A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul

When a novelist situates his fictional narration within real and/or historical space and time, he strikes a special and unwritten covenant with his reader. The clauses of this agreement dictate that these places and events which may be unknown to readers ought to be represented as factually as possible without overwhelming the narration. Fiction and fact combined together like gin and tonic; one acknowledges the presence of both ingredients without the certitude of where one starts and the other ends.

A Bend in the River traces the story of Salim who comes from an old trading community on the east coast of Africa, which has its roots in India. Naipaul rarely mentions places by their actual names in this book. So, we assume that Salim’s hometown is Mombasa in Kenya or perhaps further south in Tanzania. Likewise, we can only guess that the country Salim moves to is the newly independent Belgian Congo, soon to be rechristened Zaire. The reason for his move is a hunger to create his own life independent to the preordained ones of his family members. The excuse to move away is the acquisition of a shop in a small provincial Congolese town from Nazruddin, a family friend, who’s cut his losses and moved to greener pastures in Uganda. The town where Salim would come to live is located on a bend on the river. Observably, with its passenger ferries, dugouts and rapids, the rivers must be the mighty Congo. I deduce that the town is probably Kisangani, known for its concrete blocks rising surreally amidst the thick of the Central African jungle.

Ali, a family servant from the coast, follows Salim to the Congo. With his mixed race background, Ali earns the sobriquet Metty from the French word métis meaning half-caste. The contrast between master and servant is of one who lives in Africa and yet lives apart from it and the other who is quickly absorbed into environment. This device is simple as it is powerful in reducing the themes of Africa and rootlessness to a relationship between master and servant. This technique is repeatedly used throughout the book including Salim’s interactions with Ferdinand, the son of a marchand, a trader who purchases goods from him. Salim’s friendship with an Indian couple, Mahesh and Shoba, is a source of solace in a foreign land; their devotion to each other supplies comfort about his own future. But increasingly, Salim feels disconnected from the pettiness of Mahesh and Shoba’s life and their dissonance from the world they live in. In their lives, he sees a reflection of his own transient existence in the town; an existence marked by the accumulation of wealth (stored in a hold under the stairs) and a refusal to engage with the African world outside his flat and shop. Malin (evil in French) is the word Mahesh uses when he refers to the local people and Salim’s tenuous hold in Africa is marked by these metaphorical malins who await him outside his contrived bubble of an existence.

In the background to the happenings in this small town is president who has seized power in a coup. From his capital downriver, he rolls out directives that impact everyone down to the lowliest river fisherman. Again, Naipaul never refers to him by name, but you can easily identify le president as Mobutu, the king of cleptocrats. In Salim’s town, with the monetary support of his Western backers, the president ordains the opening of a university in a former colonial suburb. The opening of this institution gives new direction to Salim who has thus far slipped into the monotony of routine with constant pangs of being destined for more than the mundane life that he is resigned to. Inder, a guest lecturer who joins the university, happens to be Salim’s childhood friend from the coast. The two parted ways, one for the prospect of a more enriched life in England and the other towards the dark heart of Africa. But to Salim’s surprise, he finds his friend cynical and disenchanted with his life in England, a sentiment that has causes him to travel and eventually find himself in a bush university in the Congo. Through Inder, Salim meets Yvette, a young and lithesome French woman married to a much older academic, Raymond. Raymond who once had the ear of the president is widely discredited in the west and his career is effectively limited to the Congo. Even here, he is exiled to a provincial town after falling out with Mobutu. Salim’s relationship with Yvette begins tentatively and develops into something more fervent. But, he soon realises that Yvette’s link to him is like his own to Africa; tenuous, opportunistic and with no probable future.

As the president’s rule becomes increasingly deviant and erratic, everyone’s future is in doubt, even Ferdinand who has risen from a student in the local lycée to a high ranking government official. When things get really out of hand, Salim is compelled to leave Africa forever, leaving a distraught Metty behind. The otherwise confident Metty, despite his philandering and street smart ways about town, in reality knows little beyond the security of the relationship of master and servant. His assurance of being rooted in Africa is derived from the safety hatch offered by Salim through his rootlessness. “I thought you knew what you were doing, Salim” says Metty. “I didn’t. I don’t know now” is Salim’s reply, which in turn alludes to the uncertainty of existence in the heart of Africa.

A Bend in the River is a subtle and intelligent work which captures a span of recent history, situates in a geographic context and presents it as the rendition of one’s man life led on the glimmer of a dream.