Aufgabe HT 1 - Task 2 · Abitur NRW Englisch LK · Haupttermin · Weiterbildungskolleg 2023

Klausurteil A: Leseverstehen und Schreiben integriert

Klausurteil A

Imbolo Mbue

How Beautiful We Were

The following passage opens the novel. Thula narrates the story, which takes place in Kosawa, an invented African village, during the 1980s.

We should have known the end was near. How could we not have known? When the sky

began to pour acid and rivers began to turn green, we should have known our land would

soon be dead. Then again, how could we have known when they didn’t want us to know?

When we began to wobble and stagger, tumbling and snapping like feeble little branches,

5 they told us it would soon be over, that we would all be well in no time. They asked us to

come to village meetings, to talk about it. They told us we had to trust them.

We should have spat in their faces, heaped upon them names most befitting – liars,

savages, unscrupulous, evil. We should have cursed their mothers and their grandmothers,

flung pejoratives upon their fathers, prayed for unspeakable calamities to befall their

10 children. We hated them and we hated their meetings, but we attended all of them. Every

eight weeks we went to the village square to listen to them. We were dying. We were

helpless. We were afraid. Those meetings were our only chance at salvation.

[...]

In the square we sat in near silence as the sun left us for the day, oblivious to how the

beauty of its descent heightened our anguish. We watched as the Pexton men placed their

15 briefcases on the table our village head, Woja Beki, had set for them. There were always

three of them – we called them the Round One (his face was as round as a ball we would

have had fun kicking), the Sick One (his suits were oversized, giving him the look of a man

dying of a flesh-stealing disease), and the Leader (he did the talking, the other two did the

nodding). We mumbled among ourselves as they opened their briefcases and passed sheets

20 of paper among themselves, covering their mouths as they whispered into each other’s ears

to ensure they had their lies straight. We had nowhere more important to be so we waited,

desperate for good news. We whispered at intervals, wondering what they were thinking

whenever they paused to look at us [...].

We inhaled, waited, exhaled. We remembered those who had died from diseases with

25 neither names nor cures – our siblings and cousins and friends who had perished from the

poison in the water and the poison in the air and the poisoned food growing from the land

that lost its purity the day Pexton came drilling. We hoped the men would look into our eyes

and feel something for us. We were children, like their children, and we wanted them to

recognize that. If they did, it wasn’t apparent in their countenance. They’d come for Pexton,

30 to keep its conscience clean; they hadn’t come for us.

Woja Beki walked up to the front and thanked everyone for coming.

“My dear people,” he said, exposing the teeth no one wanted to see, “if we don’t ask for

what we want, we’ll never get it. If we don’t expunge what’s in our bellies, are we not

going to suffer from constipation and die?”

35 We did not respond; we cared nothing for what he had to say. We knew he was one of

them. We’d known for years that though he was our leader, descended from the same

ancestors as us, we no longer meant anything to him. Pexton had bought his cooperation

and he had, in turn, sold our future to them. [...]

In the glow of the fading sun our village looked almost beautiful, our faces almost free

40 of anguish. Our grandfathers and grandmothers appeared serene, but we knew they weren’t

– they’d seen much, and yet they’d never seen anything like this.

“We’ll now hear from Mr. Honorable Representative of Pexton, all the way from Bézam

to speak to us again,” Woja Beki said, before returning to his seat.

The Leader rose up, walked toward us, and stood in the center of the square.

45 For several seconds, he stared at us, his head angled, his smile so strenuously earnest we

wondered if he was admiring a radiance we’d never been told we had. We waited for him to

say something that would make us burst into song and dance. We wanted him to tell us that

Pexton had decided to leave and take the diseases with them.

His smile broadened, narrowed, landed on our faces, scanning our stillness. Seemingly

50 satisfied, he began speaking. He was happy to be back in Kosawa on this fine day, he said.

What a lovely evening it was, with the half-moon in the distance, such a perfect breeze, was

that the sound of sparrows singing in one accord? What a gorgeous village. He wanted to thank

us for coming. It was great to see everyone again. Incredible how many precious children

Kosawa has. We had to believe him that the people at headquarters were sad about what was

55 happening to us. They were all working hard to resolve this issue so everyone could be

healthy and happy again. He spoke slowly, his smile constant, as if he was about to deliver

the good news we so yearned for.

We barely blinked as we watched him, listening to lies we’d heard before. Lies about how

the people who controlled Pexton cared about us. Lies about how the big men in the

60 government of His Excellency cared about us. Lies about how hundreds of people in the

capital had asked him to relay their condolences to us. “They mourn with you at the news of

every death,” he said. “It’ll be over soon. It’s time your suffering ended, isn’t it?”

Annotations:

9 to fling pejoratives – here: to speak in a very negative way about someone

42 Bézam – fictional African town

2. Analyze how the text creates its atmosphere and how this atmosphere affects the reader. Concentrate on the narrative techniques and the language used. (Analysis) [16 Punkte]