How Beautiful We Were

by Imbolo Mbue

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

Wasn’t man’s ability to recognize his fellow human what made him better than dogs?

I know nothing about how a girl makes men pay for their crimes, but I have the rest of my life to figure it out.

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.

Shouldn’t we remind them always that birth happens only so death may prevail?

“But let me tell you something, sweet child. Something you may never have heard before and might never hear again after today: we are the only ones who can free ourselves.”

“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.”

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

Only when we became parents did we realize 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?

Our people were dying for lack of knowledge, they said, and if a child of ours could go to America and bring knowledge back to us, someday no government or corporation would be able to do to us the things they’ve been doing to us.

My mother always cautioned me against dwelling on the past and the future. What happened will never unhappen, she liked to say; what is to happen will happen—better you focus on what’s happening in front of you.

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.

I cursed him for choosing me only to make me pay for his foolhardiness, for loving me only to pass me off to a life I loathe, for giving me everything I ever wanted only to leave me wishing I’d never prayed for the things I got.

Once, when a grandfather tells us that in the olden days women wouldn’t dare walk around the village taking up the precious time of men for the sake of girls, Aisha, with only the slightest hint of humility in her voice, tells the grandfather that in the days to come the world will function the way women want it to.

We did not think we would have any tears left by the time we got to Jakani and Sakani’s coffin, but that day we learned that within us lies an ocean.

We would ask only that it be fair, that the crimes of those who had pushed us into our transgressions be considered first if those who judged us were to call themselves just.

I promised myself after the massacre that I would acquire knowledge and turn it into a machete that would destroy all those who treat us like vermin.

But perhaps the point isn’t for us to hurt them in a manner from which they’ll never recover. Perhaps the point is merely to let them know that we’re here. And we’re angry.

But my father used to say we can’t do only what we’re at ease with, we must do what we ought to do.

They speak to us in the language of destruction—let’s speak it to them too, since it’s what they understand.

If it’s flesh the grave is hungry for, why not take those who offer themselves and spare the ones eager to drink up more life? Isn’t flesh as good as flesh?

If a man couldn’t find solace in his own birthplace, what chance did he have at happiness?