A Bend in the River: Chapter 10  Summary & Analysis

Salim often sees Indar and Yvette together around town. He finds each individually hard to pin down. Both are mercurial and inscrutable in a way he isn’t used to, capable of shifting mood and tone in an instant. In Indar’s case, he is struck by a “dissolving quality” like the glamour of the Domain. After hearing his story, Salim begins to notice how hard Indar fights to keep up appearances of ease and wealth, especially through his style. Salim feels their roles have switched again, with Salim now as the tour guide and caretaker once more. Salim feels protective of him, a feeling that only grows the more disaffected and depressed Indar seems. In the case of Yvette, Salim becomes obsessed with his image of her from that night in the Domain, and whenever he sees her outside of it he feels confounded.

As Indar’s time in the Domain draws to a close, Salim feels more and more like his experience of the place is becoming a distant fantasy that will soon be entirely closed off to him. Even Ferdinand is going away, having taken up an administrative cadetship in the capital. At the end of the term, Salim accompanies Ferdinand to the steamer to see him off. By the river, the water hyacinths seem to speak of times changing and things moving on.

As they move toward the steamer they are harried by all manner of officials looking to check their documents. Salim notes that they are both male and female, as in the name of “the woman of Africa,” the Big Man’s dead mother, the President sought to honor more women with positions of power. When they refer to one another, it is as “citoyen” and “citoyenne,” as the President has outlawed the use of monsieur, madame, and boy. Salim remembers the old days when you needed a “certificate of civic merit” to board the steamer, and jokes about it to Ferdinand, who does not laugh. This makes Salim realize the only Africa Ferdinand has ever known is an independent one, its colonial past vanished. Still, Salim notes how, despite the two classes of cabins above deck and in the lower-deck barracks, only the Africans ride in the barge the steamer tows.

Ferdinand is on the second deck, and the two go and have a look at the deluxe cabins near the back of the ship, where they encounter Indar and Yvette. Indar struggles with huge, heavy cases of clothes and food, and something about his toil dispels a little of Salim’s image of him. Indar complains that he was going to fly but the plane he was supposed to take was commandeered by the Big Man with no sense of when it would be returned. The four go to the bar below deck and drink beer together until it is announced the steamer is leaving. Salim begins to perceive what is perhaps more than a platonic relationship between Yvette and Indar, but the two are formal when they depart from each other. Salim and Yvette stand on the docks and watch them leave.