A Bend in the River

Zabeth brings her son, Ferdinand, to the shop one day. He is about 16, the son of a trader, a result of a brief and miraculous peace between the tribes during the colonial times. The father had claimed and raised Ferdinand until now, and had, for unknown reasons, sent him back to his mother. Zabeth intends to send Ferdinand to the lycée in town, recently cleaned up and reopened, but still rife with the detritus of fire and ruin, the placard above the door reading “Semper Aliquid Novi.”

Salim first meets Ferdinand in the costume of the Lycée, and sees the importance of him wearing it, how it represents a life of something more than the Africa Zabeth has known. She wants a life for him “outside the timeless ways of village and river.” Since Ferdinand is to board at the school, Zabeth hopes Salim will look out for him, and prove a useful mentor or patron of sorts, especially with his ability to speak English. Ferdinand has a distinct and striking face, reminding Salim of the traditional African masks. His visage is both arresting and inscrutable, capable of hiding his emotions, and much about Ferdinand remains enigmatic to Salim.

Ferdinand visits Salim at the shop once a week. Their early relationship is awkward and stilted, as Salim feels he has to make a special effort with Ferdinand. He is also intimidated by Ferdinand’s unreadability, and inwardly jealous that he is getting to learn of things Salim knows nothing about, exposing the hollowness of his social position. Ferdinand and Metty become close friends. They often go out and get drunk at bars and frequently pick up African women, which concerns Salim. But Salim has no grounds to stand on himself, as he is guilty of the same pursuits. Still, Salim feels he cannot let Metty see him with African women as it would disgrace his family and Metty by extension. In order to maintain the pretense of his elevated status, it becomes Salim who must hide from his wards and not the other way around.

Salim’s house and shop are both functional but in perpetual disarray. Much like the shop, a concrete warehouse with his goods arranged on the floor, his flat is also spartan. The previous owner was a Belgian painter whose main subject was scenes of European life. In addition to her art she collected ephemera of that civilized world—magazines, novels, boxes, letters—similarly arrayed over a large central table. The barren bedroom is appointed with a luxurious large foam bed and huge cupboards full of nothing. All in all, the place reminds Salim of the promises of colonial life and the hollow sadness of aspirations unfulfilled, making him worry why his own fate in the town wouldn’t mirror that of Nazruddin or the Belgian painter.

Part of this self-consciousness comes from how Salim fears Ferdinand might perceive him. He tries to cover for this by showing off the things he owns to Ferdinand as a means of displaying his erudition and worldliness—his magazines, the paintings, anything. Ferdinand is unmoved, and Salim grows frustrated. He is jealous of what Ferdinand gets to learn at the lycée, understanding his education as structured and not incidental and indulgent like Salim’s perusal of the magazines. When Ferdinand asks Salim questions, like who “they” are when Salim explains “they are making a new kind of telephone,” Salim either cannot answer or refuses to, wanting to protect the boy from the truth (White men) and also loathe to give him certain satisfactions. Ferdinand goes home for the rainy season, and Salim begins to notice the great clumps of water hyacinth floating up the river from the South.

As Ferdinand grows up, he also becomes uncertain of himself, pulled between places, identities, and others’ perceptions as to what he should be. Ferdinand performs different personalities (as if trying on masks), copying his various teachers and even pretending to be Salim’s business associate. One day he asks Salim “what do you think of the future of Africa?” Salim wonders if Ferdinand’s idea of the place comes from his lived experience, or rather from the atlas presented to him at school.

All Ferdinand seems to know is about the world outside of Africa in relation to it, filtered through the lessons and inclinations of the lycée, but in his education he is also elevated, and Ferdinand seems to have a new idea of his importance as related to that institution. Salim feels threatened by this. Ferdinand gets it in his head that Salim should send him to America for his education. When Salim refuses, Ferdinand begins going around spreading the rumor that Salim is doing just that. Shoba and Mahesh warn Ferdinand that Metty is becoming malin like Ferdinand, a trait they see as universal to Africans.

Salim finally feels able to articulate that strange force which seemed to separate him and Ferdinand. While Salim sees the world through the terms of his trade and ambitions and as simple and uncomplicated, it seems that the more Ferdinand learns, the larger the world becomes to him, and the more confused it leaves him. There is an influx of tall, regal warrior boys from the local villages to the lycée. Ferdinand begins trying on their imposing nature for himself, acting aloof toward Salim while simultaneously bragging of his generosity and patronage to the people of the town.

Ferdinand falls in with some of the warrior boys and they concoct a scheme involving an old ledger from the school to extort money from Salim. Salim is wise to it and confronts Ferdinand. When Ferdinand first reacts with rage to being caught in his scheme, his face appearing intensely mask-like to Salim, Salim is gripped with a momentary fear that Ferdinand might lash out and attack him. Salim acknowledges there is nothing protecting him or Ferdinand from the cruelties of others in the somewhat lawless town.