Washington Black

by Esi Edugyan

I recognized that my own values—the tenets I hold dear as an Englishman—they are not the only, nor the best, values in existence. I understood there were many ways of being in the world, that to privilege one rigid set of beliefs over another was to lose something. Everything is bizarre, and everything has value. Or if not value, at least merits investigation.”

What an agony it was, to see them together: old Goff, earnest and probing and high-minded and utterly oblivious; Tanna, sharp-tongued and brilliant and stifled and yet somehow devoted to that self-absorbed man. It was clear to me that both were intelligent, kind people, but careless with each other’s feelings, and poles apart in temperament. I liked both immensely; I hated their way together.

“You are happy here?” I said. He looked warily at me. “There are several kinds of happiness, Washington. Sometimes it is not for us to choose, or even understand, the one granted us.” It was supposed to be a wisdom; it sounded instead like something he said to comfort himself these cold nights when only the sound of wind and strange cries could be heard.