A Bend In The River

Salim flies over vast forest to the capital city, never having been there before. He thinks he would have been impressed if he’d travelled to the capital from the town on the river, but coming from London, it seems “flimsy in spite of its size, an echo of Europe” (247). Salim has to spend the night in the city before his flight to the town the next morning. Driving in from the airport, he observes “along the road big board about ten feet high, uniformly painted, each with a separate saying […] of the President” (248). All the way to his hotel, Salim sees statues, African madonnas, and presidential portraits. He feels they reflect “the wish of a man of the bush to make himself big,” and he feels an “odd sympathy” for the president (248). The more he sees that reminds him of his own town, however, the more this sympathy dissipates. The hotel lobby is full of secret police, and “the tensions of Africa were returning to” him (248). In the presidential gardens, Salim sees rapids 1,000 miles upriver from the rapids in his town, choked with water hyacinth, “here almost at the end of their journey” (249). 

The next morning, Salim completes his journey back to the town. His name isn’t on the passenger list because the officials want bribes to let him on the plane. The flight has a layover and, after flying over the river, Salim disembarks. The passengers are told the president needs the plane and it will return for them afterwards. They must wait at the airfield, surrounded by bush. A storm blows in and out again. The airplane returns in the late afternoon and Salim completes his journey: “After the strangeness of the day, it was like organized life again” (253). Salim is relieved to be home, surrounded by familiar sights. He finds Metty unwelcoming, however, and thinks that “[t]he whole journey seemed to turn sour then” (253). 

The next morning, Metty tells him he’s surprised Salim came back “[b]ecause [Salim] ha[s] nothing to come back to” (254). By order of the president, Salim’s shop has been taken from him and given to Citizen Théotime. All businesses owned by foreigners have been “nationalized” (254) and given to new owners accountable to the state. Metty tells Salim that Théotime is planning to make Salim shop manager. Salim goes to the shop where he finds Théotime embarrassed and wanting to reassure Salim that the transition of ownership isn’t his fault. He says, “it was necessary to radicalize” (256). 

Salim goes to Bigburger, where Mahesh says he hasn’t been taken over because he allowed his houseboy and burger waiter, Ildephonse, and some others to buy the lease on the restaurant. Mahesh says many of the business owners in town “decided to compensate ourselves in advance” (256). after the businessman Noiman “sold out to the government” (256). Salim is stunned that “Nobody told me” (257). 

Salim becomes the manager of his former shop. Mentally adding up his net worth, Salim realizes he has a bit of money, but not enough: “I had to make more, as fast as I could; and the little I had, I had to get out of the country” (258). He begins to smuggle gold and ivory, using his burial place at the bottom of the stairs as a hiding place. Salim decides he must rely on visitors to help him get money out of the country and loses a great deal this way. Some of this business takes him to the Domain, where he discovers that Raymond and Yvette have moved away and no one knows where they have gone. Salim notices the Domain seems shabbier: “It was scruffier; every week it was becoming more of an African housing settlement” (260). Salim hears that the president will be visiting the town. In the town center, rubbish is removed, and buildings are painted. Salim reflects, “The bush was at war; the town was in a state of insurrection, with nightly incidents. But suddenly in the centre it seemed like carnival time” (261).