A Bend In The River

Salim realizes he has judged Mahesh for getting all his value from the woman he married. Now Salim feels his own feelings of importance come from his relationship with Yvette. He also feels he has learned “many ideas about history, political power, other continents” (197) from his association with her. Salim reflects on the fact that Noiman, the town’s most successful businessman, has sold up and moved to Australia. Salim feels this departure as a betrayal of the community: “Noiman’s departure marked the end of our boom, the end of confidence” (198). Mahesh, on the other hand, scoffs at Noiman’s departure, stating that they live better in the town than people do in glamorous places such as London. 

Nazruddin writes to Salim that life in Uganda is bad for his family and they are moving to Canada. Salim is firm in his resolve to “stay and do nothing” (201). Salim also knows that his affair with Yvette will end: “The certainty of the end […] was my security” (202). Mahesh’s wife, Shoba, travels to her hometown because her father has died. Salim is surprised, as he had understood she could never go back. She returns prematurely and hides out at home. Salim is no longer invited to have lunch once a week at their flat. Salim visits Mahesh at the Bigburger instead, and worries that his friendship with the couple may be spoiled. 

One day Salim returns home to find Metty listening to the president giving a speech on the radio. Instead of speaking French, the president uses an African dialect, “making it into the language of the drinking booth and the street brawl” (205). Metty is highly absorbed by the speech, which seems to restate the president’s typical themes, until he makes a shocking announcement: the Youth Guard in their town is to be disbanded, its members exiled to the bush, “to learn the wisdom of the monkey” (207).

Salim tells the reader that after the Youth Guard disbands, “things began to get bad in our town” (208). Police harass Metty for no reason and Salim has to pick him up at police headquarters. Salim decides to keep Metty in the shop and do his own customs work, but then the customs officers demand money from Salim. He notices greed taking over in the town, along with an absence of an “overseeing authority” (210). Things turn violent. Every night, police and officials are attacked and official buildings are defaced. Someone smashes one of the President’s African Madonna statues. 

A leaflet is passed around town entitled, “The Ancestors Shriek.” Salim believes it comes from the disenfranchised Youth Guard members who were insulted by the president’s speech and now offer themselves as “defenders of the people of the region” (212). The violence in town spreads; shops are looted and people killed. Salim thinks of leaving when he hears that Nazruddin is leaving Canada for England, but he concludes, “I had to stay where I was” (213). Salim reflects that his relationship with Yvette depends on Yvette, Raymond, and himself remaining optimistic, but Raymond has become “a defeated man, and the house in the Domain was like a house of death” (215). Salim’s meetings with Yvette become less frequent. 

One evening, Yvette surprises Salim at his flat. Salim beats her, hitting and kicking her when she falls to the floor. He sits watching her cry and reflecting that his hand hurts from the blows. Yvette undresses and gets into Salim’s bed. Salim goes to sit by her on the bed, “ and then [he] spat on her between the legs until [he] had no more spit” (220). Yvette is angry and Salim beats her again. She calls Raymond, telling him she’s coming home immediately. 

Salim tells Metty what he has done. Metty sympathizes with him. Yvette calls Salim and asks if he wants her to come back. She advises Salim to ask Metty for some hot milk. “Never closer, never more like a wife, than at this moment,” Salim thinks (221). In the early morning, Salim goes to see Mahesh at Bigburger and has breakfast. Mahesh invites him to his flat for lunch the next day, telling him that Shoba wants to see him. Salim sees Zabeth at his shop and Zabeth says that Ferdinand will become an official, “if they don’t kill him” (223). 

The next day, Salim goes to lunch at Mahesh and Shoba’s flat: “It was a silent lunch, not especially a lunch of reunion or reconciliation” (225). Shoba demands that Salim tell her if he sees something on her face. After looking hard, Salim spots a small area of discoloration. Shoba tells a story of having peroxide applied to her face in an attempt to lighten her skin. Salim is glad to leave the flat, feeling his friends are “empty in Africa, and unprotected, with nothing to fall back on. They had begun to rot” (228). Fearing he has become like them, Salim plans to visit Nazruddin in London.

Salim flies to London, never having travelled on an airplane before. He reflects that “[i]t was more than travelling fast. It was like being in two places at once” (229). Nazruddin and his family take Salim’s engagement to Nazruddin’s daughter, Kareisha, as a fait accompli, even though Salim tells us that it doesn’t formally take place until the end of his stay in London. Kareisha is a pharmacist, and she takes Salim in hand, showing him around London. Salim becomes familiar with Gloucester Road, the location of both Salim’s hotel and Nazruddin’s house: “There were always a lot of Arabs about, fair-skinned people, real Arabs, not the half-African Arabs of our coast” (232). He sees an Arab lady with a slave. Nazruddin tells him it is a “new feature of life in the Gloucester Road” (234). 

Nazruddin tells Salim of his difficulties in Canada and that he was the victim of several financial hoaxes. Now that he’s in London, Nazruddin has gone into property, and has issues with tenants. Kareisha teases, “I hope you know you’ve been listening to a happy man” (239). Salim concludes that Nazruddin is content: “It made me feel that after all these years I had never caught up with him, and never would; that my life would always be unsatisfactory” (240). Salim tells us that it is at this point in the visit that he and Kareisha get engaged. 

One day, Kareisha asks Salim if he plans to visit Indar. Salim doesn’t know that Indar is back in London. Kareisha tells him that it’s better not to see Indar; he’s in a dark mood since the group he worked for has folded. He went to America and had a bad experience. “And that’s how it has been with him,” Kareisha tells Salim, “From time to time that is all he knows, that it is time for him to go home” (244). Salim realizes it has always been this way with for him, also: always thinking of leaving, thinking of “the other place” (244). Salim leaves London to travel home “back to Africa, to wind up there, realise as much as I could of what I had. And make a fresh start somewhere else” (245).