A Bend in the River

Though Africa had been Salim’s family’s home for centuries, their lineage traces to the Arabic countries on the Indian Ocean. Salim’s people live on the coast and trade with countries to the east of them from which they originally hailed, though they are no longer fully Indian, Arabian, Persian, or otherwise. They are not “truly African,” nor are they truly West-Indian, though they identify more with the people of Africa. Salim’s family is Muslim but their culture and practice is closer to that of the Hindus.

Salim’s family has few connections to their past, understanding their history only implicitly. Salim understands from his grandfather that they were slave traders, remembering a story about him smuggling a boatful of enslaved people as rubber, but unable to place it specifically in time. All that Salim truly knows of his people’s history comes from books written by Europeans.

Through Africa's and the region's many changes, the lifestyle of Salim’s people remains the same. They continue the slave trade even after it has been outlawed by the European powers, though Salim interprets this as due to the difference in the East coast slave trade. Salim’s family lived in a large compound with the two families they had previously enslaved, and over three generations, plenty of racial mixing has taken place. The formerly enslaved families remain because of clout from their intense bond with a prominent family.

Salim believes the Arabs lost touch with their identity, due in part to the “swamping” of his ancestral race by the races of the people they enslaved. Their power was only a matter of tradition and habit, hardly backed by any real force. Consequently, Salim becomes disillusioned with the place and culture of his upbringing. By contrast, the Europeans, Salim feels, were capable of assessing their place in the world, and therefore more capable of adapting to the changing world around them.

Salim used to play squash twice a week with his friend Indar who lived nearby on the coast. Indar feels that Africa demands strength and their cultural identity is hardly strong, lacking something even as basic as a flag. Indar is leaving for university in England and Salim envies him but, out of shame and jealousy, plays coy when Indar asks him what he will do next. Salim begins to pity his own family but also still cares for them.

Nazruddin returns to the coast on one of his semi-regular visits when Salim is feeling his most disillusioned. Salim had always admired Nazruddin for his business capability, wealth, and European customs. Salim had even begun to model himself after him, or at least hoped to. Nazruddin remained connected to Salim’s community in order to look for potential husbands for his daughters and saw Salim as a strong prospect.

On this particular visit, Nazruddin offers to sell Salim his store in Central Africa at the bend in the river, looking to escape after the economic crash and uprisings toward independence from European rule. Salim sees this as his best opportunity to escape his community’s fate and agrees. Nazruddin advises him that business is more a game of feeling than numbers, and that in Africa “business never dies…it is only interrupted… but you must always know when to get out.”

Despite this being a showing of good faith to Nazruddin, Salim also sees this as a profoundly important way of breaking faith, primarily in his unspoken commitment to Nazruddin’s daughter. Therefore, as Salim travels to the town at the bend in the river, he is both following and breaking from Nazruddin’s path. Salim knew the town was no longer in its heyday, but he did not expect the degree of ruin that met him. Relics of its colonial past cover the place, but for him and the other foreigners hanging on there—a handful of Belgians, Greeks, Italians, and other Indians—life is spartan and frontier-like. While they go weeks without petrol and struggle for food and water, Salim wanders through huge lawns, old estates being reclaimed by the bush, and toppled statues: a ghost town of sorts, stuck between times.

In the ruins Salim comes upon on a placard by the docks, reading in Latin “Miscerique probat populos et foedera jungi.” The words stick with him, though he doesn’t know what they mean. Of the wayward hangers-on, most are unfriendly and standoffish to Salim, save for a few Indian couples. Shoba and Mahesh, also migrants from the East, become the closest thing Salim has to friends. They also run a shop in town, across from the old hotel, but the difficulties of everyday existence prevent them from opening up to one another initially.

Not long after Salim arrives, his fears about his home come to pass and an uprising against the Arabs lays his family and community low. He hears the news first by word of mouth through Shoba and Mahesh but eventually the news trickles in through more standard sources. Finally, letters come from his family explaining who is scattering and who will remain. Salim is informed that one of their servants is being sent to him while the others are split amongst the family members.

The boy who arrives is Metty, who Salim had grown up alongside and previously known as “Ali.” He recounts the bloodshed and horror to Salim and spends the first few days inconsolable. Over time, he acclimates to the town and work at the shop. He also quickly assimilates into many of the customs of the locals. They call him Metty after the French word metís, on account of his mixed racial heritage. His engagement with the community makes him increasingly helpful for Salim, who begins using him like a customs clerk, as he has a foot in both worlds. Slowly, the town begins to come to life again, and trade begins to flourish.