How Beautiful We Were

by Imbolo Mbue

Their words would have served no purpose but to further instill within us that we couldn’t undo the fact that three decades before, in Bézam, on a date we’ll never know, at a meeting where none of us was present, our government had given us to Pexton. Handed, on a sheet of paper, our land and waters to them. We would have had no choice but to accept that we were now theirs. We would have admitted to ourselves that we’d long ago been defeated.

Perhaps madness is what we all need. How can you say such a thing? We were once a brave people, the blood of the leopard flows within us—when did we lose sight of that?

We tried not to think about our future. We wanted to hold on to that night for as long as we could, savor this optimism that had descended upon us, the faint promise of triumph.

They should have known we’re not easily defeated.

I hate this world, but I don’t yearn to leave it. I want to live long and see what life after a twisted childhood looks like,

life gifts easy peace only to the very young and very old.

much of the suffering in the world was because of those who had forgotten that they too were once children.

why is it that women feel they have to apologize for their men’s failings—when was the last time a woman was the source of her village’s suffering?

Worse than the waiting is the punishing nature of time, its ruthless inflexibility.

Waiting has become us—we’ve been waiting for one thing or another since the day we were born;

We wondered if America was populated with cheerful people like that overseer, which made it hard for us to understand them: How could they be happy when we were dying for their sake?

She says nothing, in the way mothers say everything while saying nothing.

in a world where many believe their happiness is tied to the unhappiness of others, what choice did we have?

Is he inflamed that we dare dream of a new life when he has resigned himself to the belief that an idyllic future is not the birthright of the likes of him and us?

“Someday, when you’re old, you’ll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who’ll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.”

a man’s anger is often no more than a safe haven for his cowardice.

if everyone only did what they ought to do, who would do the things no one thought they had to do? What did enjoyment have to do with duty?

I hope he’ll soon be happy, but I’ve spent enough time around grieving parents to know that happiness is no goal of theirs; seeing flickers of light in the darkness that surrounds them will suffice.

of course life intersperses suffering with joys,

how we could harm our children in an attempt to clean out for them the smothering decay of this world.

Why do we hope on when life has revealed itself to be meaningless?

Remember what happened, the past says. Consider what might happen, the future says. The past always wins, because what it says is true—what happened lives within me, it surrounds me, ever present. I cannot trust the future and its uncertainty.

This story must be told, it might not feel good to all ears, it gives our mouths no joy to say it, but our story cannot be left untold.

Your father can do only what he has the capacity to do; surely, it must pain him to fail you.

She avoided us, as if her grief and ours were parallel rivers.

Despite comporting ourselves for decades, despite never resorting to beastly deeds, we hadn’t succeeded in persuading our tormentors that we were people deserving of the privilege of living our lives as we wished.

One of us was going to soar, and someday we’d all soar because of her.

there’s no better place to feel as if you belong, and yet feel terribly alone, than New York. It’s a sad feeling, wanting to be part of a strange, new world, while looking at it from a distance, watching those who’ve conquered it walk with high shoulders.

It is to this river that I go when I long for the quietude one can only get from the place of one’s birth.

That evening, he saw the sun enthroned at the horizon. He watched it bow before the earth.

I’d begun fearing that our ways would vanish in one generation, a shallow river besieged by a ruthless drought.

The lightness wouldn’t last, I knew; our tears are still too close by.

days might be long, but years were seldom slow.

Flickers of progress are brightening lives in isolated corners of the world, yes, but a universal solution eludes us.

Every story I write is about death, he said. It dawned on me today that life is death, death is life—what’s the point of it all?

I’m just trying to learn how to hold on to nothing in life. My entire life has been a game of holding on tightly, and wanting to never let go, and yet losing.

I’ve accepted, after years of pondering, that I’ll always be dead and alive, both and neither.

I wanted to walk next to her, in awe of her singularity,

“Fathers—doesn’t our pain begin and end with them?”

as surely as the ocean’s waves are born and reborn, gentle and mighty, everything that once existed would return to take its rightful place, be it where it was before, or wherever it finds suitable upon return.

the world abounded in women who were afraid to be bitches.

We were forced to build upon sinking sand, and now we’re crumbling from within.

I have accepted that, just as I live in the space between the dead and the living, I’ll always be whole outside and broken inside. I have let go of any hopes of ever being free.

We each carry our burden, she says, searching for a place to lay them down—smart bitches know how to carry their burdens with style, and how to lay them down.

I told her that on all sides the dead were too many—on the side of the vanquished, on the side of the victors, on the side of those who’d never chosen sides. What good were sides? Who could ever hail themselves triumphant while they still lived? Perhaps someday, I added, after all the dead have been counted, there will be one number for the living to ponder, though the number will never tell the full story of what has been lost.

may the Spirit be thanked for love that causes blindness.

Our Thula was angry, but she’d long lost her capacity for hatred.

farewell to the revolution, weep not, silence lasts for a night rise children, get in formation, madness ignited, fists clench up burn, burn, burn; lift every voice; alive and proud—or give us death ten thousand systems, sipping on our souls, onward yet we fight, until when long may we live to see that glorious morning, when the light shall emerge when we’ll gather, at the river, in the village pure and clean there’ll be no more crying, no more bleeding, no more sickness, only bliss oh boundless love, we are weary, won’t you come forth, guide us home? —

We sat under the mango tree, lazed and gossiped as if tomorrow would always be ours, a luminous tomorrow. We hoped, we believed, that we would die where we were born.