A Bend in the River: Chapter 16  Summary & Analysis

Salim’s flight lands in the country’s capital, the first time he has ever seen it in person. The place feels flimsy, despite its size, and more like an echo of Europe than its own metropolis. Salim notices the European passengers moving past the huge photograph of the president plastered above immigration and customs without a second thought. The drive from the airport into the city is long and reminds him of the transition from his own town into the Domain, only on a much larger scale. He passes billboards of the Big Man with phrases from his maxim pamphlets, some as large as houses. Salim feels a strange sympathy for him, and his desperate and somewhat misguided attempts to elevate himself to the status of Western leaders. But the sympathy wears off as he enters the city itself and sees that it is only his town but on a larger scale. And in the presidential gardens near the rapids of the river, the same water hyacinths float down toward the ocean.

Salim returns to the airport the next morning, and on the road back he is struck by how barren the land is. It seems impossible that there was ever bush there; the land seems “scraped clean.” Despite having his ticket, Salim still has to bribe an attendant to get through to the gate, only to be waylaid again by a security officer and detained. Salim is made to wait in a questioning room and eventually sent on his way to the plane.

Salim’s flight is stopped halfway to its destination at a random airport in the middle of the bush. The passengers deboard only for the plane to take off again without them, called to Presidential service with no sense of when it will be back or when a new one could be provided. A storm rolls in, swallowing the bush into rain. Salim observes the various passengers, all strange vagrants of their various homes. Eventually the storm clears, a new plane arrives, and they take off again. Salim considers the complexity of the river from above, made up of the convergence of so many smaller streams, and also how long the people of the bush villages had lived along that body of water, “more or less as they had lived for centuries.”

When Salim returns to the town, Metty is cold towards him. Metty acts surprised Salim has returned at all, and his attitude turns the whole trip sour in Salim’s mind. But it is the next morning where the truth of the matter emerges: Salim’s shop has been seized by the government as a foreign owned business and entrusted to an African-born citizen, as a part of the President’s radical new nationalization effort. The new owner, Théotime, a local mechanic, was appointed as the new “state trustee” of Salim’s shop. From what Salim knows of “Citizen Théo,” he is a drunk and functionally illiterate, and yet has been elevated to such a position.

Salim returns to the shop and finds everything the same, except for his desk, which has been moved to the back storeroom. He looks for the photos of Yvette in the drawer and finds them missing, with a collection of tattered old comic books in their place. Salim waits for Théotime to arrive, and when he does, Salim is struck by just how modest the man is. He is polite toward Salim and explains somewhat sheepishly what has transpired. Théotime insists that nobody is to suffer as a result of this, and explains that Salim will be made a manager and be given a fair salary. Salim does not respond, and goes instead to Bigburger to look for Mahesh.

Mahesh is there and business seems to be operating as usual. Salim learns, to his surprise, that the Bigburger franchise nationalized years ago. Mahesh, like many others, had sold his business during the boom to a small company that included Idlephonse, his house servant, and some other African townsfolk, and had been operating as a manager ever since. Salim is shocked by this news and wonders why nobody ever told him, realizing that he missed his opportunity to get out long ago. Salim asks after Tivoli and learns that no African had wanted it, but that there had been serious contention for who would become trustee of his shop. Mahesh describes the scenes after the decree like people “claiming […] meat in the market,” as African townsfolk clamored to take advantage of the nationalizing.

Salim accepts his position as manager and takes stock of what he has left: about half a million francs, the flat, and his car. Salim realizes he needs to make as much money as he can, as quickly as possible, and get out of the country while he still can. Remembering Mahesh’s smuggling days, Salim begins dealing in ivory and gold, using Citizen Théotime’s name to protect the deals. Making the money is much easier than getting it out of the country, which Salim attempts to do through a currency exchange program with visitors, relying on their goodwill to pay him back through deposits into foreign accounts when they returned to their homes in Europe and America. He loses two-thirds of his money doing this, but feels he has no other choice.

Salim uses the Domain to make his contacts. At first it is painful, but in time he proves Indar’s point about trampling on the past, as the place loses its old meanings and becomes only what he uses it for. Salim goes by Raymond and Yvette’s house and sees that it has a new African tenant. Nobody can give him any information as to where they went. The Domain’s populace is primarily African now, and Salim notes how the well planted front yards—all maize and cassava—dispel the modern feel of the place, making it instead seem like another African settlement. He is struck by how many changes have come over that one piece of land. Salim is glad Raymond seems to have gotten away, assuming his connection with the President would have made him a large target for the Liberation Army, especially with the President reported to be making a visit to the town in the near future.