, a middle-aged man with tired eyes, turns slightly in his seat and glances back at Robert, waiting for any sign of acknowledgement that they’ve arrived. When none comes, he hesitates for a moment before gently tapping Robert on the lap, a soft yet firm reminder of their arrival. The tap jolts Robert from his reverie, his eyes blinking back to the present.

Without a word, Robert reaches into his chest pocket, his fingers brushing against the folded bills inside. His movements are slow, almost mechanical, as he pulls out the money. He doesn’t bother to count it, either unaware or indifferent to the fact that he’s taken out far more than necessary.

Calmly, he hands the driver the crumpled bills, his face still clouded with the thoughts that had consumed him moments before. The driver accepts the money with a humble nod, quickly noticing the overpayment but saying nothing. The exchange is wordless, yet the driver’s eyes linger on Robert for a second longer, a flicker of concern passing through them before he looks away.

Robert, oblivious, steps out of the taxi, leaving behind a few extra bills and with a mind still adrift.

He briskly walks toward the grand entrance of The Langham Hotel. His eyes dart nervously, avoiding the prying glances of polished,  upper-class individuals walking past. Fixating on his alcohol-stained black shoes, he barely registers the doorman’s smile and warm greeting: “Good morning, Mr. Morley.”

As he enters the opulent lobby, with its gleaming marble floors and soaring chandelier, Robert’s thoughts slow enough for him to realise his oversight. Retracing his steps, he approaches the attentive doorman with a rueful grin, acknowledging his earlier mistake. 

“I’m sorry I did not respond to you earlier,” he says. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

He opens his briefcase with a distant, almost detached air, as if his hands move without his full understanding. From within, he retrieves a thick wad of cash and extends it to the doorman, seemingly guided by some force compelling him toward inexplicable generosity. The doorman, taken aback, steadies himself against the unexpected and unearned display of Robert’s largesse, wondering at the source of such sudden benevolence. 

“I know it’s not Christmas just yet, uh, Harold, but I want you to give your lovely wife and kids a treat,” Robert says, tapping Harold’s pinned-to-chest nametag playfully.

Wide-eyed, Harold’s thank you gets cut short by Robert’s wave of a hand.

As Robert walks toward the elevator, he feels excitement bubbling within him like a pot about to boil over. He imagines the television stations announcing breaking news about him, shattering the auction record with the Alèk͟wu mask—two hundred and forty million pounds, the highest ever for just the broken half of a historical mask.

In the elevator lobby, a small figure stands beside Robert. Possibly a young girl, she is dressed in a black face cap, sports attire beneath a winter jacket, and dark spectacles. What captures Robert’s attention are the two discreet lines on her wrist, resembling tribal marks from the Guinea Savannah, a region he’d visited quite often as a kid with his parents. He can tell that behind her sunshades, she is scrutinising him covertly, her eyes tracing his figure like a fluctuating thermometer.

Robert wonders the following thoughts: 

1. The lines on her wrist are quite familiar. 
2. Was she at the club last night? 
3. Perhaps she was one of the few hot ladies around my table, sharing cocaine with me and my staff as we celebrated the record-breaking auction deal.

The elevator dings!, and Robert and the lady step in. He presses the button for the third floor and notices she hasn’t pressed a button. Are they heading to the same floor, or has she forgotten? He draws a deep breath, wondering if his heightened sense of awareness is due to the drugs still coursing through his veins. Robert glances at his watch, observing the lady anxiously tapping her foot, a steady drumbeat punctuating the silence. Is she, like him, anticipating a life-altering appearance on TV? The Langham Hotel provides a prestigious backdrop for his networking endeavours, mostly offers from his end towards potential clients for dinner and wine, but the lady seems uninterested in pleasantries. He doesn’t want his charitable efforts rebuffed.

The elevator dings again and the doors open to the third floor. Robert senses the tension dissipating like steam from a pressure cooker. Each step he takes along the hallway echoes with trepidation, despite the hand-tufted carpets. He turns intermittently, wary of the lady pretending to be engrossed in her phone as she walks.

Is she following me? Robert wonders. Perhaps she heard about the auction in the news and is attempting to rob me.

An idea pops into his mind. Abruptly, he stops by a random door and fumbles for his hotel key. The lady walks past him and turns the corner. Robert sighs in relief and hurries to his room. He flashes his key card against the electronic lock and waits for the familiar beep.

Beep!

Casting one final glance in the lady’s direction, Robert gently enters his room and shuts the door. As he walks down the corridor, he observes the paintings on the walls as if for the first time. On one side, a black cat with glowing yellow eyes seems to watch him with an intense gaze. On the other side, a white cat with gentle blue eyes. Together, these pictures are more than simple décor. They stand as a poignant reminder of the current racial tensions in the UK, where the controversy surrounding the Alèk͟wu mask has stirred old wounds and ignited new debates. 

He makes his way to the bed, picks up the TV remote from the bedside table, and turns on the television. As he takes off his jacket, he realises he didn’t hear the door click shut. Maybe he did, but he’s not sure. He approaches the corridor, each step heavier than the last, a subtle prickling sensation creeping up his spine.

Nearing the door, he notices it is slightly ajar. He stops dead in his tracks. A flicker of movement —a glint in the mirror to his left—catches his eye. Next thing, the muzzle of a gun emerges from the bathroom door. Time freezes. The realisation strikes him like a lightning bolt. He turns around and sees that the elevator lady is here. Her forehead is dotted with balls of sweat, and even her hand holding the gun has an ocean trickling from inside the fist. 

“Have a seat over there, will you, Mr. Morley?” she says, directing Robert’s gaze towards the chair next to the television as her foot shuts the door.

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 2.

AS ROBERT SETTLES into the chair, the lady with the gun takes three steps back, her sneakers making soft, rubbery squeaks against the floor. She removes her sunglasses, revealing eyes that lock onto him. Reaching into the inner thigh of her jacket, she deftly retrieves a plastic handcuff and, with a flick of the wrist, tosses it at Robert.

“Cuff yourself,” she commands, her voice cold and unwavering. “And don’t try anything funny, or I’ll shoot.”

Studying the lady’s face, Robert realises she is not as young as he had initially imagined. Her deep-set eyes, heavy with bags, convey the sense that she’s done this sort of thing before; otherwise, how did she pass the security checkpoint of the hotel with such an obvious weapon? 

Robert considers the following: 

1. Am I taller than her? Yes, I am. 
2. Is it possible that I am quicker on my feet than she is? I can’t rule that out. After all, I was at the top of my taekwondo class in high school—even though that is a long time ago now.
3. Could she be bluffing? 

The tension in her gaze suggests to Robert that even if she were bluffing, she could pull the trigger at the slightest provocation, fearing being overpowered.

After cuffing one arm to the seat, Robert calmly asks, “I know this has more to do with money than the mask. Just tell me how much you need. There’s money in the safe inside the drawer next to the bathroom over there.” He points with his jaw towards the corridor where the safe is.

“Shush,” the lady says, clutching the gun tightly in her trembling hand and pointing it at Robert as she takes cautious steps towards the window.

Robert can hear the faint metallic jingling of the curtains as the lady pulls them along the curtain rod behind him, shutting the light out. It occurs to him to scream. A housekeeper, right at this moment, could be walking by and, upon hearing his desperate plea, might send for help.

The lady walks to the edge of the bed, pointing the gun at Robert with one hand while reaching for the television remote with the other. She turns up the volume. Robert’s ears ring from the noise.

“No need to turn up the volume that high! ” Robert shouts. “The room is soundproof.”

The lady laughs. “Mr. Morley, not all of us are bluebloods like you, inheriting eight million pounds, owning a home by the ocean in the Isle of Lewis, sending our two children to a private school, and having a blueblood like yourself for a wife. Some of us, Mr. Morley, are hotel cleaners at The Langham Hotel, and we never let the smallest details of our jobs escape us—from a negligible dot on a bedspread to the mechanics of the faintest sound escaping a room.”

Robert feels a mist gathering at his temples. It dawns on him that the lady is a housekeeper at The Langham Hotel who knows its operations very well and must have used her spare key to enter when he did.

Thoughts race through his mind: 

1. How does she know so much about me? Where I live, details about my wife and children, and the exact amount of my inheritance? Even Wikipedia doesn’t know that much. 
2. Who is she, and what’s her stake in all this?

“Please, don’t hurt me,” Robert pleads. “I’m just a simple man trying to make a living for himself and family. I’ve never hurt anyone.”

“Never hurt anyone? Isn’t that a bit self-righteous, Mr. Morley? ”

The lady retrieves another plastic cuff from the same pocket and proceeds to carefully restrain Robert’s free hand, her gun to his chin.

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3.

SCROLLING THROUGH CHANNELS on the television, the lady pauses on the Good Morning Britain show. The screen fills with the polished studio, where two anchors, a sharply dressed man and woman in corporate attire, sit behind a sleek glass table covered with the show’s logo at its centre. They smile warmly at the camera, their professionalism evident as they run through a list of guests scheduled to appear later on the show. The backdrop of the studio features cityscape images that add a bustling energy to the broadcast. 

A picture of smiling Robert Morley in a suit pops up on the screen, and beside his picture are his credentials: CEO of Nue, Oxford graduate, highest-grossing auctioneer for a mask in British history.

Male anchor: Later on the show, we will be speaking to Mr. Robert Morley, currently Britain’s most influential auctioneer, having sold one of the most expensive artefacts in British history.

The female anchor smiles and turns to her colleague. “With all that money, he is probably thinking of retiring soon.”

The male anchor laughs and says, “I agree: that’s a lot of money. Word on the street is that his auction house bought it for a meagre sum from young adults who probably didn’t understand its worth when they sold it to them. Now, having sold it for a significantly higher value, Nue’s stocks are piling up. The original owners of the mask appear to be angry, asserting that they were ‘short-changed’—these are their words, not mine. Can you believe that, Sarah? They even staged a protest outside the auction house on the day of the sale. It’s not Mr. Morley’s fault that he recognised the true worth of what they were offering to sell so inexpensively.

Sarah: “While I agree with you, Frankie, we have to remember we are on camera.” She laughs. “We do not rely on ‘word on the street.’ However, I’ll be happy to hear what Mr. Morley has to say about all this when he gets here. And, lest I forget, remind me to ask him if he intends purchasing the other half of the mask, assuming he knows who has it.”

“Before we go on a commercial break, let’s also not forget to mention why the mask is that valuable, Sarah,” Frankie says.

Sarah looks at her notes. “Oh, yes, that is true, Frankie. It was found to be that valuable because it originates from the only kingdom in Nigeria that was never colonised, even though the Scottish Gazette reports otherwise.”

Frankie smirks. “And what does it say there about why it wasn’t colonised?”

“It says because the kingdom was enclosed with walls made invisible by Alèk͟wu, one of its masquerade gods.”

Frankie laughs. “Not to be offensive at all, but it just sort of reminds me of some fantasy novel, like Harry Potter. Wouldn’t you agree?”

The lady turns off the television, rises from the bed, and stands before Robert, her gun pointed at his forehead.

“So if I’m going by the ‘word on the street,’ you and your company sold the mask? You were never a middleman? You took advantage of a desperate situation and, together with your company, bought a historical artefact. And for even far less than it was worth.” She lets out an audible sigh. “Money doesn’t seem to be enough for you rich people. For all I know, Ochanya could have been in a desperate situation—perhaps facing life-threatening debt—and you took advantage of that.”

Robert realises the lady is more involved in the situation than he initially thought. How could she possibly know Ochanya? He sits upright, apprehensive of the gun going off  any moment.

I wonder if she’s aware that Ochanya is no longer with us and that I’m the father of her children—the very ones who sold me the mask, he mulls over silently. It would probably upset her even more if she discovers that they’d sold the mask to me because they needed the money to transport their mother’s casket to Nigeria and arrange a proper burial. 

Shaking his head rigorously, Robert diverts the dribbling salty sweat from his eyes, feeling the sensation like needles poking his skin. He is afraid to blink, unsure if that’s when she might decide whether he lives or dies.

“If it’s any consolation, she didn’t seem to be in any distress when we bought it,” he lies. “She called me, mentioned she wanted to sell a family treasure, and that was it. I attended a scheduled appointment, and she gladly signed the deal.”

The lady scrutinises Robert’s tense face.

The confusion in her eyes reveals to Robert that she isn’t a good judge of character. If he keeps weaving the lie, she might get entangled in it until guilt pushes her to set him free.

Just then, Robert hears a door slam shut outside his room. He senses it’s the perfect moment to scream, especially now that the television is off and so there is no noise to drown his voice. 

“Help me, I’m in danger! Somebody please help!”

Before Robert can utter another word, the lady lunges at him, seizing his neck with one hand and covering his mouth with the other. The pressure of her palm muffles his attempts to speak, but desperation drives him to bite down hard on her fingers. She yelps in pain, jerking her hand away. Blood trickles down her skin. Her eyes ablaze with fury,  she retreats to the bathroom. The sound of running water echoes as she frantically washes off the blood, staining the stark white sink with crimson streaks. 

“Somebody, please help!” Robert continues.

The lady returns with a flannel pressed against her bleeding hand and another towel that she forcefully stuffs into Robert’s mouth.

The door shudders under a distinct pounding. Robert, attempting muffled cries, begins to quake in his seat, causing the chair legs to collide with the soft, silky carpet, producing no audible noise. The lady swiftly tucks the gun into her jacket and composes herself before approaching the door to answer it.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” a stranger says at the door. “I couldn’t help knocking when I heard some strange noise coming from inside your room. Is everything okay?”

Tucking her bleeding hand behind the door while her other hand holds it close to her face, the lady smiles faintly and whispers, “My husband and I have been playing this cat and mouse game for over twenty years now—BDSM. It never gets old.”

With an embarrassed laugh, the stranger says, “Oh, forgive me for being nosy. I’ll leave you two to it, then.”

As the lady shuts the door, she turns around, giving Robert a devilish stare. Knowing that any chance of leniency he might have had is now ruined, he doesn’t get the opportunity to muffle the words “I’m sorry” before she quickly turns toward him.

Her feet move like a motorbike on a highway, and before he can react, she knocks him out cold with the butt of her gun.

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Michael Ogah is a Nigerian fiction and screenwriter. His short stories appeared in Lolwe, African Writer, Brittle Paper, Decolonial Passage, and Everyday Fiction. He lives in Scotland.

Cover credit: Ebumnobichukwu Agu.